very steep and high cliff playing upon
his _pipe_; very different from _Arcadia_, where I saw the pastors with
a long musket instead of a crook, and pistols in their girdles. Our
Swiss shepherd's pipe was sweet, and his tune agreeable. I saw a cow
strayed; am told that they often break their necks on and over the
crags. Descended to Montbovon; pretty scraggy village, with a wild river
and a wooden bridge. Hobhouse went to fish--caught one. Our carriage not
come; our horses, mules, &c. knocked up; ourselves fatigued; but so much
the better--I shall sleep.

"The view from the highest points of to-day's journey comprised on one
side the greatest part of Lake Leman; on the other, the valleys and
mountain of the Canton of Fribourg, and an immense plain, with the lakes
of Neuchatel and Morat, and all which the borders of the Lake of Geneva
inherit; we had both sides of the Jura before us in one point of view,
with Alps in plenty. In passing a ravine, the guide recommended
strenuously a quickening of pace, as the stones fall with great rapidity
and occasional damage; the advice is excellent, but, like most good
advice, impracticable, the road being so rough that neither mules, nor
mankind, nor horses, can make any violent progress. Passed without
fractures or menace thereof.

"The music of the cow's bells (for their wealth, like the patriarchs',
is cattle) in the pastures, which reach to a height far above any
mountains in Britain, and the shepherds shouting to us from crag to
crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost
inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realised all that I have
ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence:--much more so than
Greece or Asia Minor, for there we are a little too much of the sabre
and musket order, and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to
see a gun in the other:--but this was pure and unmixed--solitary,
savage, and patriarchal. As we went, they played the 'Rans des Vaches'
and other airs, by way of farewell. I have lately repeopled my mind with
nature.

[Footnote 111: Dent de Jaman.]

"September 20.

Up at six; off at eight. The whole of this day's journey at an average
of between from 2700 to 3000 feet above the level of the sea. This
valley, the longest, narrowest, and considered the finest of the Alps,
little traversed by travellers. Saw the bridge of La Roche. The bed of
the river very low and deep, between immense rocks, and rapid as
ange