¬The¬ Cornice, the Grimsel and the Gries, the Bernardin and the Splugen, the Brenner, the Tende and the Argentière, and the Simplon.- (Illustrations of the passes of the Alps ; Vol. 2)
villages of Oberwald> Obergestelen, and the mountains of the high range of the Alps, extending to the Simplon. Oberwald affords no resting-place ; but accommodation and civility, very different from that which Saussure experienced there,* is now offered to the traveller at Obergestelen, a village which was a great dépôt for cheese, sent from Switzerland across the Grimsel and the Gries into the north of Italy ; but the formation of the great roads across the Alps has lessened the traffic which
was formerly* carried on over the passes tra versable only by mules. From Obergestelen the traveller towards the Gries crosses the Rhone near the village, and descends through a forest of larches, on the left bank of the river, about half an hour, then turning through the village of Imloch, in the Egi- nenthal, a valley which descends from the Gries, the path rises towards this mountain, through a deep glen, in which there is a fine waterfall, and amidst vast larches, whose roots, and trunks, and branches
, overhang the torrent which de scends from the Gries, adding greatly to the wildness of this part of the passage, and giving to it a picturesque character ; but the road soon rises by a rapid ascent above the vege tation of the larch, and the scene becomes as sterile and as savage as the approach to the Grimsel above Handek. At length the valley terminates in the glacier of the Gries, which appears to forbid all further progress ; yet the route to the Val Formazza lies directly across it. On the left
, and before arriving at the glacier, a difficult mountain-path leads . across the Mont Luvino to Naufanen, and by the Val Bedretto to Airolo, at the foot of the St. Gothard. The path by which the summit of the Gries is attained is very difficult, though practicable for laden mules : after at taining it, on looking back, the traveller is surprised to see, on the left, high above the valley of Egina, and even the glaciers Voyages dans les Alps, &c. § 1715.