HOSPITAL OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.
The mountain called the Great St. Bernard is remarkable for its monastery, called the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard, which is near one of the most dangerous passes of the Alps. "In these regions," says a writer on the subject, "the traveller is often overtaken by the most severe weather, even after days of cloudless beauty, when the glaciers glitter in the sunshine, and the pink flowers of the dwarf Rhododendron appear as if they were never to be sullied by the tempest. But a storm suddenly comes on, the roads are rendered impassable by drifts of snow, and the avalanches sweep the valleys, carrying trees and crags of rock before them. In these storms the hospitable monks, though their revenue is scanty, open their door to every stranger that presents himself. But their attention to the distressed does not end here. They devote themselves to the dangerous task of searching for those unhappy persons who may have been overtaken by the avalanches or the sudden storms, and would perish but for their charitable succour. Most remarkably are they assisted in these truly Christian offices. They have a breed of noble dogs in their establishment, whose extraordinary sagacity often enables them to rescue the traveller from destruction by searching for, and discovering them, even when they have been buried in the snow."
ROADS OVER MONT CENIS AND THE SIMPLON.
As it is necessary to pass over the Alps to travel by land from France into Savoy and Italy, it is of great importance to render the journey as easy as possible. Before the time of Napoleon, travellers were generally carried over the mountains in chairs, or on mules; but in 1805 Napoleon ordered a winding road for carriages to be constructed over Mont Cenis, which is thirty miles long, and eighteen feet wide. The road over the Simplon, from Valais to Piedmont, is thirty-six miles long, and twenty-five feet wide throughout; and it is nowhere too steep to be passed by the heaviest waggons. "It is carried over steep precipices, and through six galleries hewn in the rocks. Some of these passages are several hundred paces in length, and are lighted by openings. From them you step into lovely valleys, adorned with cottages, and see above them dark forests of pine, glaciers, and peaks covered with snow shining in the blue sky. Bridges are thrown over tremendous precipices, from one mountain to the other. The Italian side offers a more beautiful spectacle than the Swiss, because the rocks are steeper. The grande galerie is 683 feet long, entirely excavated in granite, called the gallery of Frissinone, from the rivulet, which forms a splendid cascade near it. The road commences a mile westward from the Brieg, and leads over the Saltina bridge. It then goes through a beautiful grove of larch trees to the first gallery, and then over another bridge, eighty paces in length, to Persal. Here begin precipices and avalanches, on account of which the road has many windings. At the galerie des glaciers the growth of trees ceases, and the road rises to an immense height above the Lago Maggiore, or almost 6000 feet above the level of the sea. At this point stands a hospitium for travellers; and four miles farther on lies the village of Simplon. Shortly after this the territory of Valais terminates near the chapel, the first Italian village being St. Marco." There are other roads across the Alps, but these are the most important; and as roads are the work of man, even these would not have been mentioned in the present work, which is only intended to include the wonders of nature, had not the natural peculiarities of the country been so decidedly taken advantage of in forming them.
THE PYRENEES.
The Pyrenees form a chain of mountains which divide Spain from France, almost in a straight line; and extend from the shores of the Mediterranean to St. Sebastian in the Bay of Biscay. The length of the Pyrenees from east to west is about 250 miles; and their breadth, though it varies considerably, may be averaged at sixty miles. The appearance presented by the Pyrenees is extremely imposing. When viewed from the neighbourhood of Toulouse, which is near the centre of the range, they seem to form one single mountain, increasing in height towards the east, but broken into summits of various forms and characters. The aspect of the mountains changes, however, considerably in different states of the atmosphere; and during the prevalence of west and north-west winds they are shrouded in mist. "From the principal chain proceed various inferior ridges. The acclivity of the Pyrenees on the side of Spain, is often extremely steep, presenting a succession of rugged chasms, abrupt precipices, and huge masses of naked rock; on the side of France the ascent is more gradual." Among the celebrated mountains in this range may be mentioned Montserrat, celebrated for its monastery and curious hermitages. Mont Perdu is, however, generally considered the highest mountain of the range, and its summit is estimated by some writers to be more than 11,000 feet above the level of the sea. The Pyrenees contain a great number of valleys, which present a succession of basins or small lakes. These lakes "are formed by the mountains which border the valley receding from the banks of the river, and leaving a circular hollow, where there is so slight an acclivity that the stream undulates slowly, until at the extremity of the basin, where it resumes its original character, and runs through the gorges of the mountains, and dashes over their precipices. These basins are in general considerably elevated above each other, and are joined together by narrow and deep ravines, rapidly inclined plains, or by a slope of rock, so very perpendicular, that the river dashing over forms a cataract from the basin above to that beneath." Thunder storms are very frequent in these mountains, and have a remarkably grand effect. The Pyrenees also abound in mineral springs, some of which are said to have effected wonderful cures. There are upwards of 100 passages for pedestrians, and seven for carriages over these mountains, between France and Spain. The valley of Campan is considered the most beautiful part of the Pyrenees; but it is chiefly inhabited by an unfortunate race of men called Cagots, resembling the Cretins of the Alps. These people are thin and pale in appearance, and generally mutilated or lamed in some manner from the accidents to which they are continually subject among the rocks. In former ages they were shut out from society as lepers, and abhorred as heretics and cannibals! Their feet were bored with an iron, and they were forced to wear an egg-shell on their clothes by way of distinction. The name of Cagot is derived by some authors from canis guttus, dog's-dish, in proof of the detestation in which they are held. "Opinions are much divided with regard to the origin of this miserable race, living in the midst of a highly cultivated people. The most plausible conjecture is that which derives them from some northern barbarians, who migrated into the south of Europe in the third or fourth century."
GERMAN MOUNTAINS.
The southern part of Germany is either covered with, or penetrated by, steep mountains, one part of which extends from the Alps, and the other from the Carpathian range. These mountains gradually diminish in size as they advance northward; and from the last of them, the Hartz, which is on the confines of Hanover, begins a vast plain which extends over the north of Germany, through Prussia and Poland, and over a considerable part of Russia. The loftiest mountains of Germany are those which spring from the great mass of the Alps; but the highest of them (the Ortel) is less than 15,000 feet in height.
The Hartz forms a separate mountainous chain, seventy miles in length, and from twenty to thirty miles in breadth. This mountain range spreads through an extent of country containing forty towns, and numerous villages, with 56,000 inhabitants, belonging principally to Hanover. The Hartz is divided into the upper and lower; the Brocken, the loftiest mountain of the chain, forming the line of separation; the upper Hartz lying to the west, and the lower to the east of the Brocken. The same summit is also the dividing point of the rivers, those on the east emptying themselves into the Elbe, and those on the west into the Weser. The Brocken is not quite 3,500 feet high, and it is covered with wood up to the summit, though, from the rock being entirely of granite, and the surface soil very thin, the firs dwindle into dwarf trees which bear the marks of decrepit old age. Both the upper and lower Hartz abound in mines; but the most curious part of the whole range of mountains, is a wide plain on the summit of the Brocken, which the country people believe to be "the place of the annual rendezvous of all the witches and spirits of Germany, and of which Goethe has made such a noble use in his Faust. It is on the Brocken, also, that the wild huntsman of the Hartz is supposed to dwell. The spectre of the Brocken is an image of the spectator, of a magnified and distorted shape, reflected from an opposite cloud under particular circumstances." The best time to see the spectre is in the month of September, about four o'clock in the afternoon. There are many curious caverns in these mountains, each of which has some remarkable story attached to it. Indeed, the whole country may be considered the region of enchantment and every hill, glen, and wood has been the theatre of some supernatural legend.
BRITISH MOUNTAINS.
The mountains of Great Britain and Ireland are by no means numerous, and they are very inferior in size to those of the continent.
The most important chain of mountains in England extends from the Scottish border and the Cheviots to the neighbourhood of Derby; and includes the Cumbrian mountains, and those of Northumberland, Yorkshire and Derbyshire. There are three passages over the Cumbrian mountains into Cumberland, but that by Ambleside is generally preferred, as being the wildest and the most picturesque. It forms a vista of mountains closed at the farther end by Wyburn lake; and of these mountains, the loftiest and most interesting is that called Helvellyn, which has been often celebrated both in poetry and prose, and which is thus described by Gilpin. "Of all the rude scenery we had yet visited, none equalled this in desolation. The whole is one immensity of barrenness. The mountains are universally overspread with crags, and stones, which are sometimes scattered carelessly over their surfaces; and sometimes appear shivering in cascades of crumbling fragments down their sides. Helvellyn, through all its space, is one entire pavement. Nor is the view disfigured by the abundance of this more ordinary species of rock. In its vastness the parts coalesce, and become a whole. The fractured rock; so beautiful in itself, is calculated rather for smaller pictures. Here it would be lost!" In another place he describes one of the lakes as surrounded by barren mountains and precipices, shelving into it in all directions. The height of Helvellyn is very trifling when compared with that of the loftier ranges of mountains; but it approaches that of the Brocken, being a little more than 3000 feet high. Crossfell, Conistonfell, and some other mountains in this range vary from 2000 to 3000 feet in height.
Skiddaw is another celebrated mountain belonging to this range; but Gilpin informs us that "it has none of those bold projections, and of that shaggy majesty about it, which we expected to have seen in this king of mountains. It is a tame inanimate object; except at such a distance as smooths the embossed work of all these rich fabrics; and where its double top makes it a distinguished object to mark and characterise a landscape."