The travellers now left the valley of the Rhone to bury themselves amid
those piles of misty and confused mountains, which formed the back-ground
of the picture they had studied from the castle of Blonay and the sheet of
the Leman. They soon plunged into a glen, and, following the windings of a
brawling torrent, were led gradually, and by many turnings, into a country
of bleak upland pasturage, where the inhabitants gained a scanty
livelihood, principally by means of their dairies.
A few leagues above Martigny, the paths again separated, one inclining to
the left towards the elevated valley that has since become so celebrated
in the legends of this wild region, by the formation of a little lake in
its glacier, which, becoming too heavy for its foundation, broke through
its barrier of ice, and descended in a mountain of water to the Rhone, a
distance of many leagues, sweeping before it every vestige of civilization
that crossed its course, and even changing, in many places, the face of
nature itself. Here the glittering peak of Velan became visible, and,
though so much nearer to the eye than when viewed from Vevey, it was still
a distant shining pile, grand in its solitude and mystery, on which the
sight loved to dwell, as it studies the pure and spotless edges of some
sleepy cloud.
Pages:
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507