Descended towards Mont Boyon. What owing to the fatigue and hardly meeting any one, sick with grief. At Mont Boyon dined, and, finding they would not dance, slept immediately after.
September 18.—Up at 4. Drank wine and bread. At 6 set off. Passed the Château d'Ox where there was a fair. After that, hardly met a soul. Always on the side of the mountains, each side of a river or torrent; with torrent-beds, pine-forests, chalets, villages without a visible soul—all at work—and ups and downs: so that this road, if I had not had that of yesterday, I should have called the worst in the world. Passed through Château d'Ox; Rougemont, breakfast; Zwezermann, dinner; Gessenay; Lambeck; Reichenstein; Weissenbach; Bottingen, tea and night. The French language leaves off at Gessenay (rather, patois), and they begin their German: found it difficult to go on.
September 19.—Got up at 4-1/2. Set off from Bottingen. Went through Obernoyle. Breakfasted at Wyssenbach: refused my money. Went to the Doctor, who charged me a nap. Went through Erlenbach, Lauterbach, Meiningen, to Thun. Splendid scenery; especially the first look at the Lake by the river's mouth, and the pass into a great valley. Took dinner, and then a warm bath. Arrived at 1 o'clock. All the houses are of wood, the foundation only being stone: great cut ornaments between the rows of windows: the wood, fir. Felt very miserable, especially these two last days: only met two persons to whom I could speak—the others all Germans. At Wyssenbach they all said grace before breakfast, and then ate out of the same dish; remarking (as I understood them) that I, not being a Catholic, would laugh.
[It was a mistake to suppose that Dr. Polidori was "not a Catholic." He was brought up as a Catholic, and never changed his religion, but may (I suppose) have been something of a sceptic.]
September 20.—Got up at 6. Wrote to St. Aubyn, Brelaz, father, Vaccà, and Zio, asking letters; to my father, to announce my parting.
[Vaccà was a celebrated surgeon at Pisa, of whom we shall hear farther. Zio is "my uncle"—i.e. Luigi Polidori, also at Pisa.]
Bought fresh shoes and stockings; found no book-seller's shop. The man at the post-office made a good reflection: that he was astonished so many came to see what they who were so near never want to see, and that he supposed that the English also leave much unseen in their own country.
Thun is a neat well-situated town, not large, with arcades—as apparently all the Berne towns. Afraid all day my dog was poisoned; which grieved me so, at seeing it vomit, that I wept. At 2 o'clock went in search of a boat: none going immediately, I walked along the left bank of the lake to Unterseen. The views the most beautiful I ever saw; through pines over precipices, torrents, and sleepers [?][[18]] and the best-cultivated fields I ever saw. The lake sometimes some hundred precipitous feet below my feet; at other times quite close to its edge; boats coming from the fair; picturesque towered villages; fine Alps on the other side, the Jungfrau and others far off. The bottom of the lake is especially magnificent. Lost my way, and had two little children as guides back again. One small cascade of seven or eight fountains.
Arrived at 7 at Unterseen: through Nilterfingen, Oberhofen, Rottingen, Morlangen, Neuchaus, to Unterseen. Found two Englishmen at supper: sat down with them. Very miserable all the morning.
September 21.—Got up at 6, having determined to go with the two to the Grindenwald in a char-à-banc, on account of the state of my foot. I went to the bridge at Interlachen to see the view coming between two beautiful isolated crags. Going, met a man, a maréchal, who had been to Vienna and Bohemia en roulant after his apprenticeship, to see the world—stopping a day at one place, a day at another. Returned, breakfasted: and then, after growling at the innkeeper's wishing us to take two horses, we went off through splendid pine-clad craggy valleys through Zweihitschirne to Lauterbrunner; whence to the fall of the Staubach, a bare cataract of 900 feet high, becoming vapour before it arrives—appearing much, and ending in a little stream. The curate of this village receives guests: there were the Prince Saxe-Gotha and family. We lunched at the inn, and went back to Lauterbrunner after having looked at the Jungfrau at a distance.