The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-25 00:00:00

DESTRUCTIVE TORRENTS IN

THE ALPS.

(From a Correspondent of the Morning Poet.)
BAVENO, Oct. 10.
The cries and prayers of the unfortunate have at
length been heard. The deluge which has been
poured upon the Alps and their neighbourhood
with such fatal results has at length ceased. Four
days and nights did it descend without a moment's
intermission, and with a fury almost unprecedented,
swelling the torrents to bursting, inundating the low
countries, and bringing destruction, dismay, and
death to the dwellings and to the very hearths of
the unhappy inhabitants. On the evening of the
7th, the wind had blown from the south, veered
round to the north-east, and with the clearing
heavens the rain ceased to fall. At that pe-
riod the violence of the torrents was at its height,
but such was the rapidity with which the accumu-
lated waters descended from the mountains, that in
a few hours they had considerably diminished, and
by twelve o'clock next day they so far dis-
charged themselves into the valleys as to give us,
who were imprisoned in the dreadful Vale of Vedro,
some hopes of making our escape. On the Bth,about
eleven o'clock, we left the refuge, between Goudo
and Isella, guided by four stout mountaineers.
God I what wreck—what desolation—what chaos
lay before us I An earthquake could not have left
more appalling traces of its wrath. It would seem
as if all the demons of destruction had been let
loose to revel and do their worst on this devoted
region. Rocks of a size that would make them
appear as immovable as the earth itself, hurled from
the highest cliffs and peaks, and scattered about
like pebbles in the ravine, in the villages, and
across the road. Torrents poured from new and
hitherto unsuspected beds, rushing over gardens
and uprooted plantations, and exulting over the
foundations of demolished habitations. All symp
toms of cultivation and of human industry vanished,
and nothing but ruin, total and unrelieved, on every
side. Of the splendid military road of Napoleon,
from Goudo to Crevola, nothing remains but a few
wrecks, just enough to show where ran the great
route of the Simplon. The two new and beautiful
bridges leading into Varzo have been so com-
pletely swept away that of one not a ves-
tige is left, and of the other only a few stones.
Here houses have been rolled with the
rolling torrents down the savage gulf of the Dive-
dria, and the late wretched habitants sent wander-
ing over the wild rocks for shelter, glad at having
escaped a snoctina death. To attempt to describe
our journey out of this horrible ravine would be
absurd. Led on by our intrepid guides, we had
to plunge into foaming torrents,black with maddened
rage—to climb precipitous heights strewn with
loosened stones, tottering over our heads and ready
to fall at the least agitation—to scramble over
crumbling earth and insidious sands, in positions
where one slip would lead to instant annihilation—
to cross raging floods astride upon poles, laid
across the yawning gulfs from rock to rock. The
dangers and the sights of that day will never be
erased from my mind, for not in the wildest stretch
of my imagination had I ever conceived anything
as really existing half so horrible. Near Isella I
was struck with one thing eminently remarkable
even in this scene, where all was eminent. A piece
of the road, of about 30 paces in length,
which had been cut through the living rock,
and which, consequently, would have been
supposed to be the most secure and ir-
removable of the whole work, carried, with
the flinty foundation on which it was laid, into the
all-receiving vortex, stook there high and unharmed,
as if in mockery of man's art, the enormous base
on which it was laid having been 'undermined by
the hill of waters lashing beneath it. Having made
our way in the manner I have mentioned to Cre-
vole, and passed the noble bridge in that place,
which bravely outlived the deluge, we felt some
relief from the apprehension of a horrible death ;
but the scene before us was, if possible, more heart-
rending than that we had just escaped from. The
beautiful vales of Piedmont, their orchards, their
vines, their plantations, and their fields, turned into
one vast desert of sand and slime—the yet ruling
waters being the only disputant to its undivided em-
pire. Such convulsions and visitations amidst moun-
tains and ravines, sprung as these are from the con-
tentions of the elements, are in some sort natural ;
but in the midst of fertile plains and populous vales
they fill the mind with tenfold astonishment—they
strike the heart with tenfold anguish. All the
road to Domo-Dossolo was broken into a hundred
fragments, and utterly impracticable, except on foot,
and thus I may say that from Simplon village to
Domo, a distance of about twenty miles, the pas-
sage of the Alps, with the exception of a few
fragments, is entirely destroyed. What damage
May have been done from Simplon to Brieg, I can-
not of my own knowledge speak, but report says
it is equally extensive; every town andevery inn on the
line is filled with persons and vehicles arrested by this
znisfortune, and little or no chance have they of
either going on or returning. A few weeks may,
perhaps, render the route passable by pedestrians,
but I have it from one of the inspectors that car-
riages will not be enabled to pass earlier than next
spring. Had but a little care and money been
yearly expended upon this superb work the present
affliction would have been in some measure alle-
viated ; but the road has been let fall into disrepair,
mended merely temporarily, as occasion required,
and that in the worst and most slovenly manner.
It is said the King of Sardinia more favours the
passage of Mount Cenis, as leading through
a greater extent of his territory, and that
he is, therefore, indifferent or averse to
the Simplon route. It is also said that the
Emperor of Austria has no objection to the shut-
ting up of the great highway for the French into
his Italian dominions. But whatever be the real
cause of the neglect, it is lamentable to see this
unequalled monument of genius and art falling into
decay, and sinking under the combined attacks of
those elements it was intended, and for so long a
time has successfully striven, to subdue. We
reached Domo on the evening of the Bth, and left
it next morning, still having the misery to pass
through nothing but unmitigated ravage. The
splendid bridge which crossed the Torce at Ma-
s'one was so wholly swept away as not even to
leave a trace of where it stood, and the
wroitandtheto
Vogogna was intersected at every few paces
irmespiset.
impetuous
The prettymoinatai n
n and populous
which nothing could
populous tor
vasco, between Vogogna al2d Herio.a, presented
of Orna-
one of the saddest spectacles
conceive. Torrents fierce, it is possible to
and of a volume scarce
imaginable, were rushing, even on that, the ..e-
-cond day after the subsiding of the deluge,
through the doors and windows of the
fated houses, the streets being choked up ten or
twelve feet with the stone and sand which had been
previously carried down and there deposited. A
volcanic eruption could not have left behind it a
greater accumulation of earth and stones than was
thrown upon this half-buried town by the irruption
of the mountain waters. Like another Hercula-
neum, it stood overwhelmed with ruins, deserted,

and half hid under the earth, while a few solitary
individuals stood looking over the devastation of
their homes, and the blasting of their hopes, with
leaden aspects and fixed eyes—pictures of despair.
The elements would appear to have reached the
climax in their war upon humanity, for as this was
the most afflicting sight we met with, so it was the
last. From Ornavasco to Heriola, althocgh some
remains of the inundation yet rested on the land,
yet the greater portion had drained off, and the
road remained almost entirely perfect. At Heriola
what a change ! From unbounded rage to the
most divine peace—from hideous deformity to the
most exquisite proportions I The lovely Lago
Maggiore lay before us, reclining, like a
Sultana, at voluptuous ease—her beauteous
bosom heaving and swelling at unequal intervals,
the expiring throbs after a late violent passion—and
her breath fragrant with the delicious perfumes of
the citron and olive trees. There she lay, clothed
in her robes of the brightest green, spangled over
with uncountable gems, which sparkled like a fir-
mament, and blazed in the rays of the cloudless sun
—the far Rhetian Alps standing round her couch
like domestics, obedient to her wish and auxiliary
to her pomp. Never did anything appear to me so
like a dream—so like a coup de theatre as this sud-
den transition from the savage to the gentle. It
was as if some kind, good-natured geni had, with
a stroke of her wand, transported you from the fell
magician's devilry to the enchanted abodes of enjoy-
ment and delight. And here I shall take advan-
tage of the sweet languor of the clime, and take a
short siesta, that is at Baveno, where I now repose,
lapped in Elysium, and famed by the odorous airs
of the all-smiling lake. I may conclude with
Othello in exclaiming—
" If after every tempest comes such calm,
May the winds blow 'till they have wakened death,
And may the labouring bark mount hills of seas
Olympus high 1 and duck again as low
As Hell's from Heaven."