x.] ALPINE TRAVELS, 1844. 311 



my health, and that a year of torpidity will, I trust, 

 renovate my constitution for fresh exertions.' 



To the Same. 



< SIERRE, July 29lh. 



( . . . I believe I last wrote to you from Bellagio. 

 We went to Lugano and Bellinzona, thence to Baveno and 

 the Simplon, and you may judge of our rate of travelling 

 when I U'll you that we took nine days to get across the 

 Simplon ! Certainly, four of those were spent at the 

 village of Simplon, and the remaining five with the monks 

 at the hospice. . . . 



' 1 feel more and more that I owe my life to the Alps. 

 I had a threatening of illness in the north of Italy, which 

 left me, not ill indeed, but in a state which admitted of 

 no exertion with pleasure, as you may judge when I tell 

 you that I went up the Monte St. Salvatore at Lugano 

 one rnorniug, and was so exhausted that I could hardly 

 reach the top, and had to rest a whole day after it. 

 The Simplon quite altered matters, and from the hospice 

 I ascended a mountain 10,500 feet high with the utmost 

 -faction, and enjoyed from the summit one of the 

 most glorious panoramas I have ever beheld. The moun- 

 s in that part of the Alps are, I may say, almost 

 unknown, and it is difficult to obtain even their names. 

 Their heights, too, are in general much underrated.' 



Journal, Ji'l 'i 2:>//</. 



* I started from the hospice, accompanied byChamoine 



Alt and a guide, to explore the Kahwasscr ( ilcisdu-r. 



\\[f tin- glacier u'allery, we attacked a steep 



slope on our right, which brought us to the foot of the, 



app.-ii-' ntly inaccessible precipices to die left of the glacier, 



;ind the top of these we reached by means of a sloping 



shelf below the Miiderhoni, finding ourselves perehrd 



M a steep but fertile pasture, so inaccessible, how. 



sheep e;m lie bnm^ht thilher. \\Y con- 

 tinued to climb until the slope br<-;imr a moraine, and 



was succeeded by the smooth of the gfo 



which here forms the col betwrm Switzerland and 



