ificent
have I found it; but let me mark the broad masterly style of this
Alpine region. As you journey from Villeneuve, with what a gentle,
bland magnificence does the valley expand before you! The hills and
rocks, as they increase in altitude, still fall back, and reveal in
the centre the towering _Dent du Midi_, glittering with its eternal
snows. The whole way to Martigny you see sublimity without admixture
of terror; it is beauty elevated into grandeur, without losing its
amenity. And then, if you cross by the Col de Balme, leaving the
valley of the Rhone as you ascend, and descending upon the valley of
Chamouni, where the Alps curve before you in most perfect
grouping--tell me if it is possible for the heart of man to desire
more. Nay, is not the heart utterly exhausted by this series of scenic
raptures?

For ever be remembered that magnificent pass of the Col de Balme! If I
have a white day in my calendar, it is the day I spent in thy defiles.
Deliberately I assert that life has nothing comparable to the delight
of traversing alone, borne leisurely on the back of one's mule, a
mountain-pass such as this. Those who have stouter limbs may prefer to
use them; give me for my instrument of progression the legs of the
patient and sure-footed mule. They are better legs, at all events,
than mine. I am seated on his back, the bridle lies knotted upon his
neck--the cares of the way are all his--the toil and the anxiety of
it; the scene is all mine, and I am all in it. I am seated there, all
eye, all thought, gazing, musing; yet not without just sufficient
occupation to keep it still a luxury--this leisure to contemplate. The
mule takes care of himself, and, in so doing, of you too; yet not so
entirely but that you must look a little after yourself. That he by no
means has your safety for his primary object is evident from this,
that, in turning sharp corners or traversing narrow paths, he never
calculates whether there is sufficient room for any other legs than
his own--takes no thought of yours. To keep your knees, in such
places, from collision with huge boulders, or shattered stumps of
trees, must be your own care; to say nothing of the occasional
application of whip or stick, and a _very_ strong pull at his mouth to
raise his head from the grass which he has leisurely begun to crop.
Seated thus upon your mule, given up to the scene, with something
still of active life going on about you, with full liberty to pause
and