far as I could. In fact, I should have been glad to sleep one night at the Grands Mulets: however, that was impossible.

To look at the apparently smooth surface of the mountain side, one would never think that the ascent could be a work of such difficulty and danger. Yet, look at the picture of crossing a crevasse, and compare the size of the figures with the dimensions of the blocks of ice. Madame d'Angeville told me that she was drawn across a crevasse like this, by ropes tied under her arms, by the guides. The depth of some of the crevasses may be conjectured from the fact stated by Agassiz, that the thickest parts of the glaciers are over one thousand feet in depth.

JOURNAL-(CONTINUED.)

FRIDAY, July 8.- Chamouni to Martigny, by Tête Noir. Mules en avant. We set off in a calèche. After a two hours' ride we came to "those mules." On, to the pass of Tête Noir, by paths the most awful. As my mule trod within six inches of the verge, I looked down into an abyss, so deep that tallest pines looked like twigs; yet, on the opposite side of the pass, I looked up the steep precipice to an equal height, where giant trees seemed white fluttering fringe. A dizzy sight. We swept round an angle, entered a dark tunnel blasted out through the solid rock, emerged, and saw before us, on our right, the far-famed Tête Noir, a black ledge, on whose face, so high is the opposite cliff, the sun never shines. A few steps brought us to a hotel. William and I rolled down some avalanches, by way of getting an appetite, while dinner was preparing.

After dinner we commenced descending towards Martigny, alternately riding and walking. Here, while I was on foot, my mule took it into his head to run away. I was never more surprised in my life than to see that staid, solemn, meditative, melancholy beast suddenly perk up both his long ears, thus, and hop about over the steep paths like a goat. Not more surprised

should I be to see some venerable D. D. of Princeton leading

off a dance in the Jardin Mabille. We chased him here, and chased him there. We headed him, and he headed us. We said, "Now I have you," and he said, "No, you don't!" until the affair began to grow comically serious. "Il se moque de vous!" said the guide. But, at that moment, I sprang and caught him by the bridle, when, presto! down went his ears, shut went the eyes, and over the entire gay brute spread a visible veil of stolidity. And down he plodded, slunging, shambling, pivotting round zigzag corners, as before, in a style which any one that ever navigated such a craft down hill knows without further telling.

After that, I was sure that the old fellow a "terrible thinking," in spite of his stupid looks, and knew a vast deal more than he chose to tell.

kept up

Here H. and S. stairs, and sank

I must say they C. used to say,

At length we opened on the Rhone valley; and at seven we reached Hotel de la Tour, at Martigny. managed to get up two flights of stone speechless and motionless upon their beds. have exhibited spirit to-day, or, as Mr. "pluck." After settling with our guides, fine fellows, whom we hated to lose, guides for our route to the convent. reaching there, they say, is the snow.

I ordered supper, and sought new

Our only difficulty in
The guides were un-

certain whether mules could get through so early in the season. Only to think! To-day, riding broilingly through hayfields

to-morrow, stuck in snow drifts!

LETTER XXXV.

DEAR HENRY:

You cannot think how beautiful are these Alpine valleys. Our course, all the first morning after we left Chamouni, lay beside a broad, hearty, joyous mountain torrent, called, perhaps from the darkness of its waters, Eau Noire. Charming meadows skirted its banks. All the way along I could think of nothing but Bunyan's meadows beside the river of life, "curiously adorned with lilies." These were curiously adorned, broidered, and inwrought with flowers, many and brilliant as those in a western prairie. Were I to undertake to describe them, I might make an inventory as long as Homer's list of the ships. There was the Canterbury bell of our garden; the white meadow sweet; the blue and white campanula; the tall, slender harebell, and a little, shorttufted variety of the same, which our guide tells me is called "Les Clochettes," or the "little bells" fairies might ring them, I thought. Then there are whole beds of the little blue forget-me-not, and a white flower which much resembles it in form. I also noticed, hanging in the clefts of the rocks around Tête Noir, the long golden tresses of the laburnum. It has seemed to me, when I have been travelling here, as if every flower I ever saw in a garden met me some where in rocks or meadows.

There is a strange, unsatisfying pleasure about flowers, which, like all earthly pleasure, is akin to pain. What can

you do with them? -you want to do something, but what? Take them all up, and carry them with you? You cannot do that. Get down and look at them? What, keep a whole caravan waiting for your observations! That will never do. Well, then, pick and carry them along with you. That is what, in despair of any better resource, I did. My good old guide was infinite in patience, stopping at every new exclamation point of mine, plunging down rocks into the meadow land, climbing to the points of great rocks, and returning with his hands filled with flowers. It seemed almost sacrilegious to tear away such fanciful creations, that looked as if they were votive offerings on an altar, or, more likely, living existences, whose only conscious life was a continued exhalation of joy and praise.

These flowers seemed to me to be earth's raptures and aspirations her better moments her lucid intervals. Like every thing else in our existence, they are mysterious.

In what mood of mind were they conceived by the great Artist? Of what feelings of his are they the expression springing up out of the dust, in these gigantic, waste, and desolate regions, where one would think the sense of his almightiness might overpower the soul? Born in the track of the glacier and the avalanche, they seem to say to us that this Almighty Being is very pitiful, and of tender compassion; that, in his infinite soul, there is an exquisite gentleness and love of the beautiful, and that, if we would be blessed, his will to bless is infinite.

The greatest men have always thought much of flowers. Luther always kept a flower in a glass, on his writing table; and when he was waging his great public controversy with Eckius, he kept a flower in his hand. Lord Bacon has a