persons perished. It is thus that the Alpine torrents prove from time to time the sources of vastly greater ruin than the avalanches, overwhelming whole regions that the avalanches cannot visit, bursting whole mountain ridges, and changing the landmarks and the face of nature.

One of the best descriptions of the catastrophe of 1818 is given by the artist Brockedon, from the account of Escher de Linth, published in the Bibliothéque de Genève. The reader may learn from it something of the dangers that ever lie in wait on Alpine life even in the midst of fancied security.

"In the spring of 1818, the people of the valley of Bagnes became alarmed on observing the low state of the waters of the Drance at a season when the melting of the snows usually enlarged the torrent; and this alarm was encreased by the records of similar appearances before the dreadful inundation of 1595, which was then occasioned by the accumulation of the waters behind the debris of a glacier that formed a dam, which remained until the pressure of the water burst the dike, and it rushed through the valley, leaving desolation in its course.

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In April, 1818, some persons went up the valley to ascertain the cause of the deficiency of water, and they discovered that vast masses of the glaciers of Getroz, and avalanches of snow, had fallen into a narrow part of the valley, between Mont Pleureur and Mont Mauvoisin, and formed a dike of ice and snow 600 feet wide and 400 feet high, on a base of 3000 feet, behind which the waters of the Drance had accumulated, and formed a lake above 7000 feet long. M. Venetz, the engineer of the Vallais, was consulted, and he immediately decided upon cutting a gallery through this barrier of ice, 60 feet above the level of the water at the time of commencing, and where the dike was 600 feet thick. He calculated upon making a tunnel through this mass before the water should have risen 60 feet higher in the lake. On the 10th of May, the work was begun by gangs of fifty men, who relieved each other, and worked, without intermission, day and night, with inconceivable courage and perseverance, neither deterred by the daily occurring danger from the falling of fresh masses of the glacier,

TERRIFIC ALPINE FLOOD.

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nor by the rapid encrease of the water in the lake, which rose 62 feet in 34 days—on an average nearly 2 feet each day; but it once rose 5 feet in one day, and threatened each moment to burst the dike by its encreasing pressure; or, rising in a more rapid proportion than the men could proceed with their work, render their efforts abortive, by rising above them. Sometimes dreadful noises were heard, as the pressure of the water detached masses of ice from the bottom, which, floating, presented so much of their bulk above the water as led to the belief that

some of them were 70 feet thick. The men persevered in their fearful duty without any serious accident, and, though suffering severely from cold and wet, and surrounded by dangers which cannot be justly described, by the 4th of June they had accomplished an opening 600 feet long; but having begun their work on both sides of the dike at the same time, the place where they ought to have met was 20 feet lower on one side of the lake than on the other: it was fortunate that latterly the encrease of the perpendicular height of the water was less, owing to the extension of its surface. They proceeded to level the highest side of the tunnel, and completed it just before the water reached them. On the evening of the 13th the water began to flow. At first, the opening was not large enough to carry off the supplies of water which the lake received, and it rose 2 feet above the tunnel; but this soon enlarged from the action of the water, as it melted the floor of the gallery, and the torrent rushed through. In thirty-two hours the lake sunk 10 feet, and during the following twenty-four hours 20 feet more; in a few days it would have been emptied; for the floor melting, and being driven off as the water escaped, kept itself below the level of the water within; but the cataract which issued from the gallery, melted and broke up also a large portion of the base of the dike which had served as its buttress: its resistance decreased faster than the pressure of the lake lessened, and at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 6th of June the dike burst, and in half an hour the water escaped through the breach, and left the lake empty.

"The greatest accumulation of water had been 800,000,000 of cubic feet; the tunnel, before the disruption, had carried off

nearly 330,000,000-Escher says, 270,000,000; but he neglected to add 60,000,000 which flowed into the lake in three days. In half an hour, 530,000,000 cubic feet of water passed through the breach, or 300,000 feet per second; which is five times greater in quantity than the Rhine at Basle, where it is 1300 English feet wide. In one hour and a half the water reached Martigny, a distance of eight leagues. Through the first 70,000 feet it passed with the velocity of 33 feet per secondfour or five times faster than the most rapid river known; yet it was charged with ice, rocks, earth, trees, houses, cattle, and men; thirty-four persons were lost, 400 cottages swept away, and the damage done in the two hours of its desolating power exceeded a million of Swiss livres. All the people of the valley had been cautioned against the danger of a sudden irruption; yet it was fatal to so many. All the bridges in its course were swept away, and among them the bridge of Mauvoisin, which was elevated 90 feet above the ordinary height of the Drance. If the dike had remained untouched, and it could have endured the pressure until the lake had reached the level of its top, a volume of 1,700,000,000 cubic feet of water would have been accumulated there, and a devastation much more extensive must have been the consequence. From this greater danger the people of the valley of the Drance were preserved by the heroism and devotion of the brave men who effected the formation of the gallery, under the direction of M. Venetz. I know no instance on record of courage equal to this; their risk of life was not for fame or for riches-they had not the usual excitements to personal risk, in a world's applause or gazetted promotion, their devoted courage was to save the lives and property of their fellow-men, not to destroy them. They steadily and heroically persevered in their labours, amidst dangers such as a field of battle never presented, and from which some of the bravest brutes that ever lived would have shrunk in dismay. These truly brave Vallaisans deserve all honour!" The devastation at Martigny was fearful. More than twenty years have not sufficed to restore the fertility of nature, covered as the soil then was with a thick, desolating mass of stones, sand, and gravel.

PIC-NIC IN THE TETE NOIRE.

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At Beauvernois the valley again assumes an aspect of great luxuriance, which encreases as you draw towards the opening into the great valley of the Rhone. Here you turn aside into a crosspath, through beautiful slopes, and woods of walnut and chestnut, to gain the fatiguing ascent of the Forclaz. It was the walnut harvest; the peasants, men, women, and children, were gathering the nuts by cartloads, and a pleasant sight it was to see Mother Earth's abundance for her offspring. Their Heavenly Father feedeth them. That thou givest them, they

gather.

CHAPTER XIX.

SUNSET. THE TETE NOIRE. THE VALORSINE BY MOONLIGHT.

PIETY OF THE GUIDES.

I ARRIVED at the Auberge of the Tete Noire about four o'clock in the afternoon, and found it shut and abandoned for the season. But here I had promised to dismiss my guide, and so was obliged to march forward with my heavy pack alone, a fatigue by no means despicable, after the long wearying walk already encountered. Most happily I had stored the pockets of my fancy blouse with a luncheon, and possessed, with some other fruits, an enormous pomegranate, which had added to the weight of my knapsack since leaving the city of Turin. had no idea the weighty delicious fruit was to stand me in so good stead.

were

I

I sat down at the shut of day in the wildest and most beautiful part of the Pass. The stream was roaring through the gorge with grand music at my feet, the foliage reflected the golden light of sunset, the evening shadows of the mountains falling on the valley. I had some leagues to travel yet, before the shadow of Mont Blanc again would cover me, but the moon would rise and travel with me, and who, with such a companion, could feel friendless or lonely? He who made the moon, and bade it rise upon the mountains, his mercy rises with it, our life's star. So, having laid my pack upon

the grass, to serve me for a table, beside the huge celebrated rock Balmarussa, that overhangs the pathway, I partook, with most romantic relish, my lonely, frugal repast of bread, Aostian pears, Parmisan cheese, and the ripe, ruddy, refreshing pomegranate. What a delicious fruit is this! It was well worthy of being associated with the music of the golden bells upon the ministering robes of Aaron.

The Poet Horace pays a great compliment to mulberries.

"Ille salubres (says he),

Estates peraget, qui nigris prandia moris

Finiet, ante gravem quæ legerit arbore solem."

This dietetic precept I shall render thus: That man will get along very comfortably through the hot weather, who will every day finish his dinner with black mulberries, gathered in the dewy coolness of the morning. If the measure would permit, instead of moris I would put granada, and say, If a man desires a quiet old age, let him every day eat a ripe pomegraBut it is not every traveller that can know the pleasure of quenching his thirst with it in the Pass of the Tete Noire.

nate.

Shouldering my pack again, I hastened forward, greatly enjoying the wildness and grandeur of the scenery. At the Valorsine I found another guide, a sturdy peasant, who was just driving home his cows from pasture for the milking. "Wait till I change my clothes," said he, “and I will go with you." He was very glad of a visit to Chamouny, particularly as the next day was a feast day. He carried me into a cottage like a gipsey's cavern.

We proceeded still by moonlight, which is always so lovely among the mountains. The moon is the beautiful moon of harvest. In the deep glens of the valley it is long in rising, for its lovely light falls on the mountain summits, and kindles them like cressets in the sky, long before you catch a glimpse of the round silvery orb, which is the fountain of all this glory; until the bright vail of rays, as it falls softly from crag to crag, chases the shade down into the valley, leaving the rocks, the woods, the caverns steeped in an effulgence, which gives them a beauty not to be imagined in the glare of day.