The mountains on either side of the Valley of the Simplon present a gloomy succession of cliffs, often covered with snow, and contrasting by no means agreeably with the marshy grounds below, through which the Rhone wanders scarce noticed, scarce credited. It is of a whitish muddy colour (from the snow and sand mingled with its course, very much as if had been poured out of a washing-tub), and very different from the deep purple tint it assumes on oozing out from the other side of the Lake, after having drank its cerulean waters. The woods near the lofty peaks of the Clise-Horn, and bordering on Monteroso, are said to be still the frequent haunt of bears, though a price is set upon their heads. As we advanced farther on beyond Tortomania, the whole breadth of the valley was sometimes covered with pine-forests, which gave a relief to the eye, and afforded scope to the imagination. The fault of mountain scenery in general is, that it is too barren and naked, and that the whole is exposed in enormous and unvarying masses to the view at once. The clothing of trees is no less wanted as an ornament than partially to conceal objects, and thus present occasional new points of view. Without something to intercept and break the aggregate extent of surface, you gain no advantage by change of place; the same elevation and ground-plan of hill and valley are still before you—you might as well carry a map or landscape in your hand. In this part of our journey, however, besides the natural wildness and grandeur of the scenery, the road was rough and uneven, and frequently crossed rude bridges over the Rhone, or over rivulets pouring into it: the gloomy recesses of the forests might be the abode of wild beasts or of the lurking robber. The huge fragments of rock that had tumbled from the overhanging precipices often made a turning in the road necessary, and for a moment interrupted the view beyond; the towns, built on the sides of the hills, resembled shattered heaps of rock, scarcely distinguishable from the grey peaks and crags with which they were surrounded, giving an agreeable play to the fancy; while the snowy tops of the Simplon mountains, now coming in sight, now hidden behind the nearer summits, threw us back to the scenes we had left, and measured the distance we had traversed. The way in which these mighty landmarks of the Alpine regions ascertain this point is, however, contrary to the usual one: for it is by appearing plainer, the farther you retire from them. They tower with airy shape and dazzling whiteness above the lengthening perspective; and it is the intervening objects that dwindle in the comparison, and are lost sight of in succession. In the midst of the most lonely and singular part of this scene, just as we passed a loose bridge of rough fir-planks over a brawling brook, and as a storm seemed to threaten us, we met a party of English gentlemen in an open carriage, though their courteous looks and waving salutation almost ‘forbade us to interpret them such.’ Certainly there is no people in whom urbanity is more a duty than the English; for there is no people that feel it more. Travelling confounds our ideas, not of place only, but of time; and I could not help making a sudden transition from the party we had by chance encountered to the Chevalier Grandison and his friends, paying their last visit to Bologna. Pshaw! Why do I indulge in such idle fancies? Yet why in truth should I not, when I am a thousand miles from home, and when every object one meets is like a dream? Passe pour cela.

We reached Sion that evening. It is one of the dirtiest and least comfortable towns on the road; nor does the chief inn deserve the epithet so applicable to Swiss inns in general—simplex munditiis. It was here that Rousseau, in one of his early peregrinations, was recommended by his landlord to an iron-foundry in the neighbourhood (the smoke of which, I believe, we saw at a little distance), where he would be likely to procure employment, mistaking ‘the pauper lad’ for a journeyman blacksmith. Perhaps the author of the Rhymes on the Road will think it a pity he did not embrace this proposal, instead of forging thunderbolts for kingly crowns. Alas! Mr. Moore would then never have had to write his ‘Fables for the Holy Alliance.’ Haunted by some indistinct recollection of this adventure, I asked at the Inn, ‘If Jean Jacques Rousseau had ever resided in the town?’ The waiter himself could not tell, but soon after brought back for answer, ‘That Monsieur Rousseau had never lived there, but that he had passed through about fourteen years before on his way to Italy, when he had only time to stop to take tea!’—Was this a mere stupid blunder, or one of the refractions of fame, founded on his mission as Secretary to the Venetian Ambassador a hundred years before? There is a tradition in the neighbourhood of Milton’s house in York-street, Westminster, that ‘one Mr. Milford, a celebrated poet, formerly lived there!’ We set forward the next morning on our way to Martigny, through the most dreary valley possible, and in an absolute straight line for twelve or fifteen miles of level road, which was terminated by the village-spire and by the hills leading to the Great St. Bernard and Mont-Blanc. The wind poured down from these tremendous hills, and blew with unabated fury in our faces the whole way. It was a most unpleasant ride, nor did the accommodations at the inn (the Swan, I think) make us amends. The rooms were cold and empty. It might be supposed that the desolation without had subdued the imagination to its own hue and quality, so that it rejected all attempts at improvement; that the more niggard Nature had been to it, the more churlish it became to itself; and through habit, neither felt the want of comforts nor a wish to supply others with them. Close to the bridge stands a steep rock with a castle at the top of it (attributed to the times of the Romans). At a distance it was hardly discernible; and afterwards, when we crossed over to Chamouni, we saw it miles below us like a dove-cot, or a dirt-pye raised by children. Yet viewed from beneath, it seemed to present an imposing and formidable attitude, and to elevate its pigmy front in a line with the stately heights around. So Mr. Washington Irvine binds up his own portrait with Goldsmith’s in the Paris edition of his works, and to many people seems the genteeler man! From the definite and dwarfish, we turned to the snow-clad and cloud-capt; and strolled to the other side of the village, where the road parts to St. Bernard and Chamouni, anxiously gazing at the steep pathway on either side, and half tempted to launch into that billowy sea of mist and mountain: but we reserved this for a subsequent period. As we were loitering at the foot of the dizzy ascent, our postilion, who had staid behind us a couple of hours the day before to play at bowls, now drove on half an hour before his time, and when we turned a corner which gave us a view of our inn, no cabriolet was there. He, however, soon found his mistake, and turned back to meet us. The only picturesque objects between this and Bex are a waterfall about two hundred feet in height, issuing through the cavities of the mountain from the immense glacier in the valley of Trie, and the romantic bridge of St. Maurice, the boundary between Savoy and the Pays de Vaud. On the ledge of a rocky precipice, as you approach St. Maurice, stands a hermitage in full view of the road; and possibly the inmate consoles himself in his voluntary retreat by watching the carriages as they come in sight, and fancying that the driver is pointing out his aërial dwelling to the inquisitive and wondering traveller! If a man could transport himself to one of the fixed stars, so far from being lifted above this sublunary sphere, he would still wish his fellow-mortals to point to it as his particular abode, and the scene of his marvellous adventures. We go into a crowd to be seen: we go into solitude that we may be distinguished from the crowd, and talked of. We travel into foreign parts to get the start of those who stay behind us; we return home to hear what has been said of us in our absence. Lord Byron mounted on his pedestal of pride on the shores of the Adriatic, as Mr. Hobhouse rides in the car of popularity through the streets of Westminster. The one object could be seen at a distance; the other, whose mind is more Sancho-Panza-ish and pug-featured, requires to be brought nearer to the eye for stage-effect! Bex itself is delicious. It stands in a little nook of quiet, almost out of the world, nestling in rural beauty, in mountain sublimity. There is an excellent inn, a country church before it, a large ash tree, a circulating library, a rookery, every thing useful and comfortable for the life of man. Behind, there is a ridge of dark rocks; beyond them tall and bare mountains—and a higher range still appears through rolling clouds and circling mists. Our reception at the inn was every way what we could wish, and we were half disposed to stop here for some months. But something whispered me on to Vevey:—this we reached the next day in a drizzling shower of rain, which prevented our seeing much of the country, excepting the black masses of rock and pine-trees that rose perpendicularly from the roadside. The day after my arrival, I found a lodging at a farm-house, a mile out of Vevey, so ‘lapped in luxury,’ so retired, so reasonable, and in every respect convenient, that we remained here for the rest of the summer, and felt no small regret at leaving it.

The country round Vevey is, I must nevertheless own, the least picturesque part of the borders of the Lake of Geneva. I wonder Rousseau, who was a good judge and an admirable describer of romantic situations, should have fixed upon it as the scene of the ‘New Eloise.’ You have passed the rocky and precipitous defiles at the entrance into the valley, and have not yet come into the open and more agreeable parts of it. The immediate vicinity of Vevey is entirely occupied with vineyards slanting to the south, and inclosed between stone-walls without any kind of variety or relief. The walks are uneven and bad, and you in general see little (for the walls on each side of you) but the glassy surface of the Lake, the rocky barrier of the Savoy Alps opposite (one of them crowned all the year round with snow, and which, though it is twenty miles off, seems as if you could touch it with your hand, so completely does size neutralize the effect of distance), the green hills of an inferior class over Clarens, with the Dent de Jamant sticking out of them like an iron tooth, and the winding valley leading northward towards Berne and Fribourg. Here stands Gelamont (the name of the Campagna which we took), on a bank sloping down to the brook that passes by Vevey, and so entirely embosomed in trees and ‘upland swells,’ that it might be called, in poetical phrase, ‘the peasant’s nest.’ Here every thing was perfectly clean and commodious. The fermier or vineyard-keeper, with his family, lived below, and we had six or seven rooms on a floor (furnished with every article or convenience that a London lodging affords) for thirty Napoleons for four months, or about thirty shillings a week. This first expense we found the greatest during our stay, and nearly equal to all the rest, that of a servant included. The number of English settled here had made lodgings dear, and an English gentleman told me he was acquainted with not less than three-and-twenty English families in the neighbourhood. To give those who may feel an inclination to try foreign air, an idea of the comparative cheapness of living abroad, I will mention that mutton (equal to the best Welch mutton, and fed on the high grounds near Moudon) is two batz, that is, threepence English per pound; and the beef (which is also good, though not of so fine a quality) is the same. Trout, caught in the Lake, you get almost for nothing. A couple of fowls is eighteen-pence. The wine of the country, which though not rich, is exceedingly palatable, is three pence a bottle. You may have a basket of grapes in the season for one shilling or fifteen pence.[[48]] The bread, butter and milk are equally cheap and excellent. They have not the art here of adulterating every thing. You find the same things as in England, served up in the same plain and decent manner, but in greater plenty, and generally speaking, of a better and more wholesome quality, and at least twice as cheap. In England they have few things, and they contrive to spoil those few. There is a good deal of ill-nature and churlishness, as well as a narrow policy in this. The trading principle seems to be to give you the worst, and make you pay as dear for it as possible. It is a vile principle. As soon as you land at Dover, you feel the force of this home truth. They cheat you to your face, and laugh at you. I must say, that it appears to me, whatever may be the faults or vices of other nations, the English population is the only one to which the epithet blackguard is applicable. They are, in a word, the only people who make a merit of giving others pain, and triumph in their impudence and ill-behaviour, as proofs of a manly and independent spirit. Afraid that you may complain of the absence of foreign luxuries, they are determined to let you understand beforehand, they do not care about what you may think, and wanting the art to please, resort to the easier and surer way of keeping up their importance by practising every kind of annoyance. Instead of their being at your mercy, you find yourself at theirs, subjected to the sullen airs of the masters, and to the impertinent fatuity of the waiters. They dissipate your theory of English comfort and hospitality at the threshold. What do they care that you have cherished a fond hope of getting a nice, snug little dinner on your arrival, better than any you have had in France? ‘The French may be d——,’ is the answer that passes through their minds—‘the dinner is good enough, if it is English!’ Let us take care, that by assuming an insolent local superiority over all the world, we do not sink below them in every thing, liberty not excepted. While the name of any thing passes current, we may dispense with the reality, and keep the start of the rest of mankind, simply by asserting that we have it, and treating all foreigners as a set of poor wretches, who neither know how, nor are in truth fit to live! Against this post, alas! John Bull is continually running his head, but as yet without knocking his brains out. The beef-steak which you order at Dover with patriotic tender yearnings for its reputation, is accordingly filled with cinders—the mutton is done to a rag—the soup not eatable—the porter sour—the bread gritty—the butter rancid. Game, poultry, grapes, wine it is in vain to think of; and as you may be mortified at the privation, they punish you for your unreasonable dissatisfaction by giving you cause for it in the mismanagement of what remains.[[49]] In the midst of this ill fare you meet with equally bad treatment. While you are trying to digest a tough beef-steak, a fellow comes in and peremptorily demands your fare, on the assurance that you will get your baggage from the clutches of the Custom-house in time to go by the six o’clock coach; and when you find that this is impossible, and that you are to be trundled off at two in the morning, or by the next day’s coach, if it is not full, and complain to that personification of blind justice, an English mob, you hear the arch slang reply, ‘Do you think the Gentleman such a fool as to part with his money without knowing why?’ and should the natural rejoinder rise to your lips—‘Do you take me for a fool, because I did not take you for a rogue?’ the defendant immediately stands at bay upon the national character for honesty and morality. ‘I hope there are no rogues here!’ is echoed through the dense atmosphere of English intellect, though but the moment before they had been laughing in their sleeves (or out loud) at the idea of a stranger having been tricked by a townsman. Happy country! equally and stupidly satisfied with its vulgar vices and boasted virtues!

‘Oh! for a lodge in some vast wilderness,

Some boundless continuity of shade!’

Yet to what purpose utter such a wish, since it is impossible to stay there, and the moment you are separated from your fellows, you think better of them, begin to form chimeras with which you would fain compare the realities, find them the same as ever to your cost and shame—

‘And disappointed still, are still deceived!’

I found little of this tracasserie at Gelamont. Days, weeks, months, and even years might have passed on much in the same manner, with ‘but the season’s difference.’ We breakfasted at the same hour, and the tea-kettle was always boiling (an excellent thing in housewifery)—a lounge in the orchard for an hour or two, and twice a week we could see the steam-boat creeping like a spider over the surface of the lake; a volume of the Scotch novels (to be had in every library on the Continent, in English, French, German, or Italian, as the reader pleases), or M. Galignani’s Paris and London Observer, amused us till dinner time; then tea and a walk till the moon unveiled itself, ‘apparent queen of night,’ or the brook, swoln with a transient shower, was heard more distinctly in the darkness, mingling with the soft, rustling breeze; and the next morning the song of peasants broke upon refreshing sleep, as the sun glanced among the clustering vine-leaves, or the shadowy hills, as the mists retired from their summits, looked in at our windows. The uniformity of this mode of life was only broken during fifteen weeks that we remained in Switzerland, by the civilities of Monsieur Le Vade, a Doctor of medicine and octogenarian, who had been personally acquainted with Rousseau in his younger days; by some attempts by our neighbours to lay us under obligations, by parting with rare curiosities to Monsieur l’Anglois for half their value; and by an excursion to Chamouni, of which I must defer the account to my next.

CHAPTER XXVI

We crossed over in a boat to St. Gingolph, a little town opposite to Vevey, and proceeded on the other side of the lake to Martigny, from which we could pass over either on foot or by the help of mules to Mont-Blanc. It was a warm day towards the latter end of August, and the hills before us drew their clear outline, and the more distant Alps waved their snowy tops (tinged with golden sunshine) in the gently-undulating surface of the crystal lake. As we approached the Savoy side, the mountains in front, which from Vevey look like a huge battery or flat upright wall, opened into woody recesses, or reared their crests on high; rich streaks of the most exquisite verdure gleamed at their feet, and St. Gingolph came distinctly in view, with its dingy-looking houses and smoking chimneys. It is a small manufacturing town, full of forges and workshops, and the inn is dirty and disagreeable. The contrast to Vevey was striking. But this side of the lake is in the dominions of the King of Sardinia, and cleanliness seems to be in general the virtue of republics, or of free states. There is an air of desolation, sluttishness, and indifference, the instant you cross the water, compared with the neatness, activity, regularity, and cheerfulness of the Pays de Vaud. We walked out to take a view of the situation, as soon as we had bespoken our room and a supper. It was a brilliant sunset; nor do I recollect having ever beheld so majestic and rich a scene, set off to such advantage. A steep pathway led to a village embayed between two mountains, whose tops towered into the sky: conical hills rose to about half their height, covered with green copses: fields and cottages were seen climbing as it were the sides of others, with cattle feeding; the huge projecting rocks gave new combinations and a new aspect to the most picturesque objects; tall branching trees (ash, or beech, or chesnut) hung from green sloping banks over the road-side, or dipped their foliage in the transparent wave below: their bold luxuriant forms threw the rocks and mountains into finer relief, and elevated them into a higher atmosphere, so that they seemed trembling (another airy world) over our heads. The lake shone like a broad golden mirror, reflecting the thousand dyes of the fleecy purple clouds, while Saint Gingolph, with its clustering habitations, shewed like a dark pitchy spot by its side; and beyond the glimmering verge of the Jura (almost hid in its own brightness) hovered gay wreaths of clouds, fair, lovely, visionary, that seemed not of this world, but brought from some dream of fancy, treasured up from past years, emblems of hope, of joy and smiling regret, that had come to grace a scene so heavenly, and to bid it a last, lingering farewell. No person can describe the effect; but so in Claude’s landscapes the evening clouds drink up the rosy light, and sink into soft repose! Every one who travels into Switzerland should visit this secluded spot, and witness such a sunset, with the heaven stooping its face into the lake on one side, and the mountains, rocks, and woods, lifting earth to heaven on the other. We had no power to leave it or to admire it, till the evening shades stole in upon us, and drew the dusky veil of twilight over it.