PART I.] NOTES OF A JOURNEY IN THE ALPS 119 



Soon the rain began to be mingled with flakes of snow, 

 and soon it became a heavy fall; and, as we gradually 

 ascended, every surface was covered with it, except that of the 

 torrent beneath, which roared away with as much noise as if 

 the waters of a world, and not those of one hollow in a great 

 range, were being dashed down its picturesque bed sometimes 

 cutting its way through walls of solid rock of great depth, at 

 others dashing over wastes of worn and huge stones, carried 

 down and ground by its action. Often we crossed it on small 

 rough bridges of Pinewood, fragile-looking, and heavily laden 

 with fresh-fallen snow. The hissing splash of many cascades 

 accompanied the tumult of the river-bed many of these born 

 of the melting snow and previous heavy rain, the main ones 

 much swollen by it, the air full of large flakes of snow, the 

 Pines on the white mountain side began to look quite sharp- 

 coned from the pressure of its weight. 



We had by this time got into a region abounding with 

 flowers, as every one of the caves was lined with the little 

 yellow Viola Mflora. Every cranny was golden with its 

 flowers. On entering one of these caves, I saw some crimson 

 blooms peeping from under the snow about the roof or brow. 

 They were those of the first Alpine Rhododendron I had ever 

 seen wild. Occasionally, pressed by the snow, the handsome 

 flowers of a crimson Pedicularis might be seen ; and in almost 

 every place where a little soil was seated on the top of a rock or 

 stone, so straight-sided that the snow only rested on the top, 

 the beautiful, soft, crimson, white-eyed flowers of Primula viscosa 

 were to be seen. It grows in all sorts of positions wherever, 

 in fact, decomposed moss forms a little soil. In dry places it is 

 smaller than in wet ones, and is usually particularly luxuriant 

 on ledges where a gradual or annual addition of moss or soil 

 takes place, so that the tendency of the stems to throw out 

 rootlets is encouraged. 



Several hours in falling snow, feet saturated with deep 

 snow-water, and beginning to chill, notwithstanding the hard 

 walking, make Saas, and Saas only, the one object to attain 

 To gain it, we pass through one or two small hamlets, the 



