Geneva at 6:40 a.m., September 10th; and after passing through a number of
tunnels, one of which required 5-1/2 minutes of moderate railway speed, we
arrived at Bellegarde, on the French border, and passed muster. From 9:00
to 10:00 o'clock we were detained at Culoz, and by noon we saw the
snow-covered Alps again. At 3:30 p.m., we arrived at Modane and passed
muster for Italy.



Mont Cenis Tunnel.


We entered the mouth of this great tunnel, over 8 miles in length, at
4:58-1/2 p.m., and were exactly 26 minutes in the very bowels of the
earth, where absolute darkness reigns. Temperature in the middle, 59°
Fahrenheit.



Italy.


We now come to a country which contrasts as strangely with the nations of
western Europe, as those do with America, or as Alpine Switzerland does
with the rest of the world. When I parted at Paris with my New York
friend, he bound for Rome, I for the north, we still had our school-boy
ideas of Germany, Switzerland and Italy; and I shall never forget the
remark which he then made, and which embodied my notions and anticipations
perhaps as well as his own. He said, "I suppose we have now seen the
brightest side of the picture, the trouble is that scenes will now become