and a reinforcement they proved indeed; for I do not remember two nobler animals than the voiturier obtained for the occasion.  They appeared to be moulded on the same scale as the mountains.  We were much amused by the fellow’s management, for he contrived to check his own cattle in such a way as to throw all the work on the recruits.  This was not effected without suspicion; but he contrived to allay it, by giving his own beasts sundry punches in the sides, so adroitly bestowed as to render them too restive to work.  By way of triumph, each poke was accompanied by a knowing leer at Francois, all whose sympathies, a tribute to his extraction, I have had frequent opportunities of observing, to my cost, were invariably on the side of the voituriers.  So evident, indeed, was this feeling in the gentleman, that had I been accustomed to travel much by this mode, I should not have kept him a month.

It was a mild evening as we travelled our way up this formidable ascent, which is one of the severest in Switzerland, and we had loitered so much along the shores of the lake, as to bring us materially behind our time.  Still it was too late to return, and we made the best of things as they were.  It is always more pleasant to ascend than to descend, for the purposes of scenery; and, as picture after picture broke upon us, the old touzy-mouzy was awakened, until we once more felt ourselves in a perfect fever of mountain excitement.  In consequence of diverging by a foot-path, towards the east, in descending this mountain, in 1828, I had missed one of the finest reaches of its different views, but which we now enjoyed under the most favourable circumstances.  The entire converging crescent of the north shore of the lake, studded with white churches, hamlets, and cottages, was visible, and as the evening sun cast its mild light athwart the crowded and affluent landscape, we involuntarily exclaimed, “that this even equalled the Neapolitan coast in the twilight.”  The manner in which the obscurity settled on this picture, slowly swallowing up tower after tower, hamlet, cottage, and field, until the blue expanse of the lake alone reflected the light from the clouds, was indescribably beautiful, and was one of those fine effects that can only be produced amid a nature as grand as that of the Alps.

It was dark when we reached the inn at the summit; but it was not possible to remain there, for it had room for little more than kirschwasser.  The night came on dark and menacing, and for near two hours we crawled up and down the sharp ascents and descents, and, to make the matter worse, it began to rain.  This was a suitable approach to the abodes of monastic votaries, and I had just made the remark, when the carriage stopped before the door of my old inn, the Ox, at Einsiedeln.  It was near ten, and we ordered a cup of tea and beds immediately.