Travellers across the Alps mention tremendous torrents of rain in
those mountains. A correspondent of the Morning Post rrites thus from :Raven°, on the 10th instant- " The deluge which has poured upon the Alps and their neighbourhood with such fatal results has at length ceased, l'oar days and nights did it descend without it moment's intermission, and with a tbry almost unprecedented; swellieg the torrents to bursting, inundating the low countries, :eel bringing destruction, dismay., and death to the dwellings and to the very hearths ut tho unhappy inhabitants. On the evening of the ;it h, the wiud, which had blowa from the south, veered round to the mud h-er -r, and su I ii t he cleering heavens the rain ceased. to 11th. At that period the violenee of the torl'ents was at its height ; but such was the rapidity with which the accumulated waters de- scended from the mountains, that in a few hours they bad considerably dimi- nished ; and by twelve o'clock next day, they had so liar discharged themselves into the rallies as to give us, who were imprisoned in the dreadful vale of Vedro, some hope of making our escape. On the teth, Id out eleven o'clock, . we left the refuge, between Goad° told Isella, guided by- Mar stout moun- telneers. Goa I what wreCk—what desolatioe—what chaos lay bethre us! An earthquake could not hare left more appallieg trares of its wrath. It would seem as if all tlw &mons of destree:del had Iteen let loose to revel and do their worst on this devoted region. Iloeire, of a size that would make then& appear as immovable as the earth itself; Larked from the highest cliffs and peeks, and scattered about like pebbles in the ravine, in the villages, and across the road. Torrents poured from new mei hitherm unsuspected beds, rushing- over gardens awl uprooted plantations, and ex elti;:g over the foundations of demelislied habitations, All symptoms of eultivet ion and of bumaa industry vanished, and nothing but ruin, total and unrelieved, on every side. Of the spLorlid military met of Napoleon, from G eedu to Crevola, nothing renirdnet lett a few wrecks, ill6t enough to show where ran the greet ronte of the S1111111011. The t urn mien and beaetiful bridges d.ading into Varzo have been so completely swept away, that of one not a vestiere is left, aml of the other only a few stones. llere houses have been rolled v. III/ the rolling torreets down the selvage gulf of the Divedria, and the late wretched habitants sent waodering over the wild rocks ihr shell er, glad at having , sea lied a shucking death. To attempt to describe our journey omit of this horrible ravine, would be absurd. Led on by our intrepid guides, we had to plunge into foeming torrents, black with maddened rage— te climb precipitous heights strewn with loosened stones, t uttering over our heads aml ready to 11111 at the least agitation—to serene de over crumbling earth and insidious sands, in pi:ilk/115 where one :dip would bead to instant annihila- tiow-to cross raging floods astride upon poles, laid across the yawning gulfs from rock to rock. The dangers anul the sights of that day will never be erased from my mind, for not in the widest stretcii dirty imaeination had I ever con- ceived any thing as really Lexisting half so horrihle. Near Isella, I was struck with one thing eminently remarkable even in this scene, where all was emi- nent. A. piece of the road, of about thirty paces in length, which had been cut throngh the living rack, and which, consepently, would hare been sup- posed to be the most secure and irremovable of the %% hole work, carried, with the flinty foundation on which it was laid, into the all-receiving vortex, stood. 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 be- neath it. ilariog made our war in the maincr I have mentioned to Crevola, and pessed the noble bridge ia that place, which hravely outlived the deluge, we felt eome relief from the apprehension of a horrible death : bet the scene before its was, if possible, more heart-rending than that WO 113d 11,1. escaped from. The beantiM1 vales of Piedmont, their orchards, their vines, their 'Plan- tations, and tlteir fields, turned into one vast desert- of sand and slime—the yet ruling waters being the only disputant to its undivided empire. Sech convul- sions and visitations amidst mountains and ravines, sprung as these are from the contentious 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 Dome-Dossed° With broken into a hundred fragments, fuel ut ti rly impracticable, except on foot; and thus I may say that from Simplon villege tI Domo, a distatwe of about tweitty miles, the passage of the Alps, with the exception of a few frag- ments, is entirely destroyed. What damage may have been done from Simp- lon to Drive., I cannot of my own knowlolge speak : brit report says it is equally extensive. Every town and every inn on the line is tilled with per- sons and vehicles arrested by this misfortune, and little or De chance have they of either going on or returning. A few weeks limy. perhaps, render the route paesable hy pedestrian: ; but 1 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 exp.euled upan tins super', work, the present affliction would have been in some measure alleviated ; but the road has been let to WI into disrepair, mended merely temporarily, as oceasiou required, and that in the worst and most slovenly manner."
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