Cambridge Pieces | Page 9

found its way
there we were at a loss to conceive--and an irrelevant clock that struck
seven times by fits and starts at its own convenience during our one
o'clock dinner; we returned to Bourg d'Oisans at seven, and were in bed

by nine.
Saturday, June 13.
Having found that a conveyance to Briancon was beyond our finances,
and that they would not take us any distance at a reasonable charge, we
determined to walk the whole fifty miles in the day, and half-way down
the mountains, sauntering listlessly accordingly left Bourg d'Oisans at a
few minutes before five in the morning. The clouds were floating over
the uplands, but they soon began to rise, and before seven o'clock the
sky was cloudless; along the road were passing hundreds of people
(though it was only five in the morning) in detachments of from two to
nine, with cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats, picturesque enough but
miserably lean and gaunt: we leave them to proceed to the fair, and
after a three miles' level walk through a straight poplar avenue,
commence ascending far above the Romanche; all day long we slowly
ascend, stopping occasionally to refresh ourselves with vin ordinaire
and water, but making steady way in the main, though heavily
weighted and under a broiling sun, at one we reach La Grave, which is
opposite the Mont de Lans, a most superb mountain. The whole scene
equal to anything in Switzerland, as far as the mountains go. The Mont
de Lans is opposite the windows, seeming little more than a stone's
throw off, and causing my companion (whose name I will, with his
permission, Italianise into that of the famous composer Giuseppe Verdi)
to think it a mere nothing to mount to the top of those sugared
pinnacles which he will not believe are many miles distant in reality.
After dinner we trudge on, the scenery constantly improving, the snow
drawing down to us, and the Romanche dwindling hourly; we reach the
top of the Col du Lautaret, which Murray must describe; I can only say
that it is first-class scenery. The flowers are splendid, acres and acres of
wild narcissus, the Alpine cowslip, gentians, large purple and yellow
anemones, soldanellas, and the whole kith and kin of the high Alpine
pasture flowers; great banks of snow lie on each side of the road, and
probably will continue to do so till the middle of July, while all around
are glaciers and precipices innumerable.
We only got as far as Monetier after all, for, reaching that town at

half-past eight, and finding that Briancon was still eight miles further
on, we preferred resting there at the miserable but cheap and honest
Hotel de l'Europe; had we gone on a little farther we should have found
a much better one, but we were tired with our forty-two miles' walk,
and, after a hasty supper and a quiet pipe, over which we watch the last
twilight on the Alps above Briancon, we turn in very tired but very
much charmed.
Sunday morning was the clearest and freshest morning that ever
tourists could wish for, the grass crisply frozen (for we are some three
or four thousand feet above the sea), the glaciers descending to a level
but little higher than the road; a fine range of Alps in front over
Briancon, and the road winding down past a new river (for we have
long lost the Romanche) towards the town, which is some six or seven
miles distant.
It was a fete--the Fete du bon Dieu, celebrated annually on this day
throughout all this part of the country; in all the villages there were
little shrines erected, adorned with strings of blue corncockle, narcissus
heads, and poppies, bunches of green, pink, and white calico, moss and
fir-tree branches, and in the midst of these tastefully arranged bowers
was an image of the Virgin and her Son, with whatever other saints the
place was possessed of.
At Briancon, which we reached (in a trap) at eight o'clock, these
demonstrations were more imposing, but less pleasing; the soldiers, too,
were being drilled and exercised, and the whole scene was one of the
greatest animation, such as Frenchmen know how to exhibit on the
morning of a gala day.
Leaving our trap at Briancon and making a hasty breakfast at the Hotel
de la Paix, we walked up a very lonely valley towards Cervieres. I dare
not say how many hours we wended our way up the brawling torrent
without meeting a soul or seeing a human habitation; it was fearfully
hot too, and we longed for vin ordinaire; Cervieres seemed as though it
never would come--still the same rugged precipices, snow-clad heights,
brawling torrent, and stony road, butterflies beautiful and innumerable,
flowers to match, sky cloudless.