MONTE ROSA 263 



frequented in early times. 1 Unfortunately, the old paved track 

 over it had for many years been impracticable for beasts of 

 burden, and de Saussure's heavy equipment confined him to 

 mule passes. 



The party was thoroughly organised. De Saussure took his 

 eon Theodore with him, and through the innkeeper Tairraz, hired 

 Chamonix guides and mules for the whole tour. The price fixed 

 was a louis a day for a driver and five mules. The troop met him 

 at Martigny. The party then rode up the Valais and across the 

 Simplon. This, and not ' Saint Plomb,' de Saussure dryly remarks, 

 is the proper French form of the word, ' as there is no saint named 

 St. Plomb.' At the village of the same name he found even at 

 that date an excellent inn. His notes on the pass deal more 

 with the geology than the scenery. In the gorge of Gondo the 

 old track, before Napoleon made his road, was only four feet 

 wide and paved with smooth and slippery blocks of granite. Yet 

 de Saussure writes, ' The path on the Italian side is as alarming as 

 the torrents, but it is throughout safe and well maintained, partly 

 because it is the way taken by the post to Milan, and partly because, 

 as the road to Lago Maggiore, there is a large traffic in corn, wine, 

 and cheeses carried on the back of mules.' The travellers broke 

 the journey from Domo d'Ossola to Macugnaga at the village of 

 Vanzone, a little above Ponte Grande, where they found reason- 

 able accommodation. 



Successive generations of Alpine travellers have expatiated 

 on the beauty of Val Anzasca ; it has been left to Ruskin to pro- 

 claim in one of the most perverse pages of his Prceterita its 

 'supreme dullness.' He complains of the absence of any level 

 space, or valley-bottom, beside the stream, and of the want of 

 cliffs and defiles such as may be found in the Vispthal or the 

 Hash' thai. Monte Rosa is described as ' a white heap with no 

 more form in it than a haycock after a thunder-shower ! ' For a 

 parallel to this inept comparison I may quote a description of the 



1 On the legend of the Saracens at Saas see Alpine Journal, vol. ix. 208, 

 254, and x. 269. An origin of the name Monte Moro which seems fairly obvious 

 remains to be suggested. Was it the dark pass as compared with the white 

 pass the Weiss Thor which led over the snowfields of the Corner Glacier ? 

 The Schwarzberg Weiss Thor perhaps owes its self -contradictory name to 

 being the White Gate nearest the Dark Mountain. Schwarzberg may be 

 intended as the equivalent for Monte Moro. 



