2 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



limited. We had a rise near our village called St 

 Anne's Hill, from which it was fabled that the dome 

 of St Paul's had once been seen with a telescope, at 

 a distance of some sixteen or seventeen miles, as the 

 crow flew : and its summit was the only high ground 

 I had ever stood upon. Knowing no more than 

 this, the little book, which I have said had a great 

 air of truth about it, made a deep impression on me : 

 I do not think that ' The Pilgrim's Progress ' stood 

 in higher favour. And this impression lasted from 

 year to year. Always devouring the details of any 

 work that touched upon the subject, I at length got 

 a very fair idea, topographical and general, of the' 

 Alps. A kind friend gave me an old four-volume 

 edition of ' De Saussure,' and my earliest efforts in 

 French were endeavours to translate this work. I 

 read the adventures of Captain Sherwill and Dr 

 Clarke in the magazines of our local institution ; 

 and finally, I got up a small moving panorama of 

 the hoiTors pertaining to Mont Blanc from Mr Auld- 

 jo's narrative the best of all that I have read ; and 

 this I so painted up and exaggerated in roy en- 

 thusiasm, that my little sister who was my only 

 audience, but a most admirable one, for she cared not 

 how often I exhibited would become quite pale 

 with fright. 



Time went on, and in 1838 I was entered as a 

 pupil to the Hotel Dieu, at Paris. My first love of 

 the Alps had not faded ; and when the vacances 



