pence of the Vallais and the canton of Berne.... More than a league has been blown up with gunpowder; and a way formed with incredible labourwhich, though safe, would fill a person, not used to such scenes, with horror or dread.

Leuk is famous for its hot medicinal springs, and is much frequented by invalids, who either bathe or drink the waters, according to their various cases. In gout, rheumatisms, obstructions, and cutaneous disorders, these waters are nearly of the same efficacy as those of Bath.

The springs are of different warmths and qualities. According to the most accurate experiments, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer, when plunged into the principal source, stood at 115.

The accommodations for the company are very indifferent. Formerly they were tolerably good; but, in 1719, an avalanche fell with such impetuosity from a neighbouring glacier upon the village, as to overwhelm the greatest part of the houses and the baths, and to bury many of the inhabitants.

Since that period, no farther attention has been paid to the baths or the accommodations, than barely to render them useful to the sick. Mr. Coxe, contrasting Leuk with Bath, gave his ideas on the advantages which might be derived from improving the former. A sensible gentleman of the Vallais informed him, that it had frequently been in contemplation to erect buildings for the comfortable reception of strangers; but that some persons of great credit and authority opposed all improvements, on a principal similar to the policy of Lycurgus; justly conceiving that a con

course of strangers would only introduce luxury among the inhabitants, and insensibly destroy the simplicity of their manners, at once their pride and their happiness.

From Leuk they travelled to Sion, the capital of the Vallais, through a forest of firs, crossing the Rhone twice in their journey. The Vallais is divided into two districts, the upper and lower. The bishop of Sion was formerly absolute sovereign over the greatest part of this track; but his power is now extremely circumscribed, and he has only a conjoint authority with seven dixains. The republic of the Vallais is an ally of the thirteen cantons; and has formed a particular league with the Catholic ones, for the defence of their common religion.

The inhabitants of this track are very subject to goitres, or large excrescences of flesh under the throat; and what is more remarkable, idiocy is frequent among them.

The air is so very hot in this vale, that it naturally renders the people indolent; and the soil is so rich, that they have little occasion to labour. Their nastiness is disgusting beyond expression; and has by some been ascribed as the cause of their goitres. This, however, cannot be the case; nor can drinking snow water occasion them; for, on the last supposition, they would be frequent in other parts of Switzerland. Mr. Coxe, from the most particular enquiries, and the most exact observation, thinks that these horrid excrescences arise from the use of spring water, highly impregnated with a calcareous matter, called tuf, the porus of old authors, and the tophus of modern. In every country, he observes, where this

substance abounds, and the natives drink the waters in which it is imperceptibly dissolved, goitres are more or less common. At Matlock, in Derbyshire, he noticed goitrous persons, and there much tuf is found; at Friburgh, Berne, and Lucerne, he saw similar effects from the same cause. Hence, though there are many fanciful hypotheses, which refer goitres to other causes, we may rationally conclude, from uniform experience, that where they are very general, it must originate from the nature and qualities of the

water.

The same cause which generates goitres, probably operates in the case of idiots; for where ever the former abound, the latter are also found. During our author's expedition through the Vallais, he observed some of all proportions, from the size of a walnut to almost the bigness of a peck loaf. The same gradation may also be observed in the degree of idoicy. Some possess the dawnings of reason, while others are totally deaf and dumb, and give no proof of existence, but mere animal sensation.

Such is the nice and inexplicable connection between our bodies and our minds, that the one always sympathizes with the other; and therefore it is by no means an ill-founded conjecture, that the same waters which create obstructions and goitres, should also occasion mental imbecility and derangement.

Sion, the capital of the Vallais, is situated near the Rhone, at the foot of three insulated rocks, that rise above the plain. The highest, called Tourbillon, supports the ruins of the old episcopal palace. On the second, named Valeria, are

seen the remains of the old cathedral; and on Mayoria, the third rock, stands the present episcopal palace, the apartments of which are fitted up with the greatest simplicity.

Sion was formerly the principal town of the Siduni, who inhabited this part of the country in the time of Julius Cæsar. A few inscriptions, still remaining proves its antiquity. One, which Mr. Coxe observed, is in honour of the emperor Augustus, in his eleventh consulship.

At Sion they discharged their horses and guides, which had attended them from Altdorff, and hired a coach, a piece of luxury to which they had been long unaccustomed. Our author, however, still preferred riding, as it gave him a more unobstructed view of the country.

They stopped at Martigny, supposed to be the ancient Octodurum; and, indeed, from Cæsar's description, that town could not be far distant from the present Martigny.

Martigny is much frequented by travellers, in their way to the valley of Chamouny, to St. Maurice, and the Lake of Geneva, and is the passage of the merchandise conveyed over the Great St. Bernard to Italy.

Having crossed the Trient, a turpid torrent issuing from a narrow and obscure glen, they arrived at Pisse Vache, a famous cataract. The characteristic beauty of this fall is, that it seems to burst from a cleft in the middle of the rock through pendant shrubs, and forms a perpendicular column of water, about two hundred feet high. The volume being very ample, and the elevation not so considerable as to reduce it into spray, render the effect very grand.

Formerly travellers passed close to Pisse Vache; but some years ago, part of the rock tumbling down, totally obstructed the old road, which is now carried over the middle of the valley.

At the extremity of the lower Vallais, the mountains seem to meet, and allow little more than a passage to the Rhone between them. In this spot stands the town of St. Maurice, almost entirely built upon the rock, at the foot of some steep mountains near the river. Its ancient appellation was Agaunum, and it derives its present from the Abbey of St.Maurice, erected in the beginning of the sixth century, in honour of a saint, who is said to have suffered martyrdom in this place. This saint was commander of the famous Theban legion, which is recorded to have been massacred by order of the emperor Maximin, for not renouncing Christianity.

A few Roman inscriptions, chiefly sepulchral, and two defaced"columns, are the only genuine remains of the antiquity of St. Maurice. It is principally distinguished as being the grand entrance from the canton of Berne into the Vallais. This pass is very narrow, and so strongly fortified by nature, that a handful of men might oppose an army,

The stone bridge over the Rhine is of very bold projection; its span being one hundred and thirty feet.

From hence they travelled to Trient, a village in the road to Mont Blanc and the Alps of Savoy. From the mountain of the Furca, the eastern boundary of the Vallais, two vast ranges of Alps inclose that country. A track, thus entire