It is very rich and luxuriant, the vineyards are more Italian, the fig trees larger than we have yet seen them, patches of snow whiten the higher hills, and we feel that we are at last indeed among the outskirts of the Alps themselves. I am told that we should have stayed at Voreppe, seen the Grande Chartreuse (for which see Murray), and then gone on to Grenoble, but we were pressed for time and could not do everything. At Grenoble we arrived about two o'clock, washed comfortably at last and then dined; during dinner a caleche was preparing to drive us on to Bourg d'Oisans, a place some six or seven and thirty miles farther on, and by thirty minutes past three we find ourselves reclining easily within it, and digesting dinner with the assistance of a little packet, for which we paid one-and-fourpence at the well-known shop of Mr. Bacon, Market-square, Cambridge. It is very charming. The air is sweet, warm, and sunny, there has been bad weather for some days here, but it is clearing up; the clouds are lifting themselves hour by hour, we are evidently going to have a pleasant spell of fine weather. The caleche jolts a little, and the horse is decidedly shabby, both qua horse and qua harness, but our moustaches are growing, and our general appearance is in keeping. The wine was very pleasant at Grenoble, and we have a pound of ripe cherries between us; so, on the whole, we would not change with his Royal Highness Prince Albert or all the Royal Family, and jolt on through the long straight poplar avenue that colonnades the road above the level swamp and beneath the hills, and turning a sharp angle enter Vizille, a wretched place, only memorable because from this point we begin definitely, though slowly, to enter the hills and ascend by the side of the Romanche through the valley, which that river either made or found--who knows or cares? But we do know very well that we are driving up a very exquisitely beautiful valley, that the Romanche takes longer leaps from rock to rock than she did, that the hills have closed in upon us, that we see more snow each time the valley opens, that the villages get scantier, and that at last a great giant iceberg walls up the way in front, and we feast our eyes on the long-desired sight till after that the setting sun has tinged it purple (a sure sign of a fine day), its ghastly pallor shows us that the night is upon us. It is cold, and we are not sorry at half-past nine to find ourselves at Bourg d'Oisans, where there is a very fair inn kept by one Martin; we get a comfortable supper of eggs and go to bed fairly tired.
This we must remind the reader is Thursday night, on Tuesday morning we left London, spent one day in Paris, and are now sleeping among the Alps, sharpish work, but very satisfactory, and a prelude to better things by and by. The next day we made rather a mistake, instead of going straight on to Briancon we went up a valley towards Mont Pelvoux (a mountain nearly 14,000 feet high), intending to cross a high pass above La Berarde down to Briancon, but when we got to St. Christophe we were told the pass would not be open till August, so returned and slept a second night at Bourg d'Oisans. The valley, however, was all that could be desired, mingled sun and shadow, tumbling river, rich wood, and mountain pastures, precipices all around, and snow-clad summits continually unfolding themselves;Murray is right in calling the valley above Venosc a scene of savage sterility. At Venosc, in the poorest of hostelries was a tuneless cracked old instrument, half piano, half harpsichord--how it ever 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.
