We started from Bellinzona very early the next morning, determined, if possible, to surmount the worst part of the road and to sleep at Hospenthal, on the northern side of the pass. The view of Bellinzona on leaving it is very striking; three old castles perched on crags above give it an air of picturesque antiquity, and these, with the mountains rising grandly on either side of the Ticino, and sloping down in the distance to the bosom of Lago Maggiore, make a most beautiful picture. The situation is not, however, to be compared to that of Chiavenna, whose wall of mountains, clothed with Italian luxuriance of foliage, is pierced here and there with a chasm only, for the passage of some headlong river dashing down into the broad valley below the town; here the valley continues to be of considerable width for some miles above the town, whilst there one scarcely sees in what way any road is to escape across the mountains. The first portion of the road is not very interesting. The pass of the Bernardino soon turns off to the right up a valley which allows a partial view, and from this point the S. Gothard road is sole possessor of the valley. Our first change of horses was at Bodio; and from thence the road gradually became much more beautiful. Many churches are seen scattered here and there on the summits of the inaccessible-looking mountains on either side of the valley, all of them whitewashed and generally distinguished by their tall campanili, and sometimes by the small cluster of houses and the patches of cultivated ground around them, betokening man’s labour as well as man’s religious love, on the summit of these forbidding-looking steeps. And whilst the distant prospect was so fair, the scenery close to the road was embellished by vineyards and magnificent chestnuts, growing in some places among great rocks shivered from the mountain-side above, and, in others, in groves on either side of some beautiful stream descending in a silver fall over the grey precipices which overhang the road. The villages through which we passed were pretty and picturesque, and the villagers all very busy in the fields bringing in their hay, and gathering their grapes, which are always trained here over rocks and roofs in the most picturesquely irregular way; and altogether the valley, rife with so many signs of industry and activity, bore thoroughly the appearance rather of a Swiss than of an Italian district. The upper slopes of the mountains, on either side, were clustered with fir-trees, and the deep blue water of the Ticino, here gently murmuring, there hastily dashing over some rocky impediment, made grateful music in our ears and imparted additional beauty to the way.