The flowers of the mountains--they must not be forgotten. It is worth a
botanist's while to traverse all these high passes; nay, it is worth the
while of a painter, or any one who delights to look upon graceful
flowers, or lovely hues, to pay a visit to these little wild nymphs of
Flora, at their homes in the mountains of St. Bernard. We are speaking
now, generally, of what may be seen throughout the whole of the route,
from Moutier, by the Little St. Bernard, to Aosta,--and thence again to
Martigny. There is no flower so small, so beautiful, so splendid in
colour, but its equal may be met with in these sequestered places. The
tenaciousness of flowers is not known; their hardihood is not
sufficiently admired. Wherever there is a handful of earth, there also
is a patch of wild-flowers. If there be a crevice in the rock,
sufficient to thrust in the edge of a knife, there will the winds carry
a few grains of dust, and there straight up springs a flower. In the
lower parts of the Alps, they cover the earth with beauty. Thousands,
and tens of thousands, blue, and yellow, and pink, and violet, and
white, of every shadow and every form, are to be seen, vying with each
other, and eclipsing every thing besides. Midway they meet you again,
sometimes fragrant, and always lovely; and in the topmost places, where
the larch, and the pine, and the rhododendron (the last living shrub)
are no longer to be seen, where you are just about to tread upon the
limit of perpetual snow, there still peep up and blossom the "Forget me
not," the Alpine ranunculus, and the white and blue gentian, the last of
which displays, even in this frore air, a blue of such intense and
splendid colour, as can scarcely be surpassed by the heavens themselves.
It is impossible not to be affected at thus meeting with these little
unsheltered things, at the edge of eternal barrenness. They are the last
gifts of beneficent, abundant Nature. Thus far she has struggled and
striven, vanquishing rocks and opposing elements, and sowing here a
forest of larches, and there a wood of pines, a clump of rhododendrons,
a patch of withered herbage, and, lastly, a bright blue flower. Like
some mild conqueror, who carries gifts and civilization into a savage
country, but is compelled to stop somewhere at last, she seems
determined that her parting present shall also be the most beautiful.
This is the limit of her sway. Here, where she has cast down these
lovely landmarks, her empire ceases. Beyond, rule the ice and the
storm!--_New Monthly Magazine._
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