As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed,
And winter oft, at eve, resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightful:----
Thomson.
The horn of Pierre Dumont was blowing beneath the windows of the inn of
Martigny, with the peep of dawn. Then followed the appearance of drowsy
domestics, the saddling of unwilling mules, and the loading of baggage. A
few minutes later the little caravan was assembled, for the cavalcade
almost deserved this name, and the whole were in motion for the summits of
the Alps.
The travellers now left the valley of the Rhone to bury themselves amid
those piles of misty and confused mountains, which formed the back-ground
of the picture they had studied from the castle of Blonay and the sheet of
the Leman. They
