24 Horticultural Jottanda 



" Lake Lcinan lies by Chillon's walls: 

 A thousand feet in depth below 

 Its massy waters meet and flow; 

 Thus nuich tlie fathom line was sent 

 From Chillon's snow-white battlement. 

 Which round about the wave enthralls ; " 



and beyond which the beethnrr brow of the mountain over- 

 hano-s, in ahnost perpendicular abruptness, yet clothed, for 

 thc7nost part, with a rich verdure of ivy and procumbent 

 shrubs. Small seems the height of that lofty " donjon," 

 when matched against the loftier rock, that seems to frown 

 haughtily upon it, the ancient abode of feudal tyranny, where 

 once the magnanimous and patriotic Bonnivard chafed in un- 

 just imprisonment. 



We arrived at Villeneuve tolerably soaked, and hav- 

 ing had the comfortable assurance from one of those oracular 

 personages sometimes met with, that there was no chance 

 of the rain giving over for a week at least, and that there was 

 small chance of our being able to get into Italy, as the Sim- 

 plon was mined, and an Austrian army of observation on the 

 Italian side. We shall see how these matters turned out by 

 and by. I mention this, as a caution to young travellers like 

 myself not to swallow all they hear, or to rule their actions by 

 the gossip of every chance camerado [companion]. 



From Villeneuve a singular conveyance, intended as a 

 stage coach, but very like a modern hearse, with leathern 

 sides, and benching along them, and moreover a kind of 

 narrow table along the middle, which seemed to concentrate 

 the rain that poured through the roof upon our knees, started 

 with us for the little town of Bex, pronounced Bay, and 

 celebrated for its salt brine springs, which, as a wag once 

 said, must be baij salt. The road lay through a fine valley, 

 completely flooded over, the trees alone standing out of the 

 muddy water; and the road so obliterated, that we more than 

 once ran the danger of being upset. Arrived at Bex, we 

 hired a calash to carry us on to St. Maurice, which we arrived 

 at just as it became dark. We stopped to change our horses 

 in the main street ; and in a second or two a party of twelve 

 or fourteen men, with lanterns and poles, accosted us, with 

 the pleasant intelligence, that the torrents had broken up the 

 road to Martigny in many places, and that the Rhone had so 

 uprooted and overflowed it, near the Pisse-Vache, as to 

 render it extremely dangerous; and they wished to know 

 whether we v/ould have their escort. 



After endeavouring to find out what were the real difficulties 

 of the way, we agreed to their offer ; and, having obtained 

 our change of steeds, we began to move slowly on^ accom- 



