friendship and honour, not to attempt to deceive you through a mistaken kindness in the smallest particular, so be affured I hold myself obliged to fulfil my engagement, au pied de la lettre.-Follow me then in ideal jaunt, like Puck's fairy friend, Over hill, over dale, Through bufh, through brier, Through flood, through fire. My journey also muft have a fiery end, Mount Vefuvius. I tremble at the thought-though perhaps I may be better reconciled to a burning mountain, when I fhall feel myself almoft petrified to cryftal, amidst the eternal fnows and iced mountains, towards which we are making all poffible expedition. Having Having quitted Ornon this morning, we arrived at noon at a fmall town called Pontarlier. Pontarlier; here we changed horfes and dined: it is a bleak, raw-looking uninteresting place, the road however is tolerable between Ornon and Pontarlier, but not at all to your tafte; a precipice quite confiderable enough to terrify you being conftantly on one fide, the mountain rifing on the other; for a confiderable part of the way this road appears to wind and turn about the fides of thefe high hills:-the day has been very fine, and the profpect highly romantic ;-though no where so distant, but that the horizon is diftinctly closed by by a chain of mountains clothed up to their fummits with pines; their fituation is rendered particularly ftriking by the fudden protuberances of the ground which produce them.-When the fun had rifen fo high as to the favourite moment of all landscape-painters, the 45th degree, or (to fpeak with the vulgar) about ten o'clock, the tops of the firs glistened with refulgent brightness, and the dark shadows caft by their fpreading branches augmented in appearance the real projection of their conical fides.-By the majestic nodding of their heads, they feemed to infult, from their fuperior elevation, the humble trees in the valley below, and capriciously to amuse themselves with fuddenly cafting monftrous and gigantic shadows on the peaceful plains of green corn in the valley, interspersed with various hues, occafioned by the patches of peas and other pulfe now in bloffom.Here and there meadows of hay in the various progress of making, and a few poor villages fcattered amongst the mountains diverfified the fcene. Thefe cottages (though far more picturesque in profpect, than the most comfortable of the farmhoufes of Halfpenny) are only compofed of a few planks and trees loosely faftened together. As we advanced, we began to close with the pines, which had hitherto bounded our view, and which now, dividing themselves at our approach into beautiful viftas, opened out to us irregular lawns, watered by limpid fprings gufhing forth from amongst the trees, their ftreams feparating into rivulets, bordered B 2 bordered by various flowers of the lily and flag kind-but all my paftoral fpeculations were interrupted by our arrival at Pontarlier, where, as I have already informed you, we dined.-I do not invite you to partake in imagination of our banquet, for they ferved us up a stinking chicken, which, after fome entreaty, was exchanged for a few eggs, little inferior in ripeness to their chicken. Juft as we fat down to our frugal repast, enters a peafant, and fays, Voici Monfieur le Marechal.-I was about to rife mechanically, ftruck with the fimilarity of the ftyle and title of my vifitor to the well-known found at B, when, behold a dirty blacksmith enters; it feems his Cyclopian aid had been wanting to our carriage, for which he demanded payment.-On being asked how much would content him, he replied, Six Vaches.-Six Vaches, cried I with aftonifhment! The peafant, who felt the caufe of my furprise, smiled, and faid, he means eighteen fols-which fum in this country goes under the appellation of fix cows. Our hoft charged us five livres for four eggs; pray how many cows does that make? As foon as our horfes were ready, away we drove as faft as poffible, each horfe doing his best according to their feveral abilities, for all fix were of different fizes, fhapes, colours, and propenfities. Our road continued much in the fame ftyle with that of the morning, till we reached the end of our day's Fougné. journey-a place called Jougné.-Figure to yourself a ruined castle, fituated on the fide of a mountain, embofomed embofomed in a foreft of fir-trees; one of its towers alone habitable, and that confifting only of two tolerable rooms. By its date in figures on one of the ftones 1579, it must have been builtin Henry the Third's reign, if I do not mistake.This castle belongs to the Duke of Rochefoucault, who is proprietor of thirty-eight Signories contiguous to it. The inhabitants of the village are civil and poor; they are dreffed like thofe montagnards who come twice a year to B-- to the expofition of the Sainte Suaire.-And their coiffure is to the full as furprifing.-A long pewter skewer, with a knob at each end, fuftains their Chignon, which is twisted round it,-fo that their heads, when viewed in front, have fomething of the air and grace of young heifers with budding horns. Good night; we have juft fupped on trout, the natives of thefe mountain rills.-I cannot fend you this letter from hence, as there is no poft-office here. Sept. 21. At five o'clock in the morning quitting Jougné, we travelled for a league and a half through forests of pines; after which the roads were bad, the afcents and descents rapid and rough; now and then embarraffed with hollow ways; and we were conftantly accompanied by a thick fog. We dined at a town called Sara. It Sara. feemed as if this town had marched out of its gates; for there remained feveral gates, but very few houfes within them. Here we regaled ourfelves on the shoulder of a ram, as high flavoured as though it had belonged to a fox. I fancy we shall not want appetite by the time we reach Geneva. We are now at Morgefs, a Swifs town, where we lie, which is, I think, nine posts from Jougné. But obferve, that for the future I shall not trouble myself with calculating how many leagues or pofts we travel each day, or how many there are from one wretched bourg to another : if you are curious in this matter, you may confult the post-books, or Richard, or Lalande, &c.Our landscape has quite changed its face, for about four leagues paft, to a fine clofe cultivated country, resembling parts of Berkshire; the fields divided by quickfet hedges, clipped and dreffed as in England. We faw Laufanne at a diftance. Our road lay along the fide of the lake of Geneva: it appears as broad as the bay of Southampton; but is neither fmooth nor clear. On the oppofite fide appear the mountains of Savoy, whofe lofty heads rife far Mountains of Savoy. above the clouds, which ferve but to conceal a part of their fides, like drapery wrapped round them. Morges is a pretty little town, with two well-built streets. The Swifs païfannes are much prettier than the French, but they have no air; their faces are fair and clean, but want that countenance the French style piquante: they seem modeft, but flow of apprehenfion; fo that it is with difficulty they are prevailed upon to answer the fimpleft queftions.-Our inn is clean, and like an Lake of Morges. English |