CHAPTER VIII.
FOREIGN TRAVEL
On the very loveliest of summer mornings, in the leafy month of June, Evelyn and myself, with the little fair-haired Ella, a maid, and a courier, started by the mail train for Dover. We were in the highest spirits, and anticipated much enjoyment in our projected journey.
If a shade of tender melancholy lingered on the cheek of my fair companion, at the thought of her recent parting with a handsome and devoted admirer, it was soon dissipated as she called to mind his promise to join us, either at Venice or Florence, as soon as his military duties would permit him to take advantage of the usual autumn regimental leave.
Our journey through “la belle France” was a hurried one. Our first halt was at Vevay, on the Lake of Geneva. Here we remained a few days, enjoying the view of the snow-capped mountains—Mont Blanc, like a hoary giant, faintly discerned in the distance. We made a pilgrimage to “Sweet Clarens,” rendered far more interesting through the graphic pen of our own immortal Byron, than as the abode of that disgusting sensualist—Rousseau, whose writings, (such of them, at least, as I have seen), I utterly abhor.
I may be permitted here to remark, that, apart from its exquisite poetic beauties, we found Childe Harold the best and truest of descriptive guide books, for a work of true genius in poetry as in music, though capable of satisfying the highest intellectual requirements, is also adapted to interest and please the million.
At Vevay we engaged a vetturino to take us over the magnificent Simplon pass to the head of the Lake of Como, whence we intended crossing in the steamer to the town, which takes its name from the lake, and is situated at its lower extremity.
The pass of the Simplon presents to the traveller every variety of scenery, from the verdant and flowery valley, with its murmuring brook and rich pasturage, to the rugged and barren heights, where eternal snow usurps the place of vegetation, and the ear is constantly assailed by the crash of the avalanche, as it leaps from crag to crag and is finally lost in some unfathomable abyss, into whose depths the sun never penetrates.
Our journey usually commenced at sunrise. Having taken a cup of coffee, or a glass of delicious new milk, we entered the carriage, enjoying the exquisite freshness and fragrance of the morning air. At about eleven, a two-hours’ rest for the horses brought us to some shady road-side inn, where a breakfast of mountain trout, fresh caught from the stream, and perhaps a chamois cutlet awaited us. Much less tempting fare would, as my readers may imagine, have had ample justice done to it, under such favorable circumstances for exciting an appetite.
Between one and two our second start was made. Our route, perhaps, then led through a forest of pines, rendered doubly aromatic by the magnetism of the sun’s beams; or, it might be, the bed of a torrent skirted our path, which we had more than once to cross, on the most picturesque of bridges. The road over this grandly terrible pass is sufficiently wide to admit of two diligences passing abreast, without any danger of falling down the awful precipice, which ever yawns on one side of the road, and sometimes on either. To construct such a route over such a mountain, it required the genius of a Napoleon to conceive and to execute; and each step taken by the Alpine traveller, whether his way lie over the Splügen, the Cenis, or the still finer and more easy Simplon pass, must raise his admiration for the herculean labors of this wonder-working architect.
Between five and six, we halted for the night, probably in the vicinity of some cataract, the rushing of whose waters lulled us to that sweet sleep which was ever ready to come to our pillow. As far as my experience goes, these little way-side inns, frequented by vetturini are by far the cleanest, best, and cheapest I ever entered; and from our large city hotels, I have frequently looked back to their homely comforts with regret.