a mule engaged for eight days to take them to Neuchatel. But their
troubles did not end here, for the man turned out far more obstinate
than the mule, and was determined to enjoy the sweets of tyranny: he
stopped where he would, regardless of accommodation or no
accommodation, and went on when he chose, careless whether his
travellers were in or out of the carriage. Mary describes how they had
to sit one night over a wretched kitchen fire in the village of Mort,
till they were only too glad to pursue their journey at 3 A.M. In
fact, in those days Mary was able, in the middle of France, to
experience the same discomforts which tourists have now to go much
farther to find out. Their tour was far different from a later one
described by Mary, when comfortable hotels are chronicled; but, oh!
how she then looked back to the happy days of this time. The trio
would willingly have prolonged the present state of things; but, alas!
money vanished in spite of frugal fare, and they decided, on arriving
in Switzerland, and with difficulty raising about thirty-eight pounds
in silver, that their only expedient was to return to England in the
least expensive way possible. They first tried, however, to live
cheaply in an old chateau on the lake of Arx, which they hired at a
guinea a month; but the discomfort and difficulties were too great,
and even the customary resources of reading and writing failed to
induce them to remain in these circumstances. They at one time
contemplated a journey south of the Alps, but, only twenty-eight
pounds remaining to live on from September till December, they
naturally felt it would be safer to return to England, and decided to
travel the eight hundred miles by water as the cheapest mode of
transit. They proceeded from Lucerne by the Reuss, descending several
falls on the way, but had to land at Loffenberg as the falls there
were impassable. The next day they took a rude kind of canoe to Mumph,
when they were forced to continue their journey in a return cabriolet;