. MONT BLANC AND THE MER DE GLACE. 21 



tions of our prehistoric ancestors, erected upon piles in 

 the lake. 



Grandson, which the conductor announces as " Grasso," 

 wears a still more ancient look, and sucforests that it is in 

 reality the grand/rr^//^r of all these Swiss towns, having 

 been built during the Roman occupation. At Yverdon, at 

 the foot of the lake, we pass the former home of Pestalozzi, 

 the great reformer of primary education and the inaugu- 

 rator of that system of "object teaching" now grown into 

 general acceptance. 



Coursing rapidly over a region of peats, dug by squalid 

 rustics, and spread out like the grass of New England 

 meadows, to dry in the sun, we plunge down upon one 

 of the prettiest little cities that eye ever rested upon 

 Lausanne, perched upon the steep slope which overhangs 

 the lake of Geneva. Toward the left, the blue water 

 carries the eye as far as Vevay and the historic Castle 

 of Chillon; toward the nght, the shimmering surface 

 stretches to the city of Geneva, our immediate goal, a 

 name redolent of varied reminiscences of mediseval and 

 modern times; while in front of us, beyond the placid 

 breadth of the lake, roll up in receding grandeur the 

 dark mountain summits of Chablais. Behind them, we 

 know that the snow-mantled pinnacles of the Mont Blanc 

 range rise in cold serenity, but the jealous clouds enwrap 

 them from human eyes, as if fearful that the home of 

 frost and cloud and ether would be desecrated by the 

 too familiar gaze of mortals. So expectation recedes 

 from weary tip toe, and we glide down into the city of 

 Calvin and Servetus, and " the self-torturing sophist 

 wild" Rousseau, and the " Joint High Commission," and 

 the ticking of a million watches, and the polyglot sounds 



