238 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



which eventually joins the great Stelvio road at Santa 

 Maria Sopra. After dining and undergoing passport 

 formalities, I descended to the baths of San Martino, 

 near Bormio, in about two hours. ... I was ex- 

 ceedingly struck by the appearance presented by one 

 of the snowy peaks in the neighbourhood perhaps 

 Monte Cristallo, not, I think, the Orteler Spitze as 

 seen from the elevation immediately above the Cantoniera 

 di Santa Maria. I saw it under singularly favourable 

 circumstances as regards light, and it had the appearance 

 of being formed of solid ice. It seemed absolutely trans- 

 lucent. . . . Next day I left the baths of Bormio, on a 

 lovely morning, to retrace my steps to Santa Maria. I 

 must confess that the engineers have done their work 

 well, for the ascent on the Italian side to so great a 

 height is certainly wonderfully easy. The view towards 

 the south is very wild and grand wide, undulating 

 snow-fields of great beauty ; and immediately on leaving 

 the refuge at the top, the prospect of the Tyrol opens 

 and enlarges for some hundred yards. The day was 

 unusually favourable, and it was perhaps the grandest 

 scene I ever saw. The remainder of the road seems as 

 though it were planned on purpose to show off to the 

 best effect the Orteler Spitze, with the superb glaciers 

 which descend from it, and the magnificent brotherhood 

 of peaks of which it is one. Their forms are beautifully 

 varied, and the stupendous accumulation of snow on their 

 summits is such as materially to affect the characteristic 

 form of their outlines. In fact, under certain lights, as 

 I observed yesterday, some of their summits have the 

 appearance of pure icebergs. ... I think the advantages 

 of mounting from the Italian side very great; for, although 

 the cream of the view comes upon one at first, it is all 

 the more striking, while, at the same time, its details are 

 successively developed in such a manner as to keep the 

 interest on a stretch during the whole of the descent/ 



o 



Forbes now began a chase after his knapsack, which 

 had been mis-sent ; and as he had gone to the Stelvio in 



