244 T H E L I T T L E S T . B E R N A R D .
T H E L I T T L E S T . B E R N A R D . 245
i ■(
common saddles were of the clumsiest description.
Under these circumstances, I did
not think it prudent to hazard the experiment
of a twelve hours’journey over the
mountain, without any habitation to retreat
to. With good mules, properly accoutred,
this is one of the easiest passes of the central
Alps in fine weather, and I believe it is far
less fatiguing, than the passage of the Wen-
gen Alp in the canton of Berne, which we
afterwards undertook. The highest point
of the passage of the Little St. Bernard, is
7313 English feet above the level of the
sea, but I conceive it is not more than
4500 feet above the Bourg St. Maurice.
Had we crossed the mountain, the weather
was so rainy the two following days, that
we should have seen nothing to reward us
for our labour, but the clouds.
Wishing to see as much of the country
as I could, in the course of the morning,
I procured a mule and guide, and went
as far on the passage of the Little St.
Bernard as the white rock, before wliich
Hannibal halted and encamped, previously
to ascending the mountain. After leaving
Bourg St. Maurice, the road ascends gradually,
winding round the foot of a mountain,
with the Isere on the rig h t; the bed
of the river is here broad, and the ground
in the vale on each side marshy. Nothing
can be more dreary and desolate than the
general appearance of the country in the
upper part of the valley of the Isere, beyond
Bourg St. Maurice to Mont Iseran,
where the valley terminates. Black and
frowning mountains, with a few firs on
their lower slopes, and their bases covered
with bare stones, brought down by eboulements,
and here and there a few scattered
habitations, and a marsh along the bottom
of the valley, offer no allurement to the
traveller, to visit the source of the Isere.
At the village of Sext, the road turns to
the north-east, and leaving the valley of
the Isere, begins to ascend to the Little
St. Bernard by a very stony road, which, in
about an hour after leaving Sext, brought
me to a wooden bridge over a deep ravine
under the town of St. Germain. We passed
the ruins of a stone bridge lower down,
which was destroyed by the Austrians.
The present bridge is placed very near to
the white rock. The road up the Little
St. Bernard, beyond the town of St. Germain,
continues to ascend on the left of
R 3
t
m-
; !