_Monday, September 10th._--_Simplon._--Rose at five o'clock, as cold as a frosty morning in December. The eleven breakfasted together, and were ready--all but the lame one,--to depart on foot to Brieg in the Haut Valais (seven leagues). The distance from the village of Simplon to the highest point of the Pass is nearly two leagues. We set forward together, forming different companies--or sometimes solitary--the peculiar charm of pedestrian travelling, especially when the party is large--fresh society always ready--and solitude to be taken at will. In the latter part of the Pass of St. Gothard, on the Swiss side, the grandeur diminishes--and it is the same on the Italian side of the Pass of Simplon; yet when (after the gradual ascent from the village, the last inhabited spot) a turning of the road first presents to view in a clear atmosphere, beneath a bright blue sky (so we were favoured), the ancient _Spittal_ with its ornamented Tower standing at the further end of a wide oblong hollow, surrounded by granite pikes, snow pikes--masses of granite--cool, black, motionless shadows, and sparkling sunshine, it is not possible for the dullest imagination to be unmoved. When we found ourselves within that elevated enclosure, the eye and the ear were satisfied with perfect stillness. We might have supposed ourselves to be the only visible moving creatures; but ere long espied some cows and troops of goats which at first we could not distinguish from the scattered rocks! but by degrees tracked their motions, and perceived them in great numbers creeping over the yellow grass that grows among crags on the declivities above the Spittal and in the hollow below it; and we then began to discover a few brown _châlets_ or cattle-sheds in that quarter. The Spittal, that dismal, yet secure sheltering-place (inhabited the winter through), is approached by a side track from the present road; being built as much out of the way of storms as it could have been. Carts and carriages of different kinds (standing within and near the door of a shed, close to the road) called to mind the stir and traffic of the world in a place which might have been destined for perpetual solitude--where the thunder of heaven, the rattling of avalanches, and the roaring of winds and torrents seemed to be the only _turbulent_ sounds that had a right to take place of the calm and silence which surrounded us. _Wednesday, September 12th._--_Baths of Leuk._--Rose at 5 o'clock. From my window looked towards the crags of the Gemmi, then covered with clouds. Twilight seemed scarcely to have left the valley; the air was sharp, and the smoking channel of hot water a comfortable sight in the cold gloom of the village. But soon, with promise of a fine day, the vapours on the crescent of crags began to break, and its yellow towers, touched by the sunshine, gleamed through the edges of the floating masses; or appeared in full splendour for a moment, and were again hidden.