Arrival of friends—Excursion to Chamouny—The Voiron mountain—Its
monastery—The babes in the wood—Old castle of Faucigny—Its last
possessor—Her rights over Dauphiny bequeathed to Savoy—Long war
with France—Bonneville—Cluses—Wretched inhabitants—The baronial
capital in the time of the old lords—Cavern of La Balme—The village
of Arache, and Falquet—The Nant d’Arpenas—Sallenches—Mont
Blanc—The lake of Chède filled up—Pont Pelissier—Les Motets—The
Glacier des Bossons—Evening—A tranquil night—Morning cavalcade—My
guide—The Montanvert—Fontaine du Caillet—Source of the
Aveiron—The avalanche—Mer de Glace—Passage of cattle—Priory of
Chamouny founded in eleventh century—The Grands Mulets on Mont
Blanc—Character of the inhabitants of Chamouny—Return—Versoix
destined by Louis the Fourteenth for Geneva’s rival—Coppet—The
monument—Old castle of Wufflens—Bertha—Morges—Lausanne—Cathedral
containing tomb of Duke Amedée and Bernard de Menthon—The
Faucon—The fat innkeeper abandoned—Vevay—Trois Couronnes.
Since I last wrote we have made a very delightful excursion, even
though Fanny was no party concerned; for our friends joining us, though
only for a few days, and anxious to make a flying visit to Chamouny, we
determined on accompanying them, and recommending our four-footed
companions, both, but particularly Fanny, to the whole establishment,
including Monsieur Dejean’s sister, we set forth; all eight packed in
one of his heavy carriages and drawn by four of his heavy horses. It
was the 3rd of August, and a burning day. Just before the road enters
Savoy, (as it nears the Salève on the right hand and the Voiron on the
left, and beyond the valley through which flows the small river Foron,
you see Mont Blanc and its glaciers,) the country loses the tamer,
cultivated beauty of the environs of Geneva, and becomes wild and
grand. At the summit of the Voiron, in a desert and savage retreat,
damp and cold, and usually deep in snow, there was once a monastery. I
read somewhere that a monk, questioned as to his sufferings, said they
were such as sometimes to drive him to desperation, but that the Virgin
gave him strength and would reward him in Heaven with torrents of
felicity for the earthly torments he endured! Not long ago this
mountain was the scene of a new edition of the babes in the wood.
One stormy October two young boys were at play about four in the
evening, chasing each other over the snow. Night closed in, and they
lost their way in a thick fir-wood, unconscious of its being close to
their own home. When it had become quite dark, and they did not return,
the alarmed family searched the forest with torches and cow-bells, and
after three hours of toil and anxiety, they were found in a hole filled
with leaves; the oldest, nine years of age, had taken off his jacket,
to cover with it his brother, only six years old, and was lying on him
to keep him warm, braving himself cold and death, and already so far
benumbed as to be unable to reply to the well known voices which called
on him.
The Foron rises in this mountain, and is the Genevese boundary. We
crossed it on the wooden bridge which looks so picturesque from the
height above, and were stopped at Annemasse, a little farther, to
exhibit our passports. This is the Sardinian frontier, and we were
detained some time, but no trouble given, and the carriage not
examined. We were found en règle, for the passports had been visés the
night before, this being a necessary preliminary to visiting Chamouny,
and a profitable one to Sardinia, for each visa costs four francs.
Before reaching Bonneville, which is the chief town of the province of
Faucigny, we passed the ruined castle of its old barons, which frowns
on a commanding height to the left. Its last possessor was Beatrice,
grand-daughter of Agnes, daughter of Aymon the second, baron of
Faucigny, last male of his line. Marrying the dauphin of Vienne, she
bore with her to her husband her rights over the province, but having
attained an advanced age, family dissensions, and the ill-treatment of
her grandchildren, offspring of her daughter Anna, induced her to pray
the protection of her cousin Amedée the Great, count of Savoy. Received
at his court, and treated with attention and affection, as well as with
the honours due to her rank, she resolved on proving her gratitude by
bequeathing to him all the lands, rights, and castles she possessed
over and above her marriage portion, as well as whatever she could
alienate of her paternal inheritance. Her will, made in this spirit,
was the cause of Savoy’s taking up arms against Dauphiny; the one to
defend the territory just acquired, the other to resist spoliation; and
these cruel wars once kindled did not cease entirely till Humbert the
Second, last dauphin, weary of the world when he had lost his son, took
the monastic habit, and in 1349 ceded Dauphiny to the heir of France.
The Green Count Amedée, disapproving of the presence of his new and
powerful neighbour, led an army across the mountains, and fought a
pitched battle, in which he was victorious, taking prisoners many of
the chief men there, both of France and Dauphiny. The count’s prowess
and power proved, the former were satisfied with placing their
interests in the hands of arbitrators, who decided that Savoy should
remain sovereign of Faucigny and Gex, while she ceded to France all her
possessions in Dauphiny beyond the Rhone and the Guier. The old castle
passed, the road nears the Mole, which towers in all its elevation of
5800 feet, and we drove through an avenue of trees into Bonneville,
where we breakfasted not badly, despite the very poetical rhyme:
“Oh ye, who stop at Bonneville town,
Beware of feeding at the Crown,”—
which, if written in charity, is useless on the dining-room shutter.
The heat being intense, our horses were rested for two hours, during
which time the coachman failed to discover a loose fore shoe, which
stopped us on the stone bridge which crosses the Arve, just as we
started once more, and was remedied by a long nail, driven in anyhow.
Near the bridge is a lately erected column in honour of Carlo Felice,
whose statue surmounts it, ninety-five feet above ordinary mortals; and
in gratitude for the fresh embankments which restrain the Arve’s fury
when it rushes from its mountain birthplace, swollen by the first
melting of the ice in spring. Near their source, (the glaciers,) these
streams are more awful than beautiful; they have the turbid hue
produced by the snows and earth they bear violently along; and in their
mildest aspect they roar in a narrow channel, amidst the broad expanse
of desolation they have made in their anger.
Our way to Cluses lay between the Mole, now near us on the left, and
Mont Brezon, whose range bounds, on the right, the rich cultivated
valley; a lovely road, but traversing miserable villages and crowds of
mendicants, the young children with the seamed and care-worn faces of
age, and dark with emaciation. The dreadful goitre is common here, and
we saw one unhappy cretin grinning vacantly as he tottered along.
Near Cluses the road is cut between the wall of rock and the precipices
which overhang the river; and a stony defile which it commands, and
partly fills, leads to the city, which has the aspect of a poor hamlet.
It was the baronial capital in the time of the old lords of Faucigny,
and conferred on those who lived there a year and a day the title and
privileges of freemen.
Leaving Cluses we entered a wild glen; rocks arched above our heads,
and the road cut in their base, or carried over their scattered
fragments, and overhanging the Arve foaming below; tall oaks springing
from half detached masses, and bowed forward, as if to measure the
height of their threatened fall; and the dark pines of each forest
looking darker from the contrasting foam and brightness of unnumbered
streamlets and small cascades.
Issuing from the gorge, the mountains retreating to the left form a
semicircle; we stopped for milk and lemonade at one of the huts, where
the cow, the goat, and the family live happily together, being the spot
whence the indefatigable traveller (to whose class none of our party
belonged) ascends by a mule path to the cavern of La Balme. They
pointed it out on the side of one of these mountains of the
amphitheatre, eight hundred feet above; Mrs. Starke, with more truth
than romance, compared it to the mouth of an oven! Within, a narrow
gallery widens to a vast hall; its length is about sixteen hundred
feet, and its effect fine by the torchlight, as the roof and walls
sparkle with stalactites, which here and there form a bright pavement
to the floor.
Between Balme and Maglan but the other side of the mountain, is the
commune of Arache. Towards the close of the sixteenth century it
produced a fortunate man, in the person of one Nicholas Falquet, who
could barely read and write when he left his father’s cabin. Arrived at
Vienna, in Austria, he entered a rich merchant’s service, who, noticing
his intelligence and natural talents, allowed him to share the studies
of his heiress. The young girl became attached to him, and his parents,
who had learned to consider him as their son, consented to their union;
but very shortly after some sudden malady carried off both father and
mother, and either the same stroke, or sorrow for their loss, deprived
him of his bride also. She had bequeathed to him her entire fortune,
and Nicholas returned to the valley where he was born. There was a
peasant girl, with whom, ere his emigration, he had been accustomed to
herd flocks near the village. She had never quitted it or forgotten
him, and after a time given to mourning, he married and conducted her
to Vienna. Their son was created baron of the empire, and by Falquet’s
order a small but beautiful church was erected on the site of his
paternal cottage, in the village of Arache.
Three quarters of a league beyond Maglan we passed the fine cascade of
the Nant d’Arpenas; it struck me less than on our return. The volume of
water is small, but springs from a height of eight hundred feet, and is
scattered ere it reaches its first fall. When we travelled the same
road yesterday, the stream had been considerably increased by rains,
and the broad spray floated in a sunbeam, which it seemed to have
embodied with itself and to be bearing away.
At St. Martin, in the yard of the inn of Mont Blanc, we found a
good-humoured fat landlady, and the cars which were to convey us the
remainder of our journey. They have no springs, the road does not allow
of them, and are mere benches under canopies, with leather aprons,
which will protect from rain or can be tied up out of the way.
The bridge which crosses the Arve, about a hundred yards further, leads
to Sallenches, and from it there is a noble view of Mont Blanc, with
aiguille and glacier glittering above the nearer mountains, darkly
clothed to their summit, a view which every moment increases in
splendour as the postilion urges the little mountain horses over the
rough roads, and beds of torrents, and bridges of loose planks, which
they tread without start or stumble.
We passed what was the lake of Chède, and is converted, by a fall of
mud and rubbish from the mountain, into a stony wilderness, and crossed
a stream too rapid for a bridge, but which favoured us, as the water
was by no means high, and the road is seldom in a good condition for a
week.
About Servoz, where the horses rested, is a thin wood of stunted oak
and cherry trees, the latter bearing fruit of the size of a wild
strawberry, but beyond they yield to pine, and larch, and hazel. We
crossed another torrent, the Dioza, and then indeed were in a gorge not
to be forgotten. The road skirts the base of the Breven, with the Arve
on the right, washing the foot of the mound on which rises the ruined
castle of St. Michael; the pont Pelissier, under which it dashes
before; the mountains on either side covered with pines: but the bare
wild peaks shutting in the valley behind us, and the ridges of shining
snow closing it before.
Our way lay over the bridge; for beyond, the Arve raves deep below the
road, and rends itself a passage through rocks and darkness. We crossed
it on foot, and walked up a part of the steep hill leading to the
Motets, the range which divides the valleys of Servoz and Chamouny;
mighty barriers, which keep in the mind a local habitation, even when
they want a name.
We continued to toil upwards with little space to spare between the
narrow car’s wheels and the precipice which hangs over the roaring
Arve: an inadvertent driver or unruly horse would ensure destruction,
but there is little danger of either. We were assailed by innumerable
beggars furnished with various excuses for extorting money—mostly
intelligent, bright-eyed children, half-clothed and barefoot,—offering
a marigold gathered in the valley, or a crystal found on the mountain,
and running fearlessly along the very brink of places my head turned
even to look down.
From the ridge of the Motets we obtained the finest view of Mont Blanc,
henceforth close to us, but its form, changed at that part called the
Dome de Goût, hides its summit; and descending through some fertile
meadows to Ouches, the first village in the valley, the glaciers became
visible also: their brightness and the purity of the atmosphere making
them appear so much nearer than they really were. I thought their size
inconsiderable, but found my mistake as the road, which now runs
directly beneath the range of this snow-king and his vassals, passed
near the Glacier des Bossons, some of whose pinnacles are sixty and
eighty feet high. Beyond us, and a league beyond Chamouny, at the head
of the valley, we saw the Glacier du Bois, which terminates the Mer de
Glace. We crossed numerous torrents on their moving and nervous
bridges, the waters of some clear and bright, of others turbid as the
Arve, here wilder and muddier than ever, and which we traversed to
continue our way along its right bank. The valley seen in the light of
the declining sun, with its fresh green meadows, its flax and corn
fields, its scattered cottages and shining church spires, and black
forests and snows for background, must be the loveliest on earth. You
and I have read descriptions of tints on glaciers, probably thinking
the enthusiasm of the traveller might slightly exaggerate; yet I was
aware they fell far short as we watched all the changes from glittering
white to pale gold—from gold to rose-colour, and then to violet; and
then the magic hues fading by degrees, but light lingering on the
summit even when the glaciers on its side were grey, and the road we
were going dusk; as if one sunbeam had been left behind, dedicated to
the dome of the mountain.
Arriving at dark, we passed the Union, which appears the best inn and
has baths adjoining, on our way to the Hôtel d’Angleterre, which is
called so, but I think must have lost its character. The landlord and
his wife are civil, and their charges moderate, but the table d’hôte
indifferent, and the beds bad. D—— met an army friend whom he had not
seen since we left ——, and the conversation became a strange medley
of private theatricals and mountain passes. Arriving latest, we were
necessarily the worse lodged: the rooms are unceiled, and, having the
stables at our backs, we had overhead two pedestrians, who packed at
midnight and put on their boots at three in the morning; and very much
added to the pleasurable sensations produced by straw bolsters and hair
mattresses, which scratch even through coarse sheets. Our party put
itself in motion after breakfast; Mrs. —— and her beautiful young
daughter in chaises à porteurs; the rest on tall mules, to whose backs
we climbed by ladders, and whose motion is certainly the most
disagreeable in the world, particularly as, in submission to our
guides, we left the reins untouched and their noses as near the ground
as they pleased to lay them. My guide Mounier, whose name I wrote down
that I might find him on my next visit, has a high claim to the
character for civility and intelligence common to his predecessors at
Chamouny. When we had crossed the Arve and the meadows on our way to
Montanvert, the path grew rough and narrow, and rose abruptly through
the pine forest. As its zigzags are cut on the hill side, and there is
barely room for the mule and guide, and no defence towards the
precipice, it may present some alarm to persons unused to mountain
passes, particularly as the mule always chooses the extreme edge from
its habit of carrying burthens, and its fear of striking them against
the rock, which would precipitate it below. For a considerable distance
the path is composed of irregular steps of stone, several feet in
height, and up these the mules clamber with an adroitness and safety of
which I had formed no idea. Through the dark branches and broken stumps
we caught glimpses of the valley, and I thought our party looked very
picturesque as it wound along, forming a straggling line; the chaises à
porteurs gaining on us, whose mules patiently followed the guides, one
by one; a little boy, who carried some spiked sticks, holding by the
tail of the last and laziest. From a spot near the Fontaine du Caillet,
which is about half way, the vale and the river, the fields and
cottages, spread below like a map brightly coloured. The guide pointed
out on the opposite mountain the path which leads to the Croix de
Flégère, the best spot for seeing Mont Blanc in its splendour, as it is
upwards of three thousand feet above Chamouny.
A steep and difficult path leads down the mountain side to the source
of the Aveiron. We could plainly distinguish the black arch of the ice
cavern, which terminates the Mer de Glace, and through whose mouth it
forces its way, and bounds forward to fling itself into the Arve.
Passing the fountain and its gay troops of peasant girls assembled
there with fruit, milk, and lemonade, very agreeable refreshment at
that height, we crossed the track of an avalanche, a broad line of
destruction; the firs snapped at the root and carried away, or laid
prostrate beneath the weight of stones and portions of rock cast down
from above, looking as if some giant scythe had mown an avenue through
the pine forest from the mountain top high over our heads down to the
valley far beneath.
From this place the way grows more rugged, and encumbered with larger
blocks of stone, but the mules climbed gallantly; and at last, arrived
at the summit, we stopped at the pavilion opposite the older refuge
built by an Englishman, and called from him the Hôpital de Blair. The
view would have repaid us for more fatigue. The Mer de Glace was
directly beneath, and opposite, the pinnacled mountains which guard its
shore. There seemed to me no resting-place for the foot of an eagle,
yet Mounier said he had often slept out on them when hunting the
chamois. The highest of the numberless pointed rocks which shoot
upwards like white spires against the blue sky, is the Aiguille Verte,
for it is about seven thousand feet above the summit of the Montanvert.
The Mer de Glace itself is ill represented in all the engravings I have
seen, for its waves do not resemble those of the sea suddenly frozen,
while driven in the same direction by a tempest—they rather look as if
they had been tossed by whirlwinds, and are of irregular forms and
unequal height, their flat surfaces and pointed crests of the dull
white of soiled snow; for it rejects to its surface all impurities, and
only on looking down into its crevices are you aware of their pale,
beautiful green—the purest and clearest in the world. You can form no
idea of the size of these waves except by descending among them, the
magnitude of all which surrounds them deceiving as to theirs, yet many
exceed forty feet in height; and of the Mer de Glace, which is about
eight leagues in length, two are from this spot visible.
We scrambled down by a rugged path which leads to it from the pavilion,
but it is no place to tread without a guide, and it is dangerous to
advance too far on the edges of these crevices, which are often
unsupported below; and some accidents generally occur to the cattle or
their drivers when in the month of July the former are sent from
Chamouny up the Montanvert and across the Mer de Glace for the sake of
the scanty pastures on the opposite mountain. It is a melancholy
existence for the lonely herdsman who remains to guard them during the
three months of their stay; for his solitude (Mounier said) is seldom
disturbed except by the person sent by the cattle owner, who carries
him at the end of the month the bread and cheese which is to suffice
for his subsistence throughout the next; and all the time not spent in
wanderings after stray heifers he whiles away knitting stockings. We
returned to the pavilion by a better path, beside the stone inscribed
with the names of Pocock and Windham, the two English travellers who,
in 1741, revived the memory of the forgotten valley of Chamouny, where
a priory had been founded in the eleventh century. We rested on this
broad stone, which was their dinner-table or bed, or both, and the
crags round which were covered with rhododendrum, which grows wild
everywhere, brightening them with its deep red blossom. The pavilion
affords refreshment and, if you will, beds, and a collection of chamois
horn walking-sticks, seals of crystal and brooches of stones found on
the mountain, which distract the visitor’s attention from the glorious
view on which the windows open. We were to be at the hotel at five, and
our mules followed, the litters as before; but I soon found it less
agreeable to feel the animal slide down steps three feet high than
climb over them, and having borne several times, from shame, the
disagreeable sensation and the waver it invariably makes at the sharp
turns and the brink of the precipice, I discovered that my sight
failed, and the guide advised walking, to myself and the lady with me;
so that walk we did, slowly certainly—for the distance is two leagues
and a half, to be performed by a succession of hoppings on loose
stones. We passed again the fountain with its group of smiling girls
and the woman blowing her collection of trumpets, trading, as somebody
said, with the echo; and when all was quiet again, we heard the fall of
an avalanche, but so dull and distant it resembled only a faint and
prolonged moan. Mounier pointed out the Grands Mulets on Mont Blanc,
the place where those who ascend pass the night, four or five black
rocks in the snow, looking like monuments for the frozen. He had been
up twice himself, he said, but meant to return no more, as the peril
was too great for a man whose father on his deathbed had bequeathed
five sisters to his care. I was glad when we had arrived at the plain,
and could mount our mules once more, having painfully limped the last
two miles. We arrived at the inn, where the table d’hôte was already
filled, and did honour to ill cheer. I was sorry to part from my poor
civil guide and promised to summon him on our next visit, when he will
probably no longer be there, for he was a delicate looking man with a
hectic colour in his cheek, and the inhabitants of Chamouny, from the
sudden changes of temperature, are subject to inflammatory maladies.
They bear a high character as being honest, faithful, and charitable,
and their courage is incontestable, as it is with them a thing of
course to risk their lives if those of their employers be in peril. The
orphans and old men who have no means of subsistence are supported by
all the inhabitants of the parish, each in turn, and among those who
have property, should there be one precluded by age or infirmity from
cultivating his field, his neighbours till it for him. They are rarely
tall or handsome, but muscular and strong, and from their climate and
exposure to its vicissitudes, seldom attain old age. In their season of
forced idleness, the winter, which lasts about eight months, some play
high, others drink immoderately. Their harvests chiefly consist of
flax, barley, oats, beans, and potatoes; the latter grow in abundance,
and they make a kind of bread from their flour. I paid a visit to the
mineral baths which, notwithstanding their unpleasant odour, I
recommend to all whose limbs are wearied with mountain excursions, and
then crossed the little bridge near the hotel, and sat till dark,
looking our farewell at Mont Blanc and his rainbow, and annoyed by the
only nuisance of the valley, girls and boys exhibiting and persecuting
marmottes and young eagles. We were up at five and on our way before
the sun was above the mountain, so that we saw its visage of all hours.
I should not choose sunrise, for as the mist rises, the brilliancy it
receives from the rays which cross it hides the mountains behind; but,
as we proceeded further, nothing could be more beautiful than to see
the ray lying on the summit of the Glacier des Bossons like a thread of
silver, and the valley of Servoz was far lovelier with the tops of its
pines just touched with light, and their long shadows in the valley,
than seen under a mid-day sun. From St. Martin, where we breakfasted,
our fat coachman resumed possession of our persons, and safely
deposited them in the Secheron, where we found Fanny well, and the
hotel very comfortable after mountain inns and mountain passes.
13th August.
Our friends being gone, and ourselves finding the Secheron too silent
and sad after their departure, we left it yesterday morning to sleep at
Morges, and were fortunate in a cool cloudy day. Hoping to escape some
of the laughter and hooting, which have greeted me everywhere save in
Savoy, I adopted the large round straw hat such as they wear
themselves, but without its producing any beneficial effect on their
manners. The road passes through the village of Versoix, which was
French property in Louis the Fourteenth’s time, and destined by the
angry king to outdo Geneva as a trading town. The pier and streets were
marked out, but the buildings have proceeded so slowly, that Voltaire’s
sarcastic lines are still true:—
À Versoix nous avons des rues;
Mais nous n’avons point de maisons.
We were now in the Canton de Vaud, and next appeared Coppet and Madame
de Staël’s château, to which, as I told you, we rode before, but
without seeing more than its outside, as the family was there. I
understand that strangers are at no time allowed to visit the monument,
where she lies near her father and mother, and it is wholly concealed
from view by the fine trees which shade it. We rode through the suburb
of Nyon, admiring the zigzag road which leads to St. Cergues, across
the Jura, now towering nearer and darker. The lake grows more
interesting (its broadest part is from Rolle to Thonon, three-quarters
of a league), and the country round more wooded. We fed the horses at
Rolle, and rested some time at the Tête Noire, a clean, quiet-looking
inn, where one might pass a night comfortably. Mont Blanc was
invisible, but the rocks of La Meillerie appeared, and the approach to
Morges is picturesque beneath dark and old trees,—the pretty arbour
and old castle of Wufflens on the right. The improving system has not
wholly spared the latter; but its tall donjon and the turrets which
flank it are well preserved, considering the circumstance of its being
built in the tenth century by Bertha of spinning memory, mother of
Hugh, king of Italy, and Guy, duke of Tuscany. Notwithstanding the
saddle, with its place to hold the distaff, exhibited as hers at
Payerne, and the assurance that she spun while she rode chargers more
docile than belong to the idler daughters of our day, I am inclined to
doubt the tradition, as her court of Tuscany was most brilliant beneath
her sway, and she is renowned as one of the most ambitious women who
ever sat on an Italian throne; and from her beauty and talent, she drew
her husband into various wars,—obtained and preserved influence over
the most powerful of the country,—and more than once disarmed the
anger of those princes she had offended. We stopped to sleep at the
Couronne, a comfortable inn, and left the next morning, intending to
remain at Lausanne the following day. It is only a post and a half
distant, and the ride was very beautiful, but the flies tormenting and
the heat excessive. A steep hill leads to the town, built on a lower
slope of the Jura. As we ascended, leaving on the right the road to
Ouchy, where I believe there is a good inn (the Ancre, more agreeably
situated on the lake shore), the view of the town and cathedral opened
grandly on us; and from the promenade of Montbenon at its summit, that
of the blue lake below, and the bold crags shutting it in, was superb.
I should not, however, like to sojourn at Lausanne, many of whose steep
crowded streets have no prospect of the beauty which surrounds them,
running parallel to the lake, and some communicating with each other by
stairs as at Lyons, so that a walk to the shore and back may resemble
an hour in a treadmill. The outside of the cathedral is of a bad Gothic
architecture; its interior the finest in Switzerland, and contains the
monument of Amedée the Eighth of Savoy, _alias_ Pope Felix, and that of
Otho of Granson. The noble Bernard de Menthon is buried here also.
Passed the new “Hôtel Gibbon,” built on the site of the historian’s
house, and up the steep street to the Faucon. I dismounted, and the fat
innkeeper came rolling along the corridor, at the slowest possible
pace, to meet me in the hall. Whether he was or not turning in his mind
the best method of proving himself a true falcon, by his treatment of
his prey, I cannot tell; but he meditated his answer for a minute ere
it was made, during which minute D—— was sitting one kicking horse
and watching another, the flies and sun increasing his ill-will every
second,—so that when I had left the heavy host and his two waiters
standing in readiness to conduct us, and returned to request him to
dismount, I found him decided on going on. How long the great man and
his two satellites stood on the first step of the stair I cannot say,
as I mounted Fanny, and we took the turn to Vevay. Almost the whole way
lies between low stone walls, winding high above the lake, and looking
down the precipices on its magnificent scenery. There is little or no
shade, as vineyards in terraces clothe the steep side of the mountain,
and when these cease, a wall of rock reflects the sun, giving the heat
an intensity oppressive to all, saving the myriads of active lizards
who shot over the sand. Surmounting one tall crag is a square castle,
of the form and size of those so often met with in Ireland, perched on
a height it would have puzzled our feet to attain. Over the rocks, on
the lake’s opposite side, hung a light mist, rather enhancing than
robbing them of their grandeur. A rapid descent leads to Vevay, which
lay smiling in the evening glow with its sleeping lake and green woods
and sunny mountains, and the gray church tower, flanked by four
turrets, among its trees on the hill above the town. Beyond Vevay we
saw Chillon indistinctly through the haze, which cast its magic and
mystery over the dim gorge of the Rhone, and the gigantic peaks which
terminate it, whose white brows shone through brightly, though at
intervals, like pure actions refuting calumny.
Having mistaken first our way and then the inn, we at last dismounted
at the Trois Couronnes, second in comfort to only the Secheron. Its
proprietor is building an hotel, which will replace this, larger and
more commodious, and commanding the view, whose beauty is not to be
surpassed. At the extremity of the market-place is a boulevard and a
grove,—the roots of whose trees the lake washes: we sat there till
after nightfall. The thin mist still lay on the surface, smooth as a
mirror, reflecting the dark branches and old irregular houses, with the
curving shore to the left; where Chillon stood forth a white mass on
the water, with all its associations,—the reformer’s sufferings, and
the poet’s song. Above the rocks of Meillerie, opposite us, the moon
was rising,—yet too young to diffuse more than the faintest glow. The
picturesque boats of the lake lay motionless, or rowed past slowly and
silently without a breath in their sails; it was like a lake in a dream.
END OF VOL. I.
London:—Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, Stamford Street.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Lately Published_,
* * * * *
SIX MONTHS IN CHINA:
BY LORD JOCELYN,
Late Military Secretary to the Chinese Expedition.
Fourth Edition. With Views of Chusan Harbour, and the Great
Wall of China.
Fcap. 8vo. 5_s._ 6_d._
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CAIRO, PETRA, & DAMASCUS, DESCRIBED:
From Original Notes made during a Tour in those
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BY JOHN G. KINNEAR, ESQ.
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AN EXCURSION IN ASIA MINOR IN 1838:
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DISCOVERIES MADE IN ANCIENT LYCIA:
Being a JOURNAL OF A SECOND EXCURSION IN ASIA MINOR.
BY CHARLES FELLOWS, ESQ.
With Plates, Maps, and Woodcuts. Imperial 8vo. £2 2_s._
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AN ACCOUNT OF THE GYPSIES OF SPAIN:
With a Collection of their SONGS and POETRY,
and VOCABULARY of their LANGUAGE.
BY GEORGE BORROW, ESQ.
Late Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Spain.
Two Volumes, Post 8vo. 18_s._
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SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMICAL.
BY JOHN PAGET, ESQ.
Map and Illustrations. Two Volumes, 8vo. £1 10_s._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MR. MURRAY’S LIST OF BOOKS—_Continued._
* * * * *
DOMESTIC MANNERS IN RUSSIA:
Described from a Year’s Residence in that Country, chiefly in
the Interior.
BY THE REV. R. LISTER VENABLES, M.A.
Post 8vo. 9_s._ 6_d._
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ALSO, NEARLY READY,
A RESIDENCE ON THE SHORES OF THE BALTIC:
Described in a Series of Letters to Friends at Home.
BY A LADY.
With Etchings by the Authoress, from Sketches made on the Spot.
Two Volumes, Post 8vo.
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DESCRIPTIVE
TOUR IN LOMBARDY, TYROL, & BAVARIA:
BY JOHN BARROW, ESQ.
With Woodcuts. Post 8vo.
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A HAND-BOOK FOR TRAVELLERS
IN SOUTHERN ITALY AND SICILY.
With large Travelling Maps.
Post 8vo.
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A HAND-BOOK FOR TRAVELLERS
IN NORTHERN ITALY:
With Map. Post 8vo.
* * * * *
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s notes
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and inconsistencies;
retained non-standard spelling.
2. Correctly accented some French words for improved software
readability.
3. Italic text in the original is delimited by _underscores_.