.
To Vienne, nine miles more. During this stage, the Alps become again
visible in full majesty, from a high terrace overlooking a range of
woody rising ground; and extend as far as the eye can reach from north
to south. Mont Blanc and Monte Viso, the Gog and Magog of this gigantic
chain, preserve their pre-eminence; the distant pyramid of the latter,
which shoots into the clouds like the Peak of Teneriffe, from a cluster
of lower mountains, contrasting with the massy dome of the former. From
its figure and position in the map, I judged it could be no other than
Monte Viso, which is so strikingly conspicuous on the road from Coni to
Turin. Mont Pilate, towards the foot of which the Rhone wound to the
right, sinks into utter insignificance when compared with these Alps,
though of a height and grandeur which would render it a leading feature
in Wales or Cumberland. It is considered in this neighbourhood as stored
with rich specimens of botany, and its appearance, much less scorched
and barren than the mountains of a southern climate usually are, renders
this probable.

The view of Vienne, as you descend into the narrow green valley in which
it is situated, crowned by the dark ruins of an old Roman castle, and
watered by a deep and rapid reach of the Rhone, combines beauties
calculated to please all tastes. On the opposite side of the river,
overlooking the ruins of a bridge with which it probably once
communicated as a guard-house, stands a tall, square, Roman tower,
called the Tour[10] de Mauconseil. The legends of the country affirm,
that this was the abode of Pontius Pilate,[11] and that, in a fit of
despair and frenzy, he threw himself from its windows into the Rhone,
where he perished. This point the good Catholics must settle as they can
with the Swiss, who maintain that he drowned himself in a little Alpine
lake on the mountain which bears his name; and that the storms by which
it is frequently agitated are occasioned by the writhings of his
perturbed spirit. Nothing shows more forcibly the power of association
in minds not capable of discriminating, than that the name of a man so
obviously a reluctant instrument in the hands of God, and who declared
by a public act his abhorrence of the part he was forced to act, should
be selected as synonymous to every thing fiendlike and murderous.

[Footnote 10: Vide Cooke's Views.]

[Footnote 11: There is, I believe, positive historical authority, which
fixes Vienne as the