e earth. The eagle, Napoleon's bird, flew like
a living armorial crest over the gigantic work of the master. There it
was cold and gray; the clouds above us, the clouds below us, and in the
middle space steep rocky walls.

"At regular distances houses (relais) are erected for the travellers;
in one of these we drank our coffee. The passengers sat on benches and
tables around the great fire-place, where the pine logs crackled. More
than a thousand names were written on the walls. I amused myself by
writing mamma's, yours, Sophie's, and Eva's; now they stand there, and
people will fancy that you have been on the Simplon. In the lobby I
scratched in that of Mamsell, and added 'Without her workbox.' Otto
was thinking about you. We talked in our, what the rest would call
'outlandish speech,' when I all at once exclaimed, 'It is really Eva's
birthday!' I remembered it first. In Simplon town we determined to drink
her health.

"We set off again. Wherever the glaciers might fall and destroy the road
the rocks have been sprung, and formed into great galleries, through
which one drives without any danger. One waterfall succeeds another.
There is no balustrade along the road, only the dark, deep abyss where
the pine-trees raise themselves to an immense height, and yet only look
like rafters on the mighty wall of rock. Before we had advanced much
further, we came to where trees no longer grew. The great hospice lay in
snow and cloud. We came into a valley. What solitude! what desolation!
only naked crags! They seemed metallic, and all had a green hue. The
utmost variety of mosses grew there; before us towered up an immense
glacier, which looked like green bottle-glass ornamented with snow.
It was bitterly cold here, and in Simplon the stoves were lighted; the
champagne foamed, Eva's health was drunk, and, only think! at that very
moment an avalanche was so gallant as to fall. That was a cannonade; a
pealing among the mountains! It must have rung in Eva's ears. Ask her
about it. I can see how she smiles.

"We now advanced toward Italy, but cold was it, and cold it remained.
The landscape became savage; we drove between steep crags. Only fancy,
on both sides a block of granite several miles long, and almost as high,
and the road not wider than for two carriages to pass, and there you
have a picture of it. If one wanted to see the sky, one was obliged to
put one's head out of the carriage and look up, and then it was as if
one look