somewhat glad to escape from dizzy precipices and rocky glens, in passing which it was difficult to participate the sang froid of our guides and mules. Trient is situated in one of the wildest and most desolate scenes that can be conceived; and the châlets and their inhabitants almost equal, in uncouthness and wild simplicity, what one conceives of a tribe of Esquimaux or New Zealanders. Their provisions appeared not much of a superior description. Some sour wine, bad cheese, and potatoes, were all that the inn of the place afforded; which however we dispatched in a sort of cabin where we could scarcely stand upright, with a wooden window, which served for the bed-room and dwelling-room of the family. We presently remounted our mules, and wound by a steep and difficult path, over rocks and amidst brushwood, to the summit of the range of mountains called the Forclaz, which here incloses the valley of the Rhone, and separates the lower country of the Vallais from Savoy. On reaching the summit, a new scene opened upon us-bold shelving mountains, covered with alternate pastures and forests, gradually slope down to the valley of the Rhone, through which, at three leagues distance, the river was gliding in silvery and meandering brightness; while far beyond, the horizon was closed up by the rugged heights beyond Sion, sometimes frowning under a black burthen of clouds, and at others glittering forth in all their snowy splendour. Descending the mountain-path, we arrived in the Rhone valley, and presently found ourselves in the dirty and desolate town of Martigny-a place which concentrates a large portion of the filth, disease, and bigotry of the canton of Vallais, one of the most filthy, unwholesome, and bigoted countries of Europe. The people have all an appearance of misery and stupidity; and dirt and wretchedness pervade every habitation. We were surprised, however, to find a smaller number of Goitres and Cretins than we had expected. Some still exist; but so many of these helpless wretches had perished in the revolutionary wars, that their number is very insignificant in comparison with what it was twenty years ago. Both Mr. Cox and Dr. Moore speak of Martigny as the head-quarters of this wretched calamity. We saw only a few hanging about the inns and the church, and endeavouring to attract the commiseration of travellers by a display of their infirmities. Many of them are deaf, dumb, and complete idiots. Some have a sort of inarticulate power of speech, and a very slender portion of intellect; and others appear to be only visited with the personal deformity of a tumour on the neck, and features slightly distorted, without any affection in speech, hearing, or common sense. In short, you meet in the valleys every gradation of this singular malady, from the most hideous objects of disease and imbecility to the gentle protuberance and roundness of neck, which is observable in the finest women in the Vallais, and indeed in Switzerland generally. The causes of this affliction have hitherto puzzled the investigation of naturalists. Saussure ascribes it to the relaxing tendency of the warm and stagnant air in these close Alpine valleys, of which the Vallais, where the disease is most found, is certainly the closest and worst ventilated. This singular valley, formed by the course of the Rhone, is not less than one hundred miles in length from its frontier on the canton of Uri to its junction with the Pays de Vaud; walled in on all sides by a magnificent chain of mountains, whose peaks and summits vary from a thousand to fourteen thousand feet in height. The valley is in few places above a league or a league and a half in width; and being entirely defended from the winds of the north, and very slightly accessible to those from any other quarter, its heat in summer is excessive. In some spots the corn is ripened and cut in the month of May. Between Sion and Martigny Fahrenheit's thermometer commonly stands in the shade in the summer months at 79, 80, and rises exposed to the sun to 114, 120. Wild asparagus grows commonly, and figs and almonds are ripened with ease. A very strong wine is produced almost without trouble, which might be rendered excellent if the Valaisans were skilful and industrious in the cultivation of the grape. It is not surprising that a narrow valley of this temperature, and in which the Rhone occasions vapour and marshy ground, should be found unhealthy; and it seems not improbable that these circumstances may contribute to the flaccid and diseased habits of the population. Some persons ascribe the tumours on the neck to certain deleterious qualities in the water; and a sensible gentleman assured us, that when the tumour has been opened, it has generally been found to contain a sort of kernel, apparently formed by an accretion of calcareous particles. It is difficult to conceive that any peculiarity in the water can alone produce this effect, which is endemic, to a greater or less degree, in all the valleys of the Alps from Savoy to Carinthia; but that this cause may co-operate with others is very probable. The air of the valleys is considered so peculiarly productive of the disorder, that many individuals who can afford the expense, send their wives to a village in the mountains before their lying-in, and children are often sent to the mountains to be reared. The filthy habits of the Valaisans, joined to the frequent deformity in the people, must also materially assist the disease, producing a disgusting and painful contrast with the sublime beauties of the natural scenery. In the Vallais all but the features" of man is divine." Martigny suffered severely in the year 1818 from the dreadful inundation of the river Dranse, which here unites with the Rhone. Many houses were washed away, and a considerable number of persons perished; and heaps of ruins and rubbish, and accumulations of sand and rock, still attest the violence of this calamity. In ascending from Martigny to the Grand St. Bernard, we saw more of its devastating effects. The road winds for a distance of two leagues through a gorge, between abrupt mountains formed by the course of the rapid Dranse; and every step presents traces of the overwhelming force of the inundation of 1818. The torrent now flows in its natural accustomed bed, about thirty feet in width, but the channel worked out by the swollen torrent of 1818 is six or seven times that width, indeed nearly of the width of the bottom of the valley-a vast ravine half choaked up with mud, sand, prostrate firs and oaks, debris of granite, and scattered remnants of timber and masonry— nunc lapides adesos, Stirpesque raptas, et pecus et domos Clamore, vicinæque sylvæ. Some of the masses of rock, hurled down the channel from the mountains, are thirty or forty feet in height, and scarcely less in diameter. Several entire villages were swept away, with the loss of almost every inhabitant. Above two hundred persons are computed to have perished, and large tracts of pasture and orchard and meadow are irrecoverably lost. This dreadful event was occasioned by the overflowing of the waters of a lake in the valley of Bagnes, which is fed by the immense glacier of Tzermontane. The glacier is of enormous extent, and the waters, swollen by an unusual melting of the snow and glacier, broke the banks of the lake, and precipitated themselves down the channel of the Dranse into the valley of the Rhone. This was not the first debordement which had occurred from a similar cause and produced similar effects; and the people now live under the certain apprehension that after the accumulation of a considerable number of years, the same affliction will revisit them. The government of the Vallais has done what its limited means allow to relieve the sufferers, and to avert the evil for the future. A channel has been opened, by which part of the accumulations from the glacier are gradually drained off; but the remedy is very inadequate, and the costs of making it more complete are quite out of the reach of the republican government of the Vallais. Had the calamity occurred during the time when the Vallais formed a province of the French empire, Napoleon's engineers would probably have contrived a tunnel through the solid mountain, by which the debacle of the glacier might have found a regular outlet to the Rhone. The daring arm which had vanquished the rocks of the Simplon and the Rhine would (if, indeed, the safety of these mountaineers had ever interested its selfish policy) have achieved this new triumph over the forces of nature. But a war with nature and the elements is rather too costly for a poor petty republic; and the Valaisans, I believe, had much rather live in annual dread of the fury of the Dranse, than submit to the grinding oppressions of a protecting empire, and the cruelties of French soldiery. Nothing can be more beautiful and romantic than the early part of the ascent from Martigny to the Grand St. Bernard, or more sublime and desolate than the latter part of the journey. One branch of the Dranse has its source on the Mont St. Bernard, and the torrent descends in a tempestuous and winding course of seven or eight leagues, till it joins the main stream at St. Branchier, near Martigny. The valley by which the stream descends is called the valley of Entremont ; and the mule-path to the St. Bernard follows the windings of the Dranse up the wild, magnificent, and fertile scenes of the mountainvale. For about six leagues the road presents all the grand and diversified beauties of Alpine scenery, all its union of luxuriant richness with imposing sublimity-pastures of the loveliest green, forests crowning majestic heights, the spires and villages of St. Orsieres, Liddes, and St. Pierre, niched in the hollow of the green glen watered by the torrent, and high above all, the frozen and snowy heights of the Mont Velan and the St. Bernard, the clouds resting on their heads, or sometimes scudding and floating round their sides. For bold open slopes and shelving mountains of smiling fertility and careful cultivation few Alpine valleys can be compared with this of Entremont; few unite so much of grand Alpine proportions with such an exquisite succession of green and softened landscape. St. Pierre is the last village on the ascent, and three leagues from the convent of the St. Bernard: it is five thousand and four feet above the level of the sea, and nature already begins to wear a crabbed and wintry aspect. The herbage grows thin and mossy, cultivation more rare, few fields are seen except pastures, the fine beech woods have disappeared, and the firs, feathering up the sides of the mountains, have a bare branchless Norwegian character. These features are more striking as you advance; till on arriving about a league and half beyond the village, the last struggles of vegetation give way to the chilling influence of the eternal winter which here begins to reign. A few leafless fir stumps and a little coarse grass and moss cling about the rocks and stones which lie scattered on all sides. The air becomes extremely chilling and keen; and you constantly find yourself enveloped in a damp and drizzling cloud. The Dranse is now dwindled to a small but impetuous torrent, brawling over rocks almost without a regular channel. Almost the last spot of green is a small pasture of wretched grass belonging to the monks of the convent, where they feed a few cows or sheep for a few weeks in the year. One of the monks, in the costume of the order, was looking after the cattle. The wild sublimity of the scenes which we now passed was much obscured by perpetual clouds and mist. Now and then the clouds broke away, and discovered to us, for a short time, the bleak bare rocks, the impending glaciers, and gloomy crags which hemmed us in on all sides. A brown bare sterility was observable all around. The snows were not considerable, owing to the mildness of the season and the warm rains which had fallen in abundance. The reign of animal and vegetable life we had left far below us; and with them every object of picturesque beauty had ceased. The guides conducted us to a little low hut which serves for the charnel-house of the convent. There is not sufficient earth within some miles of the convent to dig a grave; and the bodies of such unfortunate persons as perish in this dangerous Alpine pass are placed in this building, where the extreme rarity and coldness of the atmosphere prevents putrefaction. Amidst tattered remains of clothes and an accumulation of dry bones, was one shrivelled mummy-like corpse, with the garments in good preservation, which had been placed there in the preceding winter. There was no kind of effluvia, or any symptom of putrefaction. This dry dark abode of death, the only kind of building in sight, adds not a little to the dreary character of the scene, and the gloomy sensations which every object is calculated to inspire. After pursuing various narrow passes and defiles, amidst rocks and chasms in which the Dranse has worn for itself a narrow and irregular channel, we discovered at the end of a narrow gorge between the mountains, the white gable ends of the convent, surmounted by its pious emblem of the crucifix. Our mules appeared to erect their ears at the pleasing prospect; and selecting, with their unerring discretion, a safe path over the snow and rocks and up a rude sort of flight of steps hewn in the mountain, safely landed us at the great door of the convent, where the sub-prior and another brother received us with hospitable welcome. D. CAMPAIGNS OF A CORNET. NO. III. 66 THE Baron's wound, like Mercutio's, was neither as deep as a well nor as wide as a church-door," but still it was serious enough to give him great pain and anxiety. An English surgeon belonging to another regiment declared that it was unnecessary to be under any apprehension; but the Baron, who found a new tie to existence in the possession of the four hundred crowns, for which he had paid so dear, and who thought it was better to bear the ills he had " than fly to others that he knew not of," betrayed considerable anxiety with regard to the consequences of the clerical admonition which he had received. We were compelled to leave our gallant commander, and proceed without him to our regiment, where in a few days afterwards he joined us. We found our corps stationed in the neighbourhood of the Ebro, within a few leagues of Saragossa. I was struck with admiration at the fine appearance and perfect appointment of the men, who, though they had been abroad many years, displayed the good discipline and martial air of veterans, with all the neatness and cleanliness which our troops are remarkable for at home. The town at which we were stationed was called Reomilines, and abounded in good provisions. Instead of the "spare fast," which oft with soldiers" doth diet," I found my brothers in arms indulging at this place in all sorts of luxuries-that is to say, feasting in great plenty on very tolerable joints of mutton. The great desideratum I soon found to be bottled London porter, which was considered very reasonable at a dollar a bottle, a price equivalent at that time to about six and fourpence. While all the infantry of the army, and some favoured regiments of cavalry, were passing the winter amid the snows of the Pyrenees, with no other hopes of glory than what a death by starvation could furnish, we were enjoying ourselves in this peaceable part of the country, performing the regular routine of our military duties, studying the Spanish character, and visiting whatever was worthy of observation in the neighbourhood. The only incident which occurred to enliven the tedium of our residence at Reomilines, which really partook of the character of country quarters, (with the exception of falling out with the Spanish men, and in love with the Spanish women, and out of humour with the amusements of a Spanish village); the only incident, I say, which can properly claim insertion in these military commentaries, was one of rather a serious nature to the parties concerned. In consequence of the accumulation of offences, it was determined at this time to hold what I may call a species of martial assizes-sessions of oyer and terminer of all campaigning quarrels and breaches of punctilio, and a general gaol delivery of all plundering serjeants, licentious corporals, and poor petty-larceny privates. The court was held under the warrant of the Commander of the Forces, at the head-quarters of General Lord the president; and I, having been summoned to sit upon the court, was present at all the proceedings, although my services were not called for, in consequence of the requisite number of thirteen members having been already filled up. Many cases occurred which would have afforded a high relish, even to the |