EASTERN SWITZERLAND.

II.

EASTERN SWITZERLAND.

Brig Simplon Pass and Tunnel The Gondo Ravine

Domo d' Ossola The Rhône Glacier Furka Pass
Grimsel Pass

Meiringen
Handegg Falls

Lake

Schwyz

of Glarus

The Tödi

Arth Goldau

Brunnen Flüelen The Reuss St. Gotthard Railway and Pass

Wasen The Ticino Lake Lucendro

Val Tremola

Borromean Islands Lake of Orta Lake Lugano Lugano Monte Salvatore-Porlezza-Monte Generoso.

THE SIMPLON.

WE have advanced in the preceding chapter up the deep and narrow Rhône valley into the heart of the

Alps, under the shadows of the towering Pennine range. About five miles above Visp, where the torrent comes out to the Rhône from Zermatt and its mountains, is the little town of Brig. Here flows in the Saltine torrent coming northward from the Pennines. It is about seventy-two miles up the Rhône from the Lake of Geneva, and forty-seven miles from Martigny, and the huge mountains closely compress the Rhône on either side, leaving but a profound and contracted gorge, where the river, during the ages, has forced a passage. Brig, while small, is noted, for here begins the most famous, and one of the best known roadways over the Alps, the Simplon, where Napoleon constructed the first macadamized and perfect highway across the mountains, begun in 1800 and completed for military purposes in 1806, at a cost of $3,500,000. This had been a mountain pass, much travelled, for centuries, and in Brig is the most extensive private residence in Switzerland, the Stockalper Château, handsomely turreted and built around an interior court. This house was erected by Kaspar Stockalper, who, in the seventeenth century, controlled the traffic over the Simplon, which he protected by armed guards. Brig has always been a centre of much travel, the routes up the Rhône from Martigny, and coming down that valley by the Grimsal and Furka passes over from the Lake Lucerne and the St. Gotthard region, concentrating here, for the easiest route into Italy as things used to be. The Simplon road, which is the route from Geneva to

Milan, goes over from Brig to Domo d' Ossola, about forty-six miles, and crosses the summit of the pass at about sixty-six hundred feet elevation.

The route is up the Saltine, but the ascent from Brig is rather tame, compared with some other passes on the Swiss side, the grandest scenery being on the Italian side. It is kept open as a winter route, and refuge huts are built at intervals. Twenty miles from Brig is Simplon, whence comes its name, built among the pastures at the base of the towering Rossbodenhorn which rises 13,128 feet and about eighty-three hundred feet above the village. From the summit of the pass there is revealed a splendid view to the northward across the Rhône valley to the Bernese Oberland. The crossing in summer time is warm and sunny, developing the pastures around the old hospice, now occupied by shepherds, and the adjacent fields usually display flocks of cattle and goats. Enclosing this region, the superb peaks of Monte Leone and the Fletschhorn, with the Rossbodenhorn elevate their extensive glaciers far toward the heavens. It is after passing the Simplon village that the magnificence of the Pass begins. There comes a little brook out of a glacier, the Laquinbach. It falls into the Krummbach near Algaby hamlet, and below this becomes known as the Doveria, a famous stream. Then appears the wonder of the Pass, a vast cleft cut down deeply into the mountain, the Gondo ravine, one of the grandest gorges of the Alps. For several miles the descent is through this tremendous