nary, were it
confined to its Swiss horrors and Swiss magnificence, though, by the
little I have seen of them, I suspect that both the St. Gothard and the
Splugen do a little better on their northern faces. The pass by Nice is
peculiar, being less wild and rocky than any other, while it possesses
beauties entirely its own (and extraordinary beauties they are), in the
constant presence of the Mediterranean, with its vast blue expanse,
dotted with sails of every kind that the imagination can invent. It has
always appeared to me that poets have been the riggers of that sea.

C---- and myself were too _mountaineerish_ after this exploit to remain
contented in a valley, however lovely it might be, and the next day we
sallied forth on foot, to explore the hill-side behind Vevey. The road
led at first through narrow lanes, lined by vineyards; but emerging from
these, we soon came out into a new world, and one that I can compare to
no other I have ever met with. I should never tire of expatiating on the
beauties of this district, which really appear to be created expressly
to render the foreground of one of the sublimest pictures on earth
worthy of the rest of the piece.

It was always mountain, but a mountain so gradual of ascent, so vast,
and yet so much like a broad reach of variegated low land, in its
ornaments, cultivation, houses, villages, copses, meadows, and vines,
that it seemed to be a huge plain canted into a particular inclination,
in order to give the spectator a better opportunity to examine it in
detail, and at his leisure, as one would hold a picture to the proper
light. Some of the ascents, nevertheless, were sufficiently sharp, and
more than once we were glad enough to stop to cool ourselves, and to
take breath. At length, after crossing some lovely meadows, by the
margin of beautiful woods, we came out at the spot which was the goal we
had aimed at from the commencement of the excursion. This was the castle
of Blonay, of whose picturesque site and pleasant appearance I have
already spoken in my letters, as a venerable hold that stands about a
league from the town, on one of the most striking positions of the
mountain.

The family of Blonay has been in possession of this place for seven
hundred years. One branch of it is in Sardinia; but I suppose its head
is the occupant of the house, or castle. As the building was historical,
and the De Blonays of unquestionable standing, I was curious to examine
the edi