On the subject of his
mountains, Monsieur Descloux was a thorough Swiss. He expatiated on their
grandeur, their storms, their height, and their glaciers, with eloquence.
The worthy boatman had some such opinions of the superiority of his own
country, as all are apt to form who have never seen any other. He dwelt on
the glories of an Abbaye des Vignerons, too, with the gusto of a Vevaisan,
and seemed to think it would be a high stroke of state policy, to get up a
new, _fete_ of this kind as speedily as possible. In short, the world and
its interests were pretty generally discussed between these two
philosophers during an intercourse that extended to a month.
Our American was not a man to let instruction of this nature easily escape
him. He lay hours at a time on the seats of Jean Descloux's boat, looking
up at the mountains, or watching some lazy sail on the lake, and
speculating on the wisdom of which he was so accidentally made the
repository. His view on one side was limited by the glacier of Mont Velan,
a near neighbor of the celebrated col of St. Bernard; and on the other,
his eye could range to the smiling fields that surround Geneva.
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