It was high-noon when Melchior de Willading and his venerable friend led
the way across the foaming Rhone, at the celebrated bridge of St Maurice.
Here the country of the Valais, then like Geneva, an ally, and not a
confederate of the Swiss cantons, was entered, and all objects, both
animate and inanimate, began to assume that mixture of the grand, the
sterile, the luxuriant, and the revolting, for which this region is so
generally known. Adelheid gave an involuntary shudder, her imagination
having been prepared by rumor for even more than the truth would have
given reason to expect, when the gate of St. Maurice swung back upon its
hinges, literally inclosing the party in this wild, desolate, and yet
romantic region. As they proceeded along the Rhone, however, she and
those of her companions to whom the scene was new, were constantly
wondering at some unlooked-for discrepancy, that drove them from
admiration to disgust--from the exclamations of delight to the chill of
disappointment. The mountains on every side were dreary, and without the
rich relief of the pastured eminences, but most of the valley was rich and
generous.
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