"The scenery was wild, and of an imposing grandeur. The sun shone upon the mass of cloud, and wind chased the misty shadows amongst the mountains. All around, in an immense circle, glaciers and snow-clad mountain-peaks gleamed forth from amongst the clouds. Before me rose a lofty mountain, shaped like a cupola, the top of which was covered with a black cloud, whilst the lower part was lighted up by bright sunshine. It was the peak of the Simplon. Troops of misty shapes were chased round it by the wind, as in a wild sweep, whilst they strove to reach the top, which seemed in its turn to reject them. The black cloud lay threateningly above, and the white, misty spectres careered around like the unhappy and unsettled souls in the Hell of Dante. Still increasing in number, they ascended from the depth below; still more and more wildly were they chased round the ice-clad mountain—clad as in tatters of ice—into the dazzling sunshine beneath the black forbidding cloud. Masses of water were hurled down from the neighbouring glaciers with thundering din. There is danger here from avalanches during spring and autumn, and for that reason strong stone galleries are built in many parts of the road to serve as a shelter for people and for carriages. Avalanches and torrents are hurled down over the arched roofs and into the abyss on the other side. Even now masses of ice hang threateningly upon the heights to the left along the road; but these will dissolve in foaming rivers, which will find their outlets in deep clefts of the mountain, over which the road is carried, or they are conveyed away by means of strongly constructed gutters over the roofs of the stone galleries. One of these streams is hurled down with a force and a din which is deafening. The whole of this scene was so wild and so magnificent that it thrilled me at once with terror and joy. The sun gleamed through all as with lightning-flashes, and as if in combat with the demons of nature."
[15] "Greece and the Greeks," i. 40, 41.
[16] A monument has since been erected.
MADEMOISELLE ALEXINA TINNÉ.
For the female mind, ever touching at one extreme the most prosaic matter-of-fact, and at the other the most exalted sentiment, with an almost equal capacity for realism and idealism, the combined romance and simplicity, picturesqueness and primitiveness of Oriental life, has a peculiar charm. So, too, in the romance of Eastern travel, with its surprises and adventures, its strong lights and profound shadows, it finds an exciting contrast to that commonplace routine of existence, that daily round of conventionalities, which is imposed upon them by the social tyranny of the West. Fettered as women are in highly civilized countries by restraints, obligations, and responsibilities, which are too often arbitrary and artificial, their impatience of them is not difficult to be understood; and it is natural enough that when the opportunity offers, they should hail even a temporary emancipation. No doubt it is this motive which, in different ways, has influenced the courageous ladies, whose names in the present century have been so brilliantly inscribed on the record of Eastern travel; such as Lady Hester Stanhope, Lady Duff Gordon, Lady Baker, Miss Edwards, and Lady Blunt. And this motive it was, strengthened by a naturally adventurous disposition, which induced Mademoiselle Alexina Tinné—of whose career we are now about to speak—to incur the perils of African exploration.
"Visitors to Algiers some years ago, will remember the air of mystery hanging about a certain yacht lying off the harbour. Rumour spread all kinds of glowing reports about the mistress of its motley crew, Europeans, negroes, and stately Nubians. Some said it was an Oriental princess; one invented a love affair to account for the lonely wanderings of this female Odysseus; another hinted darkly at some political mission from far-off Mussulman courts to the chiefs of the Sahara. The bare truth, when at last it was made known, was almost as marvellous as anything fiction could invent on behalf of its owner. The yacht, indeed, belonged to a lady, young, beautiful, and possessed of queenly fortune, whose existence, almost from childhood, had been spent in the East; who had already accomplished several voyages of discovery in Central Africa; and who, undaunted by the mishaps of former pioneers in the same direction, now projected an undertaking, which, if carried out successfully, would place her in the foremost rank of African explorers."
Alexina, or Alexandrina Tinné, was born at the Hague in 1835 (or, according to some authorities, 1839). Her father was a Dutch merchant, who, after acquiring a large fortune in Demerara, was naturalized in England, and finally took up his residence at Liverpool. Her mother, a Dutch baroness, was the daughter of Admiral van Capellen, who commanded the Dutch squadron of Lord Exmouth's fleet at the bombardment of Algiers in 1816. The death of her father while she was still a child, made her the heiress of vast wealth; but she was fortunate in having in her mother a prudent and sagacious guardian, who was careful that her education should in all respects be worthy of her position. She was introduced at Court at an exceptionally early age, and became a great favourite of the Queen of Holland. Fate, indeed, seemed to have placed at her disposal everything which society most values, and to have enabled her to realize in an unusual degree what Dr. Johnson so happily described as "the potentialities of wealth." All the enjoyments of literary and artistic culture, all the pleasures of a refined and favoured life, all the influence for good or evil that accrues to a leader of fashion, were commanded by this young lady; and yet, in the very bloom of maidenhood, she voluntarily set them aside. Whether it was that an impatient and a restless spirit rebelled against social conventionalisms, or whether she was actuated by an earnest love of knowledge, or whether some romance of crushed hope and rejected love was involved, is not certainly known; but rich, and gifted, and fortunate as she was, she suddenly disappeared from the Hague about 1859, and after a brief visit to Norway and a rapid tour to Italy, Constantinople, and Palestine proceeded to the banks of the Nile. In company with her mother and her aunt she examined the monuments and antiquities of Egypt, and then took up her winter residence at Cairo.