AND THE JURA. 31 



tains, we arrived at our destination, and after a supply of unexception- 

 able coffee, bread and butter, and honey, took a moonlight walk round 

 the village, and sat down in the public walks, admiring once more the 

 beautiful lake and mountain scenery which had so often before de- 

 lighted us. We returned to our inn, enjoyed very tolerable beds, 

 and next morning found us journeying westward ; and about eleven 

 we reached the town, or rather village, of Gimel, where v^^e obtained 

 directions as to our further progress towards " St. Georges," in the 

 immediate vicinity of the mountains. 



Before arriving at this last named village (which is three thousand 

 feet above the level of the sea), we had quite entered on the district 

 of the Jura, and already had wandered through extensive forests of 

 pine, and mounted and descended some considerable elevations. But 

 the appearance of St. Georges, from the last of the undulations 

 which form the flank of the Jura, is pretty picturesque, and even 

 romantic in the extreme. The road, passing along a natural cut in 

 the rock, and showing on each side the naked limestone in a variety 

 of fantastic forms, conceals, for the most part, the view of the moun- 

 tains, until, becoming suddenly more rocky, and turning rather to the 

 right, we left its formal course, and trusting to our map and compass, 

 struck oflF to the left, and, mounting by a narrow path in that direc- 

 tion, were soon rewarded by the rich and wild scenery which disclosed 

 itself to our view as soon as we had reached the summit of a moderate 

 ascent. Immediately before us stretched the noble mountains, clothed 

 to their summit with the dark, sombre, but truly magnificent, vegeta- 

 tion of the lofty pine forests, which extended in one unbroken mass 

 as far as the eye could reach. Between the spot on which we 

 stood and this steep face of the mountains, there lay a lovely and 

 quiet valley, cultivated, but not tortured into too great regularity : 

 waving with corn, smiling in fruit trees, and completed by the pretty 

 peeping tower of a church rising above the houses of the little village 

 to which we were journeying. The perfect calm that reigned around 

 contributed to the effect of this scene ; and we descended and arrived 

 at the village almost without speaking a word to interrupt the flow of 

 feeling which such a scene was well calculated to produce. The 

 narrow and irregular street we found almost choaked up by a large 

 flock of goats loitering about, and apparently driven down from their 

 mountain pasture to be milked. Threading our way through them, 

 though not without a little difficulty, we were soon directed to the 

 abode of the " maitre du glacier,'' who was to provide us with a guide 

 to take us across the mountain and show us the glacier of the Jura, 



