foot of the Pass of the Simplon. But as the moon was shining
brightly, and there was not a cloud in the starlit sky, it was no
time for going to bed, or going anywhere but on. So, we got a
little carriage, after some delay, and began the ascent.
It was late in November; and the snow lying four or five feet thick
in the beaten road on the summit (in other parts the new drift was
already deep), the air was piercing cold. But, the serenity of the
night, and the grandeur of the road, with its impenetrable shadows,
and deep glooms, and its sudden turns into the shining of the moon
and its incessant roar of falling water, rendered the journey more
and more sublime at every step.
Soon leaving the calm Italian villages below us, sleeping in the
moonlight, the road began to wind among dark trees, and after a
Page 61
Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
time emerged upon a barer region, very steep and toilsome, where
the moon shone bright and high. By degrees, the roar of water grew
louder; and the stupendous track, after crossing the torrent by a
bridge, struck in between two massive perpendicular walls of rock
that quite shut out the moonlight, and only left a few stars
shining in the narrow strip of sky above. Then, even this was
lost, in the thick darkness of a cavern in the rock, through which
the way was pierced; the terrible cataract thundering and roaring
close below it, and its foam and spray hanging, in a mist, about
the entrance. Emerging from this cave, and coming again into the
moonlight, and across a dizzy bridge, it crept and twisted upward,
through the Gorge of Gondo, savage and grand beyond description,
with smooth-fronted precipices, rising up on either hand, and
almost meeting overhead. Thus we went, climbing on our rugged way,
higher and higher all night, without a moment’s weariness: lost in
the contemplation of the black rocks, the tremendous heights and
depths, the fields of smooth snow lying, in the clefts and hollows,
and the fierce torrents thundering headlong down the deep abyss.
Towards daybreak, we came among the snow, where a keen wind was
blowing fiercely. Having, with some trouble, awakened the inmates
of a wooden house in this solitude: round which the wind was
howling dismally, catching up the snow in wreaths and hurling it
away: we got some breakfast in a room built of rough timbers, but
well warmed by a stove, and well contrived (as it had need to be)
for keeping out the bitter storms. A sledge being then made ready,
and four horses harnessed to it, we went, ploughing, through the
snow. Still upward, but now in the cold light of morning, and with
the great white desert on which we travelled, plain and clear.
We were well upon the summit of the mountain: and had before us
the rude cross of wood, denoting its greatest altitude above the
sea: when the light of the rising sun, struck, all at once, upon
the waste of snow, and turned it a deep red. The lonely grandeur
of the scene was then at its height.
As we went sledging on, there came out of the Hospice founded by
Napoleon, a group of Peasant travellers, with staves and knapsacks,
who had rested there last night: attended by a Monk or two, their
hospitable entertainers, trudging slowly forward with them, for
company’s sake. It was pleasant to give them good morning, and
pretty, looking back a long way after them, to see them looking
back at us, and hesitating presently, when one of our horses
stumbled and fell, whether or no they should return and help us.
But he was soon up again, with the assistance of a rough waggoner
whose team had stuck fast there too; and when we had helped him out
of his difficulty, in return, we left him slowly ploughing towards
them, and went slowly and swiftly forward, on the brink of a steep
precipice, among the mountain pines.
Taking to our wheels again, soon afterwards, we began rapidly to
descend; passing under everlasting glaciers, by means of arched