t hasten on to give you a description of an adventure I met with in
crossing the Alps, omitting for the present an account of the trip from
Rome to Genoa, and my lonely walk through Sardinia. When I had crossed
the mountain range north of Genoa, the plains of Piedmont stretched out
before me. I could see the snowy sides and summits of the Alps more than
one hundred miles distant, looking like white, fleecy clouds on a summer
day. It was a magnificent prospect, and I wonder not that the heart of
the Swiss soldier, after years of absence in foreign service, beats with
joy when he again looks on his native mountains.

"As I approached nearer, the weather changed, and dark, gloomy clouds
enveloped them, so that they seemed to present an impassible barrier to
the lands beyond them. At Ivrea, I entered the interesting valley of
Aosta. The whole valley, fifty miles in length, is inhabited by
miserable looking people, nearly one half of them being afflicted with
goitre and cretinism. They looked more idiotic and disgusting than any I
have ever seen, and it was really painful to behold such miserable
specimens of humanity dwelling amid the grandest scenes of nature.
Immediately after arriving in the town of Aosta, situated at the upper
end of the valley, I began, alone, the ascent of the Great St. Bernard.
It was just noon, and the clouds on the mountains indicated rain. The
distance from Aosta to the monastery or hospice of St. Bernard, is about
twenty English miles.

"At one o'clock it commenced raining vary hard, and to gain shelter I
went into a rude hut; but it was filled with so many of those idiotic
cretins, lying down on the earthy floor with the dogs and other animals,
that I was glad to leave them as soon as the storm had abated in some
degree. I walked rapidly for three hours, when I met a traveler and his
guide descending the mountain. I asked him in Italian the distance to
the hospice, and he undertook to answer me in French, but the words did
not seem to flow very fluently, so I said quickly, observing then that
he was an Englishman: 'Try some other language, if you please, sir!' He
replied instantly in his vernacular: 'You have a d--d long walk before
you, and you'll have to hurry to get to the top before night!' Thanking
him, we shook hands and hurried on, he downward and I upward. About
eight miles from the summit, I was directed into the wrong path by an
ignorant boy who was tending sheep, and went a mile out o