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rosy-gold tint of the icy crest was the more remarkable, after the eyes had been fixed some time on the cold white north side of the Graian Alps, and their enormously vast glaciers and snow-fields. Nothing can give the faintest idea of the majestic grandeur with which peak after peak upreared itself, as seen from such an altitude. One after another we recognised old friends, though their more familiar aspects were often changed from the novelty of our position with regard to them. The "Monarch of Mountains" and his attendant Aiguilles flanked it on the left, followed by the singular Dent du Géant, and the beautiful pyramids of the Grande and Petite Jorasse, the Aiguille Verte, and the Aiguilles Droites above the glacier of Triolet. Below them the mountains of the Col Ferret and the Great St. Bernard were seen in their duly diminished proportion. Behind these stretched a distant range, part of the Swiss Alps, perhaps the Dent du Midi; but the outline which I took at the time has a gap here for want of space, which I dared not afterwards fill up from memory. The next Pennine snow-peak was Mont Velan, the nearest to us in the whole chain, but far inferior in grandeur to the noble mass of Mont Combin further to the east, and nearly due north of our position. This mountain has recently been ascended; but the group of which it consists has not yet been investigated with the care that its interest deserves. The true north from us was about the Col de Chermontane and Mont Gelé; but from some cause, possibly magnetic disturbance or defective laying down of points, the maps and the compass disagreed.

A long line of snowy summits, the sources of our old acquaintance the great glacier of Chermontane, extended above the valley of Biona from Mont Gelé, including Mont Ottema, the Pointe du Glacier, and others, as yet undescribed and imperfectly known. Next were the famed Dent des Bouquetins, Mont Collon, the Dent Blanche, and the Dent d'Erin, springing from among some of the wildest glaciers in

the chain; succeeded by a brilliant array of icy spires-the snowy Château des Dames showing the termination of the Val Biona. But, above all others, the gigantic obelisk of Mont Cervin was by far the grandest and most remarkable object, in its solitary isolation and marvellous proportions. While we looked at it, it seemed actually to rise as its real magnitude became more appreciable. Such a view of this wondrous peak would of itself have repaid the toil of the ascent. The twin points of the Mischabel and Alphabel flanked it, and then the well-known Breithorn; and, last of all, the Lyskam and the "Queen of the Alps" herself. The peaks of Mont Emilius, just in front of us, intercepted a small portion of this part of the panorama; but we could distinguish easily the Vincent Pyramide, Signal Kuppe, Zumstein Spitze, and part of the Höchste Spitze. Mont Emilius, stated by Carrel to be 3593 mètres or 11,785 feet in height, was a fine object in itself. Glarey, who called it the Pointe de Vallaise, said he had been on its summit with the Sardinian Ordnance surveyors, but added that they had taken good care not to mount the Grivola.

Between us and the Pennine Alps lay the deep Val d'Aosta -its bottom hidden from sight-with its tributary valleys and the lower mountain-ridges dividing them, on which we surveyed various familiar points, too numerous to mention. The Becca de Nona lay far beneath us, an inferior point of the group of Mont Emilius, though it appears much the loftiest from Aosta. From it M. Carrel took his excellent panorama, which I had with me. The appended notes will be found very useful by the general traveller in the Italian valleys. Those who have not the opportunity or inclination to mount the Grivola may, with far less fatigue and no risk, obtain from the Becca de Nona a splendid view of the Pennine chain, though, of course, not nearly so grand, from its much lower elevation, nor is there the amazing view, which

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