Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/170

158 on account of my foot. At Brientz an old woman would give us her presence and conversation till one of my companions courted the daughter. Met between Grindenwald and Interlachen L[ord] B[yron] and Mr. H[obhouse]: we saluted.

September 23.—Got up at 4. Tired of my company; and, finding the expense more than I could afford, I went to their bedrooms to wish them good-bye. Set off at $5 1⁄2$; and through fine copse-wooded crags, along the Aar, with cascades on every side, to Meyringen; where I breakfasted with two Germans, an old and a young artist—the old, chatty. Bought a pole. Went to see the Reichenbach, a fine cascade indeed. Thence through the beautiful vale of Nachim-Grunden, where for a moment I planned a sovereignty; but, walking on, my plans faded before I arrived at Guttannen, where I dined.

Rode all the way to-day—horrible, only passable for men and mules: it is the way to St. Gothard. The road is merely huge unequal masses of granite thrown in a line not the straightest. From Guttannen the road went through the wildest and most sublime scenery I ever read of: vegetation less and less, so that, instead of grass, there was moss; then nothing. Instead of trees, shrubs; then nothing—huge granite rocks leaving hardly room for the road and river. The river's bed the most magnificent imaginable, cut