nd we drove to an
inn, where chopped straw was ordered for the horses, and a more
substantial _gouter_ for ourselves. Leaving the former to discuss their
meal, after finishing our own, we walked ahead, and waited the
appearance of the little Savoyard, on the scene of the great battle
between the Swiss and the Burgundians. The country has undergone vast
changes since the fifteenth century, and cultivation has long since
caused the marsh, in which so many of the latter perished, to disappear,
though it is easy to see where it must have formerly been. I have
nothing new to say concerning Avenche, whose Roman ruins, after Rome
itself, scarce caused us to cast a glance at them, and we drove up to
the door of the _Ours_ at Payerne, without alighting. When we are
children, we fancy that sweets can never cloy, and indignantly repel the
idea that tarts and sugar-plums will become matters of indifference to
us; a little later we swear eternal constancy to a first love, and form
everlasting friendships: as time slips away, we marry three or four
wives, shoot a bosom-friend or two, and forget the looks of those whose
images were to be graven on our hearts for ever. You will wonder at this
digression, which has been excited by the simple fact that I actually
caught myself gaping, when something was said about Queen Bertha and her
saddle. The state of apathy to which one finally arrives is really
frightful!

We left Payerne early, and breakfasted at the "inevitable inn" of
Moudon. Here it was necessary to decide in what direction to steer, for
I had left the charter-party with _le petit Savoyard_, open, on this
essential point. The weather was so fine, the season of the year so
nearly the same, and most of the other circumstances so very much like
those under which we had made the enchanting passage along the head of
the Leman four years before, that we yielded to the desire to renew the
pleasures of such a transit, and turned our faces towards Vevey.

At the point where the roads separate, therefore, we diverged from the
main route, which properly leads to Lausanne, inclining southward. We
soon were rolling along the margin of the little blue lake that lies on
the summit of the hills, so famous for its prawns. We knew that a few
minutes would bring us to the brow of the great declivity, and all eyes
were busy, and all heads eagerly in motion. As for myself, I took my
station on the dickey, determined to let nothing escape me in a s