hollow by which it is sheltered from the winds.

Five or six hundred paces to the south of the island of St. Peter is
another island, considerably less than the former, wild and uncultivated,
which appears to have been detached from the greater island by storms:
its gravelly soil produces nothing but willows and persicaria, but there
is in it a high hill well covered with greensward and very pleasant. The
form of the lake is an almost regular oval. The banks, less rich than
those of the lake of Geneva and Neuchatel, form a beautiful decoration,
especially towards the western part, which is well peopled, and edged
with vineyards at the foot, of a chain of mountains, something like those
of Cote-Rotie, but which produce not such excellent wine. The bailiwick
of St. John, Neuveville, Berne, and Bienne, lie in a line from the south
to the north, to the extremity of the lake, the whole interspersed with
very agreeable villages.

Such was the asylum I had prepared for myself, and to which I was
determined to retire alter quitting Val de Travers.

[It may perhaps be necessary to remark that I left there an enemy in
M. du Teneaux, mayor of Verrieres, not much esteemed in the country,
but who has a brother, said to be an honest man, in the office of M.
de St. Florentin. The mayor had been to see him sometime before my
adventure. Little remarks of this kind, though of no consequence,
in themselves, may lead to the discovery of many underhand
dealings.]

This choice was so agreeable to my peaceful inclinations, and my solitary
and indolent disposition, that I consider it as one of the pleasing
reveries of which I became the most passionately fond. I thought I