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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rollo in Geneva, by Jacob Abbott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rollo in Geneva
+
+Author: Jacob Abbott
+
+Release Date: May 6, 2008 [EBook #25355]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROLLO IN GENEVA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ ROLLO IN GENEVA,
+
+ BY
+
+ JACOB ABBOTT.
+
+ NEW YORK:
+ SHELDON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,
+ 498 & 500 BROADWAY.
+ 1867.
+
+
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858,
+
+by JACOB ABBOTT,
+
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF CHILLON.]
+
+
+ [Illustration: ROLLO'S TOUR IN EUROPE.
+ SHELDON & CO.,
+ PUBLISHERS, N. Y.]
+
+
+
+
+ROLLO'S TOUR IN EUROPE.
+
+
+ORDER OF THE VOLUMES.
+
+ ROLLO ON THE ATLANTIC.
+ ROLLO IN PARIS.
+ ROLLO IN SWITZERLAND.
+ ROLLO IN LONDON.
+ ROLLO ON THE RHINE.
+ ROLLO IN SCOTLAND.
+ ROLLO IN GENEVA.
+ ROLLO IN HOLLAND.
+ ROLLO IN NAPLES.
+ ROLLO IN ROME.
+
+
+PRINCIPAL PERSONS OF THE STORY.
+
+ ROLLO; twelve years of age.
+ MR. and MRS. HOLIDAY; Rollo's father and mother, travelling in Europe.
+ THANNY; Rollo's younger brother.
+ JANE; Rollo's cousin, adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Holiday.
+ MR. GEORGE; a young gentleman, Rollo's uncle.
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS.
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                                       PAGE
+
+    I.--THE FAME OF GENEVA,                                     11
+
+   II.--PLANNING,                                               24
+
+  III.--THE RIDE TO GENEVA,                                     35
+
+   IV.--THE TOWN,                                               55
+
+    V.--THE HOTEL,                                              64
+
+   VI.--A RIDE IN THE ENVIRONS,                                 71
+
+  VII.--THE JUNCTION OF THE ARVE,                               93
+
+ VIII.--SEEING MONT BLANC GO OUT,                              108
+
+   IX.--A LAW QUESTION,                                        122
+
+    X.--AN EXCURSION ON THE LAKE,                              134
+
+   XI.--VILLENEUVE,                                            148
+
+  XII.--THE CASTLE OF CHILLON,                                 155
+
+ XIII.--PLAN FORMED,                                           171
+
+  XIV.--WALK TO AIGLE,                                         179
+
+   XV.--THE JEWELRY,                                           197
+
+  XVI.--A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT,                                  209
+
+
+ ENGRAVINGS.
+
+
+                                                               PAGE
+
+ THE CASTLE OF CHILLON,                            (Frontispiece.)
+
+ THE GREAT NET,                                                 30
+
+ GOING THROUGH THE VILLAGE,                                     46
+
+ VIEW OF GENEVA,                                                58
+
+ THE WATER WHEEL,                                              100
+
+ FISHING,                                                      104
+
+ GOING TO TAKE A SAIL,                                         132
+
+ THE DUNGEONS OF CHILLON,                                      161
+
+ THE BASKET RIDE,                                              185
+
+ SHOPPING AT GENEVA,                                           203
+
+
+
+
+ROLLO IN GENEVA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FAME OF GENEVA.
+
+
+Geneva is one of the most remarkable and most celebrated cities in
+Europe. It derives its celebrity, however, not so much from its size, or
+from the magnificence of its edifices, as from the peculiar beauty of
+its situation, and from the circumstances of its history.
+
+Geneva is situated upon the confines of France, Switzerland, and
+Sardinia, at the outlet of the Lake of Geneva, which is perhaps the most
+beautiful, and certainly the most celebrated, lake in Switzerland. It is
+shaped like a crescent,--that is, like the new moon, or rather like the
+moon after it is about four or five days old. The lower end of the
+lake--that is, the end where Geneva is situated--lies in a comparatively
+open country, though vast ranges of lofty mountains, some of them
+covered with perpetual snow, are to be seen in the distance all around.
+All the country near, however, at this end of the lake, is gently
+undulating, and it is extremely fertile and beautiful. There are a great
+many elegant country seats along the shore of the lake, and on the banks
+of the River Rhone, which flows out of it. The waters of the lake at
+this end, and of the river which issues from it, are very clear, and of
+a deep and beautiful blue color. This blue color is so remarkable that
+it attracts the attention of every one who looks down into it from a
+bridge or from a boat, and there have been a great many suppositions and
+speculations made in respect to the cause of it; but I believe that,
+after all, nobody has yet been able to find out what the cause is.
+
+The city of Geneva is situated exactly at the lower end of the lake,
+that is, at the western end; and the River Rhone, in coming out of the
+lake, flows directly through the town.
+
+The lake is about fifty miles long, and the eastern end of it runs far
+in among the mountains. These mountains are very dark and sombre, and
+their sides rise so precipitously from the margin of the water that in
+many places there is scarcely room for a road along the shore. Indeed,
+you go generally to that end of the lake in a steamer; and as you
+advance, the mountains seem to shut you in completely at the end of the
+lake. But when you get near to the end, you see a narrow valley opening
+before you, with high mountains on either hand, and the River Rhone
+flowing very swiftly between green and beautiful banks in the middle of
+it. Besides the river, there is a magnificent road to be seen running
+along this valley. This is the great high road leading from France into
+Italy; and it has been known and travelled as such ever since the days
+of the old Romans.
+
+The River Rhone, where it flows into the lake at the eastern end of it,
+is very thick and turbid, being formed from torrents coming down the
+mountain sides, or from muddy streams derived from the melting of the
+glaciers. At the western end, on the other hand, where it issues from
+the lake, the water is beautifully pellucid and clear. The reason of
+this is, that during its slow passage through the lake it has had time
+to settle. The impurities which the torrents bring down into it from the
+mountains all subside to the bottom of the lake, and are left there, and
+thus the water comes out at the lower end quite clear. The lake itself,
+however, is of course gradually filling up by means of this process.
+
+There are several large and handsome houses on the northern shore of
+the lake; but Geneva, at the western end of it, entirely surpasses them
+all.
+
+Geneva is, however, after all, a comparatively small town. It contains
+only thirty or forty thousand inhabitants. It would take ten Genevas to
+make a New York, and nearly a hundred to make a Paris or London.
+
+Why, then, since Geneva is comparatively so small, is it so celebrated?
+Almost every person who goes to Europe visits Geneva, and talks of
+Geneva when he comes back; while there are multitudes of other cities
+and towns, many times as large in extent and population, that he never
+thinks of or speaks of at all.
+
+There are several reasons for this.
+
+1. The first reason is, that this town stands on the great high road
+leading from England and France into Italy. Of course it comes naturally
+in the way of all travellers making the grand tour. It is true that at
+the present day, since steam has been introduced upon the Mediterranean,
+a very large proportion of travellers, instead of passing through
+Switzerland, go down the Rhone to Marseilles, and embark there. But
+before the introduction of steam, for many ages, the way by Geneva was
+almost the only way to Italy; and the city acquired great celebrity
+through the accounts of tourists and travellers who visited it on their
+journeys.
+
+2. The second reason is, that Geneva is a convenient and agreeable point
+for entering Switzerland, and for making excursions among the Alps.
+There are two great avenues into Switzerland from France and
+Germany--one by way of Geneva, and the other by way of Basle. By the way
+of Basle we go to the Jungfrau and the Oberland Alps which lie around
+that mountain, and to the beautiful lakes of Zurich and of Lucerne. All
+these lie in the eastern part of the Alpine region. By the way of Geneva
+we go to the valley of Chamouni and Mont Blanc, and visit the vast
+glaciers and the stupendous mountain scenery that lie around this great
+monarch of the Alps.
+
+There is a great question among travellers which of these two Alpine
+regions is the most grand. Some prefer the mountains about Mont Blanc,
+which are called the Alps of Savoy. Others like better those about the
+Jungfrau, which are called the Oberland Alps. The scenery and the
+objects of interest are very different in the two localities; and it
+seems to me that any difference which travellers may observe in the
+grandeur of the emotions which they severally produce upon the mind must
+be due to the peculiar circumstances or moods of mind in which they are
+visited. It is true you can get nearer to the Jungfrau than you can to
+Mont Blanc, and so can obtain a more impressive view of his icy and
+rocky sides and glittering summit. But then, on the other hand, Mont
+Blanc is really the highest peak, and is looked upon as the great
+monarch of them all.
+
+And here, as the name of Mont Blanc will of course often appear in this
+volume, I have a word or two to say in respect to the proper
+pronunciation of it in America; for the proper mode of pronouncing the
+name of any place is not fixed, as many persons think, but varies with
+the language which you are using in speaking of it. Thus the name of the
+capital of France, when we are in France, and speaking French, is
+pronounced _Par-ree_; but when we are in England and America, and are
+speaking English, we universally pronounce it _Par-is_. It is so with
+almost all names of places. They change the pronunciation, and often the
+mode of spelling, according to the analogy of the language used by the
+person speaking of them.
+
+Many persons suppose that in order correctly to pronounce the name of
+any place we must pronounce it as the people do who live in and around
+the place. But this is not so. The rule, on the other hand, is, that we
+must pronounce it as the people do who live in and around the place _the
+language of which we are speaking_. Thus the people of France call their
+capital _Par-ree_; those of Spain call theirs something like
+this,--_Madhreedth_; the Italians pronounce theirs _Roma_; but we, in
+talking English, say simply, _Paris_, _Madrid_, and _Rome_; in other
+words, when we are talking English, we _talk English throughout_, using
+English words for names of things, and English pronunciation for names
+of places, in all cases where there is an English pronunciation
+established,--as there is in respect to all the rivers, towns,
+mountains, and other localities on the globe that are well known and
+often spoken of in the English world.
+
+Mont Blanc is one of these. Like the word _Paris_ it has its French
+pronunciation for the French, and its English pronunciation for the
+English; and its English pronunciation is as if it were spelled Mount
+Blank or Mont Blank. Under this name it has been known and spoken of
+familiarly all over England and America for centuries; and this, it
+seems to me, is the proper name to give it when we are speaking English.
+
+Its French pronunciation is very different. It is one which none but a
+practical French scholar can possibly imitate, except in a very awkward
+manner. Those who have visited France and Switzerland, and have been
+accustomed to the French sound, often give the word the French
+pronunciation; but it is not at all necessary to do so. The word, like
+_Paris_, has its own established English sound; and if it is not
+pedantry to attempt to give it the French sound when speaking English,
+it certainly is not a mispronunciation to give it the English one.
+Indeed, to require the French pronunciation of the word from English
+speakers would be in effect to banish it almost altogether from
+conversation; for among the ten millions, more or less, in England or
+America, who speak English well, there is probably not one in a thousand
+that can possibly give the word its true French pronunciation.
+
+In reading this book, therefore, and in speaking of the great Swiss
+mountain, you are perfectly safe in giving it its plain English sound,
+as if it were written Mont Blank; and remember the principle, as
+applicable to all other similar cases. Wherever a foreign name has
+become so familiar to the English world as to have obtained an
+established English pronunciation, in speaking English we give it that
+pronunciation, without any regard to the usage of the people who live on
+the spot.
+
+But now I must return to Geneva, and give some further account of the
+reasons why it has been so celebrated.
+
+3. The third reason why Geneva has acquired so much celebrity among
+mankind is the great number of learned and distinguished philosophers
+and scholars that have from time to time lived there. Switzerland is a
+republic, and the canton of Geneva is Protestant; and thus the place has
+served as a sort of resort and refuge for all the most distinguished
+foes both of spiritual and political tyranny that have risen up in
+Europe at intervals during the last five hundred years. Geneva was
+indeed one of the chief centres of the Reformation; and almost all the
+great reformers visited it and wrote about it, and thus made all the
+world familiar with it, during the exciting times in which they lived.
+
+Besides this, Geneva has been made the residence and home of a great
+many moral and political writers within the last one or two centuries;
+for the country, being republican, is much more open and free than most
+of the other countries of Europe. Men who have incurred the displeasure
+of their own governments by their writings or their acts find a safe
+asylum in Geneva, where they can think and say what they please. All
+this has tended very strongly to attract the attention of mankind to
+Geneva, as to a sort of luminous point in respect to moral and
+political science, from which light radiates to every part of the
+civilized world.
+
+4. There is one more reason, very different from the preceding, which
+tends to make Geneva famous, and to draw travellers to visit it at the
+present day; and that is, it is a great manufacturing place for watches
+and jewelry--one of the greatest, indeed, in the world. Travellers, in
+making the tour of Europe,--and American travellers in
+particular,--always wish to bring home with them a great number and
+variety of purchases; and the things that they buy they very naturally
+desire to buy at the places where they are made. It is not merely that
+they hope to get them better and cheaper there, but it is a pleasant
+thought to be associated always afterwards with any object of use or
+luxury that we possess, that we bought it ourselves at the place of its
+original manufacture. Thus the gentlemen who travel in Europe like to
+bring home a fowling-piece from Birmingham, a telescope from London, or
+a painting from Italy; and the ladies, in planning their tour, wish it
+to include Brussels or Valenciennes for laces, and Geneva for a watch.
+
+Thus, for one reason or another, immense numbers of people go every year
+to Geneva, in the course of the tour they make in Europe, either for
+business or pleasure. It is estimated that the number of these visitors
+annually is not less than thirty thousand; and the chief streets and
+quays of the town are marked almost as strikingly by the conspicuousness
+and splendor of the hotels as Broadway in New York.
+
+The place of departure in France for Geneva is Lyons. If you look upon
+the map you will see the situation of Lyons on the River Rhone, almost
+opposite to Geneva. There is a railroad from Paris to Lyons, and so on
+down the Rhone to Marseilles. But from Lyons up to Geneva--which is
+likewise situated on the Rhone, at the place where it issues from the
+Lake of Geneva--there was no railroad at the time of Rollo's visit,
+though there was one in the process of construction. The party were
+obliged to travel by _diligence_ on that part of the journey. The
+diligence is the French stage coach. The diligence leaves Lyons in the
+evening, and travels all night. As Mr. Holiday arrived at Lyons the
+evening before, Rollo had the whole of the day to walk about the town
+before setting out for his evening ride. His father gave him leave to go
+out alone, and ramble where he pleased.
+
+"The most curious places," said his father, "are on the other side of
+the river, where the silk weavers live. Notice what bridge you go over,
+so that you will know it again, and then if you get lost on the other
+side it will be no matter. All you will have to do is to keep coming
+down hill till you reach the river, and then look up and down till you
+see the bridge where you went over. That will bring you home. And be
+sure to be at home by five o'clock. We are going to have dinner at half
+past five."
+
+"Then won't it be in season," asked Rollo, "if I am at home by half past
+five?"
+
+"In season for what?" asked his father.
+
+"Why, to save my dinner," said Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said his father; "it might be in season to save your dinner, but
+that is not what I am planning to save. I have no particular uneasiness
+about your dinner."
+
+"Why, father!" said Rollo, surprised.
+
+"I have no wish to have you go hungry," replied his father; "but then if
+by any chance you happened to be late at dinner, it would be of no great
+consequence, for you could buy something, and eat it in the diligence by
+the way. So I was not planning to save your dinner."
+
+"Then what were you planning to save, father?" asked Rollo.
+
+"My own and mother's quiet of mind," replied Mr. Holiday, "especially
+mother's. If five minutes of the dinner hour were to come and you
+should not appear, she would begin to be uneasy; and indeed so should
+I. In such cases as this, children ought always to come before the time
+when their parents would begin to feel any uneasiness respecting them."
+
+Rollo saw at once the correctness of this principle, and he secretly
+resolved that he would be at home a quarter before five.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+PLANNING.
+
+
+"What part of the diligence are we going to ride in, father?" asked
+Rollo, as they were seated at dinner.
+
+"In the coupe,"[A] said Mr. Holiday.
+
+[Footnote A: Pronounced _coupay_.]
+
+"Ah, father!" said Rollo; "I wish you would go on the banquette. We can
+see so much better on the banquette."
+
+"It would be rather hard climbing for mother," said Mr. Holiday, "to get
+up to the banquette--such a long ladder."
+
+"O, mother can get up just as easily as not," said Rollo. "Couldn't you,
+mother?"
+
+"I am more afraid about getting _down_ than getting up," said his
+mother.
+
+"But it is a great deal pleasanter on the banquette," said Rollo. "They
+keep talking all the time--the conductor, and the drivers, and the other
+passengers that are there; while in the coupe we shall be all by
+ourselves. Besides, it is so much cheaper."
+
+"It is cheaper, I know," said Mr. Holiday; "but then as to the talking,
+I think we shall want to be quiet, and go to sleep if we can. You see it
+will be night."
+
+"Yes, father, that is true," said Rollo; "but I had rather hear them
+talk. I can understand almost all they say. And then I like to see them
+change horses, and to see the conductor climb up and down. Then,
+besides, at almost all the villages they have parcels to leave at the
+inns; and it is good fun to see them take the parcels out and toss them
+down, and tell the bar maid at the inn what she is to do with them."
+
+"All that must be very amusing," said Mr. Holiday; "but it would not be
+so comfortable for your mother to mount up there. Besides, I have
+engaged our places already in the coupe, and paid for them."
+
+"Why, father!" said Rollo. "When did you do it?"
+
+"I sent last evening," said Mr. Holiday. "It is necessary to engage the
+places beforehand at this season. There is so much travelling into
+Switzerland now that the diligences are all full. I had to send to three
+offices before I could get places."
+
+"Are there three offices?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said his father; "there are three different lines.
+
+"But I'll tell you what you may do, Rollo, if you please," continued his
+father. "You may go to the bureau,[B] and see if you can exchange your
+seat in the coupe for one in the banquette, if you think you would like
+better to ride there. There may be some passenger who could not get a
+place in the coupe, on account of my having taken them all, and who,
+consequently, took one on the banquette, and would now be glad to
+exchange, and pay the difference."
+
+[Footnote B: Bureau is the French word meaning office; and English
+people, when travelling in France, fall into the habit of using the word
+in that sense.]
+
+"How much would the difference be?" asked Rollo.
+
+"I don't know," said Mr. Holiday; "five or six francs, probably. You
+would save that sum by riding on the banquette, and you could have it to
+buy something with in Geneva."
+
+"Well, sir," said Rollo, joyfully, "I should like that plan very much."
+
+"But do you think," said Mrs. Holiday, "that you know French enough to
+explain it at the bureau, and make the change?"
+
+"O, yes, mother," said Rollo; "I have no doubt I can."
+
+So Rollo said he would finish his dinner as soon as he could, and go off
+at once to the bureau.
+
+"There is one other condition," said his father. "If I let you ride on
+the banquette, and let you have all the money that you save for your
+own, you must write a full account of your night's journey, and send it
+to your cousin Lucy."
+
+"Well, sir," said Rollo, "I will."
+
+Rollo left the dinner table while his father and mother were taking
+their coffee. The table was one of a number of separate tables arranged
+along by the windows on the front side of a quaint and queer-looking
+dining room--or _salle a manger_, as they call it--in one of the Lyons
+inns. Indeed, the whole inn was very quaint and queer, with its old
+stone staircases, and long corridors leading to the various apartments,
+and its antique ceiling,--reminding one, as Mr. Holiday said, of the
+inns we read of in Don Quixote and other ancient romances.
+
+Rollo left his father and mother at this table, taking their coffee, and
+sallied forth to find his way to the bureau of the diligence.
+
+"If you meet with any difficulty," said Mr. Holiday, as Rollo went away,
+"engage the first cab you see, and the cabman will take you directly
+there for a franc or so."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo, "I will."
+
+"And if you don't find any cab readily," continued his father, "engage a
+commissioner to go with you and show you the way."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo.
+
+A commissioner is a sort of porter who stands at the corners of the
+streets in the French towns, ready to do any thing for any body that
+calls upon him.
+
+Rollo resolved not to employ either a cabman or a commissioner, if it
+could possibly be avoided. He took the address of the bureau from his
+father, and sallied forth.
+
+He first went round the corner to a bookstore where he recollected to
+have seen a map of Lyons hanging in the window. He looked at this map,
+and found the street on it where he wished to go. He then studied out
+the course which he was to take. Lyons stands at, or rather near, the
+confluence of the two rivers Rhone and Saone. In coming to Lyons from
+Paris, the party had come down the valley of the Saone; but now they
+were to leave this valley, and follow up that of the Rhone to Geneva,
+which is situated, as has already been said, on the Rhone, at the point
+where that river issues from the Lake of Geneva.
+
+The hotel where Rollo's father had taken lodgings was near the Saone;
+and Rollo found that the bureau was on the other side of the town, where
+it fronts on the Rhone.
+
+So Rollo followed the course which he had marked out for himself on the
+map. In a short time he saw before him signs of bridges and a river.
+
+"Ah," says he to himself; "I am right; I am coming to the Rhone."
+
+He went on, drawing nearer and nearer. At length he came out upon the
+broad and beautiful quay, with large and elegant stone buildings on one
+side of it, and a broad but low parapet wall on the other, separating
+the quay from the water. There was a sidewalk along this wall, with many
+people walking on it; and here and there men were to be seen leaning
+upon the wall, and looking over at the boats on the river. The river was
+broad, and it flowed very rapidly, as almost all water does which has
+just come from Switzerland and the Alps. On looking up and down, Rollo
+saw a great number of bridges crossing this stream, with teams and
+diligences, and in one place a long troop of soldiers passing over. On
+the other side, the bank was lined with massive blocks of stone
+buildings. In a word, the whole scene presented a very bright and
+animated spectacle to view.
+
+Nearly opposite to the place where Rollo came out upon the river, he
+saw, over the parapet wall that extended along on the outer side of the
+quay, a very large, square net suspended in the air. It was hung by
+means of ropes at the four corners, which met in a point above, whence
+a larger rope went up to a pulley which was attached to the end of a
+spar that projected from the stern of a boat. The net was slowly
+descending into the water when Rollo first caught a view of it; so he
+ran across, and looked over the parapet to see.
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT NET.]
+
+The net descended slowly into the water. It was let down by men in the
+boat paying out the line that held it.
+
+"Ah," said Rollo to himself; "that's a curious way to rig a net. I
+should like to stay and see them pull it up again, so as to see how many
+fish they take; but business first and pleasure afterwards is the rule."
+
+So he left the parapet, and walked along the quay towards the place
+where the bureau was situated.
+
+"I'll come back here," said he to himself, "when I have got my place on
+the banquette, and see them fish a little while, if I find there is
+time."
+
+In a few minutes Rollo came to the place he was seeking. It was in a
+little square, called Concert Place, opening towards the river. Rollo
+knew the bureau by seeing the diligence standing before the door. It had
+been brought up there to be ready for the baggage, though the horses
+were not yet harnessed to it.
+
+Rollo went into the office. He found himself in a small room, with
+trunks and baggage arranged along on one side of it, and a little
+enclosure of railings, with a desk behind it, on the other. There was a
+young man sitting at this desk, writing.
+
+"This must be a clerk, I suppose," said Rollo to himself.
+
+Opposite to where the clerk was sitting there was a little opening in
+the railings, for people to pay their money and take their tickets; for
+people take tickets for places in the diligence, in Europe, just as they
+do for the railroad. Rollo advanced to this opening, and, looking
+through it, he stated his case to the clerk. He said that he had a place
+in the coupe that his father had taken for him, but that he would rather
+ride on the banquette, if there was room there, and if any body would
+take his place in the coupe.
+
+The clerk said that there had been a great many persons after a place in
+the coupe since it had been taken, and that one lady had taken a place
+on the banquette, because all the other places in the coach had been
+engaged.
+
+"I think," said the clerk, "that she will be very glad to exchange with
+you, and pay you the difference. She lives not far from here, and if you
+will wait a few minutes, I will send and see."
+
+So the clerk called a commissioner who stood at the door, and after
+giving him his directions, sent him away. In a few minutes the
+commissioner returned, saying that the lady was very glad indeed to
+exchange. He brought in his hand a five franc piece and three francs,
+which was the difference in the price of the two places. The clerk gave
+this money to Rollo, and altered the entry on his books so as to put
+the lady in the coupe and Rollo on the banquette. Thus the affair was
+all arranged.
+
+Rollo found that it was now six o'clock. The diligence was not to set
+out until half past seven; but by the rules of the service the
+passengers were all to be on the spot, with their baggage, half an hour
+before the time; so that Rollo knew that his father and mother would be
+there at seven.
+
+"That gives me just an hour," said he to himself; "so I shall have
+plenty of time to go and see how they manage fishing with that big net."
+
+He accordingly went to see the fishing, but was very careful to return
+some minutes before the appointed time.
+
+Rollo had a very pleasant ride that night to Geneva. He wrote a long and
+full account of it afterwards, and sent it to his cousin Lucy. This
+letter I shall give in the next chapter.
+
+The reason why Rollo wrote so long an account of his journey was this:
+that his father required him, when travelling, to spend one hour and a
+half every day in study of some kind; and writing letters, or any other
+intellectual occupation that was calculated to advance his education,
+was considered as study. In consequence of this arrangement, Rollo was
+never in a hurry to come to the end of his letters, for he liked the
+work of writing them better than writing French exercises, or working on
+arithmetic, or engaging in any of the other avocations which devolved
+upon him when he had no letters on hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE RIDE TO GENEVA.
+
+
+"DEAR LUCY:
+
+"I am going to give you an account of my night ride from Lyons to
+Geneva.
+
+"I got to the diligence office before father came, because I was going
+to ride up in the bellows-top. I call it the bellows-top so that you may
+understand it better. It is a place up in the second story of the
+diligence, where there are seats for four persons, and a great
+bellows-top over their heads. _I_ think it is the best place, though
+people have to pay more for the coupe, which is right under it. I got
+eight francs, which is more than a dollar and a half, for exchanging my
+seat in the coupe for one on the banquette. I exchanged with a lady. I
+suppose she did not like to climb up the ladder. You see in the coupe
+you step right in as you would into a carriage; but you have to go up
+quite a long ladder to get to the banquette. I counted the steps. There
+were thirteen.
+
+"When I got to the office, the men were using the ladder to put up the
+baggage. They put the baggage on the top of the diligence, along the
+whole length of it behind the bellows-top. They pack it all in very
+closely, beginning immediately behind, and coming regularly forward, as
+far as it will reach. There is a frame over it, and a great leather
+covering. They pull the covering forward as fast as they get the trunks
+packed, until at last the baggage is all covered over as far forward as
+to the back of the bellows-top.
+
+"The men were using the ladders when I came, getting up the baggage; so
+I climbed up by the little steps that are made on the side of the
+diligence. I liked my seat very much. Before me was a great leather
+boot. The boot was fastened to an iron bar that went across in front, so
+that it did not come against my knees. Above me was the bellows-top, to
+keep off the rain. Up under the roof of the bellows-top there was a sash
+folded together and fastened up by straps. I unfastened one of the
+straps, and saw that I could let down the sash if I wished, and thus
+make a glass window in front of me, so as to shut me in nicely from the
+wind, if it should grow cold in the night. Behind me was a curtain. The
+curtain was loose. I pushed it back, and found I could look out on the
+top of the diligence where the men were at work packing the trunks and
+baggage. The men wore blue frocks shaped like cartmen's frocks.[C]
+
+[Footnote C: Such a frock is called a _blouse_--pronounced _blooze_.
+Almost all working men in France wear them. Hence the class of workmen
+in France are sometimes called the _blouses_.]
+
+"Right before the boot was the postilion's seat. It was a little lower
+than my seat, and was large enough for two. The conductor's seat was at
+the end of my seat, under the bellows-top. There was one thing curious
+about his seat, and that is, that there was a joint in the iron bar of
+the boot, so that he could open his end of it, and get out and in
+without disturbing the boot before the rest of the passengers. When I
+wanted to get out I had to climb over the boot to the postilion's seat,
+and so get down by the little iron steps.
+
+"The reason I wanted to get down was so as to buy some oranges. There
+was a woman down there with oranges to sell. She had them in a basket. I
+thought perhaps that I might be thirsty in the night, and that I could
+not get down very well to get a drink of water. So I climbed down and
+bought four oranges. I bought one for myself, and two to give father and
+mother, and one more because the woman looked so poor. Besides, they
+were not very dear--only fifteen centimes apiece. It takes five centimes
+to make a sou, and a sou is about as much as a cent.
+
+"When I had bought my oranges I climbed up into my place again.
+
+"There were several people beginning to come and stand about the door of
+the bureau. I suppose they were the travellers. Some came in cabs, with
+their trunks on before with the postilion. I counted up how many the
+diligence would hold, and found that in all, including the two
+postilion's seats, and the conductor's, that there were places for
+twenty-one. But when we started we had twenty-four in all. Where the
+other three sat you will see by and by.[D]
+
+[Footnote D: The diligence is very large. It has four separate
+compartments. For a more full account of the construction of the
+vehicle, and for one or two engravings representing it, see Rollo's Tour
+in Switzerland.]
+
+"As fast as the passengers came to the office, the men took their
+baggage and packed it with the rest, on the top of the diligence, and
+the passengers themselves stood about the door, waiting for the horses
+to be put in.
+
+"Some of the passengers came on foot, with commissioners to bring their
+baggage. The commissioners carried their baggage on their backs. They
+had a frame something like an old-fashioned kitchen chair strapped to
+their shoulders, and the baggage was piled upon this very high. One
+commissioner that came had on his frame, first a big black trunk,
+placed endwise, and then a portmanteau, then a carpet bag, and on the
+top a bandbox. The bandbox reached far above his head. I should not
+think they could possibly carry such heavy loads.
+
+"Presently I saw father and mother coming in a cab. So I climbed down to
+meet them. The men in the blouses took their trunk and carried it up the
+ladder, and then I opened the coupe door for them, and let them get in.
+I told mother that my place was exactly over her head, and that I was
+then going to climb up to it, and that when I was there I would knock on
+the floor, and she would know that I had got there safely; and I did.
+
+"By and by they got all the baggage packed, and they pulled the great
+leather covering over it, and fastened it to the back of the
+bellows-top. Then I could push up the curtain behind me and look in at
+the place where the baggage was stowed. It looked like a garret. It was
+not quite full. There was room for several more trunks at the forward
+end of it.
+
+"Pretty soon after this they brought round the horses and harnessed them
+in. Then the clerk came out of the bureau and called off the names of
+the passengers from his list. First he called the names of those who
+were to go in the coupe. He said, in a loud voice,--
+
+"'Monsieur Holiday and Madame Holiday!'
+
+"And he looked in at the coupe door, and father said, 'Here.'
+
+"Then he called out,--
+
+"'Madame Tournay!'
+
+"That was the name of the lady that had changed places with me. So she
+got into the coupe. That made the coupe full.
+
+"In the same manner the clerk called off the names of those who were to
+go in the interior, which is the centre compartment. The interior holds
+six.
+
+"Then he called off the names of those that were to go in the 'rotonde,'
+which is the back compartment. You get into the rotonde by a door
+behind, like the door of an omnibus.
+
+"Then the clerk called out the names of the people that were to come up
+to the banquette with me. There were six of them, and there seemed to be
+only room for three. So I could not imagine where they were all going to
+sit. They came in a row, one behind the other, up the ladder. Very soon
+I saw how they were going to sit; for the three that came first--a man
+and woman and a girl--when they came into the banquette, pushed up the
+curtain at the back side of it, and so climbed in behind to the garret,
+and sat on the trunks. When the curtain was down, after they were in,
+they were all in the dark there.
+
+"However, pretty soon they contrived to fasten up the curtain, and then
+they could see out a little over our shoulders. The girl sat directly
+behind me. I asked her if she could see, and she said she could, very
+well.
+
+"The postilion then climbed up, with the reins in his hand, and called
+out to the horses to start on. He talked to his horses in French, and
+they seemed to understand him very well. The great thing, though, was
+cracking his whip. You can scarcely conceive how fast and loud he
+cracked his whip, first on one side and then on the other, till the
+whole court rang again. The horses sprang forward and trotted off at
+great speed out of the place, and wheeled round the corner to the quay;
+and while they were going, the conductor came climbing up the side of
+the coach to his place.
+
+"The conductor never gets into his place before the diligence starts. He
+waits till the horses set out, and then jumps on to the step, and so
+climbs up the side while the horses are going.
+
+"A diligence is a monstrous great machine; and when it sets out on a
+journey in a city, the rumbling of the wheels on the pavement, and the
+clattering of the horses' feet, and the continual cracking of the
+coachman's whip, and the echoes of all these sounds on the walls of the
+buildings, make a wonderful noise and din, and every body, when the
+diligence is coming, hurries to get out of the way. Indeed, I believe
+the coachman likes to make all the noise he can; for he has sleigh bells
+on the harness, and, besides cracking his whip, he keeps continually
+shouting out to the horses and the teamsters on the road before him; and
+whenever he is passing through a town or a village he does all this more
+than any where else, because, as I suppose, there are more people there
+to hear him.
+
+"Presently, after driving along the quay a little way, we turned off to
+one of the great stone bridges that lead across the Rhone. We went over
+this bridge in splendid style. I could see far up and down the river,
+and trains of wagons and multitudes of people going and coming on the
+other bridges. The water in the river was running very swift. There were
+some boats along the shore, but I don't see how the people could dare to
+venture out in them in such a current.
+
+"As soon as we had got over the bridge, we struck into a beautiful road
+across the country, and the postilion cracked on faster and harder than
+ever. We had five horses, three abreast before, and two behind. They
+went upon the gallop, and the postilion kept cracking his whip about
+them and over their ears all the time. I thought for a while that he was
+whipping them; but when I leaned forward, so that I could look down and
+see, I found that he did not touch them with his whip at all, but only
+cracked the snapper about them, and shouted at them in French, to make
+them go. The road was as hard and smooth as a floor, and it was almost
+as white as a floor of marble.
+
+"The country was very beautiful as long as we could see. There were no
+fences, but there were beautiful fields on each side of the road,
+divided into squares, like the beds of a garden, with all sorts of
+things growing in them.
+
+"Every now and then we came to a village. These villages were the
+queerest looking places that you can imagine. They were formed of rows
+of stone houses, close to each other and close to the street. They were
+so close to the street, and the street was usually so narrow, that there
+was scarcely room sometimes to pass through. I could almost shake hands
+with the people looking out the second story windows. I cannot imagine
+why they should leave the passage so narrow between the houses on such a
+great road. If there were any people in the street of the village when
+we went through, they had to back up against the wall when we passed
+them, to prevent being knocked down.
+
+"When we were going through any of these villages, the postilion drove
+faster than ever. He would crack his whip, and cheer on his horses, and
+make noise and uproar enough to frighten half the town.
+
+"We went on in this way till it began to grow dark. The postilion handed
+the lanterns up to the conductor, and he lighted them with some matches
+that he carried in his pocket. The lanterns had reflectors in the back
+of them, and were very bright. When the postilion put them back in their
+places on the front of the coach, the light shone down on the road
+before us, so that the way where the horses were going was as bright as
+day.
+
+[Illustration: GOING THROUGH THE VILLAGE.]
+
+"After a time the moon rose, and that made it pretty bright every where.
+Still I could not see very far, and as the people around me were
+talking, I listened to what they were saying. The conductor was telling
+stories about diligences that had been robbed. He said that once, when
+he was travelling somewhere, the diligence was attacked by robbers, and
+he was shot by one of them. He was shot in the neck; and he had to keep
+in his bed six months before he got well. I listened as well as I could,
+but the diligence made such a noise that I could not understand all
+he said, and I did not hear where it was that this happened. I suppose
+it was probably in Italy, for I have heard that there were a great many
+robbers there.
+
+"After a while I began to feel sleepy. I don't remember going to sleep,
+for the first thing I knew after I began to feel sleepy was that I was
+waking up. We were stopping to change horses. We stopped to change
+horses very often--oftener than once an hour. When we changed horses we
+always changed the postilion too. A new postilion always came with every
+new team. It was only the conductor that we did not change. He went with
+us all the way.
+
+"We changed horses usually in a village; and it was very curious to see
+what queer-looking hostlers and stable boys came out with the new teams.
+Generally the hostlers were all ready, waiting for the diligence to
+come; but sometimes they would be all asleep, and the conductor and the
+postilion would make a great shouting and uproar in waking them up.
+
+"When the new team was harnessed in, the new postilion would climb up to
+his seat, with the reins in his hands, and, without waiting a moment, he
+would start the horses on at full speed, leaving the poor conductor to
+get on the best way he could. By the time the horses began to go on the
+gallop, the conductor would come climbing up the side of the coach into
+his place.
+
+"It was curious to see how different the different teams were in regard
+to the number of horses. Sometimes we had four horses, sometimes five,
+and once we had seven. For a long time I could not tell what the reason
+was for such a difference. But at last I found out. It was because some
+of the stages were pretty nearly level, and others were almost all up
+hill. Of course, where there was a great deal of up hill they required
+more horses. At the time when they put on seven horses I knew that we
+had come to a place where it was almost all up hill; and it was. The
+road went winding around through a region of hills and valleys, but
+ascending all the time. Still the road was so hard and smooth, and the
+horses were so full of life, that we went on the full trot the whole
+way. Four horses could not have done this, though, with such a heavy
+load. It took seven.
+
+"In almost all the villages we came to we saw long lines of wagons by
+the road side. They were very curious wagons indeed. They were small.
+Each one was to be drawn by one horse. There was no body to them, but
+only two long poles going from the forward axletree to the back
+axletree; and the load was packed on these poles, and covered with
+canvas. It looked just like a big bundle tied up in a cloth. These were
+wagons that had stopped for the night. Afterwards, when the morning
+came, we overtook a great many trains of these wagons, on the road to
+Geneva. They were loaded with merchandise going from France into
+Switzerland. There was only one driver to the whole train. He went along
+with the front wagon, and all the rest followed on in a line. The horses
+were trained to follow in this way. Thus one man could take charge of a
+train of six or eight wagons.
+
+"There was one very curious thing in the arrangement, and that was, that
+the last horse in the train had a bell on his neck, something like a cow
+bell. This was to prevent the driver from having to look round
+continually to see whether the rest of the horses were coming or not. As
+long as he could hear the bell on the last one's neck he knew they were
+all coming; for none of the middle ones could stop without stopping all
+behind them.
+
+"I suppose that sometimes some of the horses in the train would stop;
+then the driver would observe that the bell ceased to ring, and he would
+stop his own wagon, and go back to see what was the matter. If he found
+that any of them stopped to eat grass by the way, or because they were
+lazy, he would give them a whipping, and start them on, and that would
+teach them to keep marching on the next time.
+
+"I know what I would do if I were the last horse. Whenever I wanted to
+stop and rest I would keep shaking my head all the time, and that would
+make the driver think that I was coming along.
+
+"One time, when we were stopping to change horses, I heard some one
+below me calling to me,
+
+"'Rollo!'
+
+"I believe I was asleep at that time, and dreaming about something,
+though I don't remember what it was. I started up and reached out as far
+as I could over the boot, and looked down. I found it was my mother
+calling to me.
+
+"'Rollo,' says she, 'how do you get along?'
+
+"'Very nicely indeed, mother,' says I; 'and how do you get along?'
+
+"'Very well,' says she.
+
+"Just then I happened to think of my oranges; so I asked mother if she
+was not thirsty, and she said she was a little thirsty, but she did not
+see how she could get any drink until the morning, for the houses were
+all shut up, and the people were in bed and asleep. So I told her that I
+had an orange for her and for father. She said she was very glad indeed.
+
+"I could not get down very well to give the oranges to her, so I put
+them in my little knapsack, and let them down by a string. I had the
+string in my pocket.
+
+"Mother took the oranges out of the knapsack, and then I pulled it up
+again. I told her that I had plenty more for myself.
+
+"Father cut a hole in one of the oranges that I sent down to mother, and
+then she squeezed the juice of it out into her mouth. She said
+afterwards that I could not conceive how much it refreshed her. I don't
+think _she_ could conceive how glad I was that I had bought it for her.
+
+"A little while after sunrise we came to a village where we were going
+to change horses, and the conductor said that we should stop long enough
+to go into the inn if we pleased, and get some coffee. So father and
+mother got out of the coupe, and went in. I climbed down from my place,
+and went with them. Mother said she went in more to see what sort of a
+place the inn was than for the sake of the coffee.
+
+"It was a very funny place. The floor was of stone. There was one table,
+with cups on it for coffee, and plates, and bread and butter. The loaves
+of bread were shaped like a man's arm--about as big round, and a good
+deal longer. The coffee was very good indeed, on account of there being
+plenty of hot milk to put into it.
+
+"After we had had our breakfast we went on, and the rest of our ride was
+through a most magnificent country. There was a long, winding valley,
+with beautiful hills and mountains on each side, and a deep chasm in the
+middle, with the River Rhone roaring and tumbling over the stones down
+at the bottom of it. The road went wheeling on down long slopes, and
+around the hills and promontories, with beautiful green swells of land
+above it and below it. The horses went upon the run. The postilion had a
+little handle close by his seat--a sort of crank--that he could turn
+round and round, and so bring a brake to bear against the wheels, and
+thus help to hold the carriage back. When he began to go down a slope he
+would turn this crank round and round as fast as he could, till it was
+screwed up tight, cheering the horses on all the time; and then he would
+take his whip and crack it about their ears, and so we go down the
+hills, and wheel round the great curves, almost on the run, and could
+look down on the fields and meadows and houses in the valley, a thousand
+feet below us. It was the grandest ride I ever had.
+
+"But I have been so long writing this letter that I am beginning to be
+tired of it, though I have not got yet to Geneva; so I am going to stop
+now. The rest I will tell you when I see you.
+
+     "Your affectionate cousin,
+
+          "ROLLO."
+
+"P.S. There is one thing more that I will tell you, and that is, that
+we went through a castle at one place in the valley. It was a castle
+built by the French to guard their frontier. Indeed, there were two
+castles. The road passes directly through one of them, and the other is
+high up on the rocks exactly above it. The valley is so narrow, and the
+banks are so steep, that there is no other possible place for the road
+except through the lower castle. The road has to twist and twine about,
+too, just before it comes to the castle gates, and after it goes away
+from them on the other side, so that every thing that passes along has
+some guns or other pointing at them from the castle for more than a
+mile. I don't see how any enemy could possibly get into France this way.
+
+"There was also a place where the Rhone goes under ground, or, rather,
+under the rocks, and so loses itself for a time, and then after a while
+comes out again. It is a place where the river runs along in the bottom
+of a very deep and rocky chasm, and the rocks have fallen down from
+above, so as to fill up the chasm from one side to the other, and all
+the water gets through underneath them. We looked down into the chasm as
+the diligence went by, and saw the water tumbling over the rocks just
+above the place where it goes down. I should have liked to stop, and to
+climb down there and see the place, but I knew that the diligence would
+not wait."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE TOWN.
+
+
+The valley described by Rollo in his letter to Lucy, contained in the
+last chapter, is indeed a very remarkable pass. The Romans travelled it
+nearly two thousand years ago, in going from Italy to France, or, as
+they called it, Gaul. Caesar describes the country in his Commentaries;
+and from that day to this it has been one of the greatest thoroughfares
+of Europe.
+
+The valley is very tortuous, and in some places it is very narrow; and
+the road runs along through it like a white thread, suspended, as it
+were, half way between the lofty summits of the mountains and the
+roaring torrent of the Rhone in the deep abyss below.
+
+After emerging from this narrow pass, the road comes out into an open
+country, which is as fertile and beautiful, and as richly adorned with
+hamlets, villas, parks, gardens, and smiling fields of corn and grain,
+as any country in the world. At length, on coming over the summit of a
+gentle swell of land, that rises in the midst of this paradise, the
+great chain of the Alps, with the snowy peak of Mont Blanc crowning it
+with its glittering canopy of snow, comes suddenly into view.
+
+"Look there!" said the conductor to the company on the banquette. "See
+there! the Mont Blanc, all uncovered!"
+
+The French always call Mont Blanc _the_ Mont Blanc, and for _all clear
+and in plain view_ they say _all uncovered_.
+
+It is calculated that there are only about sixty days in the year, upon
+an average, when Mont Blanc appears with his head uncovered. They,
+therefore, whose coming into Switzerland he honors by taking off his
+cap, have reason greatly to rejoice in their good fortune.
+
+Rollo had seen snow-covered mountains shining in the sun before; but he
+was greatly delighted with this new view of them. There is indeed a
+peculiar charm in the sight of these eternal snows, especially when we
+see them basking, as it were, in the rays of a warm summer's sun, that
+is wholly indescribable. The sublime and thrilling grandeur of the
+spectacle no pen or pencil can portray.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW OF GENEVA]
+
+After passing over the hill, and descending into the valley again, the
+company in the diligence came soon in sight of the environs of Geneva.
+They passed by a great many charming country seats, with neat walls of
+masonry bordering the gardens, and wide gateways opening into pretty
+courts, and little green lawns surrounding the chateaux. At length the
+diligence came thundering down a narrow paved street into the town.
+Every thing made haste to get out of the way. The postilion cracked his
+whip, and cheered on his horses, and shouted out to the cartmen and
+footmen before him to clear the way, and made generally as much noise
+and uproar as possible, as if the glory of a diligence consisted in the
+noise it made, and the sensation it produced in coming into town.
+
+At length the immense vehicle wheeled round a corner, and came out upon
+a broad and beautiful quay. The quay had a range of very elegant and
+palace-like looking houses and hotels on one side, and the water of the
+lake--exceedingly clear, and bright, and blue--on the other. The place
+was at the point where the water of the lake was just beginning to draw
+in towards the outlet; so that there was a pretty swift current.
+
+The engraving represents the scene. In the foreground we see the broad
+quay, with the buildings on one side, and the low parapet wall
+separating it from the water on the other. In the middle distance we see
+the diligence just coming out upon the quay from the street by which it
+came into the town. A little farther on we see the bridge by which the
+diligence will pass across to the other side of the river--the diligence
+offices being situated in the row of buildings that we see on the
+farther side. This bridge is not straight. There is an angle in it at
+the centre. From the apex of this angle there is a branch bridge which
+goes out to a little island in the lake. This island is arranged as a
+promenade, and is a great place of resort for the people of Geneva.
+There are walks through it and all around it, and seats under the trees,
+and a parapet wall or railing encircling the margin of it, to prevent
+children from falling into the water.
+
+As the diligence rolled along the quay, and turned to go over the
+bridge, Rollo could look out in one direction over the broad surface of
+the lake, which was seen extending for many miles, bordered by gently
+sloping shores coming down to the water. On the other side the current
+was seen rapidly converging and flowing swiftly under another bridge,
+and thence directly through the very heart of the town.
+
+The diligence went over the bridge. While it was going over, Rollo
+looked out first one way, towards the lake, and then the other way, down
+the river. On the lake side there was a steamboat coming in. She was
+crowded with passengers, and the quay at the other end of the bridge,
+where the steamer was going to land, was crowded with people waiting to
+see.
+
+On the other side of the bridge, that is, looking down the stream, Rollo
+saw a deep blue river running more and more swiftly as it grew narrower.
+There were several other bridges in sight, and an island also, which
+stood in the middle of the stream, and was covered with tall and
+ancient-looking buildings. These buildings indeed more than covered the
+original island; they extended out over the water--the outer walls
+seeming to rest on piles, between and around which the water flowed with
+the utmost impetuosity. The banks of the river on each side were walled
+up, and there were streets or platform walks along the margin, between
+the houses and the water. There were a great many bridges, some wide and
+some narrow, leading across from one bank to the other, and from each
+bank to the island between.
+
+The diligence passed on so rapidly that Rollo had very little
+opportunity to see these things; but he resolved that as soon as they
+got established in the hotel he would come out and take a walk, and
+explore all those bridges.
+
+"It is just such a town as I like," said he to himself. "A swift river
+running through the middle of it--water as clear as a bell--plenty of
+foot bridges down very near to the water, and ever so many little
+platforms and sidewalks along the margin, where you can stand and fish
+over the railings."
+
+In the mean time the diligence went thundering on over the bridge, and
+then drove along the quay, on the farther side, past one office after
+another, until it came to its own. Here the horses were reined in, and
+the great machine came to a stand. The doors of the lower compartments
+were opened, and the passengers began to get out. Two ladders were
+placed against the side, one for the passengers on the banquette to get
+down by, and the other to enable the blouses that stood waiting there to
+uncover and get down the baggage. Rollo did not wait for his turn at the
+ladder, but climbed down the side of the coach by means of any
+projecting irons or steps that he could find to cling to.
+
+"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, "the hotel is pretty near, and we are
+going to walk there. I am going to leave you here to select out our
+baggage, when they get it down, and to bring it along by means of a
+porter."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "I should like to do that. But what hotel is
+it?"
+
+"The Hotel de l'Ecu," said Mr. Holiday.
+
+So Mr. and Mrs. Holiday walked along the pier to the hotel, leaving
+Rollo to engage a porter and to follow in due time.
+
+The porter carried the baggage on his back, by means of a frame, such as
+has been already described. Rollo followed him, and thus he arrived at
+last safely at the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE HOTEL.
+
+
+One of the greatest sources of interest and pleasure for travellers who
+visit Switzerland and the Alps for the first time, especially if they
+are travellers from America, is the novelty of the arrangements and
+usages of the hotels.
+
+One reason why every thing is so different in a Swiss hotel from what we
+witness in America is, that all the arrangements are made to accommodate
+parties travelling for pleasure. Every thing is planned, therefore, with
+a view of making the hotel as attractive and agreeable to the guests as
+possible.
+
+The Hotel de l'Ecu, where our party have now arrived, is very pleasantly
+situated on the quay facing the lake. It stands near the further end of
+the bridge, as seen in the engraving on page 58. It is the building
+where you see the flag flying.
+
+Indeed, all the principal hotels in Geneva are situated on the quay.
+Quite a number of the large and handsome edifices which you see in the
+engraving, on both sides the water, are hotels. The hotel keepers know
+very well that most of the travellers that come to Switzerland come not
+on business, but to see the lakes, and mountains, and other grand
+scenery of their country. Accordingly, in almost every place, the
+situation chosen for the hotels is the one which commands the prettiest
+views.
+
+Then, in arranging the interior of the house, they always place the
+public apartments, such as the breakfast and dining rooms, and the
+reading room, in the pleasantest part of it; and they have large windows
+opening down to the floor, and pretty little tables in the recesses of
+them, so that while you are eating your breakfast or reading the
+newspapers you have only to raise your eyes and look out upon the most
+charming prospects that the town affords.
+
+Then, besides this, they have gardens, and summer houses, and raised
+terraces, overlooking roads, or rivers, or beautiful valleys, and little
+observatories, and many other such contrivances to add to the charms of
+the hotel, and make the traveller's residence in it more agreeable.
+
+They hope in this way to induce the traveller to prolong his stay at
+their house. And it has the intended effect. Indeed, at almost every
+hotel where a party of travellers arrive, in a new town, their first
+feeling almost always is, that they shall wish to remain there a week.
+
+What a pleasant place! they say to each other; and what a beautiful
+room! Look at the mountains! Look at the torrent pouring through the
+valley! What a pretty garden! And this terrace, where we may sit in the
+evening, and have our tea, and watch the people across the valley, going
+up and down the mountain paths. I should like to stay here all summer.
+
+Then the next place where they stop may be on a lake; and there, when
+they go to the window of their rooms, or of the breakfast room, they
+look out and say,--
+
+Ah! see what a beautiful view of the lake! How blue the water is! See
+the sail boats and the row boats going to and fro. And down the lake, as
+far as I can see, there is a steamer coming. I see the smoke. And
+beyond, what a magnificent range of mountains, the tops all covered with
+glaciers and snow!
+
+When Rollo entered the hotel at Geneva, he found himself ushered first
+into a large, open apartment, which occupied the whole centre of the
+building, and extended up through all the stories, and was covered with
+a glass roof above. There were galleries all around this apartment, in
+the different stories. Doors from these galleries, on the back sides of
+them, led to the various rooms, while on the front sides were railings,
+where you could stand and look down to the floor below, and see the
+travellers coming and going.
+
+At one end of this hall was a winding staircase, with broad and easy
+stone steps. This staircase ascended from story to story, and
+communicated by proper landings with the galleries of the several
+floors.
+
+This hall, though it was thus very public in its character, was very
+prettily arranged. The galleries which opened upon it on the different
+stories were adorned with balconies, and the walls of it were hung with
+maps and pictures of Alpine scenery, pretty engravings of hotels
+standing in picturesque spots on the margins of lakes, or on the banks
+of running streams, or hidden away in some shady glen, in the midst of
+stupendous mountains. Then, besides these pictures, the hall was adorned
+with statues, and vases of flowers; and there was a neat little table,
+with writing materials and the visitor's book upon it, and various other
+fixtures and contrivances to give the place an agreeable and home-like
+air.
+
+As Rollo came into the hall, accompanied by the porter, a clerk came out
+to meet him from a little office on one side, and told him that his
+father and mother were in their room; and he sent a messenger to show
+Rollo and the porter the way to it.
+
+Rollo accordingly followed the messenger and the porter up stairs, and
+was ushered into a very pleasant room on the second story, looking out
+upon the lake and the river. Rollo went immediately to the window. His
+mother was sitting at the window when he entered the room.
+
+"This is a pretty window, Rollo," said she; "come and look out.
+
+"See how many bridges!" said she, when Rollo had come to her side.
+
+"And how swift the water runs under them!" said Rollo.
+
+"There are some boys fishing," said Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"Yes," said Rollo; "I should think there would be plenty of trout in
+such a river as this, it runs so swift and is so clear. This is just
+such a place as I like. See that big water wheel, mother."
+
+So saying, Rollo pointed to a large mill wheel which was slowly
+revolving by the side of a building that projected out over the water,
+on the island.
+
+The island where Rollo saw the wheel was not the one seen in the
+engraving on page 58. That is called the _islet_, and it stands _in the
+lake_, entirely on the outer side of the first bridge. The _island_, on
+the other hand, stands in the rapid current of the river, below the
+second bridge, and is entirely covered, as has already been said, with
+tall and very antique looking buildings. The current is so rapid along
+the sides of this island, and along the adjacent shores, that it will
+carry a mill any where wherever they set a wheel.
+
+"After we have had breakfast," said Rollo, "I mean to go out and explore
+all those bridges, and go about all over the island."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "that will be very pleasant. I should like
+very much to go with you; and I will, if the sun does not come out too
+warm."
+
+By this time Mr. Holiday had paid and dismissed the porter; and he now
+turned to Rollo, and asked him if he would like to go down and order
+breakfast. Rollo said that he should like to go very much.
+
+"Go down, then," said Mr. Holiday, "into the dining room, and choose a
+table there, near a pleasant window, and order breakfast."
+
+"What shall I order?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Any thing you please," said Mr. Holiday; "you know what will make a
+good breakfast."
+
+So Rollo went out of the room, in order to go down stairs. He passed
+all around the gallery of the story he was in, looking at the pictures
+that were hung upon the walls as he went, and then descended the
+staircase to the lower floor. Here he found doors opening into the
+dining room, which extended along the whole front of the hotel towards
+the lake. The room was large, and was very beautifully furnished. There
+was a long table extending up and down the middle of it. On the back
+side were sofas, between the doors. On the front side was a range of
+windows looking out upon the river. The windows were large, and as the
+walls of the hotel were very thick, a recess was formed for each, and
+opposite each recess was a round table. These tables were all set for
+breakfasts or dinners.
+
+Some of these tables were occupied. Rollo chose the pleasantest of the
+ones that were at liberty, and took his seat by the side of it.
+Presently a very neatly-dressed and pleasant-looking young man came to
+him, to ask what he would have. This was the waiter; and Rollo made
+arrangements with him for a breakfast. He ordered fried trout, veal
+cutlets, fried potatoes, an omelette, coffee, and bread and honey. His
+father and mother, when they came to eat the breakfast, said they were
+perfectly satisfied with it in every respect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A RIDE IN THE ENVIRONS.
+
+
+One morning, a day or two after our party arrived at Geneva, Mr. Holiday
+told Rollo, as they were sitting at their round breakfast table, at one
+of the windows looking out upon the lake, that he had planned a ride for
+that day; and he said that Rollo, if he wished, might go too.
+
+"Well, sir," said Rollo; "only I think I should like better to go and
+take a sail."
+
+"I believe boys generally like to sail better than to ride," said Mr.
+Holiday; "but the places that we are going to are where we cannot reach
+them in a boat. However, I will make you an offer. We are going to ride
+in a carriage to-day, and we should like very much to have you go with
+us. Now, if you will go with us on this ride, I will go and take you out
+on the lake to sail some other day."
+
+"Well, sir," said Rollo, joyfully. "But how far will you take me?"
+
+"As far as you wish to go," said Mr. Holiday.
+
+"O, father!" said Rollo; "I should wish to go to the very farthest end
+of the lake."
+
+"Well," said his father, "I will take you there."
+
+It must not at all be supposed from this conversation that Mr. Holiday
+considered it necessary to make a bargain with his boy, to induce him to
+go any where or to do any thing that he desired. He put the case in this
+way to amuse Rollo, and to interest him more in proposed expeditions.
+
+"There are three distinguished personages," said Mr. Holiday, "whose
+names and histories are intimately associated with Geneva, because they
+all lived in Geneva, or in the environs of it. These three persons are
+Madame de Stael, John Calvin, and Voltaire. I will tell you something
+about them on the way. As soon as you have finished your breakfast you
+may go and engage a carriage for us. Get a carriage with two horses, and
+have it ready at half past ten."
+
+Rollo was always much pleased with such a commission as this. He engaged
+a very pretty carriage, with two elegant black horses. The carriage had
+a top which could be put up or down at pleasure. Rollo had it put down;
+for, though it was a pleasant day, there were clouds enough in the sky
+to make it pretty shady.
+
+There was a front seat in the carriage, where Rollo might sit if he
+chose; but he preferred riding outside with the postilion.
+
+"And then," said Rollo to his father, "if there are any directions to be
+given to the postilion, or if you have any questions for me to ask, I
+can speak to him more conveniently."
+
+"Is that the true reason why you wish to ride there?" asked his father.
+
+"Why, no, father," said Rollo. "The true reason is, that I can see
+better."
+
+"They are both very good reasons," said Mr. Holiday. "Then, besides,
+when you get tired of riding there you can come inside."
+
+Accordingly, when the carriage came to the door, Rollo, after seeing his
+father and mother safely seated inside, mounted on the top with the
+postilion, and so they rode away.
+
+They repassed the bridge by which they had entered Geneva, and then
+turned to the right by a road which led along the margin of the lake, at
+a little distance from the shore.
+
+The road was very smooth and hard, and the country was beautiful.
+Sometimes the road was bordered on each side by high walls, which formed
+the enclosures of gardens or pleasure grounds. Sometimes it was open,
+and afforded most enchanting views of the lake and of the ranges of
+mountains beyond. But what chiefly amused and occupied Rollo's mind was
+the novelties which he observed in the form and structure of every thing
+he saw by the wayside. Such queer-looking carts and wheelbarrows, such
+odd dresses, such groups of children at play, such gates, such
+farmyards, such pumps and fountains by the roadside--every thing,
+indeed, was new and strange.
+
+After the party had been riding about an hour and a half, they passed
+through a village which consisted, like those which Rollo had seen on
+the road from Lyons, of compact rows of old and quaint-looking stone
+houses, close to the roadside. The postilion stopped at this village to
+give the horses a little drink.
+
+"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, "I wish you would get down, and come
+inside a little while."
+
+Rollo obeyed; and when the carriage began to go on again, his father
+addressed him as follows:
+
+"We are going to see the residence of Madame de Stael. She was one of
+the most celebrated ladies that ever lived. She was distinguished as an
+authoress. You don't know any thing about her now, and I suppose you
+don't care much about her."
+
+"No, sir," said Rollo; "I do not."
+
+"But then," continued his father, "in a few years more you will very
+probably read some of her writings; and at any rate you will often hear
+of them. One of the most celebrated of her works is a tale called
+Corinne."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Rollo; "I have heard of Corinne. The first class in
+French studied it at school."
+
+"Very likely," said Mr. Holiday. "It is a very good text book for
+studying French. At any rate it is a famous book, and Madame de Stael is
+a very celebrated author. She was a lady, too, while she lived, of great
+personal distinction. Her rank and position in society were very
+exalted. She associated with kings and princes, and was closely
+connected with many of the great political transactions of the day in
+which she lived. This, of course, added greatly to her renown.
+
+"Her father was a very distinguished man, too. His name was Monsieur
+Necker. He was a great statesman and financier. The King of France got
+his money affairs in the greatest confusion and difficulty, and he
+appointed Monsieur Necker his minister of finance, to try to put them in
+order."
+
+"And did he succeed?" asked Rollo.
+
+"No," said Mr. Holiday; "it was too late. The disorder was hopeless, and
+it ended in the great French revolution. But Necker became a very
+celebrated character in history. We are going to see the chateau where
+he lived. We shall see the room where his daughter wrote Corinne. I
+wish you to observe carefully all that you see, and remember it.
+Hereafter, when you come to read the history of France and the writings
+of Madame de Stael, you will look back with great pleasure to the visit
+you made when a boy to the chateau of Necker, near Geneva."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo, "I will."
+
+A short time after this the carriage stopped in a shady place under some
+trees, near the entrance to a village. The postilion descended and
+opened the carriage door, and then pointed up an avenue of trees, which
+he said led to the chateau. Mr. and Mrs. Holiday got out of the carriage
+and walked up the avenue. Rollo followed them.
+
+They came at length to the chateau. There was a large portal, closed by
+an iron gate. On one side of the portal was a lodge. A porter came out
+of the lodge, and Mr. Holiday asked him if they could see the chateau.
+He answered very politely that they could; and immediately opening the
+iron gate, he ushered the whole party into the court yard.
+
+The court yard was a very pleasant place. It was surrounded on three
+sides by the buildings of the chateau, which were quite imposing in
+their character, like a palace. The fourth side was formed by a handsome
+wall, with a large ornamented gateway in the centre of it, leading into
+a garden.
+
+The entrance to the chateau was at a large door in the middle of one
+side of the yard. The porter ascended the steps, and rang the bell. He
+said to Mr. Holiday that some one would come to conduct the party over
+the chateau, and then went back to his lodge.
+
+Presently a well-dressed man came to the door. He received the party in
+a very polite and friendly manner, and invited them in.
+
+The first apartment that they entered was a hall. The hall was very
+large, and was finished and furnished like a room, with chairs, sofas,
+and a great fireplace. On one side was a broad stone staircase,
+ornamented with a massive balustrade. The concierge led the way up this
+staircase to a sort of gallery on the second story. From this gallery a
+door opened, leading to the suite of apartments which Monsieur Necker
+and his distinguished daughter had occupied.
+
+The rooms were constructed and arranged in the style common in French
+palaces. They were situated in the line of building which formed the
+front of the chateau; and on the front side of each of them were windows
+looking out upon the lake. Of course these windows formed the range of
+windows in the second story of the principal front of the edifice.
+
+On the back side of each of these rooms was a door communicating with
+the gallery behind them, or with some subordinate apartments depending
+upon them.
+
+Besides these doors, there were others which connected the different
+apartments of the suite with each other. These doors were all in a line,
+and they were near the side of the room where the windows were which
+looked out upon the lake. Thus one could pass through the whole suite of
+apartments by walking along from one to another through these doors,
+passing thus just in front of the range of windows.
+
+The rooms were all beautifully furnished in the French style. There were
+richly carved cabinets and book cases, and splendid mirrors, and sofas
+and chairs, and paintings and statues. One room was the library. Another
+was a bedroom. In one there were several portraits on the wall. Mr. and
+Mrs. Holiday seemed particularly interested in examining these
+portraits. One represented Madame de Stael herself; another, her father,
+Monsieur Necker; a third, her mother, Madame Necker. Besides these,
+there were some others of the family.
+
+Rollo looked at all these portraits, as his father requested him to do;
+but he was more interested in two other objects which stood on a table
+in the same room. These objects were two little figures, one
+representing a horse and the other a lamb. These figures were under a
+glass. The horse was about a foot long, and the lamb about six inches.
+The horse was of a very pretty form, and was covered with hair, like a
+living animal. The lamb in the same manner was covered with wool.
+Indeed, they were both in all respects models of the animals they
+represented in miniature.
+
+Rollo asked the concierge what they were.
+
+"Ah," said he, "those are models of a favorite horse and a favorite lamb
+that belonged to Monsieur Necker. When they died he was very sorry; and
+he had these models of them made, to perpetuate the memory of them."
+
+After this, in other rooms, the party were shown the table at which
+Madame de Stael sat in writing Corinne, and the inkstand that she used;
+and when they went down stairs, the concierge showed them into a large
+hall, which was situated directly below the rooms they had been
+visiting, where he said Madame de Stael used to have her dramas
+performed from time to time before an audience of friends and visitors
+from the neighborhood.
+
+At length the concierge conducted the party to the door where they had
+come in. There Mr. Holiday, after giving him a franc, thanked him for
+his politeness, and bade him good bye. The party took a little walk in
+the garden, and then returned to the carriage and rode away.
+
+The bodies of Monsieur Necker and of his daughter lie buried in a little
+grove of trees near the house. The party saw the grove, but visitors are
+not allowed to go to the graves.
+
+On leaving the chateau, the carriage turned off from the lake, and took
+a road that led back more into the interior.
+
+"What are we going to see next, father?" said Rollo.
+
+"We are going to see the house where the famous philosopher, Voltaire,
+lived," replied Mr. Holiday; "though on the way we are going to see a
+fountain and cascade."
+
+"Is there any thing very remarkable about the fountain?" asked Rollo.
+
+"I don't know," said Mr. Holiday; "only it is mentioned in the guide
+books as worth being visited."
+
+So the carriage drove on through a very beautiful country, with fields,
+and gardens, and country seats, and ancient chateaux bordering the way.
+From time to time, Rollo, on looking back, obtained splendid views of
+the lake behind him, and of the gently-sloping and highly-cultivated
+shore on the opposite side, with the snowy range of the Alps beyond,
+shining in the sun.
+
+At length they arrived at a village, and stopped before an inn. The
+postilion said that they were to stop there with the carriage, and go to
+the fountain on foot.
+
+"I will call some one to show you the way," said he.
+
+So he went to one of the houses across the street, and called a woman of
+the village, and she said that she would go to the school and call her
+boy.
+
+"But it is a pity," said Mr. Holiday, "to take the boy away from his
+school."
+
+"O, no," said the woman; "that is nothing at all."
+
+So she ran along the street of the village until she came to the school
+house, and presently she returned with the boy. He had a book in his
+hand. Rollo looked at the book, and found that it was a grammar. The
+covers of it were worn, and the leaves tumbled, and the beginning and
+end of it were filled with names scribbled on the blank pages, and rude
+drawings, which made it look exactly like the school books of idle boys,
+as Rollo had often seen them in America.
+
+Rollo gave back the book to the boy, and the boy gave it to his mother,
+and then he began walking along the road, to show the party the way to
+the fountain.
+
+He led them out of the village, and along the pleasant road, until at
+length they came to a place where there was an open gateway, through
+which they could see the beautiful grounds of a large country house,
+which appeared like a hotel. There were ladies and gentlemen walking
+about the grounds, along the margin of a large stream of water, or
+sitting in groups under the trees.
+
+"What place is that?" said Rollo to the boy.
+
+"It is a place of baths," said the boy.
+
+Rollo wished to go in there and see the grounds; but the boy walked on,
+and so Rollo followed him. After a time the guide turned off into a
+field, and there took a path which led down toward a wood, where they
+could hear water running. When they came into the wood they saw the
+water. It was a large stream, large enough for a mill stream, and it ran
+foaming and tumbling down over its rocky bed in a very picturesque
+manner.
+
+The walk led along the bank of the stream, under the trees. It was a
+wide and very pleasant walk, and was well gravelled. Here and there
+there were little seats, too, at pretty places formed by the windings of
+the glen.
+
+After walking along a little way, and not coming to any thing more, Mrs.
+Holiday began to be tired.
+
+"I wonder," said she, "if there is any thing remarkable to see at the
+end of this path."
+
+"I'll ask the boy," said Rollo.
+
+"Boy," he added, speaking to the little guide, "what is there to see up
+here?"
+
+"It is this," said the boy, pointing to the brook.
+
+"Isn't there any thing else besides this stream?" asked Rollo.
+
+"No," said the boy.
+
+"He says there is not any thing else," said Rollo to his mother; "and so
+I don't believe it is worth while to go any farther. We have seen this
+brook enough, and you will get very tired."
+
+Mrs. Holiday sat down upon a green bench that happened to be near, at a
+turn of the stream, in order to take time to consider the question.
+
+Mr. Holiday sat down beside her.
+
+"We will wait here, Rollo, while you go on with the boy, and see what
+you can find. I think there must be something or other remarkable, for
+they would not make so good a path as this to lead to nothing at all.
+You may go on with the boy, and see what it comes to, and then you can
+come back and tell us."
+
+Rollo liked this plan very much, and so he and the boy walked on.
+
+In about five minutes Mr. Holiday heard Rollo calling to him.
+
+"FA-THER! FA-THER!" said he.
+
+"_Well_," said Mr. Holiday, "_I hear_."
+
+"Come up here," said Rollo, calling out again. "It is a very curious
+place indeed."
+
+So Mr. and Mrs. Holiday rose, and after following the path a short
+distance farther through the wood, they came to where Rollo was. They
+found, to their astonishment, that there the brook which they had been
+following so long came to a sudden end, or rather to a sudden beginning;
+for the whole volume of water that composed it was seen here to come
+boiling up out of the ground in a sort of shallow basin, which was
+formed on the hill side at the head of the glen.
+
+The place was very secluded, but it was very beautiful. It was shaded
+with trees, which overhung the paths, and the basin, and the various
+channels of water which flowed from it and around it. The water boiled
+up very copiously from between the stones that had been set up to form
+the margin of the basin, and also among the sands which formed the
+bottom of it. The walk was conducted all around this singular fountain;
+and it passed across the outlet, where the stream flowed away from it,
+over a neat little stone dike, which formed the edge of the basin on the
+lower side.
+
+Rollo led the way to the middle of this dike, and his father and mother
+followed. They stood there for some time, looking down into the basin
+to see the water boil up from between the stones and among the sands.
+
+"This is a very curious place indeed," said Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"It certainly is," said Mr. Holiday.
+
+"Well, father," said Rollo, after gazing for some time into the bubbling
+and boiling fountain, "where does all this water come from? What makes
+it come up out of the ground?"
+
+"Why, the truth is," said Mr. Holiday, "though it seems to come _up_, it
+really comes _down_.
+
+"Do you see all this mountain up here?" he added. So saying he pointed
+to the land which seemed to rise to a great height above the head of the
+glen.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo.
+
+"Well, this mountain," continued Mr. Holiday, "is full of water. All
+mountains are full of water, for it rains on the summits and sides of
+them almost continually, and this keeps them always full. Generally this
+water drains off down into the valleys, through the beds of sand and
+gravel that lie in the heart of the mountain, and so is not particularly
+observed. Sometimes it breaks out in small springs, at various places on
+the mountain sides; and sometimes the shape of the rocks and openings in
+the mountain are such as to collect a great quantity of it in one
+place, where it breaks out into the open ground altogether, as it does
+here. There are a great many such fountains in Switzerland."
+
+"Are there any larger than this?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Holiday, "ten times as large. Sometimes the water forms
+quite a little river almost immediately after it comes out of the
+ground."
+
+"I should like to see them," said Rollo.
+
+"Very likely you will see some of them," said his father.
+
+"But then, father," said Rollo, "if this water all comes from the rain,
+I should think that when it stops raining on the mountain above, then or
+soon afterwards the water would stop boiling up here."
+
+"No," said his father; "the mountain is so large, and the immense beds
+of sand, gravel, and rock which it contains hold so much water, that
+before all that has fallen in one rain has time to get drained away,
+another rain comes, and so there is a perpetual supply, especially for
+such fountains as come from channels that reach far into the mountain."
+
+After rambling about this spot for some time, the party returned down
+the path; but instead of going back into the road again by the way they
+came, the boy led them through a gate into the grounds of the hotel
+which they had seen in coming.
+
+The grounds were very beautiful, being shaded with trees, and full of
+walks; and the stream which came down the glen spread itself out in
+various directions all over them, filling a great number of channels and
+basins which had been opened here and there, and were seen in every
+direction among the trees and foliage. The water flowed very swiftly
+along from one of these basins to another, sometimes in a continuous
+torrent, and sometimes by a series of cascades and waterfalls; and in
+the bottoms of all the little ponds the water was seen boiling up in the
+clean gray sand, just as it had done in the fountain up the glen.
+
+There were walks every where along the banks of these streams, and
+little bridges leading across them. There were seats, too, and bowers,
+and a great many other pretty places. At one spot under a tree was a
+large white swan, or rather a sculptured image of one, sitting on a
+marble stone, and pouring out a constant stream of clear cold water from
+his mouth. Underneath, on a little marble slab, was a tumbler, placed
+there to enable people to take a drink. Rollo stopped to take a drink;
+but instead of using the tumbler, he caught the water in a drinking cup
+which he had bought in Scotland, and which he always carried in his
+pocket.
+
+After rambling about these grounds for some time, the party went back
+through the yard of the hotel to the village. There they dismissed the
+boy. Mr. Holiday gave him half a franc for guiding them. Then they got
+into their carriage again, and rode on.
+
+In about an hour they came to a little village named Ferney, near which
+was the chateau that was formerly the residence of the celebrated
+philosopher Voltaire. The carriage stopped under some ancient trees, and
+Mr. and Mrs. Holiday and Rollo got out and walked up an avenue. At the
+head of the avenue they came to a gate which led into the grounds of the
+chateau.
+
+There was a bell cord hanging by this gate, and a placard up, requesting
+visitors to ring the bell, and not to enter the grounds until the
+domestic should come to guide them.
+
+"Shall I ring, father?" said Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Holiday; "ring away."
+
+So Rollo pulled the bell rope, and very soon a domestic came. He
+received the company very politely, and invited them to follow him.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Holiday and Rollo accordingly followed him into the yard.
+The domestic led them round to the front of the house, which was turned
+away from the road. The front faced a beautiful lawn, ornamented with
+walks and trees. In one place there was a table under the trees, with
+seats around it, as if the family were accustomed sometimes to take
+their tea there. From this lawn there was a beautiful view of the lake
+and of the mountains beyond.
+
+The domestic led them into the house, and showed them the two rooms in
+it which contained most of the memorials of Voltaire. The most
+remarkable of these memorials was a marble monument which stood on one
+side of the room, and which Rollo said looked like an ornamental stove,
+that contained Voltaire's _heart_. His body was buried in Paris, but his
+heart was deposited in this sepulchral urn.
+
+Besides this there were a number of pictures in the room, which had been
+placed there by Voltaire. Some of them had been given to him by the
+emperors and kings that he had been acquainted with.
+
+Rollo, however, did not take much interest in any of these things. The
+singular appearance of the room and of the furniture interested him in
+some degree by its novelty, but in other respects he was very little
+amused by what he saw. He was glad when the visit to the house was over,
+and he came out again upon the lawn.
+
+From the lawn there was a very splendid view. There was a broad and very
+fertile slope of land extending for several miles down to the shore of
+the lake. Beyond it was seen the blue expanse of the water, and still
+farther another magnificent slope of fertile and richly-cultivated land,
+which extended back beyond the lake to the foot of the mountains. A
+lofty range of snow-clad summits rose in the distance, the towering
+summit of Mont Blanc reposing like a monarch in the midst of them.
+
+There was a curious covered walk along on one side of this lawn. It was
+a walk covered with foliage. It was walled in on the sides, too, as well
+as covered above with the foliage. Two hedges had been planted, one on
+each side; and as they had grown, the leaves and branches had been
+trimmed off straight and smooth like a wall. Then the tops had been
+trained to meet overhead, and the foliage had been trimmed square and
+flat on the upper side, and in an arch on the under side. So dense was
+the growth of the leaves and branches that the whole alley was closely
+and completely enclosed, so that it would not have been possible to look
+out of it at all, had it not been that a row of square openings like
+windows had been made on the side towards the lake. Any one could look
+out and view the scenery through these openings as he walked along.
+
+Voltaire used to compose his works in this alley, it was said. He would
+walk up and down, and dictate as he walked to his amanuensis, who sat
+near at hand with pen and ink to write down the philosopher's words.
+
+After this the domestic conducted the party through a wood, and showed
+them a tree which Voltaire had planted. It was now a tree of great size,
+and apparently far advanced in age.
+
+Rollo took very little interest in this tree, and even his father and
+mother did not appear to pay much attention to it. It seemed, however,
+that other visitors had not felt the same indifference to it, for those
+who had come to see it had picked off and cut off so many pieces of bark
+to carry away as relics that the tree, on one side had become entirely
+excoriated, and there was danger that in the end the poor sufferer from
+these depredations would be killed. In order to protect it, therefore,
+from any further injury, the proprietor had surrounded it with a little
+circular paling, so that now nobody could come near enough to touch the
+tree.
+
+Rollo was glad when the visit to this place was ended; so he ran on
+before his father and mother in going out, and was on his seat by the
+side of the postilion long before they came to the carriage.
+
+Ferney, though so near to Geneva, is within the confines of France, and
+the carriage passed the line between the two countries in going home.
+There was a little custom house and two or three armed policemen at the
+frontier; but the party of travellers were not molested, and so in due
+time they arrived safely home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE JUNCTION OF THE ARVE.
+
+
+One evening, when Rollo was walking with his father and mother on one of
+the bridges which led over the river, they stopped at a place where two
+boys were fishing, and looked down over the railing into the water. The
+water was quite deep, but they could see the stones on the bottom of it
+almost as distinctly as if they had been looking only through the air.
+
+"How very clear the water is!" said Mrs. Holiday; "and what a beautiful
+tinge it has! What is the reason of it?"
+
+"I don't know what the reason is of the blue tinge," said Mr. Holiday;
+"but the cause of its being so clear is, that it flows out of this great
+lake, where it has been lying so long that it has had time to settle
+perfectly.
+
+"There is a great difference in the streams of Switzerland," continued
+Mr. Holiday. "Some are exceedingly clear, and some are exceedingly
+turbid. There are two ways by which the turbid waters become purified.
+One is, by being filtered through the sands under ground; and the other
+is, by '_settling_', as we call it, in the lakes. The water of the
+fountain that we saw on our way to Ferney was beautifully clear, and it
+was made so by filtration in the sand, in coming down through the heart
+of the mountain. This water, on the other hand, is made clear by its
+impurities subsiding in the lake."
+
+"And it comes in muddy at the other end," said Rollo.
+
+"Not muddy, exactly," rejoined Mr. Holiday, "but very turbid. The
+turbidness of it is not mud precisely. It comes from the grinding up of
+rocks by the slow march of the glaciers over and among them. Thus all
+the streams that come from glaciers are very turbid; and so long as the
+waters flow on in an uninterrupted stream they continue turbid; but when
+they form a lake, the particles of stone subside, and the water comes
+out at the lower end of the lake perfectly clear."
+
+"And then continues clear till it gets to the ocean, I suppose," said
+Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"Yes," replied Mr. Holiday, "unless some other turbid stream, which has
+no lake to settle itself in, falls into it and pollutes it again.
+
+"That is the case with this river. It is very clear and beautiful here,
+where it comes out of the lake, but the Arve comes in a mile or two
+below Geneva, and brings an immense volume of turbid water. This makes
+the whole river turbid again after the waters of the two rivers have
+flowed long enough together to get well mixed, and then it continues
+turbid all the way to the sea. There is no other lake to settle it.
+
+"I am told," said Mr. Holiday, "that the coming in of the turbid torrent
+of the Arve into the clear blue waters of the Rhone is a very pretty
+spectacle, and I should like very much to see it; but it is rather too
+far to go."
+
+"O, no, father," said Rollo; "let us go."
+
+"How far is it?" asked Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"About a mile, I should think, by the map," said Mr. Holiday; "but there
+seems to be no carriage road to the place. If there had been a carriage
+road I should have taken you there; for I should like very well to have
+you see the place."
+
+"But, father, we can walk there very easily," said Rollo. "There is a
+nice path along the bank of the river. I saw it the other day, when I
+was down below the bridge."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Holiday, "I should like to go very much, if we could
+go in the morning or in the evening, when it is cool. Is the walk shady,
+Rollo?"
+
+"Yes, mother, it is shady in the morning. There is a high hedge all
+along on one side of the path, and that keeps the sun off in the
+morning. In the evening the sun comes round to the other side."
+
+"Then we will go in the morning," said Mrs. Holiday. "Let us get up
+early to-morrow morning, and go before breakfast."
+
+Mrs. Holiday was really desirous of seeing this famous junction of the
+Rhone and the Arve; but her chief interest in making the excursion arose
+from her sympathy with Rollo, and from observing how much he wished to
+go. It is always so with a mother. When her children are kind and
+attentive to her, and obedient to her wishes, she always desires most
+strongly to do what will most gratify them.
+
+The plan was arranged according to Mrs. Holiday's proposal, and the next
+morning the party set out at half past six o'clock. Rollo led the way.
+
+"What I should like best," said Rollo, turning round so as to face his
+father and mother, and walking backward, "would be to take a boat, and
+shoot down the river under these bridges."
+
+"Ah," said his father, "that would not do. The current is too swift. At
+any rate, if you were to go down you would never get the boat back
+again. The water runs like a mill race.
+
+"Indeed, it _is_ a mill race," continued Mr. Holiday. "Don't you see the
+mill wheels projecting into the stream, here and there? They are carried
+by the natural force of the current."
+
+After passing by the buildings of the town, Rollo led the way over a
+narrow wooden bridge, which passed across the old moat of the town. The
+remains of a monstrous bastion were to be seen beyond it.
+
+"This is a part of the old fortifications," said Rollo. "They are
+cutting them all to pieces now with roads and bridges leading in and out
+the town."
+
+After going beyond these embankments, Rollo led the way to a path which
+lay along the river side. Very soon the path began to be a very pleasant
+one indeed. Mrs. Holiday was delighted with it. It was close to the
+margin of the water, and only a very few inches above the level of it.
+The current was very swift, and the water was so blue, and clear, and
+beautiful, that it was a continual pleasure to look down into it, and to
+watch the little waves and ripples that curled, and twirled, and dashed
+against the shore.
+
+There was a row of willows between the paths and the water, or rather in
+the margin of the water, for the path was so near to the stream that
+there was scarcely room for the willows on the land. On the other side
+of the path there was a close hedge, which formed the boundary of a
+region of fields, meadows, and gardens. Here and there were gates
+leading through this hedge; and the party, as they walked along, could
+look through the openings and see the peasant girls coming out to their
+work from the houses. The whole region, though it was highly cultivated
+and extremely beautiful, was very flat and level, and was only raised
+two or three feet above the level of the water.
+
+From each gateway or other opening through the hedge there were paths
+leading off through the fields and gardens to the houses; and there were
+steps at the gates leading down to the pathway that lay along the margin
+of the stream. The people of the houses were accustomed, it seemed, to
+come down there to get water.
+
+Thus the party walked along, with the rapid current of the river close
+to their feet on one side, and the high green hedge shutting them in on
+the other, while the tops of the willow trees spreading over their heads
+completed the coolness and shadiness of the pathway. Rollo led the way,
+and his father and mother followed, one by one, for the path was not
+wide enough for two to walk together.
+
+[Illustration: THE WATER WHEEL.]
+
+Presently they came to a place where a large water wheel of a very
+curious construction was seen revolving quite near the shore. They
+stopped to look at it. They liked to see it revolving; and then besides
+they wished to examine the construction of it. It was mounted on a frame
+of timbers that had been set up for it in the water, at a little
+distance from the shore. The wheel itself was much like the wheel of a
+steamboat; only, in addition to the ordinary float boards, it had a
+series of buckets on the edge of it, which took up the water from the
+stream, as the wheel revolved, and emptied it into a trough above, as
+they went over. From this trough there was a circular pipe, made very
+strong, which conveyed the water by a subterranean aqueduct into the
+field opposite, where it rose into a reservoir by the pressure of the
+column in the pipe, and was used to irrigate the ground.
+
+Across the river at this place was a beautiful view of fields,
+vineyards, terraces, and gardens; for on that side the bank was high,
+and as the sun shone directly upon it, the whole scene presented to view
+was extremely bright and beautiful.
+
+At one of the gates which opened through the hedge, Rollo stopped to
+look in. He saw gardens laid out in squares, with corn, and beans, and
+various garden vegetables growing luxuriantly in them. There were rows
+of fruit trees, too, bordering the paths, and at a distance were to be
+seen houses scattered here and there over the plain, the dwellings of
+the owners of the land. Each house had its little barns and granaries
+connected with it, the whole group being half concealed by the foliage
+of the trees and shrubs that had been planted around it.
+
+"Will it do for us to go in," said Rollo to his father, "and walk a part
+of the way through these gardens?"
+
+"Yes," said his father, "I presume it will do; but perhaps we had better
+go down all the way by the path, and come back by the gardens."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "that will be much the best plan.
+
+"But, father," continued Rollo, "if we should go across these gardens,
+and keep on in that direction for some time, I suppose that we should
+come to the Arve."
+
+"Yes," said his father; "the Arve is coming down from the mountains, and
+flowing towards the Rhone not very far from here, on the other side of
+this flat land. This land constitutes a sort of tongue lying between the
+two rivers. I suppose it has been formed by the deposits that the Arve
+brings down. I have no doubt that if we should walk across the tongue of
+land, we should come to the Arve; but it is better to go on down the
+path till we reach the point where the two rivers come together."
+
+"Well," said Rollo, "we will go on."
+
+So they went on along the path, as before.
+
+Rollo soon had occasion to be glad that he had acceded so readily to his
+father's wishes to continue in the path; for he soon came to something
+that amused him very much. It was a man sitting in the top of one of the
+willow trees that overhung the path, fishing. The willow leaned very
+much, and this made it easy to climb the stem of it. It had been headed
+down, too, so that there was a pretty good place to sit on the top of
+it. It was on the very brink of the stream, and indeed the leaning of
+the stem carried the top of the willow somewhat over the water, and thus
+it made quite a good place to sit and fish.
+
+The current flowed very swiftly under the willow tree, and the fishing
+line was carried far down the stream.
+
+"Ah!" said Rollo; "that is just such a place as I should like to have. I
+should like to sit up in that tree and fish all the morning."
+
+"I should think it might be a little lonesome," said Mr. Holiday.
+
+"No," said Rollo; "or perhaps there might be some other boys in the
+other trees."
+
+So saying, Rollo looked up and down the stream, to see if there were
+any other trees so formed as to furnish a seat for a fisherman in the
+top of them; but there were none.
+
+Here you see a picture of the man as Rollo saw him.
+
+[Illustration: FISHING.]
+
+As the party went on after this they found evidences increasing that
+they were drawing near to the junction of the rivers. The hedge became
+less regular, and at length ceased altogether. Its place was supplied
+by dense thickets formed of alders, willows, and long grass. The ground
+became more and more uneven, and at length nothing of the path was left
+but a narrow ridge or dike that had been formed artificially along the
+shore, with a crooked little footway on the top of it.
+
+At last Rollo began to see through the bushes occasional glimpses of
+water on the other side.
+
+"There, father!" said he, "there! We are coming to the Arve."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "and I don't suppose that we can go much
+farther."
+
+Indeed, it would have been impossible to go much farther, if there had
+not been a small embankment made to serve for a pathway. The party,
+though expecting every moment to be obliged to turn back, still went on.
+At length the whole expanse of the Arve opened before them as it came in
+from the left--its waters boiling, whirling, and sweeping in great
+circles as it came on, and the whole surface of it as gray as the sand
+on the shores. On the other side was the Rhone, blue, and pellucid, and
+beautiful as the sky above.
+
+"What an extraordinary spectacle!" said Mr. Holiday.
+
+"Come, mother," said Rollo, "we can go on a good deal farther yet."
+
+Rollo was right; for the walk, instead of coming to an end at the
+extremity of the point which separated the two rivers, was continued
+along a little dike or embankment which seemed to have been made
+artificially some distance down between the two streams. This dike was
+very narrow, being just wide enough indeed for a narrow footpath.
+
+In advancing along this path it was very curious to observe the totally
+different aspects of the water on the two sides of it. On the one side
+it was turbid and gray, and perfectly opaque. You could not have seen
+the pollywogs in the shallowest places along the margin. On the other
+side it was so clear and transparent that you could have seen fishes
+swimming where it was ten feet deep. It was of such a rich and beautiful
+blue color, too, as if it had been tinted with a dye, and the color was
+of so rich and brilliant a hue, that Mrs. Holiday was continually
+admiring and praising it.
+
+This narrow path, dividing thus the waters of the two rivers, continued
+several yards; but at length it came to an end. The party all went on
+till they reached the extremity of it, and there, looking still farther
+on, they saw the line of demarcation between the gray water and the
+blue extending itself before them as far as they could see. The two
+rivers remained for a long distance perfectly distinct, though
+struggling and contending against each other, as it were, all the way.
+The line was broken and indented all along by the strife of the
+waters--the gray for a moment penetrating into the blue, and then the
+next instant the blue forcing itself into the gray. The waters went on
+struggling against each other in this manner as far as the eye could
+follow them.
+
+The party remained on the extremity of the point a long time, observing
+this singular phenomenon. At length it began to be pretty warm there;
+for the narrow tongue of land which projected so far between the two
+currents was exposed to the sun, which had now risen so high that there
+was a good deal of heat in his rays.
+
+So they set out on their return home. On the way back they walked a
+considerable distance through the fields and gardens. They went into
+them from the path along the shore, through one of the open gates, and
+they went back to the path again by another.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+SEEING MONT BLANC GO OUT.
+
+
+"Father," said Rollo to Mr. Holiday, at dinner one day, "what are you
+going to do this evening?"
+
+"We are going to see Mont Blanc go out," said his father.
+
+Mr. Holiday answered Rollo in French, using a phrase very common in
+Geneva to denote the gradual fading away of the rosy light left upon
+Mont Blanc by the setting sun; for the sun, just at the time of its
+setting, gilds the mountain with a peculiar rosy light, as if it were a
+cloud. This light gradually fades away as the sun goes down, until the
+lower part of the mountain becomes of a dead and ghostly white, while
+the roseate hue still lingers on the summit, as if the top of the
+mountain were tipped with flame. These last beams finally disappear, and
+then the whole expanse of snow assumes a deathlike and wintry whiteness.
+The inhabitants of Geneva, and those who live in the environs, often go
+out to their gardens and summer houses in the summer evenings, just as
+the sun is going down, to see, as they express it, Mont Blanc go out;[E]
+and strangers who visit Geneva always desire, if they can, to witness
+the spectacle. There are, however, not a great many evenings in the year
+when it can be witnessed to advantage, the mountain is so often
+enveloped in clouds.
+
+[Footnote E: The phrase is, in French, _Pour voir le Mont Blanc
+s'eteindre_.]
+
+Rollo had heard the phrase before, and he knew very well what his father
+meant.
+
+"Well," said he, in a tone of satisfaction; "and may I go too?"
+
+"Yes," said his father; "we should like to have you go very much. But
+there is a question to be decided--how we shall go. The best point of
+view is somewhere on the shore along the lake, on the other side of the
+bridge. There are three ways of going. We can walk across the bridge,
+and then follow the road along the shore till we come to a good place,
+or we can take a carriage, and order the coachman to drive out any where
+into the neighborhood, where there is a good view of the mountain, or we
+can go in a boat."
+
+"In a boat, father!" said Rollo, eagerly. "Let us go in a boat!"
+
+"The objection to that," said Mr. Holiday, "is, that it is more trouble
+to go and engage a boat. There are plenty of carriages here at the very
+door, and I can have one at a moment's notice, by just holding up my
+finger."
+
+"And, father," said Rollo, "so there are plenty of boats right down here
+by the quay, and I can get one of them in a moment, just by holding up
+my finger."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Holiday, "we will go in a boat if you will take all the
+trouble of engaging one."
+
+Rollo liked nothing better than this, and as soon as dinner was over he
+went out upon the quay to engage a boat, while his father and mother
+went up to their room to get ready to go.
+
+Rollo found plenty of boats at the landing. Some of them were very
+pretty. He chose one which seemed to have comfortable seats in it for
+his father and mother. It was a boat, too, that had the American flag
+flying at the stern. Some of the boatmen get American flags, and raise
+them on their boats, out of compliment to their numerous American
+customers.
+
+Soon after Rollo had engaged the boat, his father and mother came, and
+they all embarked on board. The boatman rowed them off from the shore.
+The sun was just going down. There were a great many boats plying to and
+fro about the lake, and the quays and the little islet were crowded with
+people.
+
+After rowing about a quarter of a mile, the boatman brought the range of
+the Alps into full view through an opening between the nearer hills. The
+sun was shining full upon them, and illuminating them with a dazzling
+white light, very beautiful, but without any rosy hue.
+
+"They don't look rosy at all," said Rollo.
+
+"No," said Mr. Holiday, "not now. They do not take the rosy hue till the
+sun has gone down."
+
+The boatman rowed on a little farther, so as to obtain a still better
+view. Mr. and Mrs. Holiday watched the mountains; but Rollo was more
+interested in the scene immediately around him. He watched the boats
+that were plying to and fro over the surface of the lake, and the
+different parties of ladies and gentlemen in them. He gazed on the
+quays, too, all around, and on the islet, which was not far off, and on
+the people that he saw there, some walking to and fro, and others
+leaning over the parapet and looking out upon the water.
+
+"Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, "see if there is a rudder."
+
+"Yes, father, there is," said Rollo. So saying, he climbed over the
+seats, between his father and mother, and took his place by the rudder.
+
+"Steer us, then, over to the opposite shore, wherever you see there is a
+pleasant place to land."
+
+Rollo was glad and sorry both to receive this command. He was glad to
+have the pleasure of steering, but he was sorry that his father intended
+to land. He would have preferred remaining out upon the water.
+
+He, however, obeyed his father's command, and steered towards the
+farther shore, turning the head of the boat in an oblique direction, a
+little way up the lake. Presently Mr. Holiday saw some friends of his in
+a boat that was coming in the opposite direction. He ordered Rollo to
+steer towards them. Rollo did so, and soon the boats came alongside. The
+oarsmen of both boats stopped rowing, and the two parties in them came
+to a parley.
+
+There was a little girl in the other boat, named Lucia. There was no
+other child in that boat, and so there was nobody for Lucia to play
+with. Lucia therefore asked her father and mother to allow her to get
+over into Mr. Holiday's boat, so that she could have somebody to play
+with.
+
+"Why, Lucia," said her mother, "Rollo is a great boy. He is too big to
+play with you."
+
+"I know it," said Lucia; "but then he is better than nobody."
+
+Rollo might perhaps have been made to feel somewhat piqued at being
+considered by a young lady as only better than nobody for a companion,
+had it not been for the nature of the objection, which was only that he
+was too large. So he felt complimented rather than otherwise, and he
+cordially seconded Lucia's wish that she might be transferred to his
+father's boat, and at length her mother consented. Lucia stepped
+carefully over the gunwales, and thus got into Mr. Holiday's boat. She
+immediately passed along to the stern, and took her place by the side of
+Rollo at the rudder. The boats then separated from each other, and each
+went on its own way.
+
+"What is this handle," said Lucia, "that you are taking hold of?"
+
+"It is the tiller," said Rollo.
+
+"And what is it for?" asked Lucia.
+
+"It is the handle of the rudder," said Rollo. "The rudder is what we
+steer the boat by, and the tiller is the handle of it. The rudder itself
+is down below the water."
+
+So Rollo let Lucia look over the end of the boat and see the rudder in
+the water.
+
+Rollo then proceeded to explain the operation of the rudder.
+
+"You see," said he, "that when I move the tiller over _this_ way, then
+the head of the boat turns the other way; and when I move it over _that_
+way, then the head of the boat comes round this way. The head of the
+boat always goes the contrary way."
+
+"I don't see why it should go the contrary way," said Lucia. "I should
+think it ought to go the same way."
+
+"No," replied Rollo; "it goes the contrary way. And now I am going to
+steer to a good place to land on the shore over there."
+
+So saying, Rollo pointed to the shore towards which the boat was going.
+
+The boat was now drawing near the shore. There was first a landing,
+where several small vessels were drawn up, and immense piles of wood in
+great wood yards.
+
+This wood had a very singular appearance. The bark was all off, and the
+ends of the logs looked rounded and worn, as if they had been washed in
+the water. The reason was, that the wood had grown on the sides of the
+mountains, and had been brought down to the lake by the torrents which
+pour down the mountain sides with great force in time of rain.
+
+"We won't land in the wood yards--will we?" said Rollo.
+
+"No," said Lucia; "but _there's_ a pretty place to land, a little
+farther on."
+
+So saying, Lucia pointed to a very pretty part of the shore, a little
+farther on. There seemed to be a garden, and a little green lawn, with
+large trees overshadowing it; and at one place there was a projecting
+point where there was a summer house with a table in it, and a seat
+outside, near the beach, under a bower.
+
+"Yes," said Rollo; "that is a very pretty place; but it looks like
+private ground. I think we must not land there."
+
+As the boat glided by this place, Rollo and Lucia saw some ladies and
+gentlemen sitting in the summer house. The gentlemen took off their hats
+and bowed to Mr. and Mrs. Holiday as they passed by.
+
+Next the boat came to a place where there was a low parapet wall along
+the shore, and behind it were to be seen the heads of a number of men
+who seemed to be sitting at tables, and drinking coffee or beer.
+
+"Here is a good place to land," said Lucia.
+
+"No," said Rollo; "this seems to be some sort of public place, full of
+men. We had better go a little farther."
+
+So Rollo steered on, keeping all the time at just a safe distance from
+the shore. The water was most beautifully transparent and clear, so that
+all the pretty stones and pebbles on the bottom could be seen very
+distinctly at a great depth.
+
+"What pretty water!" said Lucia.
+
+"Yes," said Rollo, "it is so clear."
+
+"What makes it so clear?" asked Lucia.
+
+"Because the lake is so long," said Rollo, "and this is the lower end of
+it, and the water has time to settle. At the other end, where the water
+comes in, it is not so clear. This is the end where the water runs out."
+
+A moment afterwards they came to a very pleasant landing, at a place
+where the road lay pretty near the water. Between the road and the
+water, however, there was a space of green grass, with large trees
+overshadowing it, and several wooden settees, painted green, under the
+trees.
+
+"Ah!" said Rollo, "here is just the place for us.
+
+"Father," he added, "do you think it would be a good plan to land here?"
+
+"Yes," said his father; "we could not have had a better place. I thought
+you would find a pleasant landing for us if I gave you the command."
+
+So Rollo brought the boat up to the shore, and they all got out. Mr. and
+Mrs. Holiday walked up and took their seats on one of the settees, while
+Rollo and Lucia began to run about and play along the parapet wall which
+separated the promenade from the water.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Holiday watched the mountains. The sun had now just gone
+down, though his beams still tipped the summits of the hills, and were
+reflected from the windows of the distant houses. The snow on the
+mountains, too, began to assume a very beautiful rosy hue, which
+increased in brilliancy the farther the sun went down, and the more the
+lower lands became darkened.
+
+"How beautiful it is!" said Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"It is very beautiful indeed," said her husband.
+
+"Rollo," said Mrs. Holiday, "look at Mont Blanc. See how bright and rosy
+he looks."
+
+"Yes, mother," said Rollo; "and look out on the lake, and see the heads
+of those two boys swimming in the water."
+
+"Are those the heads of boys?" asked Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"Yes, mother," said Rollo; "see how far they are swimming out."
+
+When Mrs. Holiday looked back at the mountain, she found, to her great
+disappointment, that the rosy color which had appeared so beautiful a
+moment before had now disappeared; and the whole snowy side of the
+range, up to the summits of the loftiest peaks, was of a cold, dead
+white, as if the rays of the sun had been entirely withdrawn.
+
+"Ah! look!" she said to Mr. Holiday, in a tone of disappointment; "Mont
+Blanc has gone out while we have been looking another way."
+
+Mr. Holiday gazed intently at the mountain, and very soon he saw the
+rosy tint beginning to appear again on one of the summits, more
+brilliant than ever.
+
+"No," said he, "the sun has not gone. I thought it could not have gone
+down so soon. There must have been a cloud in the way."
+
+While Mr. Holiday had been speaking, the rekindling of the mountain had
+gone on apace, and now the whole side of it was all in a glow.
+
+Just at this instant Rollo heard the sound of a gun. Lucia started and
+looked alarmed.
+
+"What is that gun?" said Rollo; "and where was it? Let us look for the
+smoke."
+
+So Rollo and Lucia, leaning over the parapet, began to look all about
+among the boats and vessels of the lake, and along the opposite shore,
+in the direction from which the sound of the report had seemed to come,
+and very soon their eyes rested upon a volume of blue smoke which was
+ascending from the bows of a little vessel that had just come in, and
+was floating off gracefully into the air.
+
+"It is that vessel that has just got in," said Rollo.
+
+"Rollo," said Mrs. Holiday, "look at the mountain."
+
+Rollo turned his eye for a moment towards the mountain. All the lower
+part of it was of a cold and deathlike whiteness, while the tip of the
+summit was glowing as if it had been on fire. He was, however, too much
+interested in the smoke of the gun to look long at the mountain.
+
+"Hark!" said he to Lucia; "let us see if they will not fire again."
+
+They did not fire again; and just as Rollo began to give up expecting
+that they would, his attention, as well as that of Lucia, was attracted
+to a little child who was playing with a small hammer in the gravel not
+far from where they were standing. The mother of the child was sitting
+on a bench near by, knitting. The hammer was small, and the claw of it
+was straight and flat. The child was using it for a hoe, to dig a hole
+in the gravel.
+
+"Now," said Rollo, "if I could find a shingle any where about here, I
+would make that child a shovel to dig with."
+
+Rollo looked about, but there was nothing like a shingle to be seen.
+
+In a few minutes his father called him.
+
+"Rollo," said he, "we are going back. Mont Blanc has gone out. See!"
+
+Rollo looked. He saw that the last lingering rays of the sun had gone
+from the summit of the mountain, though they still gilded a small
+rounded cloud that floated just above it in the sky.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo. "I'll go and call the boat."
+
+"We are not going back in the boat," said Mr. Holiday; "we have
+concluded to walk round by land, and over the bridge. It will be better
+for Lucia to go with us; but you may do as you please. You may walk with
+us, or go in the boat with the boatman."
+
+Rollo at first thought that he should prefer to go in the boat; but he
+finally concluded to accompany his father and mother. So the whole party
+returned together by a pleasant road which led through a village by the
+shore.
+
+When they came out to the quay they heard a band of music playing. The
+band was stationed on the little islet which has already been described.
+The party stopped on the bridge to listen; at least Mr. and Mrs. Holiday
+listened, but Rollo and Lucia occupied themselves the while in looking
+down in the clear depths of the water, which was running so swiftly and
+so blue beneath the piers of the bridge, and watching to see if they
+could see any fishes there. Lucia thought at one time that she saw one;
+but Rollo, on examining the spot, said it was only a little crevice of
+the rock wiggling.
+
+"What makes it wiggle?" asked Lucia.
+
+"The little waves and ripples of the current," said Rollo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Rollo reached the hotel, a gentleman who met the party in the hall
+said to him,--
+
+"Well, Rollo, have you been to see Mont Blanc go out?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo.
+
+"And how did you like it?" said the gentleman.
+
+"I liked it very much indeed," said Rollo. "I think it was sublime."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A LAW QUESTION.
+
+
+"Now, father," said Rollo, one evening, as he was sitting at the window
+with his father and mother, looking out upon the blue waters of the
+Rhone, that were shooting so swiftly under the bridges beneath the
+windows of the hotel, "you promised me that you would take as long a
+sail on the lake with me as I wished."
+
+"Well," said his father, "I acknowledge the promise, and am ready to
+perform it."
+
+"When?" asked Rollo.
+
+"At any time," said his father.
+
+"Then, father, let us go to-morrow," said Rollo. "We can't go to-night,
+for I am going so far that it will take all day. I am going to the
+farther end of the lake."
+
+"Very well," said his father; "I said I would take as long a sail as you
+wished."
+
+"And I will go this evening and engage a sail boat," said Rollo, "so as
+to have it all ready."
+
+There was always quite a little fleet of sail boats and row boats of
+all kinds lying near the principal landing at the quay, ready for
+excursions. Rollo's plan was to engage one of these.
+
+"No," said his father; "we will not take a sail boat; we will take a
+steamboat."
+
+Besides the sail boats and row boats, there were a number of large and
+handsome steamboats plying on the lake. There were two or three that
+left in the morning, between seven and eight o'clock, and then there
+were one or two at noon also. Those that left in the morning had time to
+go to the farther end of the lake and return the same day; while those
+that left at noon came back the next morning. Thus, to see the lake, you
+could go in the forenoon of one day, and come back in the afternoon of
+the same, or you could go in the afternoon of one day, and come back in
+the morning of the next.
+
+"Which would you do?" said Mr. Holiday to Rollo.
+
+"But, father," said Rollo, "I think it would be pleasanter to go in a
+sail boat. Besides, you said that you would take me to a sail; and going
+in a steamboat is not sailing."
+
+"What is it doing?" said Mr. Holiday.
+
+"Steaming," said Rollo. "A steamer does not sail in any sense."
+
+Mr. Holiday smiled and then paused. He was reflecting, apparently, upon
+what Rollo had been saying.
+
+"Then, besides," said Rollo, "don't you think, father, it would be
+pleasanter to go in a sail boat?"
+
+"The first question is," said Mr. Holiday, "whether I am bound by my
+promise to go with you in a sail boat, if you prefer it. I said I would
+take you to a sail. Would taking you in a steamboat be a fulfilment of
+that promise? Suppose we refer the question to an umpire, and see how he
+will decide it."
+
+"Yes; but, father," said Rollo, "if you think it is best to go in the
+steamer, I should not insist upon the sail boat, by any means; so it is
+not necessary to leave it to any umpire. I will give it up."
+
+"I know you would be willing to give it up," said Mr. Holiday; "but then
+we may as well first ascertain how the case actually stands. Let us
+first determine what the promise binds me to. If it does not bind me to
+go in a sail boat, then it is all right; there will be no need of any
+giving up. If, on the other hand, my promise does bind me to go in a
+sail boat, then you will consider whether you will release me from it or
+not, if I ask it. Besides, it will amuse us to have the question
+regularly decided; and it will also be a good lesson for you, in
+teaching you to think and speak with precision when you make promises,
+and to draw exact lines in respect to the performance of them."
+
+"Well, sir," said Rollo; "who shall be the umpire?"
+
+"Mr. Hall," said his father. "He is down in the dining room now, taking
+tea."
+
+Mr. Hall was a lawyer, an acquaintance of Mr. Holiday's, whom he had
+accidentally met at Geneva.
+
+"He is a lawyer," said Mr. Holiday, "and he will be a very good umpire."
+
+"Is it a law question?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Not exactly a law question," said Mr. Holiday, "but all such questions
+require for an umpire a man who is accustomed to think precisely. That
+is their very business. It is true that there are a great many other men
+besides lawyers who think precisely; and there are some lawyers who
+think and reason very loosely, and come to hasty and incorrect
+conclusions. Still, you are more likely to get a good opinion on such a
+subject from a lawyer than from other men taken at random. So, if you
+please, you may go down and state the question to Mr. Hall, and I will
+abide by his decision."
+
+"Well, sir," said Rollo, "I will."
+
+"Only," said Mr. Holiday, "you must state the question fairly. Boys
+generally, when they go to state a question of this kind in which they
+are interested, state it very unfairly."
+
+"How, for instance?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Why, suppose," said Mr. Holiday, "that you were to go to Mr. Hall, and
+say, 'Mr. Hall, father promised me that he would take me out on a sail
+upon the lake, as far as I wanted to go, and don't you think he ought to
+do it?'"
+
+Rollo laughed heartily at this mode of putting the question. "Yes," said
+he, "that sounds exactly like a boy. And what would be a fair way of
+stating it?"
+
+"A fair way would be," said Mr. Holiday, "to present the simple question
+itself, without any reference to your own interest in it, and without
+any indication whatever of your own wish or opinion in respect to the
+decision of it; as, for example, thus: 'Mr. Hall, I have a question to
+ask you. Suppose one person promises another that he will take him out
+to sail on the lake on a certain day; then, when the day comes, the
+promiser proposes to go in the steamboat. Would that be a good
+fulfilment of the promise, or not?'"
+
+"Well, sir," said Rollo, "I will state it so."
+
+So Rollo went down stairs into the dining room. There were various
+parties there, seated at the different tables. Some were taking tea,
+some were looking at maps and guide books, and some discussing the plan
+of their tours. One of the sofas had half a dozen knapsacks upon it,
+which belonged to a party of pedestrians that had just come in.
+
+Rollo looked about the room, and presently saw Mr. Hall, with his wife
+and daughter, sitting at a table near a window. He went to him, and
+stated the question.
+
+The lawyer heard Rollo attentively to the end, and then, instead of
+answering at once, O, yes, or O, no, as Rollo had expected, he seemed to
+stop to consider.
+
+"That is quite a nice question," said Mr. Hall. "Let us look at it. The
+point is, whether an excursion in a steamboat is a _sail_, in the sense
+intended by the promise."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "that is the point exactly. I think it is not;
+father thinks it is."
+
+The instant that these words were out of Rollo's mouth he was sorry that
+he had spoken them; for by speaking them he had furnished an indication
+to the umpire of what his own opinion and his own interests were in
+respect to the decision, which it never is fair to do in such a case,
+when the other party is not present to express _his_ views and advocate
+his interests. The words once spoken, however, could not be recalled.
+
+"Steamboats are certainly not propelled by sails," said the lawyer, "but
+yet we often apply the word _sailing_ to them. We say, for instance,
+that a certain steamer will sail on such or such a day. So we say, There
+was no news from such or such a place when the steamer sailed."
+
+"But it seems to me," said Rollo, "that the question is not what people
+call it, but what it really is. The going of a steamboat is certainly
+not sailing, in any sense."
+
+It was quite ingenious arguing on Rollo's part, it must be acknowledged;
+but then it was wholly out of order for him to argue the question at
+all. He should have confined himself strictly to a simple statement of
+the point, since, as his father was not present to defend _his_ side of
+the question, it was obviously not fair that Rollo should urge and
+advocate his.
+
+"It might, at first view," said Mr. Hall, "seem to be as you say, and
+that the question would be solely what the steamer actually does. But,
+on reflection, you will see that it is not exactly so. Contracts and
+promises are made in language; and in making them, people use language
+as other people use it, and it is to be interpreted in that way. For
+instance: suppose a lodging-house keeper in the country should agree to
+furnish a lady a room in the summer where the sun did not come in at
+all, and then should give her one on the south side of the house, which
+was intolerably hot, and should claim that he had fulfilled his
+agreement because the sun did not itself _come_ into the room at all,
+but only shone in; that would not be a good defence. We must interpret
+contracts and promises according to the ordinary use and custom of
+people in the employment of language.
+
+"Still," said Mr. Hall, "although we certainly do apply the simple term
+_sailing_ to a steamer, I hardly think that a trip in a steamer on a
+regular and established route would be called, according to the ordinary
+and established use of language, taking a sail. Was that the
+promise--that one party would go with the other to _take a sail_ on the
+lake?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "he promised to go and take a sail with me on
+the lake, as far as I wanted to go."
+
+"Then," said Mr. Hall, "I should think, on the whole, that, in such a
+place as this, where there are so many regular sail boats, and where
+excursions on the lake in them are so common and so well recognized as a
+distinct amusement, the phrase _taking a sail_ ought to be held to mean
+going in a sail boat, and that making a voyage in a steamer would not be
+fulfilling the promise."
+
+Rollo was extremely delighted in having thus gained his case, and he
+went back to report the result to his father, in a state of great
+exultation.
+
+After communicating to his father the decision of the umpire, Rollo said
+that, after all, he did not wish to go in a sail boat if his father
+thought it best to go in a steamer.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Holiday, "that depends upon how far we go. It is
+pleasant enough to go out a short distance on the water in a sail boat,
+but for a long excursion the steamer is generally considered much
+pleasanter. In a sail boat you are down very low, near the surface of
+the water, and so you have no commanding views. Then you have no shelter
+either from the sun, if it is clear, or from the rain, if it is cloudy.
+You are closely confined, too, or at least you can move about only a
+very little; whereas in the steamer there is plenty of space, and there
+are a great many groups of people, and little incidents are constantly
+occurring to amuse you."
+
+"Besides," said Mrs. Holiday, "if you go in the steamer, I can go with
+you."
+
+"Why, mother, could not you go in a sail boat too?"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Holiday; "I am afraid of sail boats."
+
+"O mother!" said Rollo; "there is not any danger at all."
+
+"Yes, Rollo," said his father, "there is some danger, for sail boats do
+sometimes upset."
+
+"And steamboats sometimes blow up," said Rollo.
+
+"True," said his father; "but that only shows that there is danger in
+steamboats too--not that there is no danger in sail boats."
+
+"Well, what I mean," said Rollo, "is, that there is very little danger,
+and that mother has no occasion to be afraid."
+
+"There is very little danger, I grant," said Mr. Holiday; "but there is
+just enough to keep ladies, who are less accustomed to the water than we
+are, almost all the time uneasy, and thus to destroy for them the
+pleasure of the excursion.
+
+"I'll tell you what I think will be the best plan. You and I will go out
+and take a little sail to-night on the lake in a sail boat, and mother
+may stay and watch us from the window, as she reads and sews. Then
+to-morrow we will go together to make an excursion on the lake."
+
+Rollo liked this plan very much indeed, and his father sent him down to
+the landing to engage the boat. "I will come down," said Mr. Holiday,
+"by the time you get ready."
+
+So Rollo went down and engaged a boat. It was rigged, as all the boats
+on the Lake of Geneva are, with what are called lateen sails. His
+father soon came down, and they immediately embarked on board the boat,
+and sailed away from the landing. As the boat moved away Rollo waved his
+handkerchief to his mother whom he saw sitting on the balcony of the
+hotel, waving hers to him.
+
+[Illustration: GOING TO TAKE A SAIL.]
+
+Rollo and his father sailed about the lake for nearly an hour. Mr.
+Holiday said it was one of the pleasantest sails he ever had in his
+life, and that he was very glad indeed that Mr. Hall decided against
+him.
+
+He gave Rollo's mother a full account of the excursion when he got home.
+
+"The water was very smooth," said he, "and the air was cool and balmy.
+There was a gentle breath of wind, just enough to float us smoothly and
+quietly over the water. We had charming views of the town and of the
+shores of the lake, and also of the stupendous ranges of snow-covered
+mountains beyond."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+AN EXCURSION ON THE LAKE.
+
+
+The Lake of Geneva is shaped, as has already been said, like the new
+moon. One of the horns is towards the west; the other is towards the
+south. Geneva is at the tip of the western horn.
+
+Of course, in sailing from Geneva to the other end of the lake, we go
+from the west towards the east; and this renders it rather more
+agreeable to make the excursion by an afternoon boat than by a morning
+one; for in the afternoon, the sun, being then in the western part of
+the sky, will be behind you, and so will not shine in your face; but,
+instead of shining in your face and dazzling your eyes, it will be
+shining upon and illuminating brilliantly the slopes of the mountains
+that you are going to see. In other words, in the morning the mountains
+are in shadow and the sun in your eyes; in the evening your eyes are
+shaded, and the mountains glow with brilliancy and beauty.
+
+It is often very important to take notice thus of the manner in which
+the sun shines in different parts of the day, in planning excursions
+among the Alps.
+
+The middle of the day is a very exciting and animating time on the quay
+at Geneva. It is then that the boats which left the other end of the
+lake in the morning are expected to arrive; and a great concourse of
+porters, guides, postilions, and bystanders of all sorts assemble to
+receive the travellers. As the boats come in, it is very amusing to sit
+on the balconies, or at the windows of the hotels which overlook the
+quay, and watch the procession of tourists as they come over the plank
+to land. There are family groups consisting of fathers, mothers, and
+children, followed by porters bearing immense trunks, while they
+themselves are loaded with shawls, cloaks, umbrellas, and carpet bags;
+and parties of students, with all their travelling effects in knapsacks
+on their backs; and schoolboys who have been making a tour of the Alps
+with their teacher; and young brides, almost equally proud of their
+husbands, of the new dignity of their own position, and of the grandeur
+of an Alpine bridal tour. All these people, and the hundreds of
+spectators that assemble to see them, fill the quay, and form a very
+animated and exciting spectacle.
+
+When the time approaches for a boat to sail, which is in half an hour
+after she arrives, we have a counterpart of this scene, the direction of
+the current only being reversed. The tourists now go to the boat, the
+porters, with their baggage, preceding them. A soldier stands at the
+entrance to the plank, to look at the passports. Lines of officials on
+each side guard the way. On the deck of the steamer, as soon as you get
+on board, you find a great variety of picturesque looking groups, all,
+however, having the air of being travellers for pleasure. Some are
+arranging themselves in good seats for seeing the scenery. Others take
+out their maps and guide books, and prepare to read the descriptions of
+the places that they are going to see. Here and there children are to be
+seen--the boys with little knapsacks, and the girls wearing very
+broad-brimmed Swiss hats--neither paying any attention to the scenery,
+but amusing themselves with whatever they find at hand to play with--one
+with a little dog, another with a doll which has been bought for her at
+Geneva, and a third, perhaps, with a whip, or a little wagon.
+
+Rollo took his seat by the side of his father and mother, in the midst
+of such a scene as this, on the day of their embarkation, and occupied
+himself sometimes by looking at the shores of the lake and the mountains
+beyond, and sometimes by watching the movements and actions of the
+various groups of tourists before him. In the mean time, the boat left
+the landing, and began to glide along rapidly on her way over the
+surface of the water.
+
+The shores of the lake are very fertile and populous, and at every eight
+or ten miles, especially on the northern shore, you come to a large
+town. The steamboats stop at these towns to take and leave passengers.
+They do not, in such cases, usually land at a pier, but the passengers
+come and go in large boats, and meet the steamer at a little way from
+the shore. Rollo used to take great pleasure in going forward to the
+bows of the steamer, and watch these boats as they came out from the
+shore. If there were two of them, they would come out so far that the
+track of the steamer should lie between them, and then, when the steamer
+stopped her paddles, they would come up, one on one side and the other
+on the other, and the passengers would come up on board by means of a
+flight of steps let down from the steamer, just abaft the paddle boxes.
+When the passengers had thus come up, the baggage would be passed up
+too; and then those passengers who wished to go ashore at that place
+would go down the steps in the boats, and when all were embarked, the
+boats would cast off from the steamer, and the steamer would go on her
+way as before. The boats then would row slowly to the land, with the
+passengers in them that were to stop at that place.
+
+The way of paying for one's passage on board these boats was very
+different from that adopted in America. There was no colored waiter to
+go about the decks and saloons ringing a bell, and calling out, in a
+loud and authoritative voice, Passengers who haven't settled their fare
+will please call at the captain's office and settle. Instead of this,
+the clerk of the boat came himself, after each landing, to the new
+passengers that had come on board at that landing, and, touching his hat
+to them, in the most polite manner, asked them to what place they wished
+to go. He had a little slate in his hand, with the names of all the
+towns where the steamer was to touch marked upon it. As the several
+passengers to whom he applied gave him the name of the place of their
+destination, he made a mark opposite to the name of the place on his
+slate. When he had in this way applied to all the new comers, he went to
+the office and provided himself with the proper number of tickets for
+each place, and then went round again to distribute them. In going
+around thus a second time, to distribute the tickets, he took a cash box
+with him to make change. This cash box was slung before him by means of
+a strap about the neck.
+
+"How much more polite and agreeable a mode this is of collecting the
+fares," said Mrs. Holiday to her husband, "than ours in America! There a
+boy comes around, dinging a bell in every body's ears, and then the
+gentlemen have to go in a crowd and elbow their way up to the window of
+the captain's office. I wish we could have some of these polite and
+agreeable customs introduced into our country."
+
+"They are very agreeable," said Mr. Holiday, "and are very suitable for
+pleasure travel like this, where the boats are small, and the number of
+passengers few; but I presume it would be very difficult to collect the
+fares in this way on a North River steamer, where there are sometimes a
+thousand passengers on board. Here there are usually not more than eight
+or ten passengers that come on board at a time, and they mix with only
+fifty or sixty that were on board before. But in America we often have
+fifty or sixty come on board at a time, and they mix with eight hundred
+or a thousand. In such a case as that I think that this plan would be
+well nigh impracticable."
+
+"I did not think of that," said Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"The difference between the circumstances of the case in Europe and in
+America is very often not thought of by travellers who find themselves
+wishing that the European customs in respect to travelling and the
+hotels could be introduced into our country. In Europe the number of
+travellers is comparatively small, and a very large proportion of those
+who make journeys go for pleasure. The arrangements can all,
+consequently, be made to save them trouble, and to make the journey
+agreeable to them; and the price is increased accordingly. In America,
+people travel on business, and they go in immense numbers. Their main
+object is, to be taken safely and expeditiously to the end of their
+journey, and at as little expense as possible. The arrangements of the
+conveyances and of the hotels are all made accordingly. The consequence
+is, a vast difference in the expense of travelling, and a corresponding
+difference, of course, to some extent, in ease and comfort. The price of
+passage, for instance, in the Geneva steamboats, from one end of the
+lake to the other, a distance of about fifty miles, is two dollars,
+without berth or meals; whereas you can go from New York to Albany,
+which is more than three times as far, for half a dollar. This
+difference is owing to the number of travellers that go in the American
+boats, and the wholesale character, so to speak, of the arrangements
+made for them.
+
+"In other words, the passengers in a public conveyance in Europe are not
+only conveyed from place to place, but they are waited upon by the way,
+and they have to pay both for the conveyance and the attendance. In
+America they are only conveyed, and are left to wait upon themselves;
+and they are charged accordingly. Each plan is good, and each is adapted
+to the wants and ideas of the countries that respectively adopt them.
+
+"Shall we go to the end of the lake to-day?" said Mr. Holiday, "or only
+part of the way? The clerk will come pretty soon to ask us."
+
+"Are there any pretty places to stop at on the way?" asked Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"Yes," said her husband; "all the places are pretty."
+
+"Tell us about some of them," said Rollo.
+
+"First there is Lausanne," said his father. "Lausanne is a large town up
+among the hills, a mile or two from the water. There is a little port,
+called Ouchy, on the shore, where the steamer stops. There there is a
+landing and a pier, and some pretty boarding houses, with gardens and
+grounds around them, and a large, old-fashioned inn, built like a castle
+of the middle ages, but kept very nicely. We can stop there, and go up
+in an omnibus to Lausanne, which is a large, old town, two miles up the
+side of the mountain.
+
+"Then, secondly," continued Mr. Holiday, "there is Vevay, which is
+famous for a new and fashionable hotel facing the lake, with a beautiful
+terrace between it and the water, where you can sit on nice benches
+under the trees, and watch the steamers going by over the blue waters of
+the lake, or the row boats and sail boats coming and going about the
+terrace landing, or the fleecy clouds floating along the sides of the
+dark mountains around the head of the lake."
+
+"I should like to stop at both places," said Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"Then we will stop at Ouchy to-night," said Mr. Holiday, "for that comes
+first."
+
+So it was decided that they should take tickets for Ouchy.
+
+The boat at Ouchy did not land passengers by boats, but went up to the
+pier. Only a few passengers went ashore. The pier was at some little
+distance from the hotel, the way to it being by a quiet and pleasant
+walk along the shore.
+
+There was an omnibus marked Lausanne standing at the head of the pier.
+
+"Now, we can get into the omnibus," said Mr. Holiday, "and go directly
+up to Lausanne, or we can go to the hotel here, and take lodgings, and
+then go up to Lausanne to see the town after dinner."
+
+It was at this time about four o'clock. The usual time of dinner for
+travellers in Switzerland is five.
+
+Mrs. Holiday, observing that the hotel at Ouchy was very prettily
+situated, close to the water, and recollecting that her husband had said
+that it resembled in its character a castle of the middle ages,
+concluded that she would like as well to take rooms there.
+
+A woman with a queer-shaped basket on her back, which she carried by
+means of straps over her shoulders, here came up to Mr. Holiday, and
+asked if she should take _the baggages_ to the inn. Mr. Holiday said
+yes. So she put the valise and the carpet bag into her basket, and
+walked away with them to the inn.
+
+Women often act as porters in France and Switzerland, and they perform,
+also, all sorts of out-door work. They use these baskets, too, very
+often, for carrying burdens. Rollo afterwards saw a woman take her child
+out to ride in one of them.
+
+Mrs. Holiday was extremely pleased with the inn at Ouchy. She said that
+she should like to remain there a week. It seemed precisely, with its
+antique-looking rooms, and long stone paved corridors, like the castles
+which she had read about when she was a girl in the old romances.
+
+After dinner, Mr. Holiday sent for a carriage, and took Mrs. Holiday and
+Rollo to ride. They went up the ascent of land behind the town, the road
+winding as it went among green and beautiful glades and dells, but still
+always ascending until they came to Lausanne. This was nearly two miles
+from the lake, and very much above it. From Lausanne they went back
+still farther, ascending all the time, and obtaining more and more
+commanding views of the lake at every turn.
+
+When the sun went down, they turned their faces homeward. They came
+down, of course, very fast, the road winding continually this way and
+that, to make the descent more gradual. At length, about half past
+eight, they returned to the inn.
+
+The landlady of the inn, who was very kind and obliging to them, took
+them to see a room in her hotel where Lord Byron wrote his celebrated
+poem entitled the PRISONER OF CHILLON. Chillon is an ancient castle
+which stands on the shore, twenty or thirty miles beyond, and very near,
+in fact, to the extremity of the lake. Byron has made this castle
+renowned throughout the world by spending a few days, while he was
+stopped at this inn at Ouchy by a storm, when travelling on the lake, in
+writing a poem in which he describes the emotions and sufferings of
+some imaginary prisoners whom he supposed to be confined there.
+
+"Can we go to see the Castle of Chillon?" said Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Holiday. "We shall sail directly by it in going to the
+head of the lake, and if we stop there we can go to it very easily."
+
+The head of the lake--that is, the eastern end of it--is surrounded with
+mountains, the slopes of which seem to rise very abruptly from the
+water, and ascend to such a height that patches of snow lie on the
+summits of them all the summer. These mountains, especially if
+overshadowed by clouds, give a very dark and sombre expression to the
+whole region when seen from a distance, in coming in from the centre of
+the lake. This sombre expression, however, entirely disappears when you
+arrive at the head of the lake, and land there.
+
+You would not suppose, when viewing these shores from a distance, that
+there was any place to land, so closely do the precipitous slopes of the
+mountains seem to shut the water in. But on drawing near the shore, you
+see that there is a pretty broad belt of land along the shore, which,
+though it ascends rapidly, is not too steep to be cultivated. This belt
+of land is covered with villages, hamlets, vineyards, orchards, and
+gardens, and it forms a most enchanting series of landscapes, from
+whatever point it is seen, while the more precipitous slopes of the
+mountains, towering above in grandeur and sublimity, complete the
+enchantment of the view.
+
+The Castle of Chillon stands on the very margin of the lake, just in the
+edge of the water. Indeed, the foundations on which it stands form a
+little island, which is separated by a narrow channel from the shore.
+This channel is crossed by a drawbridge. It is possible, however, that
+it may be in some measure artificial. The island may have originally
+been a small rocky point, and it may have been made an island by the
+cutting of a ditch between it and the main land.
+
+The steamer passed along the shore, very near to this castle, in going
+to the head of the lake, as you see represented in the engraving.[F]
+There is no steamboat landing at the castle itself, but there is one at
+the village of Montreux, a little before you come to it, and another at
+Villeneuve, a little beyond. Numbers of tourists come in every steamer
+to visit the castle, and stop for this purpose at one of these landings
+or the other. The distance is only twenty minutes' brisk walking from
+either of them.
+
+[Footnote F: See Frontispiece.]
+
+Villeneuve, the last landing mentioned above, is at the very extremity
+of the lake. We see it in the distance in the engraving. Here travellers
+who are going to continue their journey up the valley of the Rhone,
+either for the purpose of penetrating into the heart of Switzerland, or
+of going by the pass of the Simplon into Italy, leave the boat and take
+the diligence to continue their journey by land, or else engage a
+private carriage, and also a guide, if they wish for one. Mr. Holiday
+did not intend at this time to go on far up the valley, but he purposed
+to stop a day or two at Villeneuve, to visit Chillon, and perhaps make
+some other excursions, and also to enjoy the views presented there, on
+all sides, of the slopes and summits of the surrounding mountains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+VILLENEUVE.
+
+
+At Villeneuve, a pretty long, though small and very neatly made pier
+projects out from the shore, for the landing of passengers from the
+steamer.
+
+Exactly opposite this pier, and facing the water, stands the inn. It is
+placed very nearly on a level with the water. This can always be the
+case with buildings standing on the margin of a lake, for a lake not
+being subject to tides or inundations, all buildings, whether houses,
+bridges, or piers, may be built very near the water, without any danger
+of being overflowed.
+
+Before the inn is an open space, extending between it and the shore; so
+that from the front windows of the inn you can look down first upon this
+open space, and beyond, upon the margin of the lake and upon the pier,
+with the steamer lying at the landing-place at the head of it.
+
+The sides of this square, Rollo observed, were formed of the ends of two
+buildings which stood on the shore, and along this space were wooden
+benches, which were filled, when the steamer arrived, with guides,
+postilions, voituriers, and other people of that class, waiting to be
+engaged by the travellers that should come in her.
+
+There were also two or three omnibuses and diligences waiting to receive
+such persons as were intending to travel by the public conveyances. One
+of these omnibuses belonged to a large hotel and boarding house which
+stands on the shore of the lake, not far from Villeneuve, between it and
+the Castle of Chillon. You can see this hotel in the engraving. It is
+the large building in the middle distance, standing back a little from
+the lake, and to the left of the castle. This hotel is beautifully
+situated in a commanding position on the shores of the lake, and is a
+great place of resort for English families in the summer season.
+
+The travellers that landed from the steamer at Villeneuve soon
+separated, after arriving at the open square before the inn. Some took
+their seats in the diligences that were standing there; some got into
+the omnibuses to go to the hotel; some engaged voituriers from among the
+number that were waiting there to be so employed, and, entering the
+carriages, they drove away; while a party of students, with knapsacks on
+their backs and pikestaves in their hands, set off on foot up the
+valley. Mr. Holiday and his party, not intending to proceed any farther
+that night, went directly to the inn.
+
+They went first into the dining room. The dining room in the Swiss inns
+is usually the only public room, and travellers on entering the inn
+generally go directly there.
+
+The dining room was very plain and simple in all its arrangements. There
+was no carpet on the floor, and the woodwork was unpainted. There were
+two windows in front, which looked out upon the lake. Directly beneath
+the windows was the road, and the open space, already described, between
+the hotel and the pier.
+
+There was a boy with a knapsack on his back standing by the window,
+looking out. Rollo went to the window, and began to look out too.
+
+"Do you speak English?" said Rollo to the boy.
+
+"_Nein_," said the boy, shaking his head.
+
+_Nein_ is the German word for _no_. This Rollo knew very well, and so he
+inferred that the boy was a German. He, however, thought it possible
+that he might speak French, and so he asked again,--
+
+"Do you speak French?"
+
+"Very little," said the boy, answering now in the French language. "I am
+studying it at school. I am at school at Berne, and my class is making
+an excursion to Geneva."
+
+"Do you travel on foot?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said the boy; "unless there is a steamboat, and then we go in the
+steamboat."
+
+"And I suppose you are going to take the steamboat here to-morrow
+morning to go to Geneva."
+
+"No," said the boy; "we are going to see Chillon to-night, and then we
+are going along the shore of the lake beyond, to Montreux, and take the
+boat there to-morrow morning."
+
+It was quite amusing to Rollo to talk thus with a strange boy in a
+language which both had learned at school, and which neither of them
+could speak well, but which was, nevertheless, the only language they
+had in common.
+
+"How many boys are there in your class?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Sixteen," said the boy; "sixteen--six." The boy then held up the five
+fingers of one hand, and one of the other, to show to Rollo that six was
+the number he meant. The words six and sixteen are very similar in the
+French language, and for a moment the boy confounded them.
+
+"And the teacher too, I suppose," said Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said the boy, "and the teacher."
+
+Here there was a short pause.
+
+"Are you going to Chillon?" said the boy to Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Rollo. "I am going with my father and mother."
+
+"I wish you were going with us," said the boy.
+
+"I wish so too," said Rollo; "I mean to ask my father to let me."
+
+During this time Mr. Holiday had been making an arrangement with the
+maid of the inn for two bedrooms, one for himself and his wife, and the
+other for Rollo; and the maid was now just going to show the party the
+way to their rooms. So Rollo went with his father, and after seeing that
+all their effects were put in the rooms, he informed his father that he
+had made acquaintance with a young German schoolboy who was going with
+his class and the teacher to visit Chillon; and he asked his father's
+consent that he might go with them.
+
+"I can walk there with them," said Rollo, "and wait there till you and
+mother come."
+
+"Does the boy speak English?" asked Mr. Holiday.
+
+"No, sir," said Rollo; "but he can speak French a little. He speaks it
+just about as well as I can, and we can get along together very well."
+
+"Is the teacher willing that you should go?" asked Mr. Holiday.
+
+"I don't know," said Rollo; "we have not asked him yet."
+
+"Then the first thing is to ask him," said Mr. Holiday. "Let your friend
+ask the teacher if he is willing to have another boy invited to go with
+his party; and if he is willing, you may go. If you get to Chillon
+first, you may go about the castle with the boys, and then wait at the
+castle gates till we come."
+
+"How soon shall you come?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Very soon," said Mr. Holiday. "I have ordered the carriage already, and
+we shall perhaps get there as soon as you do."
+
+So Rollo went down stairs again to his friend, the German boy.
+
+"Do you think," said Rollo, "that the teacher would be willing to have
+me go with you?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy, "I am sure he will. He is always very glad to have
+us meet with an opportunity to speak French. Besides, there are some
+boys in the school who are learning English, and he would like to have
+you talk a little with them."
+
+"Go and ask him," said Rollo.
+
+So the boy went off to ask the teacher. He met him on the stairs, coming
+down with the rest of the boys. The teacher was very much pleased with
+the plan of having an American boy invited to join the party, and so it
+was settled that Rollo was to go.
+
+The boys all went down stairs, and rendezvoused at the door of the inn.
+Most of the omnibuses and diligences had gone. The boys of the school
+all accosted Rollo in a very cordial manner; and the teacher shook hands
+with him, and said that he was very glad to have him join their party.
+The teacher spoke to him in French. There were two other boys who tried
+to speak to him in English. They succeeded pretty well, but they could
+not speak very fluently, and they made several mistakes. But Rollo was
+very careful not to laugh at their mistakes, and they did not laugh at
+those which he made in talking French; and so they all got along very
+well together.
+
+Thus they set out on the road which led along the shore of the lake
+towards the Castle of Chillon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE CASTLE OF CHILLON.
+
+
+The party of boys walked along the road very pleasantly together, each
+one with his knapsack on his back and his pikestaff in his hand. Rollo
+talked with them by the way--with some in English, and with others in
+French; but inasmuch as it happened that whichever language was used,
+one or the other of the parties to the conversation was very imperfectly
+acquainted with it, the conversation was necessarily carried on by means
+of very short and simple sentences, and the meaning was often helped out
+by signs, and gestures, and curious pantomime of all sorts, with an
+accompaniment, of course, of continual peals of laughter.
+
+Rollo, however, learned a good deal about the boys, and about the
+arrangements they made for travelling, and also learned a great many
+particulars in respect to the adventures they had met with in coming
+over the mountains.
+
+Rollo learned, for example, that every boy had a fishing line in his
+knapsack, and that when they got tired of walking, and wished to stop to
+rest, if there was a good place, they stopped and fished a little while
+in a mountain stream or a lake.
+
+Another thing they did was to watch for butterflies, in order to catch
+any new species that they might find, to add to the teacher's cabinet of
+natural history. For this purpose one of the boys had a gauze net on the
+end of a long but light handle; and when a butterfly came in sight that
+seemed at all curious or new, one of the boys set off with the rest to
+catch him. If the specimen was found valuable, it was preserved. The
+specimens thus kept were secured with a pin in the bottom of a broad,
+but flat and very light box, which one of the older boys carried with
+his knapsack. The boy opened this box, and showed Rollo the butterflies
+which they had taken. They had quite a pretty collection. There were
+several that Rollo did not recollect ever to have seen before.
+
+Talking in this way, they went on till they came to the part of the road
+which was opposite to the Hotel Byron. The hotel was on an eminence
+above the road, and back from the lake. Broad gravelled avenues led up
+to it. There were also winding walks, and seats under the trees, and
+terraces, and gardens, and parties of ladies and gentlemen walking
+about, and children playing here and there, under the charge of their
+nurses.
+
+The boys gave only a passing glance at these things as they went by.
+They were much more interested in gazing up from time to time at the
+stupendous cliffs and precipices which they saw crowning the mountain
+ranges which seemed to border the road; and on the other side, in
+looking out far over the water of the lake at the sail boats, or the
+steamer, or the little row boats which they beheld in the offing.
+
+The road went winding on, following the little indentations of the
+shore, till at length it reached the castle. It passed close under the
+castle walls, or, rather, close along the margin of the ditch which
+separated the foundations of the castle from the main land. There was a
+bridge across this ditch. This bridge was enclosed, and a little room
+was built upon it, with windows and a door. The outer door was, of
+course, towards the road, and it was open when the boys arrived at the
+place.
+
+The teacher led the way in by this door, and the boys followed him.
+There was a man there, dressed in the uniform of a soldier. He was a
+sort of sentinel, to keep the door of the castle. He had a table on one
+side, with various engravings spread out upon it, representing
+different views of the castle, both of the interior and of the exterior.
+There were also little books of description, giving an account of the
+castle and of its history, and copies of Byron's poem, the Prisoner of
+Chillon. All these things were for sale to the visitors who should come
+to see the castle.
+
+The engravings were kept from being blown away by the wind by means of
+little stone paper weights made of rounded pebble stones, about as large
+as the palm of the hand, with views of the castle and of the surrounding
+scenery painted on them. The paper weights were for sale too.
+
+The boys looked at these things a moment, but did not seem to pay much
+attention to them. They walked on, following their teacher, to the end
+of the bridge room, where they came to the great castle gates. These
+were open, too, and they went in. They found themselves in a paved
+courtyard, with towers, and battlements, and lofty walls all around
+them. There was a man there, waiting to receive them in charge, and show
+them into the dungeons.
+
+He led the way through a door, and thence down a flight of stone steps
+to a series of subterranean chambers, which were very dimly lighted by
+little windows opening towards the lake. The back sides of the rooms
+consisted of the living rock; the front sides were formed of the castle
+wall that bordered the lake.
+
+"Here is the room," said the guide, "where the prisoners who were
+condemned to death in the castle in former times spent the last night
+before their execution. That stone was the bed where they had to lie."
+
+So saying, the guide pointed to a broad, smooth, and sloping surface of
+rock, which was formed by the ledge on the back side of the dungeon. The
+stone was part of the solid ledge, and was surrounded with ragged crags,
+just as they had been left by the excavators in making the dungeon; but
+whether the smooth and sloping surface of this particular portion of the
+rock was natural or artificial, that is, whether it had been expressly
+made so to form a bed for the poor condemned criminal, or whether the
+rock had accidentally broken into that form by means of some natural
+fissure, and so had been appropriated by the governor of the castle to
+that use, the boys could not determine.
+
+The guide led the boys a little farther on, to a place where there was a
+dark recess, and pointing up towards the ceiling, he said,--
+
+"There is where the criminals were hung. Up where I point there is a
+beam built into the rock; and from that the rope was suspended."
+
+The boys all crowded round the spot, and looked eagerly up, but they
+could not see any beam.
+
+"You cannot see it," said the guide, "now, because you have just come
+out from the light of day. We shall come back this way pretty soon, and
+then you will be able to see it; for your eyes will then get accustomed
+a little to the darkness of the dungeon."
+
+So the guide went on, and the boys followed him.
+
+They next came into a very large apartment. The front side and the back
+side of it were both curved. The back side consisted of the living rock.
+The front side was formed of the outer castle wall, which was built on
+the rock at the very margin of the water. In the centre was a range of
+seven massive stone columns, placed there to support the arches on which
+rested the floor of the principal story of the castle above. The roof of
+this dungeon of course was vaulted, the arches and groins being carried
+over from this range of central pillars towards the wall in front, and
+towards the solid rock behind. All this you will plainly see represented
+in the engraving.
+
+[Illustration: THE DUNGEON IN THE CASTLE OF CHILLON.]
+
+This great dungeon was lighted by means of very small loopholes cut in
+the wall, high up from the floor. The light from these windows,
+instead of coming _down_, and shining upon the floor, seemed to go _up_,
+and to lose itself in a faint attempt to illuminate the vaulted roof
+above. The reason was, that at the particular hour when the boys made
+their visit, the beams of the sun which shone directly from it in the
+sky were excluded, and only those that were reflected upward from the
+waters of the lake could come in.
+
+The guide led the boys to one of the central pillars, and pointed to an
+iron ring which was built into the stone. He told them that there was
+the place where one prisoner was confined in the dungeon for six years.
+He was chained to that ring by a short chain, which enabled him only to
+walk to and fro a few steps each way about the pillar. These steps had
+worn a place in the rock.
+
+After the boys had looked at this pillar, and at the iron ring, and at
+the place worn in the floor by the footsteps of the prisoner, as long as
+they wished, they followed the guide on to the end of the dungeon, where
+they were stopped by the solid rock. Here the guide brought them to a
+dark and gloomy place in a corner, where, by standing a little back,
+they could see all the pillars in a row; and he said that if they would
+count them they would find that there were exactly seven. The boys did
+so, and they found that there were seven; but they did not understand
+why the number was of any importance. But the teacher explained it to
+them. He said that Byron had mentioned seven as the number of the
+pillars in his poem, and that most people who had read the poem were
+pleased to observe the correspondence between his description and the
+reality.
+
+The teacher quoted the lines. They were these:--
+
+     "In Chillon's dungeons, deep and old,
+     There are seven columns, massy and gray,
+     Dim with a dull, imprisoned ray--
+     A sunbeam that hath lost its way,
+     And through the crevice and the cleft
+     Of the thick wall is fallen and left
+     Creeping o'er the floor so damp,
+     Like a marsh's meteor lamp."
+
+In repeating these lines, the teacher spoke in a strong foreign accent.
+All the boys listened attentively while he spoke, though of course only
+Rollo and those of the boys who had studied English could understand
+him.
+
+After this the boys came back through the whole range of dungeons, by
+the same way that they had come in. They could now see the beam from
+which the condemned criminals were hung. It passed across from rock to
+rock, high above their heads, in a dark and gloomy place, and seemed
+perfectly black with age.
+
+When the party came out of the dungeons, a young woman took them in
+charge, to show them the apartments above. She conducted them up a broad
+flight of stone stairs to a massive doorway, which led to the principal
+story of the castle. Here the boys passed through one after another of
+several large halls, which were formerly used for various purposes when
+the castle was inhabited, but are employed now for the storage of brass
+cannons, and of ammunition belonging to the Swiss government. When the
+castle was built, the country in which it stands belonged to a
+neighboring state, called Savoy; and it was the Duke of Savoy, who was a
+sort of king, that built it, and it was he that confined the prisoners
+in it so cruelly. Many of them were confined there on account of being
+accused of conspiring against his government. At length, however, the
+war broke out between Switzerland and Savoy, and the Swiss were
+victorious. They besieged this castle by an army on the land and by a
+fleet of galleys on the lake, and in due time they took it. They let all
+the prisoners which they found confined there go free, and since then
+they have used the castle as a place of storage for arms and ammunition.
+
+One of the halls which the boys went into, the guide said, used to be a
+senate house, and another was the court room where the prisoners were
+tried. There was a staircase which led from the court room down to the
+dungeon below, where the great black beam was, from which they were to
+be hung.
+
+The boys, however, did not pay a great deal of attention to what the
+guide said about the former uses of these rooms. They seemed to be much
+more interested in the purposes that they were now serving, and so went
+about examining very eagerly the great brass cannons and the ammunition
+wagons that stood in them.
+
+At length, however, they came to something which specially attracted
+their attention. It was a small room, which the guide said was an
+ancient torturing room. There was a large wooden post in the centre of
+the room, extending from the floor to the vault above. The post was worn
+and blackened by time and decay, and there were various hooks, and
+staples, and pulleys attached to it at different heights, which the
+guide said were used for securing the prisoners to the post, when they
+were to be tortured. The post itself was burned in many places, as if by
+hot irons.
+
+The boys saw another place in a room beyond, which was in some respects
+still more dreadful than this. It was a place where there was an
+opening in the floor, near the wall of the room, that looked like a trap
+door. There was the beginning of a stone stair leading down. A small
+railing was built round the opening, as if to keep people from falling
+in. The boys all crowded round the railing, and looked down.
+
+They saw that the stair only went down three steps, and then it came to
+a sudden end, and all below was a dark and dismal pit, which seemed
+bottomless. On looking more intently, however, they could at length see
+a glimmer of light, and hear the rippling of the waves of the lake, at a
+great depth below. The guide said that this was one of the _oubliettes_,
+that is, a place where men could be destroyed secretly, and in such a
+manner that no one should ever know what became of them. They were
+conducted to this door, and directed to go down. It was dark, so that
+they could only see the first steps of the stair. They would suppose,
+however, that the stair was continued, and that it would lead them down
+to some room, where they were to go. So they would walk on carefully,
+feeling for the steps of the stair; but after the third there would be
+no more, and they would fall down to a great depth on ragged rocks, and
+be killed. To make it certain that they would be killed by the fall,
+there were sharp blades, like the ends of scythes, fixed in the rock,
+far below, to cut them in pieces as they fell.
+
+It seems these tyrants, hateful and merciless as they were, did not
+wish, or perhaps did not dare, to destroy the souls as well as the
+bodies of their victims, and so they contrived it that the last act
+which the poor wretch should perform before going down into this
+dreadful pit should be an act of devotion. To this end there was made a
+little niche in the wall, just over the trap door, and there was placed
+there an image of the Virgin Mary, who is worshipped in Catholic
+countries as divine. The prisoner was invited to kiss this image as he
+passed by, just as he began to descend the stair. Thus the very last
+moment of his life would be spent in performing an act of devotion, and
+thus, as they supposed, his soul would be saved. What a strange
+combination is this of superstition and tyranny!
+
+After seeing all these things, the boys returned towards the entrance of
+the castle. They met several parties of ladies and gentlemen coming in;
+and just as they got to the door again, the carriage containing Mr. and
+Mrs. Holiday drove up. So Rollo bade the teacher and all the boys good
+by, after accompanying them a few minutes, as they walked along the road
+towards the place where they were to go. By this time his father and
+mother had descended from their carriage, and were ready to go in. So
+Rollo joined them, and went through the castle again, and saw all the
+places a second time.
+
+When they came out, and were getting into the carriage, Mr. Holiday said
+that it was a very interesting place.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "and we have seen all that Byron speaks of in
+his poem, except the little island. Where is the little island?"
+
+Mr. Holiday pointed out over the water of the lake, where a group of
+three tall trees seemed to be growing directly out of the water, only
+that there was a little wall around them below. They looked like three
+flowers growing in a flower pot set in the water.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday, "that must certainly be it. It corresponds
+exactly." So she repeated the following lines from Byron's poem, which
+describes the island in the language of one of the prisoners, who saw it
+from his dungeon window,
+
+     "And then there was a little isle,
+     Which in my very face did smile--
+       The only one in view;
+     A small green isle, it seemed no more,
+     Scarce broader than my dungeon floor;
+     But in it there were three tall trees,
+     And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
+     And by it there were waters flowing,
+     And on it there were young flowers growing,
+       Of gentle breath and hue."
+
+"That's pretty poetry," said Rollo.
+
+"Very pretty indeed," said his father.
+
+The horse now began to trot along the road. The little island continued
+in view for a while, and then disappeared, and afterwards came into view
+again, as the road went turning and winding around, following the
+indentations of the shore.
+
+At length, after a short but very pleasant ride, the party arrived
+safely at the inn again at Villeneuve.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PLAN FORMED.
+
+
+The reason why the Lake of Geneva is of a crescent form is, that that is
+the shape of the space in the bottom of the valley which it fills. There
+are two ranges of mountains running in a curved direction almost
+parallel to each other, and the space between them, for a certain
+distance, is filled with water, owing to the spreading out of the waters
+of the Rhone in flowing through. Thus the lake is produced by the
+valley, and takes its form from it.
+
+The valley does not come to an end when you reach the head of the lake,
+but continues for more than a hundred miles beyond, the two mountain
+ranges continuing to border it all that distance, and the River Rhone to
+flow through the centre of it. Thus at Villeneuve you look in one
+direction, and you have a winding valley filled with water, extending
+for fifty miles, to Geneva; while in the other direction, the same
+valley--though now the floor of it is a green and fertile
+plain--continues, with the same stupendous walls of mountain bordering
+the sides of it, for a hundred miles or more, to the sources of the
+Rhone.
+
+There is another thing that is very curious in respect to this valley,
+and that is, that the floor of it is as flat, and smooth, and level,
+almost, where it is formed of land, as where it is formed of water.
+
+Geologists suppose that the reason why the bottom of the valley, when it
+consists of land, is so perfectly level, is because the land has been
+formed by deposits from the river, in the course of a long succession of
+ages. Of course the river could never build the land any higher, in any
+part, than it rises itself in the highest inundations. Indeed, land
+formed by river deposits is almost always nearly level, and the surface
+of it is but little raised above the ordinary level of the stream, and
+never above that of the highest inundations.
+
+It must, however, by no means be supposed that because the surface of
+the valley above the head of the lake is flat and level, that it is on
+that account monotonous and uninteresting. Indeed, it is quite the
+reverse. It forms one of the richest and most enchanting landscapes that
+can be conceived. It is abundantly shaded with trees, some planted in
+avenues along the roadside, some bearing fruit in orchards and gardens,
+and some standing in picturesque groups about the houses, or in pretty
+groves by the margin of the fields. The land is laid out in a very
+charming manner, in gardens, orchards, meadows, and fields of corn and
+grain, with no fences to separate them either from each other or from
+the road; so that in walking along the public highway you seem to walk
+in one of the broad alleys of an immense and most beautiful garden.
+
+Besides all these beauties of the scene itself, the pleasure of walking
+through it is greatly increased by the number and variety of groups and
+figures of peasant girls and boys, and women and men, that you meet
+coming along the road, or see working in the fields, all dressed in the
+pretty Swiss costume, and each performing some curious operation, which
+is either in itself, or in the manner of performing it, entirely
+different from what is seen in any other land.
+
+Rollo followed the main road leading up the valley a little way one
+evening, while his father and mother were at Villeneuve, in order, as he
+said, to see where the diligences went to. He was so much pleased with
+what he saw that he went back to the hotel, and began studying the guide
+book, in order to find how far it was to the next town, and what
+objects of interest there were to be seen on the way. He was so well
+satisfied with the result of his investigations that he resolved to
+propose to his father and mother to make a pedestrian excursion up the
+valley.
+
+"Now, mother," said he, "I have a plan to propose, and that is, that we
+all set out to-morrow morning, and make a pedestrian excursion up the
+valley, to the next town, or the next town but one."
+
+"How far is it?" asked Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"Why, the best place to go to," said Rollo, "is Aigle, which is the
+second town, and that is only six miles from here."
+
+"O Rollo!" said Mrs. Holiday; "I could not possibly walk six miles."
+
+"O, yes, mother," said Rollo. "The road is as smooth, and level, and
+hard as a floor. Besides, you said that you meant to make a pedestrian
+excursion somewhere while you were in Switzerland, and there could not
+be a better place than this."
+
+"I know I said so," replied Mrs. Holiday, "but I was not really in
+earnest. Besides, I don't think I could possibly walk six miles. But we
+will take a carriage and ride there, if your father is willing."
+
+"But, mother, it is not so pleasant to ride You can't see so well, for
+the top of the carriage, or else the driver on his high seat before,
+will be more or less in the way. Then when you are walking you can stop
+so easily any minute, and look around. But if you are in a carriage, it
+makes a fuss and trouble to be calling continually upon the coachman to
+stop; and then, besides, half of the time, before he gets the carriage
+stopped you have got by the place you wanted to see."
+
+What Rollo said is very true. We can see a country containing a series
+of fine landscapes much more thoroughly by walking through it, or riding
+on horseback, than by going in a carriage. I do not think, however,
+that, after all, this advantage constituted the real inducement in
+Rollo's mind which made him so desirous of walking to Aigle. The truth
+was, that the little walk which he had taken to Chillon with the party
+of pedestrian boys had quite filled his imagination with the pleasures
+and the independent dignity of this mode of travelling, and he was very
+ambitious of making an experiment of it himself.
+
+"And, mother," continued Rollo, "after all, it is only about two hours
+and a half or three hours, at two or three miles an hour. Now, you are
+often gone as much as that, making calls; and when you are making calls
+you generally go, I am sure, as much as two or three miles an hour."
+
+"But I generally ride, making calls," said Mrs. Holiday.
+
+"Yes, mother, but sometimes you walk; and I think when you walk you are
+often gone more than three hours."
+
+"That is true," said Mrs. Holiday, "I admit; but then, you know, when I
+am making calls I am resting a great deal of the time at the houses
+where I call."
+
+"I know that," said Rollo; "and so we will rest, sitting down by the
+road side."
+
+Mrs. Holiday admitted that Rollo had rather the best of the argument;
+but she was still quite unwilling to believe that she could really walk
+six miles.
+
+"And back again, too," she added. "You must consider that we shall have
+to come back again."
+
+"Ah, but I don't wish to have you walk back again," said Rollo. "We will
+come back by the diligence. There are several diligences and omnibuses
+that come by Aigle, on the way here, in the course of the day."
+
+Mrs. Holiday was still undecided. She was very desirous of gratifying
+Rollo, but yet she had not courage to undertake quite so great a feat
+as to walk six miles. At length Mr. Holiday proposed that they should at
+least set out and go a little way.
+
+"We can try it for half an hour," said he, "and then go on or turn back,
+just as we feel inclined. Or if we go on several miles, and then get
+tired, we shall soon come to a village, where we shall be able to get
+some sort of vehicle or other to bring us back; and at all events we
+shall have an adventure."
+
+Mrs. Holiday consented to this plan, and it was settled that the party
+should breakfast at eight o'clock the next morning, and set out
+immediately afterwards.
+
+Rollo had a sort of haversack which he used to carry sometimes on his
+walks, and he always kept it with him in the steamboat or carriage, when
+he travelled in those conveyances. This haversack he got ready,
+supplying it with all that he thought would be required for the
+excursion. He put in it his drinking cup,--the one which he had bought
+in Scotland,--a little spy glass, which he used for viewing the scenery,
+a book that his mother was reading, a little portfolio containing some
+drawing paper and a pencil, a guide book and map, and, lastly, a paper
+of small cakes and sugar plums, to give to any children that he might
+chance to meet on the way.
+
+Rollo made all these preparations the evening before, so that every
+thing might be ready in the morning, when the hour for setting out
+should arrive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WALK TO AIGLE.
+
+
+"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, as the party sallied forth from the inn
+to commence their walk up the valley, "we depend entirely on you. This
+is your excursion, and we expect you will take care and see that every
+thing goes right."
+
+"Well, sir," said Rollo. "Come with me. I'll show you the way."
+
+On the borders of the village they passed to a high stone bridge which
+crossed a small stream. This stream came in a slow and meandering course
+through the meadows, and here emptied into the lake. Farther back it was
+a torrent leaping from rock to rock and crag to crag, for many thousand
+feet down the mountain side; but here it flowed so gently, and lay so
+quietly in its bed, that pond lilies grew and bloomed in its waters.
+
+Just above the bridge there was a square enclosure in the margin of the
+water, with a solid stone wall all around it. A man stood on the wall
+with a net in his hand. The net was attached to a pole. The man was just
+dipping the net into the water when Rollo, with his father and mother,
+came upon the bridge.
+
+"Let us stop a minute, and see what that man is going to do," said
+Rollo. "I saw that square wall yesterday, and I could not imagine what
+it was for."
+
+The man put his net down to the bottom of the reservoir, and after
+drawing it along on the bottom, he took it out again. There was nothing
+in it. He then repeated the operation, and this time he brought up two
+large fishes that looked like trout. They were both more than a foot
+long.
+
+The man uttered a slight exclamation of satisfaction, and then lifting
+the net over the wall, he let the fish fall into a basket which he had
+placed outside. He then went away, carrying the basket with one hand,
+and the net on his shoulder with the other.
+
+"That's a very curious plan," said Rollo. "I suppose they catch the fish
+in the lake, and then put them in that pen and keep them there till they
+are ready to eat them."
+
+So they walked on.
+
+Presently Rollo saw some of the pond lilies growing in the stream, the
+course of which was here, for a short distance, near the road.
+
+"I wish very much, mother," said he, "that I could get one of those pond
+lilies for you, but I cannot. I tried yesterday, but they are too far
+from the shore, and it is so finished, and smooth, and nice about here
+that there is no such thing as a pole or a stick to be found any where
+to reach with."
+
+Presently, however, Rollo came to a boy who was fishing on the bank of
+the stream, and he asked him if he would be good enough to hook in one
+of those lilies for him with his pole and line. The boy was very willing
+to do it. He threw a loop of his line over one of the pond lilies, and
+drew it in. Rollo thanked the boy for his kindness, and gave the pond
+lily to his mother.
+
+Perhaps there are no flowers that give a higher pleasure to the
+possessors than those which a boy of Rollo's age gathers for his mother.
+
+The party walked on. Mrs. Holiday's attention was soon strongly
+attracted to the various groups of peasants which she saw working in the
+fields, or walking along the road. First came a young girl, with a
+broad-brimmed straw hat on her head, driving a donkey cart loaded with
+sheaves of grain. Next an old and decrepit-looking woman, with a great
+bundle of sticks on her head. It seemed impossible that she could carry
+so great a load in such a manner. As our party went by, she turned her
+head slowly round a little way, to look at them; and it was curious to
+see the great bundle of sticks--which was two feet in diameter, and four
+or five feet long--slowly turn round with her head, and then slowly turn
+back again as she went on her way.
+
+Next Mrs. Holiday paused a moment to look at some girls who were hoeing
+in the field. The girls looked smilingly upon the strangers, and bade
+them good morning.
+
+"Ask them," said Mrs. Holiday to Rollo, "if their work is not very
+hard."
+
+So Rollo asked them the question. Mrs. Holiday requested him to do it
+because she did not speak French very well, and so she did not like to
+try.
+
+The girls said that the work was not hard at all. They laughed, and went
+on working faster than ever.
+
+Next they came to a poor wayfaring woman, who was sitting by the
+roadside with an infant in her arms. Rollo immediately took out one of
+the little cakes from the parcel in his knapsack, and handed it to the
+child. The mother seemed very much pleased. She bowed to Rollo, and
+said,--
+
+"She thanks you infinitely, sir."
+
+Thus they went on for about three quarters of an hour. During all this
+time Mrs. Holiday's attention was so much taken up with what she
+saw,--sometimes with the groups of peasants and the pretty little views
+of gardens, cottages, and fields which attracted her notice by the road
+side, ever and anon by the glimpses which she obtained of the stupendous
+mountain ranges that bordered the valley on either hand, and that were
+continually presenting their towering crags and dizzy precipices to view
+through the opening of the trees on the plain,--that she had not time to
+think of being fatigued. At length Rollo asked her how she liked the
+walk.
+
+"Very well," said she; "only I think now I have walked full as far as I
+should ever have to go at home, when making calls, before coming to the
+first house. So as soon as you can you may find me a place to sit down
+and rest a little while."
+
+"Well," said Rollo, "I see a grove of trees by the roadside, on ahead a
+little way. When we get there we will sit down in the shade and rest."
+
+So they went on till they came to the grove. The grove proved to be a
+very pretty one, though it consisted of only four or five trees; but
+unfortunately there was no place to sit down in it. Rollo looked about
+for some time in vain, and seemed quite disappointed.
+
+"Never mind," said his mother; "sometimes, when I make a call, I find
+that the lady I have called to see is not at home; and then, even if I
+am tired and want to rest, I have to go on to the next house. We will
+suppose that at this place the lady is not at home."
+
+Rollo laughed and walked on. It was not long before they reached a place
+where there was a kind of granary, or some other farm building of that
+sort, near the road, with a little yard where some logs were lying.
+Rollo found excellent seats for his father and mother on these logs.
+They sat on one of them, and leaned their backs against another that was
+a little higher up. They were in the shade of the building, too, so that
+the place was very cool.
+
+"This is a very nice place to rest," said Mrs. Holiday; "and while we
+are sitting, we can amuse ourselves in looking at the people that go
+by."
+
+The first person that came was a pretty-looking peasant girl of about
+seventeen, who had a tub upon her head. What was in the tub Rollo could
+not see. With such a burden on her head, however, it is plain that the
+girl could not wear her hat in the ordinary manner, and so she carried
+it tied to the back of her neck, with its broad brim covering her
+shoulders. This, Mr. Holiday said, seemed to him to be carrying the
+modern fashion of wearing the bonnet quite to an extreme.
+
+[Illustration: THE BASKET RIDE.]
+
+The Swiss women have other ways of bearing burdens, besides loading them
+upon their heads. They carry them upon their backs, sometimes, in
+baskets fitted to their shoulders. A woman came by, while Rollo and his
+father and mother were sitting upon the logs, with her child taking a
+ride in such a basket on her back. As soon as this woman was past,
+Rollo was so much struck with the comical appearance that the child
+made, sitting upright in the basket, and looking around, that he took
+out some paper and a pencil immediately from his portfolio, and asked
+his mother to make a drawing of the woman, with the child in the basket
+on her back. This Mrs. Holiday could easily do, even from the brief
+glimpse which she had of the woman as she went by; for the outlines of
+the figure and dress of the woman and of the basket and child were very
+simple. Mrs. Holiday afterwards put in some of the scenery for a
+background.
+
+When the drawing was finished, Rollo told his mother that he calculated
+that they had come one third of the way, and asked her if she felt
+tired; and she said she did not feel tired at all, and so they rose and
+went on.
+
+In a short time they came to a village. It consisted of a narrow street,
+with stone houses on each side of it. The houses were close together and
+close to the street. In one place several people were sitting out before
+the door, and among them was a poor, sickly child, such as are found
+very often in the low valleys of Switzerland, of the kind called
+_cretins_. These children are entirely helpless, and they have no
+reason, or at least very little. The one which Rollo saw was a girl,
+and appeared to be about ten years old; but it did not seem to have
+strength enough to sit up in its chair. It was continually lolling and
+falling about on this side and that, and trying to look up. The mother
+of the child sat by her, and kept her from falling out of the chair. She
+was talking, the mean while, with the neighbors, who were sitting there
+on a bench, knitting or sewing.
+
+The face of the child was deformed, and had scarcely a human expression.
+Both Rollo and his mother were much shocked at the spectacle.
+
+"It is a _cretin_--is it not?" said Mrs. Holiday to her husband, in a
+whisper, as soon as they had passed by.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Holiday.
+
+"Mother," said Rollo, "would you give that poor little thing a cake?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I would."
+
+"Do you think she will understand?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I think she will; and at any rate her mother
+will."
+
+Rollo had by this time taken out his cake. He went back with it to the
+place where the women were sitting, and held it out, half, as it were,
+to the mother, and half to the child, so that either of them might take
+it, saying, at the same time, to the mother, in French,--
+
+"For this poor little child."
+
+The mother smiled, and looked very much pleased. The cretin, whose eyes
+caught a glimpse of the cake, laughed, and began to try to reach out her
+hand to take it. It seemed hard for her to guide her hand to the place,
+and she fell over from side to side all the time while attempting to do
+so. She would have fallen entirely if her mother had not held her up. At
+length she succeeded in getting hold of the cake, which she carried
+directly to her mouth, and then laughed again with a laugh that seemed
+scarcely human, and was hideous to see.
+
+"Does she understand?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said the mother; "she understands, but she can't speak, poor
+thing. But she is very much obliged to you indeed."
+
+So Rollo bowed to the mother of the child, and to the other women, and
+then went on and rejoined his father and mother.
+
+They passed through the village, and then came into the open country
+again. Sometimes the mountains that bordered the valley receded to some
+distance; at other times they came very near; and there was one place
+where they formed a range of lofty precipices a thousand feet high, that
+seemed almost to overhang the road. Here Rollo stopped to look up. He
+saw, near a rounded mass of rock, half way up the mountain, two young
+eagles that had apparently just left their nest, and were trying to
+learn to fly. The old eagles were soaring around them, screaming. They
+seemed to be afraid that their young ones would fall down the rocks and
+get killed. Rollo wished that they would fall down, or at least fly
+down, to where he was, in order that he might catch one of them. But
+they did not. They took only short flights from rock to rock and from
+thicket to thicket, but they did not come down. So, after watching them
+for a time, Rollo went on.
+
+Next they came to a place where the valley took a turn so as to expose
+the mountain side to the sun in such a manner as to make a good place
+there for grapes to grow and ripen. The people had accordingly terraced
+the whole declivity by building walls, one above another, to support the
+earth for the vineyards; and when Rollo was going by the place he looked
+up and saw a man standing on the wall of one of the terraces, with the
+tool which he had been working with in his hand. He seemed suspended in
+mid air, and looked down on the road and on the people walking along it
+as a man would look down upon a street in London from the gallery under
+the dome of St. Paul's.
+
+"That's a pleasant place to work," said Rollo, "away up there, between
+the heavens and the earth."
+
+"Yes," said his mother; "and I should think that taking care of vines
+and gathering the grapes would be very pretty work to do."
+
+There was a little building on the corner of one of the terraces, which
+Mr. Holiday said was a watch tower. There were windows on all the sides
+of it.
+
+"When the grapes begin to ripen," said he, "there is a man stationed
+there to watch all the vineyards around, in order to prevent people from
+stealing the grapes."
+
+"I should think there would be danger of their stealing the grapes,"
+said Rollo.
+
+After going on a little way beyond this, they began to approach the town
+of Aigle. Mrs. Holiday was surprised that she could have come so far
+with so little fatigue. Rollo told her that it was because she had
+walked along so slowly.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Holiday; "and because there have been so many things to
+take up our attention by the way."
+
+When they arrived at the village they went directly to the inn. The inns
+in these country towns in Switzerland are the largest and most
+conspicuous looking buildings to be seen. Rollo went first, and led the
+way. He went directly to the dining room.
+
+The dining rooms in these inns, as I have already said, are the public
+rooms, where the company always go, whether they wish for any thing to
+eat or not. There is usually one large table, for dinner, in the centre
+of the room, and several smaller tables at the sides or at the windows,
+for breakfasts and luncheons, and also for small dinner parties of two
+or three. Besides these tables, there is often one with a pen and ink
+upon it for writing, and another for knapsacks and carpet bags; and
+there are sofas for the company to repose upon while the waiter is
+setting the table for them.
+
+Rollo accordingly led the way at once to the dining room of the inn, and
+conducted his mother to a sofa.
+
+"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, "order us a dinner."
+
+So Rollo went to the waiter, and after talking with him a little while,
+came back and said that he had ordered some fried trout, some veal
+cutlets, fried potatoes, an omelette, and some coffee.
+
+"And besides that," said Rollo, "he is going to give us some plums and
+some pears. This is a famous place for plums and pears."
+
+"And for grapes, too, in the season of them," said Mr. Holiday.
+
+This was very true. Indeed, on looking about the walls of the room, to
+see the maps and the pretty pictures of Swiss scenery that were there,
+Rollo found among the other things an advertisement of what was called
+the _grape cure_. It seems that eating ripe grapes was considered a cure
+for sickness in that country, and that people were accustomed to come to
+that very town of Aigle to procure them. There was no place in
+Switzerland, the advertisement said, where the grapes were richer and
+sweeter than there.
+
+The advertisement went on to say that the season for the grape cure was
+in September, October, and November; that there were a number of fine
+vineyards in the vicinity of the town which produced the most delicious
+grapes; and that these vineyards were placed at the disposal of the
+guests of the hotel at the rate of a franc a day for each person; so
+that for that sum they could have every day as many as they could eat;
+and this was to be their medicine, to make them well.
+
+Rollo read this advertisement aloud to his father and mother, with a
+tone of voice which indicated a very eager interest in it.
+
+"Father," said he, "I wish you would come here and try it. Perhaps it
+would make you well."
+
+The advertisement was in French, and Rollo translated it as he read it.
+He succeeded very well in rendering into English all that was said about
+the grapes, and the manner of taking them, and the terms for boarders at
+the hotel; but when he came to the names of the diseases that the grapes
+would cure, he was at a loss, as most of them were learned medical
+words, which he had never seen before. So he read off the names in
+French, and concluded by asking his father whether he did not think it
+was some of those things that was the matter with him.
+
+"Very likely," said his father.
+
+"Then, father," said Rollo, "I wish you would come here in October, and
+try the grape cure, and bring me too."
+
+"Very likely I may," said his father. "This is on the great road to
+Italy, and we may conclude to go to Italy this winter."
+
+Just at this time the door of the dining room opened, and a new party
+came in. It consisted of a gentleman and lady, who seemed to be a new
+married pair. They came in a carriage. Rollo looked out the window, and
+saw the carriage drive away from the door to go to the stable.
+
+The gentleman put his haversack and the lady's satchel and shawl down
+upon the table, and then took a seat with her upon another sofa which
+was in the room.
+
+The dinner which Rollo had ordered was soon ready, and they sat down to
+eat it with excellent appetites. While they were at dinner, Rollo
+inquired of the waiter what time the omnibus went to Villeneuve, and he
+learned that it did not go for some hours. So Mr. Holiday told his wife
+that she might either have a chamber, and lie down and rest herself
+during that time, or they might go out and take a walk.
+
+Mrs. Holiday said that she did not feel at all fatigued, and so she
+would like to go and take a walk.
+
+There was a castle on a rising ground just in the rear of the village,
+which had attracted her attention in coming into the town, and she was
+desirous of going to see it.
+
+So they all set off to go and see the castle. They found their way to it
+without any difficulty. It proved to be an ancient castle, built in the
+middle ages, but it was used now for a prison. The family of the jailer
+lived in it too. It looked old and gone to decay.
+
+When they entered the court yard, a woman looked up to the windows and
+called out _Julie!_ Presently a young girl answered to the call, and the
+woman told her that here were some people come to see the castle. So
+Julie came down and took them under her charge.
+
+The party spent half an hour in rambling over the castle. They went
+through all sorts of intricate passages, and up and down flights of
+stone stairs, steep, and narrow, and winding. They saw a number of
+dismal dungeons. Some were dark, so that the girl had to take a candle
+to light the way. The doors were old, and blackened by time, and they
+moved heavily on rusty hinges. The bolts, and bars, and locks were all
+rusted, too, so that it was very difficult to move them.
+
+The visitors did not see all the dungeons and cells, for some of them
+had prisoners in them then, and those doors Julie said she was not
+allowed to open, for fear that the prisoners should get away.
+
+After rambling about the old castle as much as they desired to do, and
+ascending to the tower to view the scenery, the party came down again,
+and returned to the inn.
+
+They found the dining room full of boys. These boys were sitting at a
+long table, eating a luncheon. They were the boys of a school. The
+teacher was at the head of the table. Rollo talked with some of the
+boys, for he found two or three that could talk French and English,
+though their English was not very good.
+
+In due time the omnibus came to the door, and then Rollo conducted his
+father and mother to it, and assisted them to get in. The sun was now
+nearly down, and the party had a delightful ride, in the cool air of the
+evening, back to Villeneuve.
+
+The next day they embarked on board the steamer, and returned to Geneva.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE JEWELRY.
+
+
+I have already said that Geneva is a very famous place for the
+manufacture of watches and jewelry, and that almost every person who
+goes there likes to buy some specimen of these manufactures as a
+souvenir of their visit.
+
+There is a great difference in ladies, in respect to the interest which
+they take in dress and ornaments. Some greatly undervalue them, some
+greatly overvalue them.
+
+Some ladies, especially such as are of a very conscientious and
+religious turn of mind, are apt to imagine that there is something wrong
+in itself in wearing ornaments or in taking pleasure in them. But we
+should remember that God himself has ornamented every thing in nature
+that has not power to ornament itself. Look at the flowers, the fruits,
+the birds, the fields, the butterflies, the insects; see how beautiful
+they all are made by _ornaments_ with which God has embellished them.
+
+God has not ornamented man, nor has he clothed him; but he has given him
+the powers and faculties necessary to clothe and ornament himself. He
+has provided him with the means, too, and with the means as much for the
+one as for the other. There are cotton and flax which he can procure
+from plants, and wool and fur from animals, for his clothing; and then
+there are gold and silver in the earth, and rubies, emeralds, and
+diamonds, for his ornaments; and if we are not to use them, what were
+they made for?
+
+They, therefore, seem to be in error who discard all ornaments, and
+think that to wear them or to take pleasure in them is wrong.
+
+But this, after all, is not the common failing. The danger is usually
+altogether the other way. A great many ladies overvalue ornaments. They
+seem to think of scarcely any thing else. They cannot have too many
+rings, pins, bracelets, and jewels. They spend _all_ their surplus money
+for these things, and even sometimes pinch themselves in comforts and
+necessaries, to add to their already abundant supplies. This excessive
+fondness for dress and articles for personal adornment is a mark of a
+weak mind. It is seen most strongly in savages, and in people of the
+lowest stages of refinement and cultivation. The opposite error, though
+far less common, is equally an error; and though it is not the mark of
+any weakness of the mind, it certainly denotes a degree of perversion in
+some of the workings of it.
+
+The morning after the return of our party to Geneva from their excursion
+along the lake, they made their arrangements for leaving Geneva finally
+on the following day.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Holiday to his wife, "Geneva is a famous place for
+ornaments and jewelry; and before we go, I think you had better go with
+me to some of the shops, and buy something of that kind, as a souvenir
+of your visit."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Holiday, "if you think it is best, we will. Only I
+don't think much of ornaments and jewelry."
+
+"I know you do not," said Mr. Holiday; "and that is the reason why I
+think you had better buy some here."
+
+Mrs. Holiday laughed. She thought it was rather a queer reason for
+wishing her to buy a thing--that she did not care much about it.
+
+Rollo was present during this conversation between his father and
+mother, and listened to it; and when, finally, it was decided that his
+mother should go to one or two of the shops in Geneva, to look at, and
+perhaps purchase, some of the ornaments and jewelry, he wished to go
+too.
+
+"Why?" said his mother; "do _you_ wish to buy any of those things?"
+
+Rollo said he did. He wished to buy some for presents.
+
+"Have you got any money?" asked his father.
+
+"Yes, sir, plenty," said Rollo.
+
+Rollo was a very good manager in respect to his finances, and always
+kept a good supply of cash on hand, laid up from his allowance, so as to
+be provided in case of any sudden emergency like this.
+
+So the party set out together, after breakfast, to look at the shops.
+They knew the shops where jewelry was kept for sale by the display of
+rings, pins, bracelets, and pretty little watches, that were put up at
+the windows. They went into several of them. The shops were not large,
+but the interior of them presented quite a peculiar aspect. There were
+no goods of any kind, except those in the windows, to be seen, nor were
+there even any shelves; but the three sides of the room were filled with
+little drawers, extending from the floor to the ceiling. These drawers
+were filled with jewelry of the richest and most costly description; and
+thus, though there was nothing to be seen at first view, the value of
+the merchandise ready to be displayed at a moment's notice was very
+great.
+
+In the centre of the room, in front of the drawers, were
+counters--usually two, one on each side; and sometimes there was a table
+besides. The table and the counters were elegantly made, of fine cabinet
+work, and before them were placed handsome chairs and sofas, nicely
+cushioned, so that the customers might sit at their ease, and examine
+the ornaments which the shopkeeper showed them. The counters were of the
+same height as the table, and there were drawers in them below, and also
+in the table, like those along the sides of the room.
+
+At the first shop where our party went in, two ladies, very showily
+dressed, were sitting at a table, looking at a great variety of pins,
+rings, and bracelets that the shopkeeper had placed before them. The
+articles were contained in little rosewood and mahogany trays, lined
+with velvet; and they looked very brilliant and beautiful as they lay,
+each in its own little velvet nest.
+
+The ladies looked up from the table, and gazed with a peculiar sort of
+stare, well known among fashionable people of a certain sort, upon Mrs.
+Holiday, as she came in. One of them put up a little eye glass to her
+eye, in order to see her more distinctly. Mr. and Mrs. Holiday, followed
+by Rollo, advanced and took their places on a sofa before one of the
+counters. The ladies then continued their conversation, apparently
+taking no notice of the new comers.
+
+One of the ladies was holding a bracelet in her hand. She had already
+two bracelets on each wrist, and ever so many rings on her fingers,
+besides a large brooch in her collar, and a double gold chain to her
+watch, with a great number of breloques and charms attached to it. She
+seemed to be considering whether she should buy the bracelet that she
+was holding in her hand or not.
+
+"It certainly is a beauty," said she.
+
+"Yes," said the other; "and if I were you, Almira, I would take it
+without hesitating a moment. You can afford it just as well as not."
+
+"It is so high!" said Almira, doubtingly, and holding up the bracelet,
+so as to see the light reflected from the surfaces of the precious
+stones.
+
+"I don't think it is high at all," said her friend; "that is, for such
+stones and such setting. A thousand francs, he says, and that is only
+two hundred dollars. That is nothing at all for so rich a husband as
+yours."
+
+"I know," said Almira; "but then he always makes such wry faces if I buy
+any thing that costs more than fifty or seventy-five dollars."
+
+[Illustration: SHOPPING AT GENEVA.]
+
+"I would not mind his wry faces at all," said her friend. "He does
+not mean any thing by them. Depend upon it, he is as proud to see you
+wear handsome things as any man, after he has once paid for them. Then,
+besides, perhaps the man will take something off from the thousand
+francs."
+
+"I will ask him," said Almira.
+
+So she called the shopman to her, and asked him in French whether he
+could not take eight hundred francs for the bracelet.
+
+She accosted him in French, for that is the language of Geneva; and the
+two ladies had talked very freely to each other in English, supposing
+that neither the shopkeeper nor the new party of customers would
+understand what they were saying. But it happened that the shopkeeper
+himself, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Holiday, understood English very well,
+and thus he knew the meaning of all that the ladies had been saying; and
+he was too well acquainted with human nature not to know that the end of
+such a consultation and deliberation as that would be the purchase of
+the bracelet, and was therefore not at all disposed to abate the price.
+
+"No, madam," said he, speaking in French, and in a very polite and
+obliging manner; "I cannot vary from the price I named at all. We are
+obliged to adopt the system of having only one price here. Besides,
+that bracelet could not possibly be afforded for less than a thousand
+francs. Earlier in the season we asked twelve hundred francs for it; and
+I assure you, madam, that it is a great bargain at a thousand."
+
+After looking at the bracelet a little longer, and holding it up again
+in different lights, and hearing her friend's solicitations that she
+would purchase it repeated in various forms, Almira finally concluded to
+take it.
+
+It may seem, at first view, that Almira's friend evinced a great deal of
+generosity in urging her thus to buy an ornament more rich and costly
+than she could hope to purchase for herself; but her secret motive was
+not a generous one at all. She wished to quote Almira's example to her
+own husband, as a justification for her having bought a richer piece of
+jewelry than he would otherwise have approved of.
+
+"Mine only cost eight hundred francs," she was going to say; "and cousin
+Almira bought one that cost a thousand."
+
+In this way she hoped to exhibit to her husband that which he might
+otherwise have regarded as foolish extravagance in the light of
+self-denial and prudent economy.
+
+In the mean time, while Almira and her friend had been making their
+purchases at the table, another shopman had been displaying a great
+many trays to Mrs. Holiday on one of the counters. The ornaments
+contained in these trays were by no means as costly as those which had
+been shown to the two ladies at the table; for Mrs. Holiday had said to
+the shopman, as she came in, that she wished to see only some simple
+pins and other ornaments worth from fifty to one hundred francs. They
+were, however, just as pretty in Mrs. Holiday's opinion. Indeed, the
+beauty of such ornaments as these seldom has any relation to the
+costliness of them. This, however, constitutes no reason, in the opinion
+of many ladies, why they should buy the less expensive ones; for with
+these ladies it is the costliness of an ornament, rather than the beauty
+of it, that constitutes its charm.
+
+The two ladies paid for their purchases with gold coins which they took
+from elegant gold-mounted porte-monnaies that they carried in their
+hands, and then, with a dash and a flourish, went away.
+
+Mrs. Holiday took up one after another of the ornaments before her, and
+looked at them with a musing air and manner, that seemed to denote that
+her thoughts were not upon them. She was thinking how erroneous an
+estimate those ladies form of the comparative value of the different
+sources of happiness within the reach of women who sacrifice the
+confidence and love of their husbands to the possession of a pearl
+necklace or a diamond pin.
+
+Mrs. Holiday finally bought two ornaments, and Rollo bought two also.
+Rollo's were small pins. They were very pretty indeed. One of them cost
+twelve francs, and the other fifteen. His mother asked him whether he
+was going to wear them himself.
+
+"O, no, mother," said he; "I have bought them to give away."
+
+His mother then asked him whom he was going to give them to. He laughed,
+and said that that was a secret. He would tell her, however, he said,
+whom one of them was for. It was for his cousin Lucy.
+
+"And which of them is for her?" asked his mother.
+
+"This one," said Rollo. So saying he showed his mother the one that cost
+twelve francs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT.
+
+
+The day before Rollo left Geneva, he met with an accident which his
+father called a fortunate one, though Rollo himself was at first
+inclined to consider it quite an unfortunate one. The reason why Mr.
+Holiday considered it fortunate was, that no evil result followed from
+it, except giving Rollo a good fright. "It is always a lucky thing for a
+boy," said Mr. Holiday, "when he meets with any accident that frightens
+him well, provided it does not hurt him much."
+
+The accident that happened to Rollo was this: There was a boy at the
+hotel, who had recently come with his father and mother from India. He
+was the son of an English army officer. His name was Gerald. He was a
+tall and handsome boy, and was about a year older than Rollo.
+
+In the afternoon of the day before the party were to leave Geneva, Rollo
+came in from the quay, where he had been out to take a walk, and asked
+permission to go out on the lake, a little way, in a boat, with Gerald.
+
+"Does Gerald understand how to manage a boat?" asked Mr. Holiday.
+
+"O, yes, sir," said Rollo. "He has been all over the world, and he knows
+how to manage every thing. Besides, I can manage a boat myself well
+enough to go out on this lake. It is as smooth as a mill pond."
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Holiday. "Only it must not be a sail boat. You
+must take oars; and look out well that the Rhone does not catch you."
+
+Rollo understood very well that his father meant by this that he must be
+careful not to let the current, which was all the time drawing the water
+of the lake off under the bridge, and thus forming the Rhone below,
+carry the boat down. Rollo said that he would be very careful; and off
+he went to rejoin Gerald on the quay.
+
+Gerald was already in the boat. He had with him, also, a Swiss boy, whom
+he had engaged to go too, as a sort of attendant, and to help row, if
+necessary. An English boy, in such cases, never considers the party
+complete unless he has some one to occupy the place of a servant, and to
+be under his command.
+
+So the three boys got into the boat, and pushed off from the shore. For
+a time every thing went on well and pleasantly. Rollo and the others had
+a fine time in rowing to and fro over the smooth water, from one
+beautiful point of land to another, on the lake shores, and sometimes in
+lying still on the calm surface, to rest from the labor, and to amuse
+themselves in looking down in the beautiful blue depths beneath them,
+and watching the fishes that were swimming about there. At last, in the
+course of their manoeuvrings, they happened to take the boat rather
+too near the bridge. The attention of the boys was at the time directed
+to something that they saw in the water; and they did not perceive how
+near the bridge they were until Rollo happened to observe that the
+stones at the bottom seemed to be rapidly moving along in the direction
+towards the lake.
+
+"My!" said Rollo; "see how fast the stones are going!"
+
+"The stones!" exclaimed Gerald, starting up, and seizing an oar. "It's
+the boat! We are going under the bridge, as sure as fate! Put out your
+oar, Rollo, and pull for your life! Pull!"
+
+Both Rollo and the Swiss boy immediately put out their oars and pulled;
+but Gerald soon found that the current was too strong for them. In spite
+of all they could do, the boat was evidently slowly drifting towards the
+bridge.
+
+"It is of no use," said Gerald, at last. "We shall have to go through;
+but that will do no harm if we can only manage to keep her from striking
+the piers. Take in your oars, boys, and let me pull her round so as to
+head down stream, and you stand ready to fend off when we are going
+under."
+
+The excitement of this scene was very great, and Rollo's first impulse
+was to scream for help; but observing how cool and collected Gerald
+appeared, he felt somewhat reassured, and at once obeyed Gerald's
+orders. He took in his oar, and holding it in his hands, as if it had
+been a boat hook or a setting pole, he prepared to fend off from the
+piers when the boat went through. In the mean time Gerald had succeeded
+in getting the boat round, so as to point the bows down stream, just as
+she reached the bridge; and in this position she shot under it like an
+arrow. Several boys who were standing on the bridge at this time, after
+watching at the upper side till the boat went under, ran across to the
+lower side, to see her come out.
+
+The boat passed through the bridge safely, though the stern struck
+against the pier on one side, just as it was emerging. The reason of
+this was, that Gerald, in bringing it round so as to head down the
+stream, had given it a rotating motion, which continued while it was
+passing under the bridge, and thus brought the stern round against the
+pier. No harm was done, however, except that the boat received a rather
+rude concussion by the blow.
+
+"Now, boys," said Gerald, speaking in French, "we must keep her head and
+stern up and down the stream, or we shall make shipwreck."
+
+"Yes," said Rollo, in English; "if we should strike a snag or any thing,
+broadside on, the boat would roll right over."
+
+"A snag!" repeated Gerald, contemptuously. The idea was indeed absurd of
+finding a snag in the River Rhone; for a snag is formed by a floating
+tree, which is washed into the river by the undermining of the banks,
+and is then carried down until it gets lodged. There are millions of
+such trees in the Mississippi, but none in the Rhone.
+
+However, Rollo was right in his general idea. There might be
+obstructions of some sort in the river, which it would be dangerous for
+the boat to encounter broadside on; so he took hold resolutely of the
+work of helping Gerald bring it into a position parallel with the
+direction of the stream. In the mean time the boat was swept down the
+torrent with fearful rapidity. It glided swiftly on amid boiling
+whirlpools and sheets of rippling foam, that were quite frightful to
+see. The buildings of the town here bordered the banks of the river on
+each side, and there were little jutting piers and platforms here and
+there, with boys upon them in some places, fishing, and women washing
+clothes in others. The boys in the boat did not call for help, and so
+nobody attempted to come and help them. Gerald's plan was to keep the
+boat headed right, and so let her drift on until she had passed through
+the town, in hopes of being able to bring her up somewhere on the shore
+below.
+
+At one time the force of the current carried them quite near to the
+shore, at a place where Gerald thought it would be dangerous to attempt
+to land, and he called out aloud to Rollo to "fend off." Rollo attempted
+to do so, and in the attempt he lost his oar. He was standing near the
+bows at the time, and as he planted his oar against the bottom, the
+current carried the boat on with such irresistible impetuosity that the
+oar was wrested from his hand in an instant. If he had not let go of it
+he would have been pulled over himself. Gerald, however, had the
+presence of mind to reach out his own oar at once, and draw the lost one
+back towards the boat, so that the Swiss boy seized it, and, to Rollo's
+great joy, took it in again.
+
+The boat at one time came very near drifting against one of the great
+water wheels which were revolving in the stream. Gerald perceived the
+danger just in time, and he contrived to turn the head of the boat out
+towards the centre of the river, and then commanding Rollo and the Swiss
+boy to row, and pulling, himself, with all his force, he just succeeded
+in escaping the danger.
+
+By this time the boat had passed by the town, and it now came to a part
+of the river which was bordered by smooth, grassy banks on each side,
+and with a row of willows growing near the margin of the water. This was
+the place, in fact, where Rollo had walked along the shore with his
+mother, in going down to visit the junction of the Rhone and the Arve.
+
+"Now," said Gerald, "here is a chance for us to make a landing. I'll
+head her in towards the shore."
+
+So Gerald turned the head of the boat in towards the bank, and then, by
+dint of hard rowing, the boys contrived gradually to draw nearer and
+nearer to the shore, though they were all the time drifting rapidly
+down. At last the boat came so near that the bow was just ready to touch
+the bank, and then Gerald seized the painter, and, watching his
+opportunity, leaped ashore, and, running to the nearest willow, wound
+the painter round it. This at once checked the motion of the bow, and
+caused the stern to swing round. Gerald immediately unwound the painter,
+and ran to the willow next below, where he wound it round again, and
+there succeeded at last in making it fast, and stopping the motion of
+the boat altogether. Rollo and the Swiss boy then made their escape safe
+to land.
+
+"There!" said Rollo, taking at the same time a high jump, to express his
+exultation; "there! Here we are safe, and who cares?"
+
+"Ah!" said Gerald, calmly; "it is very easy to say Who cares? now that
+we have got safe to land; but you'll find me looking out sharp not to
+get sucked into those ripples again."
+
+So the boys went home. Gerald found a man to go down and bring back the
+boat, while Rollo proceeded to the hotel, to report the affair to his
+father and mother. Mrs. Holiday was very much alarmed, but Mr. Holiday
+seemed to take the matter quite coolly. He said he thought that Rollo
+was now, for all the rest of his life, in much less danger of being
+drowned by getting carried down rapids in a river than he was before.
+
+"He understands the subject now somewhat practically," said Mr. Holiday.
+
+The term of Mr. Holiday's visit had now expired, and the arrangements
+were to be made for leaving town, with a view of returning again to
+Paris. Rollo, however, was very desirous that before going back to Paris
+they should make at least a short excursion among the mountains.
+
+"Where shall we go?" said his father.
+
+"To the valley of Chamouni," said Rollo. "They say that that is the
+prettiest place in all Switzerland."
+
+"How long will it take us to go?" asked Mr. Holiday.
+
+"We can go in a day," said Rollo. "There are plenty of diligences. The
+offices of them are here all along the quay.
+
+"Or, if you don't choose to go so far in a day," continued Rollo, "you
+can go in half a day to the entrance of the valley, where there is a
+good place to stop, and then we can go to Chamouni the next day. I have
+studied it all out in the guide book."
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Holiday. "It seems that we can get into the valley
+of Chamouni very easily; and now how is it about getting out?"
+
+At this question Rollo's countenance fell a little, and he replied that
+it was not so easy to get out.
+
+"There is no way to get out," said he, "except to go over the
+mountains, unless we come back the same way we go in."
+
+"That would not be quite so pleasant," said Mr. Holiday.
+
+"No, sir," said Rollo; "it would be better to go out some new way. But
+there is not any way. It is a long, narrow valley, very high up among
+the mountain glaciers. There is a way to get out at the upper end, but
+it is only a mountain pass, and we should have to ride over on mules.
+But you could ride on a mule--could not you, father?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Mr. Holiday, "perhaps I could; but it might be too
+fatiguing for your mother. She has not been accustomed to ride on
+horseback much of late years.
+
+"Besides," he continued, "I suppose that as it is a mountain pass, the
+road must be pretty steep and difficult."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "it is steep some part of the way. You have to
+go up for half an hour by zigzags--right up the side of the mountain. I
+read about it in the guide book. Then, after we get up to the top of the
+pass, we have a monstrous long way to go down. We have to go down for
+two hours, as steep as we can go."
+
+"I should think we should have to go _up_ as much as _down_," said Mr.
+Holiday; "for it is necessary to ascend as much to get to the top of
+any hill from the bottom as you _descend_ in going down to the bottom
+from the top."
+
+"Ah, but in Chamouni," said Rollo, "we are very near the top already. It
+is a valley, it is true; but it is up very high among the mountains, and
+is surrounded with snow and glaciers. That is what makes it so
+interesting to go there. Besides, we can see the top of Mont Blanc
+there, and with a spy glass we can watch the people going up, as they
+walk along over the fields of snow."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Holiday, "I should like to go there very well, if your
+mother consents; and then, if she does not feel adventurous enough to go
+over the mountain pass on a mule, we can, at all events, come back the
+same way we go."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "and, besides, father," he continued, eagerly,
+"there is another way that we can do. Mother can go over the mountain
+pass on a carrying chair. They have carrying chairs there, expressly to
+carry ladies over the passes. They are good, comfortable chairs, with
+poles each side of them, fastened very strong. The lady sits in the
+chair, and then two men take hold of the poles, one before and the other
+behind, and so they carry her over the mountains."
+
+"I should think that would be very easy and very comfortable," said Mr.
+Holiday. "Go and find your mother, and explain it all to her, and hear
+what she says. Tell her what sort of a place Chamouni is, and what there
+is to be seen there, and then tell her of the different ways there will
+be of getting out when once we get in. If she would like it we will go."
+
+Mrs. Holiday did like the plan of going to Chamouni very much. She said
+she thought that she could go over the mountain pass on a mule; and that
+at any rate she could go on the carrying chair. So the excursion was
+decided upon, and the party set off the next day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And here I must end the story of Rollo at Geneva, only adding that it
+proved in the end that the fifteen franc pin which Rollo bought, and the
+destination of which he made a secret of, was intended for his mother.
+He kept the pin in his trunk until he returned to America, and then sent
+it into his mother's room, with a little note, one morning when she was
+there alone. His mother kept the pin a great many years, and wore it a
+great many times; and she said she valued it more than any other
+ornament she had, though she had several in her little strong box that
+had cost in money fifty times as much.
+
+
+
+
+ABBOTT'S AMERICAN HISTORY.
+
+A SERIES OF AMERICAN HISTORY FOR YOUTH,
+
+By JACOB ABBOTT.
+
+Complete in Eight Volumes, 18mo., price $1.25 each.
+
+Each Volume complete in itself.
+
+Each volume is illustrated with numerous Maps and Engravings, from
+original designs by F. O. C. Darley, J. R. Chapin, G. Perkins, Charles
+Parsons, H. W. Herrick, E. F. Beaulieu, H. L. Stephens, and others.
+
+This Series, by the well-known author of the "ROLLO BOOKS" "ROLLO'S TOUR
+IN EUROPE," "HARPER'S SERIES OF EUROPEAN HISTORIES," "THE FLORENCE
+STORIES," &c., consists of the following volumes:
+
+ 1. ABORIGINAL AMERICA.
+   2. DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
+     3. THE SOUTHERN COLONIES.
+       4. THE NORTHERN COLONIES.
+         5. WARS OF THE COLONIES.
+           6. THE REVOLT OF THE COLONIES.
+             7. THE REVOLUTION.
+               8. WASHINGTON.
+
+Notices of the Initial Volume.
+
+_From the Boston Traveller._
+
+"The most excellent publication of the kind ever undertaken."
+
+_From the Boston Advertiser._
+
+"The illustrations are well designed and executed."
+
+_From the Boston Post._
+
+"One of the most useful of the many good and popular books of which
+Mr. Abbott is the author."
+
+_From the Philadelphia North American._
+
+"It is indeed a very vivid and comprehensive presentation of the
+physical aspect and aboriginal life visible on this continent before the
+discovery by white men."
+
+_From the Troy Whig._
+
+"Mr. Abbott's stories have for years been the delight of thousands."
+
+
+
+
+_Published by Sheldon & Co._
+
+
+PETER PARLEY'S OWN STORY.
+
+From the Personal Narrative of the late SAMUEL G. GOODRICH (Peter
+Parley).
+
+1 vol. 16mo., illustrated, price $1.25.
+
+
+ CHILDREN'S SAYINGS;
+ OR, EARLY LIFE AT HOME.
+
+By CAROLINE HADLEY. With Illustrations, by WALTER CRANE.
+
+1 vol. square 16mo., price 90 cents.
+
+
+ STORIES OF OLD.
+ OLD TESTAMENT SERIES.
+
+By CAROLINE HADLEY.
+
+1 vol. 12mo., Illustrated, price $1.25.
+
+
+ STORIES OF OLD.
+ NEW TESTAMENT SERIES.
+
+By CAROLINE HADLEY.
+
+1 vol. 12mo., Illustrated, price $1.25.
+
+
+ROSE MORTON'S JOURNAL.
+
+A series of volumes containing Rose Morton's Journal for the several
+months of the year.
+
+Each volume Illustrated, 18mo., 45 cents.
+
+There are now ready,
+
+ ROSE MORTON'S JOURNAL FOR JANUARY.
+ ROSE MORTON'S JOURNAL FOR FEBRUARY.
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+ ROSE MORTON'S JOURNAL FOR MAY.
+
+
+WALTER'S TOUR IN THE EAST.
+
+A Series of interesting Travels through Egypt, Palestine Turkey, and
+Syria. By Rev. D. C. EDDY, D.D.
+
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+countries.
+
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+
+There are now ready,
+
+ Walter in Egypt.
+ Walter in Jerusalem.
+ Walter in Samaria.
+ Walter in Damascus.
+ Walter in Constantinople. (In press.)
+
+_From the New York Commercial Advertiser._
+
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+pleasing and instructive writer for the young. The present volume is one
+of a series of six, describing a visit of a company of young tourists to
+the most interesting and sacred spots on the earth. The incidents
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+ideas of Eastern countries and habits. In the present volume, Walter
+travels through Egypt, and his story is told in some two hundred and
+twenty pages; so compactly told, indeed, that not a line could have been
+omitted without injury. It is just the book for an intelligent child."
+
+_From the Pittsburgh Gazette._
+
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+and incidents of travel in Egypt. The volume, moreover, is well written,
+handsomely printed at the Riverside press, neatly bound in cloth, and
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+
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+
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+describing the visit of a company of young tourists to the most
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+
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+THE BRIGHTHOPE SERIES.
+
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+
+ The Old Battle Ground,
+ Father Brighthope,
+ Hearts and Faces.
+ Iron Thorpe,
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+
+5 vols. 18mo., in cloth, gilt back, uniform. Price $4.00.
+
+_From the Boston Transcript._
+
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+
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+
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+is worthy of his reputation as one of the very best portrayers of New
+England character and describers of New England scenes."
+
+
+THE GELDART SERIES.
+
+By Mrs. THOMAS GELDART.
+
+6 vols. 16mo. Illustrated by JOHN GILBERT.
+
+Price of each 60 cents.
+
+ Daily Thoughts for a Child,
+ Truth is Everything,
+ Sunday Morning Thoughts,
+ Sunday Evening Thoughts,
+ Emilie the Peacemaker,
+ Stories of Scotland.
+
+_From the Boston Register._
+
+"These charming volumes are the much admired Geldart Series of books for
+the young, which have established a very enviable reputation in England
+for their wholesome moral tendency. They are beautifully printed 16mo.
+volumes, with gilt backs, and are sold at 50 cents each. There are five
+volumes in the series, and they will form a very choice addition to a
+youth's library."
+
+_From the Worcester Palladium._
+
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+that their books should be of a high moral tone. In this respect Mrs.
+Geldart has few equals as an author, and we hope that her works will be
+found in every child's library."
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
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+ensure consistency across the text in spelling and punctuation usage;
+otherwise, every effort has been made to ensure that this e-text is true
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