welcome us, and everything that attention and forethought could prompt was done by him to make us comfortable. Having changed our wet clothes, a welcome supper appeared with little delay, and we congratulated ourselves on the contrast of our quarters with those of the night before at Susselle.

Gressoney St. Jean

CHAPTER XII.

VAL DE LYS.

Excursions Noversch - Visit to Herr ZumsteinConformation and topography of Monte Rosa - Zumstein's ascents Recent ascents The Lyskam by sunset- -Sunday festa and costumes -Pointe de Combetta - View of Monte Rosa-A sunset scene Descent in the dark.

WHEN we next morning reconnoitred our situation, and the village of Gressoney, the sun had dispelled the last trace of mist, which the evening before had obscured all but near objects; and the curtain thus lifted revealed a scene of beauty for which we were unprepared. Looking up to the head of the dark narrowing glen to the north, the mass of the Lyskam glittered in radiant brightness, heightened by the fall of fresh snow-as if it were a sudden and marvellous creation, reared during the night, where the day before there had been nothing but cold grey sky. The steep sides of the Val, converging at their bases, and clothed with forest, opened out on a little plain of bright meadows, at the upper end of which, and backed by the dark pines, was the village of Gressoney St. Jean-a cluster of German houses round an Italian campanile and spire.

The lofty mountains in front separated us from the Val d'Ayas, crossed by the Col de Ranzola, over to Brussone. Behind the house was a charming little waterfall, and the path to the Col de Valdobbia, conducting to Riva in the Val Sesia. In the contracted gorge above the village, which we had descended from the Furca de Betta, another pass to the right takes over the Col d'Ollen to Alagna-while at the upper extremity of the valley, the great Lys glacier pours down from Monte Rosa. To the south, a mule track de

scends the Val de Lys by Issime to Pont St. Martin in the Val d'Aosta. With such advantages, as a central point, in the heart of the Monte Rosa district, combined with its beautiful natural position, the simple but thorough comfort of Delapierre's house, and our host's extreme attention, we determined to make Gressoney head-quarters for some time.

Delapierre had recently fitted up the house in hopes of inducing English travellers to frequent it, and see more of the beauties of the Val de Lys, as those tourists who had passed over from the Val Sesia, by the Cols of the Val Dobbia and Ranzola, to the Val d'Aosta, had generally done little more than stay the night, or pushed on after a brief halt. Even where there was no mercenary motive, this hasty flight through their valley seemed to disappoint and puzzle the inhabitants. Proud of the grandeur of their native mountains, which can attract strangers from so far, and at such expense and often inconvenience, they are utterly at a loss to divine why they generally make all possible haste to get over the ground, hardly pausing to bestow more than a passing look on the noblest scenes when they have reached them, and still less caring to explore and enjoy them. The feats of young Cantabs and Oxonians, scampering over pass after pass, with often apparently no other object than trying who can venture in the most novel breakneck situations, or arrive at the greatest height and back, or accomplish the furthest distance, in the shortest time, have not tended to elucidate the mystery. The love of grand and glorious scenery, sporting, searching for gold -the light in which they consider geologizing-or making observations, they can understand; but any intelligible object beyond expending a superfluity of health, strength, and money, they are unable to discover in the restless haste and superficial habits of "l'exprès Anglais," which soubriquet they had appropriated in despair to these hurrying visitors.