we had four horses, sometimes five, and once we had seven. For a long time I could not tell what the reason was for such a difference. But at last I found out. It was because some of the stages were pretty nearly level, and others were almost all up hill. Of course, where there was a great deal of up hill they required more horses. At the time when they put on seven horses I knew that we had come to a place where it was almost all up hill; and it was. The road went winding around through a region of hills and valleys, but ascending all the time. Still the road was so hard and smooth, and the horses were so full of life, that we went on the full trot the whole way. Four horses could not have done this, though, with such a heavy load. It took seven.
"In almost all the villages we came to we saw long lines of wagons by the road side. They were very curious wagons indeed. They were small. Each one was to be drawn by one horse. There was no body to them, but only two long poles going from the forward axletree to the back axletree; and the load was packed on these poles, and covered with canvas. It looked just like a big bundle tied up in a cloth. These were wagons that had stopped for the night. Afterwards, when the morning came, we overtook a great many trains of these wagons, on the road to Geneva. They were loaded with merchandise going from France into Switzerland. There was only one driver to the whole train. He went along with the front wagon, and all the rest followed on in a line. The horses were trained to follow in this way. Thus one man could take charge of a train of six or eight wagons.
"There was one very curious thing in the arrangement, and that was, that the last horse in the train had a bell on his neck, something like a cow bell. This was to prevent the driver from having to look round continually to see whether the rest of the horses were coming or not. As long as he could hear the bell on the last one's neck he knew they were all coming; for none of the middle ones could stop without stopping all behind them.
"I suppose that sometimes some of the horses in the train would stop; then the driver would observe that the bell ceased to ring, and he would stop his own wagon, and go back to see what was the matter. If he found that any of them stopped to eat grass by the way, or because they were lazy, he would give them a whipping, and start them on, and that would teach them to keep marching on the next time.
"I know what I would do if I were the last horse. Whenever I wanted to stop and rest I would keep shaking my head all the time, and that would make the driver think that I was coming along.
"One time, when we were stopping to change horses, I heard some one below me calling to me,
"'Rollo!'
"I believe I was asleep at that time, and dreaming about something, though I don't remember what it was. I started up and reached out as far as I could over the boot, and looked down. I found it was my mother calling to me.
"'Rollo,' says she, 'how do you get along?'
"'Very nicely indeed, mother,' says I; 'and how do you get along?'
"'Very well,' says she.
"Just then I happened to think of my oranges; so I asked mother if she was not thirsty, and she said she was a little thirsty, but she did not see how she could get any drink until the morning, for the houses were all shut up, and the people were in bed and asleep. So I told her that I had an orange for her and for father. She said she was very glad indeed.
"I could not get down very well to give the oranges to her, so I put them in my little knapsack, and let them down by a string. I had the string in my pocket.
"Mother took the oranges out of the knapsack, and then I pulled it up again. I told her that I had plenty more for myself.
"Father cut a hole in one of the oranges that I sent down to mother, and then she squeezed the juice of it out into her mouth. She said afterwards that I could not conceive how much it refreshed her. I don't think she could conceive how glad I was that I had bought it for her.
"A little while after sunrise we came to a village where we were going to change horses, and the conductor said that we should stop long enough to go into the inn if we pleased, and get some coffee. So father and mother got out of the coupé, and went in. I climbed down from my place, and went with them. Mother said she went in more to see what sort of a place the inn was than for the sake of the coffee.
"It was a very funny place. The floor was of stone. There was one table, with cups on it for coffee, and plates, and bread and butter. The loaves of bread were shaped like a man's arm—about as big round, and a good deal longer. The coffee was very good indeed, on account of there being plenty of hot milk to put into it.
"After we had had our breakfast we went on, and the rest of our ride was through a most magnificent country. There was a long, winding valley, with beautiful hills and mountains on each side, and a deep chasm in the middle, with the River Rhone roaring and tumbling over the stones down at the bottom of it. The road went wheeling on down long slopes, and around the hills and promontories, with beautiful green swells of land above it and below it. The horses went upon the run. The postilion had a little handle close by his seat—a sort of crank—that he could turn round and round, and so bring a brake to bear against the wheels, and thus help to hold the carriage back. When he began to go down a slope he would turn this crank round and round as fast as he could, till it was screwed up tight, cheering the horses on all the time; and then he would take his whip and crack it about their ears, and so we go down the hills, and wheel round the great curves, almost on the run, and could look down on the fields and meadows and houses in the valley, a thousand feet below us. It was the grandest ride I ever had.
"But I have been so long writing this letter that I am beginning to be tired of it, though I have not got yet to Geneva; so I am going to stop now. The rest I will tell you when I see you.
"P.S. There is one thing more that I will tell you, and that is, that we went through a castle at one place in the valley. It was a castle built by the French to guard their frontier. Indeed, there were two castles. The road passes directly through one of them, and the other is high up on the rocks exactly above it. The valley is so narrow, and the banks are so steep, that there is no other possible place for the road except through the lower castle. The road has to twist and twine about, too, just before it comes to the castle gates, and after it goes away from them on the other side, so that every thing that passes along has some guns or other pointing at them from the castle for more than a mile. I don't see how any enemy could possibly get into France this way.
"There was also a place where the Rhone goes under ground, or, rather, under the rocks, and so loses itself for a time, and then after a while comes out again. It is a place where the river runs along in the bottom of a very deep and rocky chasm, and the rocks have fallen down from above, so as to fill up the chasm from one side to the other, and all the water gets through underneath them. We looked down into the chasm as the diligence went by, and saw the water tumbling over the rocks just above the place where it goes down. I should have liked to stop, and to climb down there and see the place, but I knew that the diligence would not wait."
Chapter IV.
The Town
The valley described by Rollo in his letter to Lucy, contained in the last chapter, is indeed a very remarkable pass. The Romans travelled it nearly two thousand years ago, in going from Italy to France, or, as they called it, Gaul. Cæsar describes the country in his Commentaries; and from that day to this it has been one of the greatest thoroughfares of Europe.
The valley is very tortuous, and in some places it is very narrow; and the road runs along through it like a white thread, suspended, as it were, half way between the lofty summits of the mountains and the roaring torrent of the Rhone in the deep abyss below.
After
