DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61893#0122
94
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch.I.
of snow, all announce the regions where winter
reigns undisturbed, and where the Alps display all
their ancient and unchangeable horrors.-
“ Nives ccelo prope immistce, tecta informia im-
(i posita rupibus, pecora, jumentaque torrida
“ frigore, homines intonsi et inculti, animalia,
“ inanimaque omnia rigentia gelu.”*
The summit, or rather the highest region of
the mountain which the road traverses, is crowned
with immense crags and precipices enclosing a
sort of plain or valley : This plain was bleak
and dreary when we passed through it, because
buried in deep snow, and darkened by fogs
and mists, and the shades of the approaching
evening: yet it possesses one feature, which in
summer must give it some degree of animation,
of beauty, and even of fertility; I mean the
source of the river Atagis, which, bursting from
the side of a shattered rock, tumbles in a noble
cascade to the plain. We had just before passed
the fountain head of the river Sill, which takes
a northward course, and runs down the defile
that leads to Inspruck, so that we now stood on
the confines of the north, our faces being turned
towards Italy, and the genial regions of the
* Liv. xxi.
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch.I.
of snow, all announce the regions where winter
reigns undisturbed, and where the Alps display all
their ancient and unchangeable horrors.-
“ Nives ccelo prope immistce, tecta informia im-
(i posita rupibus, pecora, jumentaque torrida
“ frigore, homines intonsi et inculti, animalia,
“ inanimaque omnia rigentia gelu.”*
The summit, or rather the highest region of
the mountain which the road traverses, is crowned
with immense crags and precipices enclosing a
sort of plain or valley : This plain was bleak
and dreary when we passed through it, because
buried in deep snow, and darkened by fogs
and mists, and the shades of the approaching
evening: yet it possesses one feature, which in
summer must give it some degree of animation,
of beauty, and even of fertility; I mean the
source of the river Atagis, which, bursting from
the side of a shattered rock, tumbles in a noble
cascade to the plain. We had just before passed
the fountain head of the river Sill, which takes
a northward course, and runs down the defile
that leads to Inspruck, so that we now stood on
the confines of the north, our faces being turned
towards Italy, and the genial regions of the
* Liv. xxi.