evidently going to have a pleasant spell of fine weather. The
caleche jolts a little, and the horse is decidedly shabby, both qua
horse and qua harness, but our moustaches are growing, and our
general appearance is in keeping. The wine was very pleasant at
Grenoble, and we have a pound of ripe cherries between us; so, on
the whole, we would not change with his Royal Highness Prince Albert
or all the Royal Family, and jolt on through the long straight
poplar avenue that colonnades the road above the level swamp and
beneath the hills, and turning a sharp angle enter Vizille, a
wretched place, only memorable because from this point we begin
definitely, though slowly, to enter the hills and ascend by the side
of the Romanche through the valley, which that river either made or
found--who knows or cares? But we do know very well that we are
driving up a very exquisitely beautiful valley, that the Romanche
takes longer leaps from rock to rock than she did, that the hills
have closed in upon us, that we see more snow each time the valley
opens, that the villages get scantier, and that at last a great
giant iceberg walls up the way in front, and we feast our eyes on
the long-desired sight till after that the setting sun has tinged it
purple (a sure sign of a fine day), its ghastly pallor shows us that
the night is upon us. It is cold, and we are not sorry at half-past
nine to find ourselves at Bourg d'Oisans, where there is a very fair
inn kept by one Martin; we get a comfortable supper of eggs and go
to bed fairly tired.

This we must remind the reader is Thursday night, on Tuesday morning
we left London, spent one day in Paris, and are now sleeping among
the Alps, sharpish work, but very satisfactory, and a prelude to
better things by and by. The next day we made rather a mistake,
instead of going straight on to Briancon we went up a valley towards