Alpine Life and Scenery.

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ventions of his weapon. No one connected with the Elsmith Engine Works has gone into foreign service; and even though artificers had done so, none of them are competent to give information on a subject which is within the breast of Sir William Armstrong alone.

'In native swords and native ranks,' armed with the Enfield, the Whitworth, and the Lancaster rifle, and encompassed with the wooden and also with the iron walls of old England, we may bid defiance to any invader, or to any combination or confederation that may be formed against us, still preserving our laws, our constitution, our liberties, and our religion intact against all despots, against all liberticides, against all the enemies of free expression and free thought, whether military, civil, or ecclesiastical.

ART. IV. (1.) The Italian Valleys of the Pennine Alps: a Tour through all the romantic and less-frequented Vals' of Northern Piedmont, from the Tarentaise to the Gries. By the Rev. S. W. KING, M.A., F.R.G.S. London: John Murray.

(2.) A Lady's Tour round Monte Rosa; with Visits to the Italian Valleys of Anzasca, Mastalone, Camasco, Sesia, Lys, Challant, Aosta, and Cogne. In a Series of Excursions in the Years 185056-58. London: Longman and Co.

(3.) Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers. A Series of Excursions by Members of the Alpine Club. Edited by JOHN BALL, M.R.I.A., F.L.S., 'President of the Alpine Club. London: Longman and Co.

THE season is now close at hand when Paterfamilias is called upon to decide the annual question of the autumn tour. There are clamorous voices ringing in his ears, holding sprightly contest upon the respective attractions of the German Spas, Switzerland, Italy (North and South), France, and the Pyrenees. Maps are spread out, handbooks explored, routes discussed, and wardrobes inspected. The din of preparation pervades every corner of the household. Now little parties are forming to start together, or in different directions, with strict engagements to meet on a certain day at a certain place-in Paris, Geneva, Vienna, or, perhaps, amongst the châlets of Savoy, or the vineyards of the Rhine. Now the vigorous pedestrian, full of a fresh excursion into the heart of the Alps, refreshes his memory from his old notes, almost obliterated by frequent reference; and having

nearly made up his mind as to the when and the where, he next proceeds to investigate his touring costume and appurtenances, which, being an experienced hand, he knows how to reduce to the lowest practical minimum, and to pack into the smallest possible compass. There stands in the corner the identical alpenstock to which he is indebted for much timely help in moments of peril, and which is crusted over with memories of Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and fifty other giants of the ice regions. He snatches it up with an air of delight, balances it for a second in his hand, and, finding it as strong, light, and serviceable as. ever, puts it back again, not quite unconscious of a throb of pleasure that vividly recalls the thrill he has often felt when breasting the mountain's side. The well-worn knapsack is overhauled, and its future contents are settled with a forethought that neither omits anything that is requisite, nor suffers an inch of room to be occupied by anything superfluous. The cap or bonnet, Glengarry or Wide-awake, and the suit of plaid, or other material combining lightness, airiness, and warmth, being disposed of, the last and most important item of all remains the foot-gear, halfshoe, half-boot, laced loosely with a broad tongue up the instep, and supported by a sole at least a clear inch thick, glittering over with bright knobs of great flattened nails. These mighty shoes have been locked up since last year, and the upper-leather is as dry and stiff as pasteboard; but the soles are sound, there is not a stitch gone, and the iron with which they are literally shod is as firm as granite. They require nothing for the great journey but nourishment, and they are accordingly handed over to the valet with careful instructions that they shall be kept steeped in oil till they are wanted. Other, and very different classes and kinds of men, are getting ready for excursions more or less remote. Invalids are beginning to think seriously of Homburg, or Vichy, or Baden. Literary tourists, antiquaries, artists, or lovers of art, and people who seek only pleasure and excitement, and pastures new in the shape of the most recent hotels and table-d'hôtes, are picking up information from all manner of books and all manner of men concerning particular localities. One has a strong notion of trying Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, but has not yet obtained an exact programme as to how the whole of Scandinavia is to be done in a month; a second is for Styria, where he hopes to gather some inedited facts about arsenic, considered as an indispensable article of food; and a third, having set his heart upon Brittany, has his head full of smoky picturesque hovels, seaboard superstitions, and the Stones of Carnac.

The picture would admit of considerable enlargement; but we

Continent closed to Tourists.

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are afraid that, even without further expansion, it is already open to a serious objection. It has not a particle of foundation in fact. It is purely an imaginative sketch. It might have applied with sufficient accuracy to the England of last year, or the year before, or any other year for the last quarter of a century, or more; but it has no longer the slightest application to any known existing state of things in this country. There is no Paterfamilias from Land's End to John-o'-Groat's exposed to the entreaties of clambering daughters, endeavouring to coax him into a tour. There are no maps spread out for inspection, no handbooks explored, no wardrobes inspected. The vigorous pedestrian twirling his alpenstock, and examining his Alpine shoes, is a myth; and the pleasure hunters and littérateurs, the artists and antiquaries, if they are thinking of an expedition for the autumn, are certainly not looking in the direction of the Continent. Nous avons changé tout cela, if we may venture upon a quotation that has become petrified into a sort of proverb.

There is hardly a spot of earth, over which, in the accessible parts of Europe, tourists were wont to range with feelings of enjoyment and security, that is not now liable to be blown up at a moment's notice, or without any notice at all. France is not felt to be safe, for nobody can ealculate from hour to hour what may, or may not, happen. there. Germany, being placed on a war footing, and bristling over with bayonets even in its most peaceful recesses, is not in a favourable condition to receive visitors. Switzerland and Italy are closed. The valleys on both sides of the Alps ring with war's alarums,' trumpet and drum, the roar of artillery, and the clatter of troops, defiling through the Passes, or mustering for the protection of the scattered population. From the Italian foot of the Simplon, down past the once tranquil waters of the Lago Maggiore, and through the vineyards of the Sesia to the margin of the Po, foreign legions have carried fire and slaughter, and, which is hardly less oppressive to the poor sybarites who dwell therein, levied ruinous contributions. Warned off these grounds by scarecrows more efficacious than agricultural strategy ever devised to frighten birds, the suppressed traveller must either limit his excursions for the present to his own country, or be content for once to accomplish the grand tour in his arm-chair. Let him follow Herrick's advice, and, sitting at ease, sail securely in his map :

"Seeing those painted countries, and so guess,

NO. LIX.

By those fine shades, their substances;

And from his compass taking small advice,
He may buy travel at the lowest price."

G

It is provoking enough that the Passes and Valleys of the Alps should be brought prominently before us at a time when, to say the least of our difficulty, it would be extremely inconvenient to visit them. The practical function of books of travel, full of observation and description, and bright with maps and pictures, is to stimulate a love of adventure in their readers; but it is of little use to awaken a taste for wandering abroad, when prudence compels us to stay at home. Nevertheless, sermons may be had from stones, and the narratives of travellers abound in details of life and scenery from which he who stays at home may extract ample entertainment and instruction. All that is required, then, of the reader is, that he should settle himself comfortably in his library lounge, and we will transport him on the instant into the heart of the Alps.

In the grey light of a crisp morning we leave Geneva, on our way through the wonderful vale of Maglan, and on past Sallenches and St. Gervais, to Chamouni, where from the windows of our hotel we gaze up straight into the clouds at the peak of Mont Blanc. The place is familiar to everybody, and we jot it down merely to indicate a certain line of country with which, we take it for granted, most tourists are acquainted. Up to this point our route has lain through Savoy. Ascending the Alps at the extremity of the Valley of Chamouni, by the pass of the Tête Noir or the Col de Balme, we enter that part of Switzerland which is known as the Valais. We are now in the Valley of the Rhone, with that irregular ridge of the Pennine Alps on our right hand, which may be described as beginning with the Mont Blanc cluster in the west, and terminating high up in the northeast with the Gries Glacier, which looks back from its frozen height upon the sunny plains of Piedmont. The Rhone valley runs along the whole of this region, north of the Pennine ridge; but it is not with that side of the mountains we are at present concerned, but with the opposite, or southern side, where the Alps descend into Italy. The Pennine Alps form the natural boundary between Piedmont and Switzerland. They embrace some of the most famous spots, famous alike for their grandeur and their traditions. The Great St. Bernard, Mont Cervin, Monte Rosa, belong to this range. It was over these mountains, according to some authorities, that Hannibal crossed into Italy; it was upon the crests of these all but inaccessible heights the Romans established a highway to remoter conquests; here, too, the French artillery swept all obstacles before them on their victorious progress to Marengo; and the pass of the Simplon, in spite of a thousand desolating avalanches, remains a lasting memorial of the genius of Napoleon. This vast chain of moun

tains, allowing for considerable irregularity in the outline, may be loosely represented by a bent bow, within the semicircle of which lies the flat pestilential basin of the valley of the Rhone, the outer side being marked in all directions by deep vals or glens, through which runlets and torrents, formed by the melting of the upper snows, rush down into the fields and vineyards, and, uniting their waters below, form the principal rivers of the kingdom of Sardinia. The valley of the Rhone, on the other side, is as well known as any of the common tracks over which processions of English have travelled yearly since the Peace; but the Italian glens of the Pennine range are comparatively untrodden by our countrymen. A few adventurers have wandered into the Allée Blanche, at the eastern base of Mont Blanc, or made their way to Turin by Aosta or Chatillon, or pushed on to the Mutterhorn or Monte Rosa; but the greater part of the vals, especially those running close up to the Alps, out of the way of the usual routes, have seldom been explored. It is to this network of rifts and gorges the Rev. Mr. King's volume is entirely devoted. With signal perseverance and success, he made the tour of nearly all the vals, not satisfied with tracing them as far as he could find house accommodation for himself and his wife, who accompanied him, but frequently penetrating far beyond the last vestiges of a châlet, till, barred from further progress by precipices or glaciers, he found himself in savage solitudes rarely disturbed before except by the scream of wild birds, or the foot of the chamois or the chasseur.

Mr. King's track on the map resembles the trail of a fly travelling backwards and forwards, up and down, and round about, over a sheet of paper. He starts from the Great St. Bernard by the Col de Serena for Courmayeur, then round by the Allée Blanche to the Little St. Bernard, and back again to Courmayeur, from whence he descends to Aosta, where preparations are made for what may be considered the commencement of the exploring expedition. Passing over the neighbourhood of Mont Blanc as familiar ground, the first experience we have of the less-frequented scenery and rough life of the mountains is in the Val Pellina, which our travellers ascend to Prezayen. From this remote point, dropping down to the Col de Versonez, we are carried over to the Val Tournanche, the head of which brings us up to the Theodule Pass close to the Mutterhorn; and from thence we descend into a network of glens, large and small, the bare enumeration of which would fill half a page, rnnning in and out at the base of the Pennine range, until at last we emerge into the pleasant orchards of the Val Sesia, and the trellised gardens of the Val D'Ossolo, ascending once more through well-known haunts,