i862 IN THE OBERLAND AND NORTHERN ITALY 273 



fortunate to find the clouds clearing away. 'Ere we 

 reached the watershed,' he wrote to Mrs. Ramsay, 

 ' there was no mist, except in some of the great 

 corries and up on the highest peaks. The sun shone 

 brightly. We diverged a little from the road to see 

 the end of the Sanetsch glacier. The pass is 7123 

 Paris feet high. There is therefore no snow on it. 

 While lunching on the moraine we said : " Let us 

 leave our baggage here, and go up the glacier to the 

 Tour de St. Martin and see the great cliffs that over- 

 look the Valais." So at twelve we started, well roped 

 together ; but the glacier proved so easy that there 

 was no real occasion for the rope. In two hours and 

 a half we were across the glacier, and saw those noble 

 cliffs 1000 feet and more plump down. We also saw a 

 flock of more than twenty-five chamois not far off, and 

 all the great range across the Valais, from Mont Blanc 

 to Monte Rosa, clouded in places. In an hour and a 

 half we were back at our baggage, and started for 

 Sion at five o'clock. In two hours it was dark, and the 

 guide being nobody, I went ahead, and on a true Swiss 

 road, by torrent and in forest, piloted all safe to Sion 

 by instinct. We got there at half-past ten, having 

 walked fifteen hours.' 



Once more in the valley of the Rhone, they 

 ascended to the Bel Alp and the ^Eggischorn to 

 make further observations on the great Aletsch glacier 

 and its surroundings. Then retracing their steps, 

 they made their way by Turtmann over to the 

 Italian side, and so down the Val d'Aosta to Ivrea, 

 and thence to Turin. Once in the capital of Pied- 

 mont, Ramsay called on his friend Quintino Sella, 

 known abroad as an able geologist, but to the mass of 

 his own countrymen familiar only as their distinguished 



