climbed at all... At length, we came to a very singular formation. Standing out from a nearly perpendicular wall of rock were a series of thin parallel wedges of rock, planted, with the thin edge upwards, at right angles to the body of the mountain, and separated from each other by deep intervening clefts and hollows. Each of these wedges was two or three hundred feet in height, seventy or eighty in width at the base, but narrowing off to the thickness of a few inches, and presenting at the top a rough and jagged ridge, forty or fifty feet long, by which we must pass to reach the plateau which lay just beyond. We first climbed to the top of one of these wedges, and then had to make our way along its crest.

It was nervous work; a good head, a stout heart, a steady hand and foot, were needed. Lauener went first, carrying a rope, which we stretched by the side of the ridge, so as to form a protection to the next passer. Bohren went next; then came my own turn. It was certainly the worst piece of scrambling I ever did. The rock was much shattered by exposure to the frost and snow, and there was hardly a single immoveable piece along the whole length ... Every bit had to be tried before it was trusted to, and many were the fragments, some as large as a shoulder of mutton, and something of that shape, which came out when put to the test, and went crashing down till out of sight, making an avalanche of other stones as they fell. I passed my right arm over the top of the ridge, and thus secured myself, having the rock between that arm and my body, on one side, and the rope stretched below me, on the other... Every one had to pass much in the same way, and it was a long quarter of an hour before we were all safely landed on the snow beyond. We now fastened ourselves all together with ropes, and commenced the last ascent. It lay near the edge of a long and steep arrête, which connects the Mittelhorn with the Wetterhorn; at the place where we gained the plateau, the ridge was nearly level, but almost immediately began to rise sharply towards the peak... We were now at the back of the mountain, as seen from the valley of Grindelwald, which was, of course, completely hidden from the view. When we had stopped to take something to eat, we were at an extremity of the ridge which runs up to the actual summit, and, as it were, peeped round a corner. We were not to see the valley again, till we stood upon the summit.

The ascent was rapid, and commenced in deep snow; but it was not long before the covering of snow became thinner, and the slope more rapid, and every minute a step or two had to be cut. In this way, we zig-zagged onwards for nearly an

hour, in the course of which we made, perhaps, a thousand feet of ascent, having the satisfaction, every time we looked round, to see a wider expanse of prospect risen into view... About ten o'clock, we reached the last rocks, which were a set of black, sloping, calcareous crags, whose inclination was hardly less than that of the glacier, left bare by the melting of the snow; they were much disintegrated by the weather, and the rough and shady débris on their surface was, for the most part, soaked with the water that trickled from the snows above.

Here we sat down, and unharnessed ourselves. A gentle breeze tempered the heat of the sun, which shone gloriously upon a sparkling sea of ice-clad peaks, contrasting finely with the deep blue of the cloudless heaven.

Once established on the rocks, and released from the ropes, we began to consider our next operations. A glance upwards showed that no easy task awaited us. In front rose a steep curtain of glacier, surmounted, about five or six hundred feet above us, by an overhanging cornice of ice and frozen snow, edged with a fantastic fringe of pendants and enormous icicles.

This formidable obstacle bounded our view, and stretched from end to end of the ridge. What lay beyond it, we could only conjecture; but we all thought that it must be crowned by a swelling dome which would constitute the actual summit. We foresaw great difficulty in forcing this imposing barrier; but, after a short consultation, the plan of attack was agreed upon, and immediately carried into execution... Lauener and Sampson were sent forward to conduct our approaches, which consisted of a series of short zig-zags, ascending directly from where we were resting to the foot of the cornice. The steep surface of the glacier was covered with snow; but it soon became evident that it was not deep enough to afford any material assistance. It was loose and uncompacted, and lay to the thickness of two or three inches only; so that every step had to be hewn out of the solid ice... Lauener went first, and cut a hole just sufficient to afford him a foot-hold while he cut another. Sampson followed, and doubled the size of the step, so as to make a safe and firm resting-place. The line they took ascended, as I have said, directly above the rocks on which we were reclining, to the base of the overhanging fringe. Hence the blocks of ice, as they were hewn out, rolled down upon us, and, shooting past, fell over the brink of the arrête by which we had been ascending, and were precipitated into the fathomless abyss beneath... We had to be on the alert to

avoid these rapid missiles, which came accompanied by a very avalanche of dry and powdery snow. I could not help being struck with the marvellous beauty of the barrier which lay, still to be overcome, between us and the attainment of our hopes. The cornice curled over towards us, like the crest of a wave, breaking at irregular intervals along the line into pendants and inverted pinnacles of ice, many of which hung down to the full length of a tall man's height... They cast a ragged shadow on the wall of ice behind, which was hard and glassy, not flecked with a spot of snow, and blue as the "brave o'erhanging" of the cloudless firmament. They seemed battlements of an enchanted fortress, framed to defy the curiosity of man, and to laugh to scorn his audacious efforts.

Lauener chose his course well, and had worked up to the most accessible point along the whole line, where a break in the series of icicles allowed him to approach close to the icy parapet, and where the projecting crest was narrowest and weakest. It was resolved to cut boldly into the ice, and endeavor to hew deep enough to get a sloping passage on to the dome beyond. He stood close, not facing the parapet, but turned half round, and struck out as far away from himself as he could. A few strokes of his powerful arm brought down the projecting crest, which, after rolling a few feet, fell headlong over the brink of the arrête, and was out of sight in an instant... We all looked on in breathless anxiety; for it depended upon the success of this assault whether that impregnable fortress was to be ours, or whether we were to return, slowly and sadly, foiled by its calm and massive strength. Suddenly, a startling cry of surprise and triumph rang through the air. A great block of ice bounded from the top of the parapet, and before it had well lighted on the glacier, Lauener exclaimed, "I see blue sky"... A thrill of astonishment and delight ran through our frames. Our enterprise had succeeded! We were almost upon the actual summit. That wave above us, frozen, as it seemed, in the act of falling over, into a strange and motionless magnificence, was the very peak itself. My left shoulder grazed against the angle of the icy embrasure, while, on the right, the glacier fell abruptly away beneath me, towards an unknown and awful abyss; a hand from an invisible person grasped mine; I stepped across, and had passed the ridge of the Wetterhorn!

The instant before, I had been face to face with a blank wall of ice. One step, and the eye took in a boundless expanse of crag and glacier, peak and precipice, mountain and valley, lake

and plain. The whole world seemed to lie at my feet. The next moment, I was almost appalled by the awfulness of our position. The side we had come up was steep, but it was a gentle slope, compared with that which now fell away from where I stood. A few yards of glittering ice at our feet, and then, nothing between us and the green slopes of Grindelwald, nine thousand feet beneath ... I am not ashamed to own that I experienced, as this sublime and wonderful prospect burst upon my view, a profound and almost irrepressible emotion an emotion which, if I may judge by the low ejaculations of surprise, followed by a long pause of breathless silence, as each in turn stepped into the opening, was felt by others as well as myself. Balmat told me repeatedly, afterwards, that it was the most awful and startling moment he had known in the course of his long mountain experience. We felt as in the more immediate presence of Him who had reared this tremendous pinnacle, and beneath the "majestic roof" of whose deep blue heaven we stood, poised, as it seemed, half way between the earth and sky. Wills' "High Alps."

PIEDMONT.

So astonishingly great is the hospitality of the Piedmontese, that by virtue of two letters I was able to travel for two weeks and some days without ever, except on one occasion, seeing the inside of an inn. The inns of the country are generally of the most wretched description; hence the eagerness of the people to save the travellers from the miseries of their accommodation; hence the readiness of the tourist to waive ceremony and accept kindly what is offered.

Every one is acquainted with the outburst of generosity of the peasant girl who pressed a king to partake of some apples, assuring him that what he did not take "would be given to the pigs." In the same spirit as I threw a word across the hedge to a group of rustics busy gathering in their walnuts, to congratulate them on the bountiful harvest; "Yes," they cried out joyously, holding up their baskets or aprons, "have some! have some! there is enough for cats and dogs this

year." Notwithstanding this, Piedmont for the last six or seven years has been anything but the land of plenty; and as you travel through the country, you feel sure that your hosts freely give what they can scarcely spare. You, who live in duil sober England, hardly know the effects of the war that earth and sky, air and water, here wage against man and his works,

The Alps on the Italian side are stripped of the glorious timber which used to clothe them, almost within the reach of man's memory; but the valleys especially of Piedmont are luxuriant with the richest vegetation... Everywhere along the mountain slope, at the outlet of every glen and dell, and half-way down the plain, you have such walnut and chestnut trees as need fear no comparison with the glorious English oak, or the prouder New England elm; the walnut tapering up to the sky and then arching its far reaching branches all round umbrella wise; the chestnut hugging the parent earth lovingly, and spreading its huge foliage almost horizontally so as to mantle the hillslope from end to end. Well, all along the picturesque road from Ivrea to Biella, I have seen hundreds and thousands of magnificent trees, chiefly tall pine-like walnut trees, torn up by the roots, and crushing vines and maize-fields under their weight, the wreck and havoc of the storm. I imagine, there is scarcely a house, barn, or church, in the whole territory of Biella, that has not been in need of a completely new roof, every tile of the old one being shattered to fragments by the pitiless hail... There is hardly a garden but has to be altogether restocked with new plants, as the few old ones left standing are so scorched and blasted as to allow no hope of recovery. With all this, however, the land of the sun bears yet a cheering look, and every peasant greets you with a merry face... Anything more striking than the calmness, soberness, and earnestness of those good generous people, I have seen nowhere. They have a serious, silent, modest, docile, and somewhat shy look, which seems to me akin to the English character. They are only gentler and meeker, less self-confident, than the fortunate builders of the "empire on whose boundaries the sun never sets." They are by no means loud, but thoughtful; and at any rate no talkers or gesticulators like the rest of the Italians. No French swagger, no Lombard or Tuscan chattiness and frivolity, about them.

With all its Icelandic and Spitzbergian temperature, I would not have you judge too harshly of the climate of North Italy. The climate of Northern Italy (by which I mean the country between the Alps and Apennines, for that of Genoa and Nice on the fickle sea is quite different, in my estimation far worse) is, however, severe; an honest climate, always in earnest. It scarcely ever rains here but it pours. Summer droughts and winter frosts hardly deem it worth while to set in, unless they mean to last for at least six weeks or two months... Of every change in the weather you have fair warning, by a succession of un

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