have been over praised; their pale colour allured me but little in the
first place, nor is their flavour equal to that of trout found in
running water. Going down the Italian side of the Alps is, after all, an
astonishing journey; and affords the most magnificent scenery in nature,
which varying at every step, gives new impression to the mind each
moment of one's passage; while the portion of terror excited either by
real or fancied dangers on the way, is just sufficient to mingle with
the pleasure, and make one feel the full effect of sublimity. To the
chairmen who carry one though, nothing can be new; it is observable that
the glories of these objects have never faded--I heard them speak to
each other of their beauties, and the change of light since they had
passed by last time, while a fellow who spoke English as well as a
native told us, that having lived in a gentleman's service twenty years
between London and Dublin, he at length begged his discharge, chusing to
retire and finish his days a peasant upon these mountains, where he
first opened his eyes upon scenes that made all other views of nature
insipid to his taste.

If impressions of beauty remain, however, those of danger die away by
frequent reiteration; the men who carried me seemed amazed that I should
feel any emotions of fear. _Qu'est ce donc, madame_?[Footnote: What's
the matter, my lady?] was the coldly-asked question to my repeated
injunction of _prenez garde_[Footnote: Take care.]: not very apparently
unnecessary neither, where the least slip must have been fatal both to
them and me.

Novalesa is the town we stopped at, upon entering Piedmont; where the
hollow sound of a heavy dashing torrent that has accompanied us
hitherto, first grows faint, and the ideas of common life catch hold of
one again; as the noise of it is heard from a greater distance, its
stream grows wider, and its course more tranquil. For compensation of
danger, ease should be administered; but one's quiet is here so
disturbed by insects, and polluted by dirt, that one recollects the
conduct of the Lapland rein-deer, who seeks the summit of the hill at
the hazard of his life, to avoid those gnats which sting him to madness
in the valley.

Suza shewed nothing that I took much interest in, except its name; and
nobody tells me why it is honoured with that old Asiatick appellation.
At the next town, called St. Andre, or St. Ambroise, I forget which, we
got an admirable dinner; and sa