proceedings to the
present time since the 29th of September. I think it must have been
after that day that I was at a great breakfast at the elder Perdonnets',
with whom I had declined to dine, not choosing to go out at night....
I was taken by my hostess to see several pretty pleasure-grounds and
points of view in the neighborhood; and latterly Calvert was better, and
able to go with us. He was in force again, and our passports were all
settled so as to enable us to start on the morning of the 2d, after
taking leave of our kind entertainer with thanks for her infinite
kindness.

"We reached St. Maurice early that evening; having had the Dent du
Midi close to us for several hours; glittering like the top of a silver
teapot, far up in the sky. Our course lay along the Valley of the Rhone;
which is considered one of the least beautiful parts of Switzerland,
and perhaps for this reason pleased us, as we had not been prepared
to expect much. We saw, before reaching the foot of the Alpine pass at
Brieg, two rather celebrated Waterfalls; the one the Pissevache, which
has no more beauty than any waterfall one hundred or two hundred feet
high must necessarily have: the other, near Tourtemagne, is much more
pleasing, having foliage round it, and being in a secluded dell. If you
buy a Swiss Waterfall, choose this one.

"Our second day took us through Martigny to Sion, celebrated for its
picturesque towers upon detached hills, for its strong Romanism and its
population of _cretins_,--that is, maimed idiots having the _goitre_. It
looked to us a more thriving place than we expected. They are building
a great deal; among other things, a new Bishop's Palace and a new
Nunnery,--to inhabit either of which _ex officio_ I feel myself very
unsuitable. From Sion we came to Brieg; a little village in a nook,
close under an enormous mountain and glacier, where it lies like a
molehill, or something smaller, at the foot of a haystack. Here also we
slept; and the next day our voiturier, who had brought us from Lausanne,
started with us up the Simplon Pass; helped on by two extra horses.

"The beginning of the road was rather cheerful; having a good deal of
green pasturage, and some mountain villages; but it soon becomes dreary
and savage in aspect, and but for our bright sky and warm air, would
have been truly dismal. However, we gained gradually a distinct and
near view of several large glaciers; and reached at last the high
and melancholy