Part I. A LITTLE TOUR IN THE ALPS. loi 



though perhaps a hundred years of age — so firm that they resist 

 the pressure of the finger, and so densely covered with bright 

 rosy flowers that the green is totally, echpsed in many specimens. 

 These flowers barely rise above the level of the diminutive leaves. 



Soon we reached the meadow-land towards the bottom of the 

 warm valley, and found this Piedmontese meadow almost 

 blue with Forget-me-nots and strange Harebells, enlivened by 

 orchids, and jewelled here and there with St. Bruno's Lily [Para- 

 disia Liliastruni). This is one of the very best of all herbaceous 

 or border plants, but I never saw it in such perfection as here in 

 the fresh green grass. The flower is nearly two inches long, of 

 as pure a white as the snows on the top of Monte Rosa. Each 

 petal has a small green tip, like the spring Snowflake, but smaller 

 and purer, and golden stamens adorn the interior of the flower. 



The pleasure of finding so many beautiful plants, rare in 

 cultivation, growing in the long grass under conditions very 

 similar to those enjoyed in our meadows, was greater than that 

 of meeting with the more diminutive forms on the high alp ; and 

 though our faces were red and painful from the reflection 

 from the surface of such a wide waste of snow, we were as 

 glad of our harvest as Mrs. Browning was when, '' ankle deep 

 in English grass, she leapt and clapped her hands and called 

 all very fair." No flowers grow in those mountain meadows 

 that cannot be grown equally well in the rough grassy parts of 

 many British pleasure-grounds, woods, and copses ! 



From the top of the pass, in addition to the great glacier, 

 two remarkable objects were seen — one an island, called the 

 Belvedere, which breaks the descending ice river, dividing 

 it into two branches, so fresh and green and garden-like as 

 to seem quite out of place in such a position ; the other a great 

 moraine, so formal in outline that to the inexperienced it actually 

 looked like a large embankment, the recent work of some railway 

 company about to open up the valley. But it, like all its fellows, 

 is simply one of those colossal accumulations of rocks and grit 

 borne down for ages by the great ice river and deposited along 

 its flanks. 



Next day we explored the Belvedere between the two branches 

 of the glacier, and then turned to the left and traversed a great 

 deal of the mountain above Macugnaga up to the line of snow, 

 but, strange to say, found both the Belvedere moraines and 

 mountains a desert, so far as rare alpine plants are concerned. 



