down: and glad I was, after some time, to espy her blue gown among the scatterings of women in scarlet garments. She had missed her way in the town and gone back in quest of me. The fresh morning air helped us cheerfully over the long line of road; and passengers whom we continually met amused us. Some were travellers from the Alps; but they were much more frequently peasants bent on Sunday's devotion and pleasure, chiefly women, awkward in appearance, short of stature, and deformed by their manner of fastening the full round petticoat lifted up almost to the shoulders. It pleased me now to review our course from Bavena, where this our second ascent of the Alps may be said to begin; the princely reach of the Lake then before us, with its palaces and towns, thence towards the mountains and the vale of Tusa, solitary churches on the steeps--ruins--embowered low stone cottages--vineyards and extensive lawns--cattle with their bells, and peasants tending them. The romantic village of Vergogne, its ruined fortress overlooking the narrow dell and torrent's bed--inhabited houses as grey with age as the ruin itself--and, upon the level below, how delightful was it, in our hour of rest and sauntering, to quit the sunshine, and walk under roofs of vines! Further on, the vale more wide and open--large meadows without trees. Hay-makers--straggling travellers on the outstretched road. Villages under green mountains--snowy mountains gilded by the light of the setting sun! _Now_, from Domo d'Ossola we were proceeding on the same unbending road, up the same vale, a scene of desolation and fertility, vines by the wayside, the grapes hardly ripening. Having ascended a long hill to _Crevola_, where there is a small public-house, at which we had thought of stopping to breakfast, the road crosses a remarkably high and massy bridge, over the chasm of Val di Vedro, whence the river Vedro takes its course down to the vale of Tusa, now below us on our right hand, where, towards the centre of the vale, the village of Crevola stands on an eminence, whence the morning sound of bells was calling the people together. We turned to the left, up the shady side of Val di Vedro; at first, the road led us high above the bed of the torrent. Being now enclosed between the barriers of that deep dell, we had left all traces of vineyards, fruit-trees, and fields. Beeches climb up among the crags to the summit of the steeps. The road descends; traces of the ancient track visible near a bridge of one lofty arch, no longer used by the traveller crossing the Alps, yet I went to the centre to look down on the torrent. Traces of the foundation of a former bridge remain in the chasm. Met a few peasants going to the vale below, and sometimes a traveller. Again we climb the hill, all craggy forest. At a considerable height from the river's bed an immense column of granite lies by the wayside, as if its course had been stopped there by tidings of Napoleon's overthrow.