_I_ call this travelling - never was so comfortable in my
life."
"Nor I," quoth she. "And, besides, we are unwinding the Rhone all
along."
And, sure enough, we were; ever and anon getting a glimpse of him
spread mazily all abroad in some beautiful vale, like a midguard
anaconda done in silver.
At Nantua, a sordid town, with a squalid inn, we dined, at two,
deliciously, on a red shrimp soup; no, not soup, it was a
_potage_; no, a stew; no, a creamy, unctuous mess, muss, or
whatever you please to call it. Sancho Panza never ate his olla
podrida with more relish. Success to mine host of the jolly inn of
Nantua!
Then we thunderbolted along again, shot through a grim fortress,
crossed a boundary line, and were in Switzerland. Vive Switzerland!
land of Alps, glaciers, and freemen!
As evening drew on, a wind sprang up, and a storm seemed gathering on
the Jura. The rain dashed against the panes of the berime, as we rode
past the grim-faced monarch of the "misty shroud." A cold wind went
sweeping by, and the Rhone was rushing far below, discernible only in
the distance as a rivulet of flashing foam. It was night as we drove
into Geneva, and stopped at the Messagerie. I heard with joy a voice
demanding if this were Monsieur Besshare. I replied, not without some
scruples of conscience, "_Oui, monsieur, c'est moi,_" though the
name did not sound exactly like the one to which I had been wont to
respond.
