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of this opinion in the time of Augustus, etc., which Livy knew also, but did not credit.
The kind-hearted little prior did not seem to know much about the passage in the Roman historian, and I did not tell him of it, though I had the book with me.
After breakfast, the last honors of the establishment were done towards us by carrying us through the building and opening to us the little collections in mineralogy and natural history, and a few interesting inscriptions and antiquities found on the site of the Temple of Jupiter.
When this was finally over, the prior accompanied us a little way down the mountain, and left us full of gratitude for his kindness, and deeply impressed with the benevolent utility of this remarkable institution, and the still more remarkable exertions and sacrifices of the Augustine monks who conduct it.1
September 27.—Between Brigg and Domo d'ossola, we have today crossed the Alps by the Simplon,—a most astonishing proof of the power of man . . . . It is impossible to give any idea of this magnificent work, which, for twenty miles together, is as perfect as a gentleman's avenue; of the difficulties the engineers were obliged to encounter, which, even after success, seem insuperable; or the terrors of the scenery, which reminded me of some of the awful descriptions in Dante's Inferno . . . . . We were eight hours in ascending, and four and a half in the descent.
September 29.—On going a little about Domo d'ossola this morning,—which is a neat little town,—I found that not only the climate, but the architecture, had changed.
While coming down the mountains, I observed the ‘refuges’ built on their sides, to serve as a shelter to travellers, were more appropriate in their forms and ornaments than the same buildings on the other side; but I attributed it to accident.
Now, however, I see that it is the influence of the Roman arts and their remains, felt even to the summit of the Alps, but extending apparently no further.
Our road to-day was still in a valley of the Alps . . . . . The cultivation was fine and the crops abundant.
All nature, indeed, had a gayer aspect than we had left on the other side of the Alps, and I thought that I recognized beauties which Virgil boasted when Italy was mistress of the world, and which Filicaja lamented when they
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1 Last year ten of the monks and two servants were overwhelmed by an avalanche, while guiding some travellers to the hospice, and all perished. As we descended the mountain we went a little out of our way to see a bridge and an avalanche which exactly corresponded to the description of one in Strabo.— Note by Mr. Ticknor.
Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1876.
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