Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/241

Rh And yet, this was the finest vintage that there had been for many years!

I experienced one agreeable impression—that produced by the kind manners and disposition of the country people towards strangers, to whom they most liberally presented the beautiful bunches, inviting them, also, to partake of the must which streamed from the wine-presses, and which is, indeed, the most delicious drink any one can imagine. And, in the evenings, you would meet on the roads, women returning home from the day's work, earning a part of its wages on their heads, in large baskets full of grapes, the clusters and leaves of which sometimes garlanded them so beautifully, that no artist could have done it better, if he had wished to represent a Pomona.

But the air was cold: so cold, that it penetrated me both body and soul; which, perhaps, made me insensible to the celebrated beauty of the Montreux district. Its vast mountain chain seemed coldly to weigh me down, and the lofty rock-wall of Meillerie, Dent du Midi, and Dent d'Orche, closed up my view, and deprived me too easily of the little sunshine which the autumn still permitted. I grew regularly ill-tempered on these lofty mountains, and felt myself shut up in Montreux, as if within the walls of a fortress. I could not but remember the expression of a Dutch gentleman, “that Switzerland is a very pretty country, only it is a pity that the lofty mountains prevent one from seeing it!”

At Montreux I was obliged to climb high among the mountains to obtain any thing of an open view,