Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/176

 daughters. The next day up St. Gothard—very cold—the snow falling so fast, that, looking back, the tracks of the wheels and horses were filled up and imperceptible before we were out of sight of the place where they had been. This pass, though, perhaps, not equal to the Splugen, as a work of engineering (je n’en sais rien), is, I swear, infinitely more terrific in bad, and, I should think, more beautiful in fine weather.

“At Hospital we dined, and got into a car alone, which drove for a league through a lake, somewhere in which was the road: we might have been near it. Through Andermatt, thence by a shocking, most perilous road—no parapets—over the Devil’s Bridge before we were aware of it: it is very fine on looking back; but there is another by it, quite as grand in position, though something safer. Thence at last to Amstag; whence, indifferent at last to broken roads and torrents dashing across our path, half carrying the horse away into the Reuss, we got to Altorf and Fluelen; good inn. To our joy and surprise the honourable Austrians took all additional expenses on themselves, and our payment at Milan covered all. We here embarked on board the steamer on the lake of Lucerne, which you know as well as I. Excuse this incoherent scrawl, if you read it; and excuse the extreme personality of my narrative.”