1873 LETTERS FROM ABROAD 107 



HOTEL DE FRANCE, BADEN-BADEN, 

 July 30, 1873. 



MY DEAR TYNDALL We find ourselves here after a 

 very successful cruise in the Auvergne and Ardeche, 

 successful at least so far as beauty and geological interest 

 go. The heat was killing, and obliged us to give up all 

 notion of going to Ursines, as we had at first intended 

 to do. So we turned our faces north and made for 

 Grenoble, hoping for a breath of cool air from the 

 mountains of Dauphiny. But Grenoble was hotter even 

 than Clermont (which, by the way, quite deserves its 

 reputation as a competitor with hell), a neighbour's 

 drains were adrift close to the hotel, and we got poisoned 

 before we could escape. Luckily we got off with nothing 

 worse than a day or two's liarrhcea. After this the best 

 thing seemed to be to msh northward to Gernsbach, 

 which had been described to me as a sort of earthly 

 paradise. We reached the place last Saturday night, 

 and found ourselves in a big rambling hotel, crammed 

 full of people, and planted in the bottom of a narrow 

 valley, all hot and steaming. A large pigstye "con- 

 venient" to the house mingled its vapours with those of 

 the seventy or eighty people who eat and drank without 

 any other earthly occupation that we could discern 

 during the three days we were bound, by stress of 

 letters and dirty linen, to stop. On Monday we made 

 an excursion over here, prospecting, and the air was so 

 fresh and good, and things in general looked so promising 

 that I made up my mind to put up in Baden-Baden until 

 the wife joins me. She writes me that you talk of 

 leaving England on Friday, and I may remark that 

 Baden is on the high road to Switzerland. Verbum sap. 



I am wonderfully better, and really feel ashamed of 

 loafing about when I might very well be at work. But 

 I have promised to make holiday, and make holiday 

 I will 



