weitz, the carriage overtook us,
and we drove to the foot of the mountain which it is necessary to ascend
to reach Einsiedeln. Here we took _chevaux de renfort_, and a
reinforcement they proved indeed; for I do not remember two nobler
animals than the _voiturier_ obtained for the occasion. They appeared to
be moulded on the same scale as the mountains. We were much amused by
the fellow's management, for he contrived to check his own cattle in
such a way as to throw all the work on the recruits. This was not
effected without suspicion; but he contrived to allay it, by giving his
own beasts sundry punches in the sides, so adroitly bestowed as to
render them too restive to work. By way of triumph, each poke was
accompanied by a knowing leer at Francois, all whose sympathies, a
tribute to his extraction, I have had frequent opportunities of
observing, to my cost, were invariably on the side of the _voituriers_.
So evident, indeed, was this feeling in the gentleman, that had I been
accustomed to travel much by this mode, I should not have kept him a
month.

It was a mild evening as we travelled our way up this formidable ascent,
which is one of the severest in Switzerland, and we had loitered so much
along the shores of the lake, as to bring us materially behind our time.
Still it was too late to return, and we made the best of things as they
were. It is always more pleasant to ascend than to descend, for the
purposes of scenery; and, as picture after picture broke upon us, the
old touzy-mouzy was awakened, until we once more felt ourselves in a
perfect fever of mountain excitement. In consequence of diverging by a
foot-path, towards the east, in descending this mountain, in 1828, I had
missed one of the finest reaches of its different views, but which we
now enjoyed under the most favourable circumstances. The entire
converging crescent of the north shore of the lake, studded with white
churches, hamlets, and cottages, was visible, and as the evening sun
cast its mild light athwart the crowded and affluent landscape, we
involuntarily exclaimed, "that this even equalled the Neapolitan coast
in the twilight." The manner in which the obscurity settled on this
picture, slowly swallowing up tower after tower, hamlet, cottage, and
field, until the blue expanse of the lake alone reflected the light from
the clouds, was indescribably beautiful, and was one of those fine
effects that can only be produced amid a nature as grand as th