£08 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
LETTERS wuritten during a late EXCUR- 
SION through FRANCE to GENEVA. 
(Continued from paze 3591, No. 94-) 
_LETTER vil.—Naniua, Dec. 23, 1802- 
ERE we are, once again, at our fa- 
i | vorite inn, /Heiel d Angleterre, and 
have juficoncladed an excellent dinner, 
coniifting of trout, quiie frefhh from the 
Jake; woodcork, hare, chicken, foup, and 
gnany other goad things. We have tra- 
velled this day between fifty. and fixty 
miles om our way. home, not a little de- 
lighted that every turn of the whee! draws 
us nearer to the much venerated altars of 
our domeltic gods: 
O quid folutis eft beatius curis, 
Cum’ mens onus reponit, ac peregrino 
S duabore fefli venimus Larem ad noftrum, 
Defidcratogue acquiefcimus leéto ! 
Notwithftanding that I feel this fenti- 
ment of the poet, expreffed as it is with 
incomparable elegance and exquifire deli- 
cacy, in its fulleft force, yet cannot I 
‘quit Geneva withcut regret: we have re- 
ceived fo much polite attention, and, I 
have great reafon. to add, fo many kind 
oftices, during our fhort ftay here, that one 
cnnot but regret the impofiibility of culti- 
-vating an acquaintance io aufpicioufly 
commenced. And the country, furely, has 
charms of no common attraétion: how 
fhould T dejight, could a certain much- 
loved friend be the companion of my ex- 
curfion, to fail round this far-celebrated 
Jake, to vibt its fheres, and ramble among 
the lofty hills which furround it! In fhort, 
as I have experienced the feverity of an 
Alpine winter, I certainly would have re- 
munerated myfelf by enjoying~the rich 
feenery of the fummer. 
But I am impatient to defcribe to you 
¢¢ gq Perte du Rhone,’ a fcene of wildnefs 
and of feeming ruin, which we have juft 
furveyed, and fhall ever contemplate with 
mingied emotions of aftonifhment and hor- 
ror. I fhould teil you that although we have 
this day retrodden, without any deviation, 
our former read, yet the fame fcenery was 
now imprefled with a very different charac- 
ter: the day was clear and frofty when we 
travelled from Nantua to Geneva, the fun 
fhone brilliantly, and the long {weep of 
valley below us, through which the Rhone 
holds its finuous courfe, prefented a pic- 
ture of great cheerfulnefs and beauty ; 
the native darknefs of the rocks was re- 
lieved by the fplendour of the day, and 
their afperities were foftened in the-per- 
efpeGtive. A change has taken place in 
the weather, a thaw has fucceeded, and 
An. Excurfion through France to Geneva, 
(Fan 
the clouds roll: haftily after each other: 
near Fort de ?Eclufe we were three or four 
times enveloped in them as they iffued from 
a defile of mountains on the right, and 
when they efeaped from the hills we faw 
them make a fullen defcent beneath our 
feet, and watched them hovering over the 
valley, till a fucceeding volume of mift 
interrupted the view. The ‘ Lo's of the 
Rhone” probably might not have made fo 
folemn and awful an impreffion, bat for 
the congenial gloom whica overfpread the 
{cene. : 
At about half a mile, or iefs, from 
Belicgarde, we get out of our carriage 
and deicended from the road, which winds 
raidway up the mountain, down to the 
vallée de l’ Eclufe: the defcent is fteep and 
{lippery, but not dangerous: a little 
mountain-torrent, now {wollen by the 
melted fnows, foams befide the rugged 
path, which the peafants have formed for 
the accommodation, as it fhould feem, of 
travellers. How am I to give you any 
tolerable idea of this impreffive phenome- 
non? Can you conceive the bottom of a 
narrow and deep valley to have been cleft 
open by fome ‘convulfion of nature, and 
that in confequence of this treachery at © 
their bafes, the lofty rock, which formed 
its precipitous fides, brad tumbled into the 
cult below, and ftopped the river in ifs 
courfe? Such was the idea which prefented 
itlf on beholding this confufion and up- 
roar of rock : it ttruck me that the river 
had been impeded by the falling in of the 
fides of the valley, where immenfe maffes 
of ftone lie wildly on each other, and 
among which it was compelled to fteala 
{ubterraneous pafiage. , 
As the Lofs of the Rhone is not above 
a quarter of a mile from the little village 
of Coupy, we fent the carriage forward, 
and proceeded thither on foot: in fuch a 
country as this, a man who has any enjoy- 
ment in furveying—not the beauties, but 
—the grandeur, the magnificence, the fub- 
limity of nature, regrets that he is fo 
much at the mercy of a poftillion; one 
cannot ftop his horfes every ten minutes 
to examine the fcenery. It was fortunate, 
therefore, that in going to Coupy we 
pafed the bridge of Bellegarde on foot ; 
from this bridge we had a view, of 
no inferior fublimity to that which we 
had juft Jeft, of the Valfcelline, a foam- 
ing fiream, which thunders through 
a rocky bed of yatt capacioufnefs and 
profundity, and which falls into the Rhone 
a little below its Lofs. me 
I did expe& to have concluded in m 
prefert letterthe tketch which I promifed at 
my 
