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the temple of Jupiter Penninus was destroyed by order of Constantine, who caused a
colonne mUliaire, or Roman niile-stone, to be erected on the same spot, with the following
inscription:
® ^ IMP. CvF-SARI CONSTANTINO
P.F. INVICTO AUG. DIVI CONSTANTINI
AUG. FILIO BONO REIPUBLICE NATO
F. C. VAL. XXIIII.
This column has since been removed to the village of St. Pierre, where it now
remains a standing monument of having, from ever}' appearance, been the one abovedescribed,
as the number tventy-four exactly corresponds with Antoninus's account,
who, in his Itinerary, places t'he twenty-fourth mile-stone at the top of the Great
St. Bernard.
From this valley, which widens considerably, and is both rude and wild, the road
rapidly descends by the sides of stupendous rocks, of similar species to the spiry rocks
near the convent, and along the edge of the frightful and noisy torrent of the Butier,
which takes its source on the summit of the pass. Having thus continued, for the space
of four or five miles, I reached the chalets before alluded to, called vacherie, from their
being the dairies where the butter and cheese is made for the convent, as also the spot
where their cows are sent to graze, which is but for two or three months at most,
owing to the severity of the climate; for, even at the time I passed across, though in the
month of July, nearly the whole was covered with snow. Yet I had not proceeded far,
ere I began to perceive a few stunted trees, here and there thinly scattered, though the
mountain still remained extremely steep.
Here it may not be improper to observe, that, notwithstanding the Great St. Bernard,
Mont-Cenis, Little St, Bernard, and the Col-de-Tende, are infinitely more abrupt
on the side of Italy than towards Switzerland and France, yet is the vegetation more
forward, and at a much greater elevation, than on the other. As I drew near St. Remy,
the first village in his Sardinian majesty's states on that side of the mountain, at the extreme
height of five thousand and ten feet above the level of the sea, the country began
to wear a very different aspect, and displayed more cheerful tints of colouring; for,
while an extensive forest of larch and pine stretched out its thick foliage, as if to shelter
the village from the north-easterly winds, I could easily discern a number of pastures,
covered with chalets and cattJe, on the opposite side of the torrent. On entering this
village, and having changed the states, I was of course under the necessity of com-
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plying with the usual interrogatories, to which I answered, showed my passport, and
proceeded to the inn, where I remained till the next morning, perfectly satisfied with
my accommodations, having reaiiy met with every convenience that constitutes a good
inn, From hence the road still descends, about four miles further, along a contracted
meandering valley, and then, in many parts, becomes both rapid and abrupt, hanging
tremendously over the torrent which flows beneath; but at the wretched miserable
hamlet of St. Oym, inhabited fay muleteers only, it is less terrific; and as far as Etrouble,
a village two miles distant, I had an interrupted succession of beautiful views. At
the last-mentioned village, which is seated in a hollow, I crossed the torrent Butier, and
ascended a rapid mountain of schistus, tolerably well wooded, the different windings of
which I followed for the space of three or four miles, and then reached the sides of
another, apparently composed of a species of coarse-grained sand-stone, or rather a kind
of pudding-stone, containing in its interior many fragments of primitive rock; but as its
cement is calcareous, the inhabitants convert it into lime,—a circumstance which
accounts for the prodigious number of kilns, which may there be said literally to line
the road.
The valley of Butier soon after contracts so considerably, that the road becomes
again tremendous, and hangs, as it were, suspended by means of a wide cornice, which
shelves over the torrent, that rolls its foaming waters with great impetuosity, and of an
extreme depth. The entrance of this defile is shut up by a imiT creneli, or kind of battlement,
with a door guarded by a few invalids, and, like the generality of defiles. Is
called Cluse, or Ecbise. Its rocks seem to be a species of lamellated micaceous quartz,
of about one foot in thickness; and at Gignaud, six miles hence, a considerable viiläge,
seated nearly at the basis of the valley, through which the high road passes, the
neighbouring mountains appear likewise to be quartzose and lamellated, though in
their vicinity I met with a hill totally formed of a kind of schistus, striated with calcareous
spath and inclined strata. Here the country again renovates, and becomes
pleasant and well cultivated; for large and lofty chesnut-trees sliade the road on both
sides, while the hills, whose basis I was pursuing, were covered with luxuriant vines,
exhibiting so different a scene from what I had lately been accustomed to, that it imperceptibly
obliterated the recollection of those tremendous passes I had but a few
hours before ventured to encounter, and which now appeared but as a dream. Being
arrived at Signaye, the last village before reaching the city of Aösta, from whence the