The cascade beyond this was the Pisse-vache. We stopt our horses here and alighted (the Pisse-vache is worth stopping your carriage to view,) and just as we ascended the rock over which it falls, an English gentleman and lady, whose carriage awaited them close by, were descending. I guessed, as the American has it, that these parties were newly married, and certainly there are more cheerless countries to pass a honey-moon in than Switzerland. I wished them happy and passed on. We were close to the bed of the fall, and looked up to the beauty of the descentbut, although much of it is visible to the spectator, not half of its real depth is discovered. It is altogether a fall of more than-I will not risk what-but content myself with generalising-it falls several hundred feet; and seen under the circumstances of our visit to it, enkindles an interest of that kind that is worth feeling, and worthy of being remembered after it is felt. Descending from the bed of the fall, we were accosted by several petits marchands, and solicited to buy specimens of the mineral of the country. The rogues however were so extravagantly roguish that we declined purchase, and I plucked a flower instead. I hoard this, and shall not forget when I look upon it, that as we re-ascended our calesche, the rock, the body of water, and the sun just then shining upon them, gave us all the colours of the rainbow, and all its beauty too! The Rhone rolled to our right, and not far onward we reached the little village of Mieville. The base of the rock on both sides of the road was beautifully wooded.

We had passed very near to the spot where fell the avalanche the night we arrived at CHAMOUNI. There are two kinds of avalanche-one, sudden and terrible, carries away all before it, and on one occasion, destroyed

dwelling, stables, and fifteen horses. The other, less fatal as it is more gradual in its progress, consists rather of a heavy drift of snow than a solid body of it. Against this kind however activity of movement is necessary. On one occasion a gentleman crossing the Simplon in company with his courier, was obliged to "cut and run." The horses were separated from the carriage, and they and the travellers escaped, but the carriage remained blocked up for two days. Over the dry bed of a torrent that at some seasons tells most audibly its own tale, we passed to ST. MAURICE. The road had been almost a regular descent the whole way from MARTIGNY. The egress from ST. MAURICE is very narrow. It is a defile formed by the rock on one side and a wall on the other. At the end of it stands the castle overlooking the bridge across the Rhone, on the farther side of which we were to enter the Canton de Vaud. At this bridge a gen d'arme of the republic did us the honour to enquire for our passports, which were delivered for his inspection. This gave us time to look upon the Rhone, which runs here very beautifully in its prettiest hue; and we had also leisure to contemplate the cupola that surmounted the gate through which we passed. It stands on the bridge and increases the picturesque of the scene. How desirable are a few minutes of occasional leisure! We had further time. given to us by this stoppage to contemplate the whole landscape. Behind us was the town of Bex-to our left the perpendicular rocks-close to us the castle and bridge, and the ceaseless murmuring of the river, which, did he rest here awhile, might soon lull the traveller to reposeand on our right the house of office wherein was then pending the all important question, whether three English tra

vellers possessed the proper qualifications to pass from one canton of the free republic of Switzerland to another! This sort of stoppage one does not care about; because to an Englishman who loves change it is novelty: and yet on the whole I think I prefer being at liberty to go where I please and when I please, as we are graciously permitted to do in England. The motto on the cap of the gen d'arme promised well and sounded high." For liberty and the country." Our passports at length passed the ordeal, and we proceeded through a fertile valley amidst romantic rocks, and by the side of the Rhone, till we reached the pretty and prettily-situated town of Bex. Quite ready for our breakfast, we alighted at the Hotel de l'Union, at nine, and the first impression we received there was, that it formed a very agreeable contrast to the Hotel de Cigne of last night. It was neat and excellent in its accommodations. Our breakfast was good as the appetite that relished it; and the people were as civil as, and much cleaner than, those yesterday attendant upon us at MARTIGNY. It is the duty of a traveller to look about him, especially of one whose time is short and whose opportunities, unless he be active, are few. We walked out and passed a man busy skinning a marmot of the mountain which he had just shot. He said it was excellent eating-but some naturalists say that it induces vomiting, and if so it cannot, one would think, be very desirable food. The marmot sleeps or remains torpid during winter.

J

The church is with me one of the first objects of attention or the church-yard. The inscription over the entrance to the church of ВEx attracted my notice.

"O Eternel!

"Exauce les prieres de ton peuple."

This was a solemn and appropriate appeal-well fitted to the place I found it in. But it was hard to control risibility when, looking up, I saw it surmounted by a ludicrous many-coloured representation of two dragons' heads which terminated the water-spouts from the roof!

"What business had they there at such a time?”

The market-place of BEx is small but well and compactly built. Like other market-places, it afforded various materials for the perusal of the idler or the passer-by. Amongst other notices was one that set forth a complaint against the mischievous increase of billiard tables, and prohibited all new ones except by permission first had and obtained, au Counseil d'Etat." In the well-built

square near the market-place is a fountain and large cistern, at which were several women engaged in the necessary occupation of washing. They were shaded by a lovely weeping willow that overhung the cistern and that might have sheltered handsomer but perhaps not honester members of the sex. But I must not forget other notices that courted our perusal, of taxes on timber-moveables— saddle-horses carriages-lands-parchments legacy duty and provisions. A new sect of religionists had also sprung up that seemed to have created some alarm. All meetings of members were prohibited-their immediate dissolution was decreed; and certain penalties or punishments were declared consequent on presiding at any of their meetings. Pecuniary fine six hundred francs-imprisonment and hard labour one year. What this sect was, or what were its dangerous tenets, the proclamation did not condescend to inform us; and this appeared to me rather singular in a republic, and that republic the land of William Tell.

At Bex we were still above a thousand feet higher than the level of the sea. We left it at ten o'clock * and proceeded on our way somewhat incommoded by the roughness of the road and the excessive heat of the sun. A mile or two from Bex the church of Olon, situated on the side of the hill, reminded me of Rogers's lines

"The village-church among the trees

"Where first our marriage vows were given ;"

and the clouds seeming to labour up the mountains reminded me of the labour of him whose doom it was to roll a stone up the hill only that it might roll down again. Their task thought I is sisyphean. I remember yesterday the Col-de-Balme. May they get up safely!

Near the village of Aigle a few thriving vineyards clothed the slope of the hill; and the narrow torrent we crossed held its course for some time parallel with our road. Its banks were fringed and shaded by a long row of fine trees.

There is a rock of fine marble a short distance before you enter BENAZ, very similar and not very superior to some of our Devonshire marbles. Near to BENAZ was a delightful country dwelling-a fountain threw up its refreshing waters in front of it, which fell again into a basin surrounded by a bed of the choicest flowers. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house nor" his garden, came opportunely to my aid here; and I passed on without coveting either.

* The harness attached to our calesche was after the English make, except the traces of rope. A German gentleman, travelling side by side with us, had traces of leather-they were the first I had seen.