There is something magnificent about going up these mountains, appalling as it seems to one's nerves, at particular turns and angles of the road, where the mule stops you on the very "brink of forever," as one of the ladies said.
Well, at last we reached the top, and began to descend; and there, at our feet, as if we were looking down at it out of a cloud, lay the whole beautiful valley of the Rhone. I did not know then that this was one of the things put down in the guide book, that we were expected to admire, as I found afterwards it was; but nothing that I saw any where through the Alps impressed me as this did. It seemed to me more like the vision of "the land that is very far off" than any thing earthly. I can see it now just as distinctly as I saw it then; one of these flat, Swiss valleys, green as a velvet carpet, studded with buildings and villages that looked like dots in the distance, and embraced on all sides by these magnificent mountains, of which those nearest in the prospect were distinctly made out, with their rocks, pine trees, and foliage.
The next in the receding distance were fainter, and of a purplish green; the next of a vivid purple; the next, lilac; while far in the fading view the crystal summits and glaciers of the Oberland Alps rose like an exhalation.
The afternoon sun was throwing its level beams in between these many-colored ranges, and on one of them the ruins of an old Roman tower stood picturesquely prominent. The Simplon road could be seen, dividing the valley like an arrow.
I had gone on quite ahead of my company, and as my mule soberly paced downward in the almost perpendicular road, I seemed to be poised so high above the enchanting scene that I had somewhat the same sensation as if I were flying. I don't wonder that larks seem to get into such a rapture when they are high up in the air. What a dreamlike beauty there is in distance, disappearing ever as we approach!
As I came down towards Martigny into the pasture land of the great mountain, it seemed to me that the scenery might pass for that of the Delectable Mountains—such beautiful, green, shadowy hollows, amid great clumps of chestnut and apple trees, where people were making their hay, which smelled so delightfully, while cozy little Swiss cottages stood in every nook.
All were out in the fields, men, women, and children, and in one hayfield I saw the baby's cradle—baby, of course, concealed from view under a small avalanche of a feather bed, as the general fashion in these parts seems to be. The women wore broad, flat hats, and all appeared to be working rather lazily, as it was coming on evening.
This place might have done for Arcadia, or Utopia, or any other of those places people think of when they want to get rid of what is, and get into the region of what might be.
I was very far before my party, and now got off my mule, and sat down on a log to wait till they came up. Then the drama enacted by C.'s mule took place, which he has described to you. I merely saw a distant commotion, but did not enter into the merits of the case.
As they were somewhat slow coming down, I climbed over a log into a hayfield, and plucked a long, delicate, white-blossomed vine, with which I garlanded the top of my flat hat.