We met with great kindness in this city from Mr. Delorme, a gentleman who once resided in New York. He invited us to accompany his family on an excursion to the summit of the Salève, a mountain in Savoy, which is three thousand one hundred and fifty feet above the lake. We went in two carriages, and stopped at a village on the mountain side, where we had cakes, coffee, and wine. Here, in a sweet little arbor, surrounded with roses, we gazed at Mont Blanc, and on a near summit could very clearly trace the profile of Napoleon. He looks "like a warrior taking his sleep." The illusion surpasses in accuracy of expression any thing that I know of that is similar; there are chin, nose, eye, and the old cocked hat, while the eternal vapor over the summit of the peak forms the feather.
We looked down in a ravine and saw the Aar with its icy stream. The carriages went round to meet the party, and the ascent was made. The mountain seems to hang over Geneva, though several miles off. We were greatly pleased with a few good houses, in fine positions; but Savoy is not Switzerland. Here Popery is rampant and pauperism evident. Beggars beset our carriages, and the people looked squalid.
I forgot to tell you how much we were pleased with the cottages in Switzerland; they are quite cheerful looking,—some very fine affairs,—but many are not very unlike our western log-houses.
We returned to Geneva at about ten, and found at our friend's house a most sumptuous repast provided for our entertainment. I never sat down at a more elegant supper table. Every luxury seemed placed before us, including the richest wines of the Rhine.
The Roman salad, a peculiar kind of lettuce, which we saw in France, and here again, seemed to us all as quite different from our ordinary kinds; and I have at Genera obtained four or five varieties of the seed for home cultivation.
While at this city we procured some good specimens of wooden ware, Swiss cottages, &c., and the boys bought watches, jewelry, &c., for presents.
We were all delighted with a little island in the centre of a bridge which goes across the lake; it was a favorite retreat of Rousseau, and there is a statue to his memory.
Calvin's residence is still to be seen, No. 116 Rue des Chanoins. We saw the place where Servetus was burnt. The place and prospect were too beautiful for such a foul desecration. But Calvin's virtues were his own, and the faults he fell into belonged to the influence of the age. It was much so with those greatest and best of men, the New England Pilgrim Fathers. I know they had faults, but they were only spots upon the polished mirror. God reared them up, a rare race of men, for a rare purpose; and I do not like to hear them abused because they were not perfect. If Laud had come to Plymouth Rock instead of Brewster, Bonner instead of Carver, what kind of a community would have been established and handed down?