un autre chemin, mais c'est dangereux-c'est un mauvais pas ! Avez vous bonne tête." As the correctness of any answer to the conclusion of this address depended much upon divers particulars, and certain other data, which it behoved me to know, I begged him to describe a little more at large the precise nature of this Mauvais Pas, the ominous term recalling in an instant the words I had heard from the traveller the night before.

The result of my enquiry was very vague. That it was high amongst the mountains, and somewhat distant, there could be no doubt. That, in order to get to it, we must return, and cross the river below, where, being wider, it might still be forded, were also preliminary steps. The heights on the right were, in the next place, to be gained, and that by no very inviting path, as I could see; but these were not objections calculated to deter me from proceeding, and wherein the real difficulty consisted I could not distinctly discover. "Is, then, this Mauvais Pas much more steep and difficult than the ascent which you have pointed out amongst those rocks on the right ?"-"Oh, no," was the reply; " it is not steep at all; it is on a dead level."-" Is it, then very fatiguing?"-"Oh, no; it is by no means fatiguing; the ascent which you see before you, is by far the most fatiguing part of the whole route.""Is it, then, dangerous, owing to broken fragments of rock, or slippery grass?" for I had heard them mutter something about slipping. "Oh, no; it was on hard solid rock; and, as for grass, there was not a blade upon it. It required but une bonne tête, car si on glisse, on est perdu!" This winding up was certainly neither encouraging nor satisfactory; but having so repeatedly heard the danger of these mountain passes magnified, and their difficulties exaggerated, and the vague information above mentioned, saving and except the definitive result, being by no means in itself appalling, I expressed my readiness to try this path, if they had made up their minds to guide me. To this they consented; and preparations were instantly made; "for," added they, "the day is waning, and you will find there is much to be done."

We remounted the horses, and has tened back about a mile to a wide part of

the river, which we succeeded in fording without much inconvenience; and soon after left them at a spot from whence they could be sent for at leisure. We then turned again to the eastward, and soon reached the foot of the heights on the left bank of the river, forming the barrier which had checked us on the other side. Up there we proceeded to mount, pressing onwards through brake and brier, boughs and bushes, to the summit of the ridge. During this part of the task, I endeavoured to pick up further particulars respecting the winding up of our adventure; but all I could learn was, that, in consequence of the suspension of all communication in the valleys below, by the destruction of the roads and bridges, a chamois-hunter had, since the catastrophe, passed over this path, and that some work-people, on their way to repair the bridges, finding it practicable, had done the same; but that it had never before been used as a regular communication, and certainly never would again, as none, but from sheer necessity, would ever think of taking advantage of it. But, by way of neutralising any unfavourable conclusions I might draw from these representations, they both added, that, from what they then saw of my capabilities in the art of climbingfor the road, here and there, required some trifling exertion-they were sure I should do very well, and had no reason to fear. Thus encouraged, I proceeded with confidence; and, in the course of rather more than an hour's sharp ascent, we attained a more level surface in the bosom of a thick forest of pine and underwood, fronted, as far as I could guess from occasional glimpses through gaps and intervals, by a grey dull curtain of bare rock. "We are approaching the Mauvais Pas," said one of the guides.

"Is it as rough as this?" said I, floundering as I was through hollows of loose stones and bushes.-" Oh, no; it is smooth as a floor," was the reply." In a few minutes we shall be on the Pas," said the other, as we began to descend on the eastern declivity of the ridge we had been mounting for the last hour. And then, for the first time, I saw below me the valleys of the Drance spread forth like a map, and that it required but half-adozen steps at most to have cleared

every impediment to my descending amongst them, in an infinitely shorter time than I had expended in mounting to the elevated spot from whence I looked down upon them. And then, too, for the first time, certain misgivings, as to the propriety of going further, and a shrewd guess as to the real nature of the Mauvais Pas, flashed across me, in one of those sudden heart-searching thrills, so perfectly defined in the single word creblinga provincial term, expressing that creeping, paralyzing, twittering, palpitating sort of sensation, which a nervous person might be supposed to feel, if, in exploring a damp and dark dungeon, he placed his hand unadvisedly upon some cold and clammy substance, which his imagination might paint as something too horrible to look at.

But whatever were the force and power of these feelings, it was not now the time to let them get the master ship. It was too late to retract-I had gone too far to recede. It would have been unpardonable to have given two Swiss guides an opportunity of publishing throughout the cantons, that an Englishman had flinched, and feared to set his foot where a foreign traveller had trod the day before. On then I went, very uncomfortable, I will candidly confess, but aided and impelled, notwithstanding, by that instinctive sort of wish, common, I believe, to all people, to know the worst in extreme cases. Curiosity, too, had its share not merely excited by the ultimate object for which I was about to venture myself in mid air, but a secret desire to see with my own eyes a pass which had so suddenly and unexpectedly assumed importance in my fate. And after all, though there were very unequivocal symptoms of something terrible in the immediate vicinage of the undefined grey skreen of rock before me, I had as yet no certainty of its appalling realities.

For a furlong or two no great change was perceptible; there was a plentiful supply of twigs and shrubs to hold by, and the path was not by any means alarming. In short, I began to shake off all uneasiness, and smile at my imaginary fears, when, on turning an angle, I came to an abrupt termination of every thing bordering on twig, bough, pathway, or greensward; and the Mauvais Pas, in all its fearfulness, glared upon me! For a foreground,

(if that could be called a foreground, separated, as it was, by a gulf of some fathoms wide,) an unsightly facing of unbroken precipitous rock bearded me on the spot from whence I was to take my departure, jutting out sufficiently to conceal whatever might be the state of affairs on the other side, round which it was necessary to pass by a narrow ledge like a mantel-piece, on which the first guide had now placed his foot. The distance, however, was inconsiderable, at most, a few yards, after which, I fondly conjectured we might rejoin a pathway similar to that we were now quitting, and that, in fact, this short but fearful trajet constituted the substance and sum-total of what so richly deserved the title of the Mauvais Pas. "Be firm; hold fast, and keep your eye on the rock," said the guide, as I, with my heart in my mouth, stept out" Is my foot steadily fixed?"-" It is," was the answer; and, with my eyes fixed upon the rock, as if it would have opened under my gaze, and my hands hooked like claws on the slight protuberances within reach, I stole silently and slowly towards the projection, almost without drawing a breath. Having turned this point, and still found myself proceeding, but to what degree, and whether for better or worse, I could not exactly ascertain, as I most pertinaciously continued to look upon the rock, mechanically moving foot after foot with a sort of dogged perseverance, leaving to the leading guide the pleasing task, which I most anxiously expected every moment, of as suring me that the deed was done, and congratulating me on having passed the Mauvais Pas. But he was silent as the grave-not a word escaped his lips; and on, and on, and on did we tread, slowly, cautiously, and hesitatingly, for about ten minutes, when I became impatient to learn the extent of our progress, and enquired whether we had nearly reached the other end. "Pas encore."-"Are we half way?"

"A peu près," were the replies. Gathering up my whole stock of presence of mind, I requested that we might pause a while, and then, as I deliberately turned my head, the whole of this extraordinary and frightful scenery revealed itself at a glance. Conceive an amphitheatre of rock forming, throughout, a bare, barren, perpendicular precipice, of I knew

not how many hundred feet in height, the two extremities diminishing in altitude as they approached the Drance, which formed the chord of this arc; that on our left constituting the barrier which had impeded our progress, and which we had just ascended. From the point where we had stepped upon the ledge, quitting the forest and underwood, this circular face of precipice commenced, continuing, without intermission, till it united itself with its corresponding headland on the right. The only communication between the two being along a ledge in the face of the precipice, varying in width from about a foot to a few inches; the surface of the said ledge, moreover, assuming the form of an inclined plane, owing to an accumulation of small particles of rock, which had, from time immemòrial, shaled from the heights above, and lodged on this slightly projecting shelf. The distance, from the time taken to pass it, I guessed to be not far short of a quarter of a mile. At my foot, literally speaking, (for it required but a semiquaver of the body, or the loosening of my hold, to throw the centre of gravitation over the abyss,) were spread the valleys of the Drance, through which I could perceive the river meandering like a silver thread; but, from the height at which I looked down, its rapidity was invisible, and its hoarse brawling unheard. The silence was absolute and solemn ; for, fortunately, not a zephyr fanned the air, to interfere with my precarious equilibrium.

There was no inducement for the lesser birds of the field to warble where we were, and the lammer-geyers and the eagles, if any had their eyries amidst these crags, were revelling in the banquet of desolation below. As I look ed upon this awfully magnificent scene, a rapid train of thoughts succeeded each other. I felt as if I was contemplating a world I had left, and which I was never again to revisit; for it was impossible not to be keenly impressed with the idea, that something fatal might occur within the space of the next few minutes, effectually preventing my return thither as a living be ing. Then, again, I saw before me the forms and figures of many I had left-some a few hours, some a few weeks before. Was I to see them

again or not? The question again

and again repeated itself, and the oftener, perhaps, from a feeling of presumption I experienced in even whispering to myself that I decidedly should. "Si on glisse, on est perdu!" how horribly forcible and true did these words now appear,-on what a slender thread was life held! A trifling deviation in the position of a foot, and it was over. I had but to make one single step in advance, and I was in another state of existence. Such were a few of the mental feelings which suggested themselves, but others of a physical nature occurred. I had eat nothing since leaving the old convent, and the keen air on the mountains had so sharpened my appetite, that by the time I had reached the summit we had just quitted, I felt not only a good deal exhausted, but extremely hungry. But hunger, thirst, and fatigue, followed me not on the ledge. A feast would have had no charm, and miles upon a level road would have been as nothing. Every sense seemed absorbed in getting to the end; and yet, in the midst of this unenviable position, a trifling incident occurred, which actually, for the time, gave rise to something of a pleasurable sensation. About midway I espied, in a chink of the ledge, the beautiful and dazzling blossom of the little gentiana nivalis, and, stopping the guides while I gathered it, I expressed great satisfaction in meeting with this lovely little flower on such a lonely spot. And I could scarcely help smiling at the simplicity of these honest people, who, from that moment, whenever the difficulties increased, endeavoured to divert my attention, by pointing out or looking for another specimen. We had proceeded good part of the way, when, to my dismay, the ledge, narrow as it was, became perceptibly narrower, and, at the distance of a yard or two in advance, I observed a point where it seemed to run to nothing, interrupted by a protuberant rock. I said nothing, waiting the result in silence. The guide before me, when he reached the point, threw one foot round the projection, till it was firmly placed, and holding on the rock, then brought up the other.-What was I to do? Like Arthur Philipson's guide, Antonio, I could only say, "I was no goat-hunter, and had no wings to transport me from cliff to cliff like a raven."-"I cannot perform that feat,"

said I to the guide; "I shall miss the invisible footing on the other side, and -then!"-They were prepared for the case; one of them happened to have a short staff; this was handed forward, and formed a slight rail, while the other, stooping down, seized my foot, and placing it in his hand, answered, "Tread without apprehension, it will support you firmly as the rock itself; be steady-go on." I did so, and regained the ledge once more in safety. The possible repetition of such an exploit was not by any means to my taste, and I ventured to question the foremost guide as to the chance of its recurrence, and the difficulties yet in store. Without pretending to disguise them, he proceeded to dilate upon the portion of our peregrination still in reserve, when the other interrupted him impatiently, and in French, instead of Patois, (forgetting, in his anxiety to enjoin silence, that I understood every word he uttered,) exclaimed, "Not a word more, I entreat you. Speak not to him of danger; this is not the place to excite alarm; it is our business to cheer and animate;" and in the true spirit of his advice, he immediately pointed to a bunch of little gentians, exclaiming, "Eh, donc, qu'elles sont jolies! Regardez ces charmantes fleurs!" Long before I had accomplished half the distance, and had formed a correct opinion as to what remained in hand, the propriety of turning back had more than once suggested itself; but on looking round, the narrowness of the shelf already passed presented so revolting an appearance, that what with the risk to be incurred in the very act of turning about, and forming any thing like a pirouette in my present position, added to an almost insurmountable unwillingness to recede, for the reasons above mentioned, and the chance that, as it could not well be worse, the remainder might possibly be better, I decided on going on, estimating every additional inch as a valuable accession of space, with a secret proviso, however, in my own mind, that nothing on earth should induce me to return the same way, notwithstanding the declaration of the guides that they knew of no other line, unless a bridge, which was impassable yesterday, had been made passable to-day; and we knew the people were at work, for a man had gone before us with an axe over his shoulder.

Thus persevering with the speed of a tortoise or a sloth, the solemn slow movements of hand and foot forcibly reminding me of that cautious animal, we at last drew near to a more acute point in the curve of this gaunt amphitheatre, where it bent forward towards the river, and consequently we were more immediately fronted by the precipice forming the continuation of that on which we stood. By keeping my head obliquely turned inwards, I had hitherto in great measure avoided more visual communication than I wished with the bird's-eye prospect below; but there was no possibility of excluding the smooth bare frontage of rock right ahead. There it reared itself from the clods beneath to the clouds above, without outward or visible sign of fret or fissure, as far as I could judge, on which even a chamois could rest its tiny hoof; for the width of whatever ledge it might have was diminished, by the perspective view we had of it, to Euclid's true definition of a mathematical line, namely, length without breadth. At this distance of time, I have no very clear recollection of the mode of our exit, and cannot speak positively as to whether we skirted any part of this perilous wall of the Titans, or crept up through the corner of the curve by some fissure leading to the summit. I have, however, a very clear and agreeable recollection of the moment when I came in contact with a tough bough, which I welcomed and grasped as I would have welcomed and grasped the hand of the dearest friend I had upon earth, and by the help of which I, in a very few more seconds, scrambled upwards, and set my foot once more, without fear of slips or sliding, on a rough heathery surface, forming the bed of a ravine, which soon led us to an upland plateau, on which I stood as in the garden of paradise.

In talking over our adventure, one of the guides mentioned a curious circumstance that had occurred either to himself or a brother guide, I forget which, in the course of their practice. He was escorting a traveller over a rather dizzy height, when the unfortunate tourist's head failed, and he fainted on the spot. Whereupon the mountaineer, a strong muscular man, with great presence of mind, took up his charge, threw him over his shoulder, and coolly walked away with him