It is surrounded with high, bare, rugged rocks, without trees or verdure of any kind, the bottom being as barren and craggy as the sides, and the whole forming a most hideous landscape. This dreary valley is of a considerable length, but very narrow. I imagine it would have pleased the fancy of Salvator, who might have been tempted to steal a corner of it for one of his pieces, which, when he had enlivened with a murder or two, would have been a master-piece of the Horrible. Having traversed this, we continued our journey, sometimes ascending, then descending into other vallies whose names I have forgot.—We had a long continued ascent over Mount Noir, a very high hill, covered with pine-trees, many of which are above a hundred feet in height. I was obliged to walk on foot most of this road, which is full as steep as any part of that by which we had ascended Montanvert. We came at length to the pass which separates the King of Sardinia’s country from the little republic, called the Pays de Vallais. Across this there is an old thick wall, and a gate, without any guard. This narrow pass continues for several miles.—A few peasants arranged along the upper part of the mountains could, by rolling down stones, destroy a whole army, if it should attempt to enter into the country by this road. When you have patted through this long defile, the road runs along the side of a high and steep mountain; but is still so very narrow, that two persons cannot with safety go abreast, and all passengers are entirely at the mercy of those who may be posted on the higher parts of the mountain. From the side of the mountain on which we passed, we could have spoken to the people who inhabited the side of the mountain opposite. But I am convinced it would have taken three or four hours walking, to have gone to them: Because we must, by a long, oblique tour, have first reached the bottom of the cleft between us, and then have ascended to them, by another long, fatiguing path, which could not be done in less time than I have mentioned. Wherever there is a spot of the mountain tolerably fertile, and the slope less formidable than usual, you are almost certain to find a peasant’s house. All the houses are built of the fine red pine, which grows near at hand. The carriage of this, even for a short way, upon those very steep mountains, must have been attended with no small difficulty and danger. These dwellings are raised on wooden props, or pillars, two or three feet above the ground. On the top of each pillar a large flag or broad stone is placed, to obstruct the entrance of rats.—Indeed the situation of these abodes is so very aerial, that they seem almost inaccessible to every animal that has not wings, as well as to rats.