dreary region, conduce to their comfort. They related to us many very interesting particulars of the establishment, and of the adventures that so often occur amid the perils and dangers of their long and rigorous winters.

"We found comfortable beds in the rooms prepared for us, but even the stoves and double windows failed in affording such a degree of warmth as I could have wished. The cold of the night was intense, and the storm raged around the building with undiminished fury.

"After an excellent breakfast on the following morning the inspector arrived to consult with us on the possibility of continuing our journey. He assured us that he believed we could do so on sledges that day, while, if we delayed, ten days might elapse before the roads would be passable; we agreed at once to make the experiment. As he had sent to Simplon for sledges, we hoped to be able to start by two o'clock. The monks tried hard to dissuade us from going; but, encouraged by the inspector, we decided on making the attempt; and he further promised his own assistance, with that of ten of his men, to get us safe to Simplon. Our cortège was certainly most curious and picturesque; first, our carriage on a sledge, drawn by the four horses from Brieg; next, the wheels and luggage on another sledge, which was consigned to three white horses. Our guards consisted of the inspector and ten men, most wild-looking objects, dressed in goat-skins, and armed with spades and all useful implements; besides the voiturier and his aide from Brieg, our own servant, and the monk. The journey was certainly not performed without considerable misgivings and alarms; the distance from the convent to Simplon, although only three miles, we were above three hours in accomplishing. The snow, where it had drifted on either side of the road, was frequently above the height of the carriage, and every step we advanced seemed to be only accomplished after much scraping and digging on the part of the troop, for of course there was no track whatever. In some parts the snow was less deep, and the great rocks around us were so thickly covered with a fleecy mantle that no part of their original form was visible, while the tall heavy fir-trees seemed bowed almost to the ground by the weight on their branches. Enormous icicles of every form and shape, hung pendent from the rocks, and in the already fading light assumed innumerable shades of colour. Nothing could be more beautiful, nothing more wildly grand and sublime, than the scene; and, in spite of my fears, I found myself almost absorbed in intense admiration."

Descending from the mountain on the southern side, the change is almost magical. A very few hours' ride, and all trace of winter is gone. Barren peaks, plains of ice and snow, roaring torrents, and storm-swept ravines have all been left behind. Italy, with her fatal dower of beauty and fertility, has been reached.

"O Italy, how beautiful thou art!

Yet I could weep-for thou art lying, alas,
Low in the dust; and we admire thee now
As we admire the beautiful in death.

There is little difference between one small Italian town and another. They are all alike, dirty, picturesque, glowing with colour, reeking with evil odours, thronged with an indolent, gossipping, excitable population eager to take part in every bargain, or to give advice about every piece of work which is going forward. Domo d'Ossola may serve for fifty others, each of which has the same narrow colonnaded streets, and littered pavements, and Lombardic architecture, and shops filled with fruit and sausages, maccaroni and garlic; bits of colour and light and shade which fill an artist with rapture; and poverty, dirt, and dilapidation, which inspire a comfortable cleanly English paterfamilias with disgust.

Lady Morgan's description of Como is a photograph. "The interior of the town of Como," she says, "exhibits, dark, narrow, and filthy streets; churches, numerous, old and tawdry; some gloomy palaces of the Comasque nobles and dismantled dwellings of the Cittadini. The Duomo, founded in 1396, and constructed with marble from the neighbouring quarries, is its great feature. It stands happily with respect to the lake, but is surrounded with a small square of low, mouldering arcades and paltry little shops. Its baptistry is ascribed to Bramante; but the

BOATS ON LAGO MAGGIORE,

65

architecture is so mixed and semi-barbarous that it recalls the period when the arts began to revive in all the fantastic caprice of unsettled taste. Everywhere the elegant Gothic is mingled with the grotesque forms of ruder orders; and basso-relievos of monsters and nondescripts disfigure a façade, where light Gothic pinnacles are surmounted with golden crosses; while the fine-pointed arch and clustering columns contrast with staring saints and grinning griffins. . . . . The interior of this ancient edifice has all the venerable character of the remote ages in which it rose and was completed. But its spacious nave, Gothic arches, and lofty dome, its masses of dark marbles and deep-tinted frescoes, are contrasted with such offerings from the piety and gratitude of the Comasques, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring mountains, as would better suit the stalls of the Rue de Friperie, or the ware-rooms of Monmouth Street."

We may dismiss the Swiss-Italian lakes with almost equal brevity of description for a very different reason, however, to that which prompts brevity in our notice of the towns. The stock of adjectives and exclamations on hand is finite, and soon exhausted. The first bend of the lake we come to will absorb them all. Every beat of the paddles, every stroke of the oar, will bring up some new combination of beauty, but a repetition of the stock phrases of admiration could only weary the reader.

"So I sit still,

And let the boatman shift his little sail,

His sail so forkèd and so swallow-like,

Well pleased with all that comes. The morning air

Plays on my cheek how gently, flinging round

A silvery gleam. And now the purple mists
Rise like a curtain; now the sun looks out,
Filling, o'erflowing with his glorious light,
This noble amphitheatre of hills;

And now appears as on a phosphorous sea
Numberless barks, from Milan, from Pavia,
Some sailing up, some down, and some at rest,
Lading, unlading, at that small town

Under the promontory-its tall tower

And long flat roofs, just such as Gaspar drew,
Caught by a sunbeam slanting through a cloud;
A quay-like scene, glittering and full of life,
And doubled by reflection.*

Of the four principal lakes-Como, Lugano, Maggiore, and Orta-Orta is the smallest and, meo judice, the most beautiful. Each lake, however, has its peculiar and distinctive charm, and so much depends upon atmospheric effects, upon the passing shades of feeling in the tourist's mind, and innumerable other circumstances which make up the sum-total of enjoyment, so that it is difficult to express a preference which may be reversed at the next visit.