As our carriers jogged zig-zag, according to the course of the road, down the mountain, they laughed and sung all the way. “How comes it,” said I to the D——, “that chairmen are generally merrier than those they carry? To hear these fellows without seeing them, one would imagine that we had the laborious part, while they sat at their ease.” “True,” answered he; “and the same person might conclude, on hearing the bridegroom sing so cheerfully, that we were just going to be married and not he.” We arrived in a short time at the Inn at Lanebourg, nothing having surprised me so much in the passage of this mountain, the difficulty and danger of which has been greatly exaggerated by travellers, as the facility with which we achieved it.
As soon as the scattered members of our carriages were joined together, we proceeded on our journey. The road is never level, but a continued ascent and descent along the side of high mountains. We sometimes saw villages situated at a vast height above us; at other times they were seen with difficulty in the vales, at an immense depth below us. The village of Modane stands in a hollow, surrounded by stupendous mountains. It began to grow dark when we descended from a great height into this hollow; we could only perceive the rugged summits, and sides of the mountains which encircle the village, but not the village itself, or any part of the plain at the bottom; we therefore seemed descending from the surface, by a dark abyss leading to the centre of the globe. We arrived safe at Modane, however, for the road is good in every respect, steepness excepted. Next morning we continued our course, by a miserable place called La Chambre, to Aiguebelle, a village of much the same description. According to some authors, this was the road by which Hannibal led his army into Italy. They assert, that the plain at the summit of Mount Cenis was the place where he rested his army for four days, and from which he showed his soldiers the fertile plains of Italy, and encouraged them to persevere: others assert that he led his army into Italy by Mount St. Bernard. This is a discussion into which I am not qualified to enter; but M——r G——l M——l, a gentleman of learning, probity, and great professional merit, in his way to Italy, where he now is, endeavoured to trace the route of the Carthaginian army with great attention; and imagines he has been successful in his researches. He has also ascertained the spots on which some of the most memorable battles were fought, by carefully comparing the description of Polybius, and other authors, with the fields of battle, and has detected many mistakes, which have prevailed on this curious subject; every where supporting his own hypothesis by arguments which none but one who has carefully perused the various authors, and examined the ground with a soldier’s eye, could adduce. The same gentleman has likewise made some observations relating to the arms of the ancient Romans, and their tactics in general, which are equally new and ingenious, and which, it is hoped, he will in due time give to the public.
We arrived at the inn at Aiguebelle just in time to avoid an excessive storm of thunder and rain, which lasted with great violence through the whole night. Those who have never heard thunder in a very mountainous country, can form no idea of the loudness, repetition, and length of the peals we heard this night. Many of the inhabitants of those mountains have never seen better houses than their own huts, or any other country than the Alps. What a rugged, boisterous piece of work must they take this world to be!
I fancy you have by this time had enough of mountains and vallies, so if you please we shall skip over Montmelian to Chamberry, where we arrived the same day on which we left Aiguebelle. To-morrow we shall sleep at Geneva. I did not expect much sleep this night from the thoughts of it, and therefore have sat up almost till day-break writing this letter.
LETTER LXXX.
Besançon.
The D—— of H—— went some weeks ago to visit an acquaintance in one of the provinces of France. As I inclined rather to pass that time at Geneva, we agreed to meet at Paris, whither Jack and I are thus far on our way.
I must now fairly confess that I found myself so happy with my kind friends the Genevois, that I could not spare an hour from their company to write to you or any correspondent, unless on indispensable business. I might also plead, that you yourself have been in some measure the cause of my being seduced from my pen. In your last letter; which I found waiting for me at the post-house at Geneva, you mention a late publication in terms that gave me a curiosity to see it; and an English gentleman, who had the only copy which has as yet reached that city, was so obliging as to lend it me. The hours which I usually allot to sleep, were all I had in my power to pass alone; and they were very considerably abridged by this admirable performance. The extensive reading there displayed, the perspicuity with which historical facts are related, the new light in which many of them are placed, the depth of the reflections, and the dignity and nervous force of the language, all announce the hand of a master. If the author lives to complete his arduous undertaking, he will do more to dissipate the historical darkness which overshadows the middle ages, give a clearer History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and fill up, in a more satisfactory manner, the long interval between ancient and modern history, than all the writers who have preceded him. This accounts for my long silence. You see I resume my pen the very first opportunity, after the causes I have assigned for it are removed, which ought to give the more weight to my apology.