PART L] NOTES OF A JOURNEY IN THE ALPS 127 



the secondary mountains to the very summits, except where 

 grass that is like velvet spreads out, as if to show the small 

 silvery streams, which soon hide in the woods, and by-and-by 

 are seen in the form of cascades falling over wide precipices, to 

 be again lost in deep, wet, tortuous, stony beds, and presently 

 forming larger cascades. Then lower down they break and 

 shoot perhaps for 300 feet, till they join the main stream of 

 the valley below, which has cut itself an ever-winding, diving 

 and foaming bed between terraces, and cliffs, and gullies of rock, 

 affording scenes of infinite beauty and variety. 



We walked 12 miles down the valley before breakfast, 

 and every step revealed a new charm. Before us, a great 

 succession of blue mountains; on each side, mountain slopes 

 green to the line of blue sky ; behind, all the glory of the Monte 

 Eosa group, in some places flat-topped and of the purest white, 

 like vast unsculptured wedding-cakes in others, dark, scarred, 

 and pointed to the sky, like some of the aged Pines on their 

 lower slopes, standing firmly but with branch and bark seared 

 off by the fierce alpine blast. Lower down, the valley begins to 

 show signs of human life, with well-built and clean-looking 

 houses ; the slopes of the hills are frequently terraced, to give 

 the necessary level for pursuing a little cnltivation. Vines 

 begin to appear, and for the most part are trained on a high 

 loose trellis from 5 to 7 feet above the surface of the ground, so 

 as to permit of the cultivation of a crop underneath. The 

 trellises are frequently held up by flat thin pillars of rough stone, 

 which support branches tied here and there with willows. It 

 seems a good plan for countries with a superabundance of light 

 and sun. 



From nearly every rock and cliff along the valley spring the 

 pretty rosettes and foxbrush-like panicles of flowers of the 

 great silvery Eockfoil. But the charm of the valley is its ever- 

 varying and magnificent scenery a foreground of Italian valley 

 vegetation the deep-cut river-bed below, the ascending well- 

 clothed mountains to the right and left, and then up the valley 

 the higher Pine-clad slopes, all again crowned by the majestic 

 mountain of the rosy crest. The most passionate and unreason- 



