The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-02 00:00:00

Colonel Chivington was mustered out of the
service last January--before this committee sat.
Major Anthony and Captain Cree are enjoying
their " name," doubtless, but where or in what
capacity I have not been able to ascertain.
The settlers in the Far West are, as it has been
said, much harassed by the Indians, but these poor
Cheyennes were notoriously friendly to the white
man. When a settler is killed his body—some of
the witnesses before the committee said—is carried
round the country for miles, to arouse the anger of
the other whites against the Indians. One witness
said candidly, " They wanted some Indian killed ;
whether friendly or not they did not stop long to
inquire." The marshal of the Colorado territory,
Mr. Hunt, remarked casually that the Indians had
certain rights, " which, by the by, they never get."
All this is of interest when taken in connexion with
that great conference between the Indians and
officers of the United States' Government which is
now going on. The authorities have apparently
seen at last that a just and proper policy ought to be
pursued towards the Indian, ever flying further and
further west before the steady march of his enemy.
It is said, and I believe with truth, that a plan has
been agreed upon which may tend to prevent a. re-
currence of events which disgrace the Government.
The scheme is to gather the Indians on reservations
and in colonies, and govern them by the strict dis-
cipline of martial law. Each year the Government
f shall distribute regular annuities, and to prevent
frauds and cheating, the distributions shall be
through quartermasters and commissaries. All trad-
ing among the Indians by whites shall be strictly
prohibited, and only half-breeds shall be allowed to
mingle with them at their abodes. There is no great
liberality in this apparently ; but it is better than
butchering the whole tribes in cold blood. Mean-
while, I read in one of yesterday's papers an account
of an expedition against the Indians, under a cer-
tain Gen. Connor. " His command," says this appre-
ciative writer, "is composed partly of California
and Colorado cavalry, who have an inveterate hatred
of the Indians, and would, as a rule, prefer killing
them to eating their dinners." Any change in the
policy of the Government towards the Indians will
evidently be a change for the better so far as they
are concerned.

The great struggle for victory between the Repub-
lican and Democratic parties is near at hand. The
first stage in it has begun in the meeeting of the
Conventions; but, as the Republican Convention
only meets this week, I postpone further reference
to the subject. You will see that the Sate Conven-
tions in the South are in this position :—Mississippi
has completed its work of reorganisation, and the
papers containing its constitution are in the hands of
the Government. Alabama is holding its Conven-
tion, and has already agreed not to repudiate its
State debts, incurred during the war—a measure
which no one looked for. South Carolina is also in
Convention, and on Monday the ordinance of seces-
sion was repealed, with only three dissentients.

Alpine Tourists.

(From a Correspondent of the Times.)
AOSTA, Sept. 15.

" If you wish to rest after a long ride," Sir Walter
Scott advised, " take a long walk ; if you have been
tired by a long walk, take a long ride." It was in
obedience to these wise precepts on the expediency
of warding off fatigue by a proper alteration of exer-
cise that we--i.e., my English companion and I--
feeling still all our bones aching with the conse-
quences of that awful jog-trot from Visp to Zermatt,
resolved, yesterday, pour 710114 degourdir, to take a
long scamper from the Riffleberg Hotel over the
Matterjoch, or Pas de Mont Cervin, or de St. Theo-
dule, and to descend the Val Tournanche down to
Chatillon, in the valley of Aosta.
We were up and doing at 4 o'clock on the morrow ;
the hotel door was shut after us at 5; and we found
ourselves out in the still air, with the glorious stars
shining over head, and the faintest streak of dawn
just enhancing the diamond purity of the sky on-
the eastern horizon. Sweeter morning hardly ever
rose. We walked down the hill as far as the border
of the Gorner glacier, steering our way over ice and
rock between the Little and the Great Matterhorn;
coasted the Breithorn, which treated us to the music
of its rattling avalanches, then came to the Theo-
dule Glacier, had a long walk up hill over the fresh-
fallen snow, which tasked our lungs to the utmost ;
clambered upon a steep, almost perpendicular rock,
one of the spurs of the Great Matterhorn, and de-
scended the glacier, and presently the wild moraine
which took us to the Alpine village of Breuil, at
the foot of the pass. A short halt here, then down to
the village of Val Tournanche ; here a substantial
breakfast; then again down the wild valley to Cha-
tillon, where we arrived at 4 o'clock p.m., after 11
hours' rather brisk walk.

We had thus actually walked "in the shadow"
of the Matterhorn ; we had gone nearly two-thirds
round the great pyramid, had risen about 3,000
feet above the Rifileberg, reached an altitude of
about 11,000 feet, and come down an almost con-
tinuous descent of 9,000 feet to Chatillon. There is
nothing miraculous, or even epic in our achievement.
The Col. de St. Theodule, although so high, is by
no means a difficult pass, nor in any manner dan-
gerous in favourable weather. Women do it in the
summer, and it is even on record that horses have
been taken across. Of the beauty of the pass and
of the subjacent valley I would not venture to say
much. From the Riffel to Breuil you feel as if you
were playing football with the big mountains ; you
have them all round you ; you come up with, you
go round them one after another, till you feel rather
too much at home among them, and you lose much
of that awe with which you have been gazing at
them for weeks from the deep vales underneath.
Down Val Tournanche you stop and turn at every
winding in the valley to look at that stupendous
pyramid of the Matterhorn, which lords it all over
the valley, and rises higher and higher on its rocky
throne at every step you take away from it. The
enjoyment to the eye is intense, incessant ; but what
is it to the incessant mountain music on the ear--
the thundering avalanche in your rear, the cracking
and even snapping of the ice between your feet, the
rolling of rocky fragments down the steep ; above
all, the rushing, thundering torrent, crashing cata-
ract, and the whirling, foaming surge in the deep
gorges at every downward leap of the dell ? It may
seem mere wanton waste of strength to go down
from Breuil to Chatillon, a long exhausting walk in
a summer heat ; but I contend that the descent
should be done all at one stretch by any one who
would mark the contrast from the stern and dismal
barrenness of the glacier region of this peerless garden
of Val d'Aosta. Every
downward step marked the
progress from the sublime to the beautiful. We
walked from zone to zone, from clime to clime, from
season to season ; and my English friend, who was
somewhat newer to such scenes than I, was in per-
fect raptures as, on reaching the debouche of Val
Tournanches at Chatillon, he beheld the broad ex-
panse of Val d'Aosta, its tall tapering walnut trees,
its picturesque and drooping chestnut trees, the
luxuriance of foliage never seen anywhere north of
the Alps, the maize fields, the vineyards, the inef-
fable smile of the southern land. To enjoy the
magic effect in its fulness it is absolutely necessary
to go Over the whole scene at one pull, and let the
bewildering sensation keep pace with the fatigue.
You must have your blood all aglow with the heat,
you must come down with throbbing pulse and spin-
ning brain, you
must abandon yourself to the in-
toxication of the
senses. Sit down before such a
picture in a gallery,
or even travel through such a
scene in an easy post-chaise,
isand half the charm is
lost, because your very soulnot wound up—not
attuned, as it were, to the
spowndie ningadtueminulqut
iorifeysoautr
vnaelryTe
sPectacle by a corre-
oLurnanche about the
adventurous Alpine climbers who ascended the Mat-
terhorn from the side of Breuil only a few days after,