S.

I rejoined my sisters at Neufchatel on the 5th of July, and proceeded
thence with them by the line which passes through the Val de Travers.
One of them had been at Fleurier, in 1860, on the day of the opening of
this line, and she added an interest to the various tunnels, by telling
us that a Swiss gentleman of her acquaintance, who had taken a place in
one of the open carriages of the first train, found, on reaching the
daylight after one of the tunnels, that his neighbour had been killed by
a small stone which had fallen on to his head. Where the stone came
from, no one could say, nor yet when it fell, for the unfortunate man
had made no sign or movement of any kind.

Every one must be delighted with the wonders of the line of rail, and
the beauties through which the engineer has cut his way. In valleys on a
less magnificent scale, cuttings and embankments on the face of the hill
are sad eyesores, as in railway-ruined Killiecrankie; but here Nature's
works are so very grand, that the works of man are not offensively
prominent, being overawed by the very facts over which they have
triumphed. When we reached the more even part of the valley, where the
Reuse no longer roars and rushes far below, but winds quietly through
the soft grass on a level with the rail, the whole grouping was so
exceedingly charming, and the river itself so suggestive of lusty trout,
and the village of Noiraigue[48] looked so tempting as it nestled in a
sheltered nook among the headlong precipices, that I registered in a
safe mental pigeon-hole a week at the auberge there with a fishing-rod,
and excursions to the commanding summit in which the _Creux de Vent_ is
found. The engine-driver knew that he was in a region of beauties, and,
when he whistled to warn his passengers that the train was about to move
on, he remained stationary until the long-resounding echoes died out,
floating lingeringly up the valley to neighbouring France.

We had no definite idea as to the _locale_ of the glaciere we were now
bent upon attacking. M. Thury's list gave the following
information:--'_Glaciere de Motiers, Canton de Neufchatel, entre les
vallees de Travers et de la Brevine, pres du sentier de la Brevine_;'
and this I had rendered somewhat more precise by a cross-examination of
the guard of the train on my way to Besancon. He had not heard of the
glaciere, but from what I told him he was inclined to think that Couvet
would be the best station for our pu