through the trenched cliffs into the confusion and high clattering vault of
the station at Dijon.

5. And as my journey is almost always in the springtime, the twisted spire
of the cathedral usually shows itself against the first grey of dawn, as we
run out again southwards: and resolving to watch the sunrise, I fall more
complacently asleep,--and the sun is really up by the time one has to
change carriages, and get morning coffee at Macon. And from Amberieux,
through the Jura valley, one is more or less feverishly happy and thankful,
not so much for being in sight of Mont Blanc again, as in having got
through the nasty and gloomy night journey; and then the sight of the Rhone
and the Salève seems only like a dream, presently to end in nothingness;
till, covered with dust, and feeling as if one never should be fit for
anything any more, one staggers down the hill to the Hotel des Bergues, and
sees the dirtied Rhone, with its new iron bridge, and the smoke of a new
factory exactly dividing the line of the aiguilles of Chamouni.

6. That is the journey as it is now,--and as, for me, it must be; except on
foot, since there is now no other way of making it. But this _was_ the way
we used to manage it in old days:--

Very early in Continental transits we had found out that the family
travelling carriage, taking much time and ingenuity to load, needing at the
least three, usually four--horses, and on Alpine passes six, not only
jolted and lagged painfully on bad roads, but was liable in every way to
more awkward discomfitures than lighter vehicles; getting itself jammed in
archways, wrenched with damage out of ruts, and involved in volleys of
justifiable reprobation among market stalls. So when we knew better, my
father and mother always had their own old-fashioned light two-horse
carriage to themselves, and I had one made with any quantity of front and