Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/251

 dered. But, during my journey, I neither saw nor heard any thing, consequently took no notes, which my readers will rejoice at, because they will be spared that inexhaustible supply to the trunk makers, "A Tour through France and Switzerland." I travelled night and day; for I could not sleep. The allegory of Io and the gad-fly, in the heathen mythology, must surely have been intended to represent the being, who, like myself, was tormented by a bad conscience. Like Io, I flew; and like her, was I pursued by the eternal gad-fly, wherever I went, and in vain did I try to escape it.

I passed the Great St. Bernard on foot. This interested me as I approached it. The mountains below, and the Alps above, were one mass of snow and ice, and I looked down with contempt on the world below me. I took up my abode in the convent for some time; my ample contributions to the box in the chapel, made me a welcome sojourner beyond the limited period