sphere, all its powers were felt during the time the sun's
rays fell into the valley; but, the instant they were intercepted by a
brown and envious peak of the mountains, their genial influence was
succeeded by a chill that sufficiently proved how necessary was the
presence of the luminary to the comfort of those who dwelt at that great
elevation. The females sought their mantles the moment the bright light
was followed by the usual shadow; nor was it long before even the more
aged of the gentlemen were seen unstrapping their cloaks, and taking the
customary precautions against the effects of the evening air.

The reader is not to suppose, however, that all these little incidents of
the way occurred in a time as brief as that which has been consumed in the
narration. A long line of path was travelled over before the Signor
Grimaldi and his friend were cloaked, and divers hamlets and cabins were
successively passed. The alteration from the warmth of day to the chill of
evening also was accompanied by a corresponding change in the appearance
of the objects they passed. St. Pierre, a cluster of stone-roofed
cottages, which bore all the characteristics of the inhospitable region
for which they had been constructed, was the last village; though there
was a hamlet, at the bridge of Hudri, composed of a few dreary abodes,
which, by their aspect, seemed the connecting link between the dwellings
of man and the caverns of beasts. Vegetation had long been growing more
and more meagre, and it was now fast melting away into still deeper and
irretrievable traces of sterility, like the shadows of a picture passing
through their several transitions of color to the depth of the
back-ground. The larches and cedars diminished gradually in size and
numbers, until the straggling and stinted tree became a bush, and the
latter finally disappeared in the shape of a tuft of pale green, that
adhered to some crevice in the rocks like so much moss. Even the mountain
grasses, for which Switzerland is so justly celebrated, grew thin and
wiry; and by the time the travellers reached the circular basin at the
foot of the peak of Velan, which is called La Plaine de Prou, there only
remained, in the most genial season of the year, and that in isolated
spots between the rocks, a sufficiency of nourishment for the support of a
small flock of adventurous, nibbling, and hungry goats.

The basin just alluded to is an opening among high pinnacles, and is
nearl