that you almost look if you may see the
seraph which has flown round and kindled these mighty torches. The glory
is inexpressible, and on a scale so vast, that you have no words to
describe it. You can scarce believe it to be reflected light which gives
such glory to these mountains. They are so rosy, so vividly, intensely
radiant, that you feel as if that boundless effulgence emanated from
themselves,--were flowing forth from some hidden fountain of light
within. It is like no other scene of earthly glory you ever saw. You can
compare it only to some celestial city which has been let down from the
firmament upon the tops of the mountains, with its glittering turrets,
its domes of sapphire, and its wall of alabaster, needing no sun or
other source of earthly light to enlighten and glorify it. But while you
gaze, it is gone. The sun is up, and the mighty mountain-torches which
had carried the tidings of his coming to the countries beneath are
extinguished.

It was now full day, and we had reached the summit of the pass. Above us
were still the snow-clad peaks; but the road does not ascend higher. We
now crossed the frontier, and were in Italy. A little rocky plain
surrounded by weather-beaten peaks, a deep blue lake, and a sea of bare
ridges in front, were all that we saw of Italy. The road now began
sensibly to decline, and the diligence quickened its pace. We soon
reached the ridges before us, and began to descend over the brow of the
Alps, which are steep and perpendicular as a wall almost, on their
southern side. You first traverse a region covered with immense
lichen-clothed boulders; next come stretches of heath; then stunted
firs: by and by fruit and forest trees begin to make their appearance;
next comes the lovely acacia; and last of all the vine, tall and
luxuriant, veiling the peasant's cot with its shadow. The road is
literally a series of hanging stairs, which zig-zag down the face of the
mountain. At certain points the rock is perforated; at others it is hewn
into terraces; and at others the path rests on vast substructions of
masonry. Now an immense rock leans over the road, and now you find
yourself on the edge of some frightful precipice, with the gulph running
right down many thousands of feet, and a white torrent at the bottom,
boiling and struggling, but unable to make itself heard at that height
on the mountain. The turns are frequent and sharp; and the heavy,
overladen vehicle, in its furious downw