Part I. 



A LITTLE TOUR IN THE ALPS. 



i°S 



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

 and by are seen in the form of cascades falling, over wide pre- 

 cipices, to be again lost in deep, wet, tortuous stony beds, and 

 presently forming larger cascades near the path of the traveller, 

 who is obliged to cross them by bridges. Then lower down they 

 break and shoot perhaps for three hundred feet, tiU 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 such infinite beauty 

 and variety that nothing but a visit could convey the faintest 

 notion of them. 



Fig. 68. — ^The same lower down. 



We walked twelve 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 Rosa group, 

 in some places flat-topped and of the purest white, like vast un- 

 sculptured wedding cakes — in others dark, scarred, and pointed 

 to the sky, like some of the aged pines of their lower slopes, 

 standing firmly, but with branch and bark seared off by the 

 fierce alpine blast. Lower down, the vaUey begins to show 

 pleasant signs of human life ; the women are simply, well, and 

 tastefully dressed, and occasionally display features not un- 

 worthy of the best days of their race. Really well-built and clean- 



