x.] ALPINE TRAVELS, 1846. 323 



' COURMAYEUR, August 7th. 



'. . . The weather has been threatening, so I could 

 not start for the Glacier de Miage as early as I wished. 

 . . . AVonderful, most wonderful it is in beauty, but for 

 the particular experiments I intended to make on the 

 bending of the ice near the side of the glacier where it 

 touches the rocks without being crevassed, I did not find 

 it suitable. . . . But how shall I describe the wonders 

 and beauties of the Glacier de la Brenva ! You must 

 come and see it some day, for it is a most ladylike 

 glacier, and all its beauties can be seen from a mule 

 path, after an exquisite ride amongst old fir woods : with 

 the icy pinnacles and magnificent veined structure, like 

 Pentelic marble, peeping through here and there. . . . 



1 Last Sunday was such a lonely, lovely, quiet day. 

 Everything was very peaceful, only I feel I cannot 

 spend many more Sundays away from you. Sometimes 

 1 wish I had never left you, but it was for the best, and 

 will be so, and I earnestly pray that it will please God 

 to bring me back to you again, and soon. My idea of 

 a route is this : to return to Chamounix, and from that 

 (spending a day on the way with Charpentier at Bex) 

 to go to Sierre, and ascend the Val d'Anniviers to the 

 glacier at its head. Next I must traverse the weary 

 length of the Rhone valley to the glacier of the Rhone 

 and the Grimsel, and having visited the glaciers of the 

 A;ir and of Rosenlaui, to cross the Susten Pass to the 

 St. Gothard : next will come Lucerne and Basle, and 

 th'-n home, home at 1, 



Forbes was not alone during his stay at Courmayeur. 



He was visited there by his old friends Chauoine Carrel 



of Aosta, and M. L'Eglise, a canon of the Great St. 



iard. M. (luirharda, Vicar of Courmayeur, made a 



fourth, and they proceeded to examine the results of 



80111- 'inn-ills niad- ly the latter >n tin- gradual 



til-- < ilaei. r d- la HM-HYM since Forl>e.-'s last 



in 1842. Hn that oc.-asion, it will I..- remembered! 



he prormvd .'Vidrnee that in 1818 the Mirtaee <.f that 



