This Chaussee
Is Another Wonderful Piece Of Work Of Napoleon; A Broad Carriage Road, Wide
Enough For Three Carriages To
Go abreast, and cut zig-zag with so gentle a
slope as to allow a heavy French diligence to pass,
With the utmost ease,
across a mountain where it was formerly thought impossible a wheel could
ever run. This chaussee is passable at all seasons of the year; the
mountain is not so high as that of the Simplon and is less liable to
impediments from the snow; the obstacles from nature are less, and you can
descend in a sledge from the Hospice by gliding down the side of the
cone, and thus descending in nine or ten minutes, whereas the ascent
requires four hours' time. From Lans-le-Bourg to the Hospice on
Mont-Cenis the road is on the flank of an immense mountain and you have no
ravines to cross; the road is cut zig-zag on the flank of the mountain and
forms a considerable number of very acute angles, as it is made with so
gentle a slope that you scarcely feel the difficulty of the ascent. These
repeated zig-zags and acute angles formed by the road, and the very slight
slope given to the ascent, make the different branches appear to be almost
parallel to each other, and it is a very curious and novel sight when a
number of carriages are travelling together on this road to see them with
their horses' heads turned different ways, yet all following the same
course, just like ships on different tacks beating against the wind to
arrive at the same port, a comparison that could not fail immediately to
occur to a sailor.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 224 of 558
Words from 61451 to 61739
of 151859
