There are two passes from Chamouni to the valley of the Rhone, viz: the Col de Balme, and the Tête Noire. The latter is distinguished for its awful wildness and grandeur. The narrow path barely affords room for mules, between steep rocky heights and frightful precipices, each of some thousand feet. Rushing streams of snow-water from the glaciers, cascades from the rocks, remains of avalanches, and overhanging cliffs abound on every side. Our cavalcade consisted of twenty-one mules, and six guides on foot. A great many travel here entirely on foot, equipped in a frock of brown linen, with belt, knapsack, a flask of _kirschwasser_, and a six-foot pike-staff; and this is much the best way to explore the country leisurely. Our speed on mules was not great; for we were all this day going twenty miles. At six P. M., we came to the last descent, from whence was spread out before us the large and magnificent valley of the Rhone, dotted with villages, of which Martigny and Sion are the principal; and traversed by the river Rhone, and by Napoleon's great Simplon road, which may be seen for twelve miles, its course being as straight as an arrow, through highly cultivated fields and vineyards. Martigny is the stopping place for tourists to Italy by the Simplon; and here I was to decide whether I would venture. There was the brilliant vision of Italy!--a name which called up my most ambitious youthful dreams; and I was now separated from it but by a day's journey. But alas! there were the cholera, and the fifteen days quarantine at almost every town; and I was alone, unknown to any mortal there, and to the language itself. Then a thousand dangers and vexations rose up before me; and yet, when the last ten minutes for decision came, 'I screwed my courage to the sticking point,' and resolved--to go. My baggage was sent over, my seat taken in the diligence for Milan; but my cane, which I had left at the inn, prevented my seeing Italy! In returning for it, I met a person who had come here for the same object, learned that it was impracticable, and soon persuaded me to give it up; so, with the consoling reflection that I might still go to Naples in November, I changed my course, hired a mule, and soon overtook the party who had set off for the convent on the Great St. Bernard. * * * * * HOSPICE DE SAINT BERNARD, AUGUST 25, 1836.--I am now writing before a blazing fire, in the dining-room of the convent, eleven thousand feet above the Mediterranean; and a company of about thirty fellow-pilgrims, English, Scotch, French, German, Austrian, Russian, and American, are exercising their native tongues around me.