DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61893#0121
Ch. I. THROUGH ITALY. 93
sides are sheathed in ice, and its brow is whitened
with eternal snows. * Its height is supposed to
be nearly equal to that of Mont Blanc, though
in grandeur, the mountain of Savoy yields to that
of the Tyrol; because the former heaves itself
gradually from the plain, and conducts the eye,
by three different stages to its summit, whilst the
latter shoots up at once without support or gra-
dation, and terminates in a point that seems to
pierce the heavens.
The ascent still continued steep and without
intermission to Steinach; and the cold, which
hitherto had not much incommoded us, except at
night, became more intense. The scenery grew
more dreary, gradually assuming all the bleak
appearances of Alpine winter. The last men-
tioned place, though situated amidst the pinnacles
of the Rhetian Alps, is yet not the highest point
of elevation; and the traveller has still to labor
up the tremendous steeps of the Brenner. As he
advances, piercing blasts blowing around the bare
ridges and summits that gleam with ice, stunted
half-frozen firs appearing here and there along
the road, cottages almost buried under a weight
* This mountain bears, I believe, the very barbarous appel-
lation of Boch Kozel,
sides are sheathed in ice, and its brow is whitened
with eternal snows. * Its height is supposed to
be nearly equal to that of Mont Blanc, though
in grandeur, the mountain of Savoy yields to that
of the Tyrol; because the former heaves itself
gradually from the plain, and conducts the eye,
by three different stages to its summit, whilst the
latter shoots up at once without support or gra-
dation, and terminates in a point that seems to
pierce the heavens.
The ascent still continued steep and without
intermission to Steinach; and the cold, which
hitherto had not much incommoded us, except at
night, became more intense. The scenery grew
more dreary, gradually assuming all the bleak
appearances of Alpine winter. The last men-
tioned place, though situated amidst the pinnacles
of the Rhetian Alps, is yet not the highest point
of elevation; and the traveller has still to labor
up the tremendous steeps of the Brenner. As he
advances, piercing blasts blowing around the bare
ridges and summits that gleam with ice, stunted
half-frozen firs appearing here and there along
the road, cottages almost buried under a weight
* This mountain bears, I believe, the very barbarous appel-
lation of Boch Kozel,