We left Bex early in the morning, passing through Aigle, a thriving little town, whose houses are built of a white marble found in the neighbourhood.—The ideas of gloom and wretchedness, as well as of magnificence, had somehow been linked in my mind with this substance.—I don’t know whether this is owing to its being used in tombs and monuments;—or to my having observed, that the houses most profusely ornamented by it are so often the mansions of dulness and discontent.—Whatever gave rise to this connection of ideas, the appearance of the inhabitants of Aigle was well calculated to cure me of the prejudice; for although the meanest houses in this poor little town are built of marble, yet in the course of my life I never beheld less care and more satisfaction in the countenances of any set of people. An appearance of ease and content prevails not only here, but all over Switzerland.
A little beyond Aigle, we crossed the Rhone in boats. It is broader at this ferry, than where it flows from the lake of Geneva. As soon as we arrived on the other side, we were again in the dominions of the Vallaisans, which extend on this side all the way to the lake.
We had a delightful ride to St. Gingo, where we dined, and remained several hours to refresh our horses. Though it was Sunday, there was a fair at this town, to which such a concourse of people had resorted from the Pays de Vallais, the canton of Bern, and from Savoy, that we could not without difficulty find a room to dine in.
The dress of the young Vallaisannes is remarkably picturesque. A little silk hat, fixed on one side of the head, from which a bunch of ribbons hangs negligently, with a jacket very advantageous to the shape, gives them a smart air, and is upon the whole more becoming than the dress of the common people in any country I have yet seen.
A little beyond St. Gingo, we entered the dukedom of Savoy. The road is here cut out of the lofty rocks which rise from the lake of Geneva. It must be passed with caution, being exceedingly narrow, and no fence to prevent the traveller from falling over a very high precipice into the lake, in case his horse should start to one side.
At some places this narrow road is rendered still more dangerous by fragments which have fallen from the mountains above, and have impaired and almost destroyed the path. At those places we were obliged to dismount, and lead our horses, with great attention, over rubbish and broken rocks, till we gained those parts of the road which were intire.
The sight of Meillerie brought to my remembrance the charming letters of Rousseau’s two lovers. This recollection filled me with a pleasing enthusiasm. I sought with my eyes, and imagined I discovered the identical place where St. Preux sat with his telescope to view the habitation of his beloved Julia.—I traced in my imagination his route, when he sprung from rock to rock after one of her letters, which a sudden gust of wind had snatched from his hands.—I marked the point at which the two lovers embarked to return to Clarence, after an evening visit to those very rocks,—when St. Preux, agonized with tender recollections, and distracted with despair, was tempted to seize his mistress, then the wife of another, and precipitate himself along with her, from the boat headlong into the middle of the lake.
Every circumstance of that pathetic story came fresh into my mind. I felt myself on a kind of classic ground, and experienced that the eloquence of that inimitable writer had given me an interest in the landscape before my eyes, beyond that which its own natural beauties could have effected.
Having left the romantic rocks of Meillerie behind, we descended to a fertile plain, almost on a level with the lake, along which the road runs, flanked with rows of fine tall trees all the way to Evian, an agreeable little town, renowned for its mineral waters. Here we met with many of our Geneva acquaintances of both sexes, who had come, under pretence of drinking the waters, to amuse themselves in this delightful retreat.