288 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to pay for even this privilege, but I did not learn how it was 

 here. We didn't think it worth much in our " account of stock." 



And now for the first crossing of the Alps. The railway 

 takes us to Susa, in Sardinia, only thirty-two miles from Turin, 

 when we are at the foot of Mont Cenis. Getting tickets in the 

 heavy lumbering diligence, behind half a dozen sturdy mules, 

 we began the slow ascent about three o'clock in* the afternoon. 

 The road is superb. The muleteers, with a loud crack of the 

 whip, constantly urge on the team, and we rise higher and 

 liigher till the prospect begins to be grand and beautiful, as 

 we wind up the sides of the mountain and look back upon the 

 sunny valleys of Italy. The air is cool, bracing and exhila- 

 rating. Mountain torrents come thundering down at our feet, 

 or forming little cascades, which glittered like spangles in the 

 sun. The luxuriant vegetation of the plains ceased, and the 

 trees dwindled down to shrubs, while little Alpine flowers lined 

 the roadsides, and little ragged girls came running along by the 

 side of the diligence with wild strawberries to sell. 



At the approach of sunset I jumped out and ran up the side 

 of the mountain to strike into the road above, so as to be at the 

 top in season to see a sunset on the Alps, but still beyond there 

 were peaks piled on peaks, covered with snow, glittering with 

 the last lingering rays of sunlight. Here on the very top of 

 the pass the farmers were haymaking, almost up to the 

 line of perpetual snow. They usually mow here by moonlight. 

 There is a hospice at the summit for the accommodation 

 of travellers, and in front of it a pretty little pond, from whose 

 pellucid waters it is said the finest trout arc taken. After a 

 change of team from mules to horses, we started down at a 

 rapid pace in the light of a clear full moon, and by noon of the 

 next day we were quietly seated in Geneva. 



This was the first of Switzerland, with its mountain scenery, 

 its bracing air, its freedom of thought and action. According 

 to our usual custom, wc soon had a carriage and were driving 

 about the neighborhood, visiting the spot where the Rhone and 

 the Arve unite their waters, and other objects of interest to a 

 stranger. The French language is spoken here pretty univer- 

 sally. Lausanne, on the lake of Geneva, is one of the prettiest 

 towns in Switzerland. Here we stopped a niglit and part of 

 the next day, in the house occupied by Gibbon, and where ho 



