Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/84

100 roars the mountain torrent, La Ruvaletta, deeply embedded between wild, riven rocks. The valley itself is embedded between lofty mountain walls, but the view opens both to the north and the south, and that to the south is of the most grand description. During the walk round a wood-crowned hill, at the end of the valley, you see, all at once, the glaciers, “Les Diablerets,” which elevate themselves above Les Ormondes valley, the Savoy Alps to the south, in a magnificent amphitheatre, and below, in the distance, the Rhone valley, of which the dwellings and villages can be distinguished. La Comballez is said to be the highest of the inhabited valleys of this region. And even in this glorious July weather, the air was so cold, both morning and evening, that one was actually frozen.

Early the following morning, leaving my shawl and umbrella in the care of the host of the little hotel, I set out on an excursion, carrying with me merely my parasol and a little bag containing a couple of pears and a few light and indispensable articles of the toilet. Not a cloud was in the sky, and the air was so pure and invigorating, that it seemed, as it were, to support me. I did not feel my body. For a part of the way, I was accompanied by pastor L., with whom I had become acquainted the preceding evening. Conversation on the subject of the church had attracted us to each other, and it was now continued during our morning's walk. He was born in France, and had the Frenchman's ease and pleasure in talking; he belonged to the Swiss national church, and he contended for the individualism of the church; yet with