II. MONT VELAN 509

and always recognizable, each in its own beauty, by any careful observer who has once seen them on the south and north. Of these, the most beautiful in Switzerland, and as far as I can read, or learn, the most beautiful mountain in the world, is the Jungfrau of Lauterbrunnen.¹ Next to her, the double peaks of the Wetterhorn and Wellhorn, with their glacier of Rosenlaui; next to these, the Aiguille de Bionnassay, the buttress of Mont Blanc on the south-west; and after these loveliest, the various summits of the Bernese, Chamouni, and Zermatt Alps, according to their relative power, and the advantage of their place for the general observer. Thus the Blumlis Alp, though only ten thousand feet high, has far greater general influence than the Mont Combin, which is nearly as high as Mont Blanc, but can only be seen with difficulty, and in no association with the lowlands.

35. Among subordinate peaks, five,-the Tournette of Annecy, the Dent du Midi of Bex, the Stockhorn, south of Thun, Mont Pilate at Lucerne, and the High Sentis of Appenzell,-are notable as outlying masses, of extreme importance in their effect on the approaches to the greater chain. But in that chain itself, no mountain of subordinate magnitude can assert any rivalship with Mont Velan, the ruling alp of the Great St. Bernard.

For Mont Velan signals down the valley of the Rhone, past St. Maurice, to Vevay, the line of the true natural pass of the Great St. Bernard, from France into Italy by the valley of Martigny and Val d’Aosta; a perfectly easy and accessible pass for horse and foot, through all the summer; not dangerous even in winter, except in storm; and from the earliest ages, down to Napoleon’s, the pass chosen by the greatest kings, and wisest missionaries. The defiles of the Simplon were still impassable in the twelfth century, and the Episcopate of the Valais was therefore an isolated territory branching up from Martigny; unassailable

¹ [Leslie Stephen seems to have been of the same opinion: see his Playground of Europe, p. 139 (1894 ed.).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]