in the less-antiquated Swiss diligences, we had the compensation of far
more original fellow-travelers than one is apt to find among the
tourists that monopolize those vehicles. There were generally two or
three priests, half a dozen merry peasants, and a sprinkling of small
officers and country-townspeople, who respectively lost no time in
establishing a pleasant intimacy with their neighbors. The unflagging
chatter, in which all joined vivaciously, and often all at once, was in
striking contrast with the silent gloom which would have enshrouded a
similar party of English or American travelers. It was impossible to
resist the contagion of cheerfulness or to refuse to mingle more or less
in the talk.

On the second evening, having trusted to the map and the very meagre
information supplied by _Murray_, we found ourselves deposited at an
isolated wayside cabaret. It presently transpired that St. Bonnet, where
we expected to pass the Sunday, was some half mile or more off the
high-road on which this was the nearest station. While we waited in a
long, low, dimly-lighted room for the guide we had bespoken, two
gendarmes and a peasant sat listening to, or rather looking at, a vivid
account of some shooting adventure given in extraordinary pantomime by
a deaf and dumb huntsman. In time a withered gnome trundling a
wheelbarrow took possession of us and our light belongings, and led us
forth into the night. We traversed the valley, mounted the hill on the
other side, and at last entered the deeper night of a lampless village,
and began to thread its steep, black streets. The only gleam of light
was at what seemed to be the central fountain. Many women were gathered
there, chatting as they filled their pails or stood with the replenished
vessels poised on their heads. The inn was of a piece with all those at
which we lodged in Dauphiné, deficient in everything for which an inn
exists. The feature of these inns which I remember, I think, with the