and many other inferior ones, which tumble from the mountains, and increase the rapidity of the Arve.  About a league beyond the fall d’Arpennas is an excellent view of Mont Blanc, which crowned with all the horrors of a perpetual winter, presents one of the most sublime, and majestic spectacles, which it is possible to conceive.  To describe the contrast between its snowy summit, and the cultivated valley beneath, so as to convey any just idea of the scene, to those who have not themselves seen it, would require all the descriptive powers of a Radcliffe.  We arrived to a late dinner at the hotel de Mont Blanc, at St Martin, which is a large single house situated about a quarter of a league from the little town of Salenche, of which I do not recollect having heard any thing remarkable, except that the right of burgership may be purchased for forty-five livres.  The windows of our hotel commanded a most astonishing extent of mountain scenery diversified by the windings of the Arve through a well cultivated valley.  The hotel was sufficiently comfortable, but the bill was extravagant beyond any precedent in the annals of extortion.  We had occasion to remonstrate with our host on the subject, and our French companion exerted himself so much on the occasion, that at last we succeeded in persuading the landlord to make a considerable reduction in his charges, which were out of all reason, making every allowance that his house was so situated, as not to be accessible during the whole year.  We were afterwards told that he would have considered himself amply paid by receiving the half of his first demand, and I found it is often the practice to ask of the English at least double of what is charged to travellers of any other nation.  Appearances were so much against our landlord, that one might say to him in the words of the epigram, "If thou art honest thou’rt a wondrous cheat."

The carriage road ends at Salenche; and we, therefore, made the necessary arrangements to proceed on mules, and sent back our carriage to Geneva.  It was the first time I had travelled in a country only accessible on foot or by mules, and I cannot but add my testimony to that of all those who have ever made excursions into these mountains, respecting the very extraordinary and almost incredible safety with which the mule conveys his rider over tracks, which were any one to see suddenly, coming out of a civilized country, he would think it the height of folly to attempt to pass even on foot.  There are, however, places where it is expedient to climb for one’s self, but as long as one remains on the back of the mule, it is advisable not to attempt to direct his course, but to submit one’s reason for the time to the instinct of the animal.  Our guides assured me that they had never known a single instance of any one’s having had reason to regret having placed this confidence in them; and, indeed, it is by having the command of his head that the mule is enabled to carry his rider in safety over passes, which one is often afraid to recall to one’s memory.  Several of the mules in Savoy are handsome, but one of our party, who had crossed the Fyrenean mountains, thought the Spanish mules were much more so; the ordinary price of a mule here, is from fourteen to twenty Louis d’Ors.