Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/82

58 a bridge, and laid waste the whole region. An English traveller, then on his road to Chiavenna, relates that he traversed the chasm on a rotten uneven plank, and found but few inches remaining of the road overhanging the river. It was an awful invasion of one element on another. The whole road to Chiavenna was broken up, and the face of the mountain so changed that, when reconstructed, the direction of the route was in many places entirely altered. The region of these changes was pointed out to us; but no discernible traces remained of where the road had been. All here was devastation—the giant ruins of a primval world; and the puny remnants of man’s handiwork were utterly obliterated. Puny, however, as our