These are
merely dwarfs, however, among their sister piles, several of which, in
plain view of the convent, reach to the height of eternal snow. This point
in the road attained, the path began immediately to descend, and the
drippings of a snow-bank before the convent door, which had resisted the
greatest heat of the past summer, ran partly into the valley of the Rhone,
and partly into Piedmont; the waters, after a long and devious course
through the plains of France and Italy, meeting again in the common basin
of the Mediterranean. The path, on quitting the convent, runs between the
base of the rocks on its right and a little limpid lake on its left, the
latter occupying nearly the entire cavity of the valley of the gorge. It
then disappears between natural palisades of rock, at the other extremity
of the Col. This is the point where the superfluous waters of the lake
find their outlet, descending swiftly, in a brawling little brook, on the
sunny side of the Alps. The frontier of Italy is met on the margin of the
lake, a long musket-shot from the abode of the Augustines, and near the
site of a temple that the Romans had raised in honor of Jupiter, in his
attribute of director of storms.
Pages:
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596