LETTER XVII.

Our Voiturier and his Horses.—­A Swiss Diligence.—­Morat.—­Inconstancy of feeling.—­Our Route to Vevey.—­Lake Leman.—­Difficulty in hiring a House.—­“Mon Repos” engaged for a mouth.—­Vevey.—­Tne great Square—­The Town-house.—­Environs of Vevey.—­Summer Church and Winter Church.—­Clergy of the Canton.—­Population of Vaud.—­Elective qualifications of Vaud.

Dear ——­,

Le Petit Savoyard was punctual, and after breakfasting, away we rolled, along the even and beaten road towards Morat.  This man and his team were epitomes of the voiturier caste and their fixtures.  He himself was a firm, sun-burned, compact little fellow, just suited to ride a wheeler, while the horses were sinewy, and so lean, that there was no mistaking their vocation.  Every bone in their bodies spoke of the weight of miladi, and her heavy English travelling chariot, and I really thought they seemed to be glad to get a whole American family in place of an Englishwoman and her maid.  The morning was fine, and our last look at the Oberland peaks was sunny and pleasant.  There they stood ranged along the horizon, like sentinels (not lighthouses) of the skies, severe, chiseled, brilliant, and grand.

Another travelling equipage of the gregarious kind, or in which the carriage as well as the horses was the property of the voiturier, and the passengers mere pic-nics, was before us in ascending a long hill, affording an excellent opportunity to dissect the whole party.  As it is a specimen of the groups one constantly meets on the road, I will give you some idea of the component parts.

The voiturier was merely a larger brother of le petit Savoyard, and his horses, three in number, were walking bundles of chopped straw.  The carriage was spacious, and I dare say convenient, though anything but beautiful.  On the top there was a rail, within which effects were stowed beneath an apron, leaving an outline not unlike the ridges of the Alps.  The merry rogues within had chosen to take room to themselves, and not a package of any sort encumbered their movements.  And here I will remark, that America, free and independent, is the only country in which I have ever journeyed, where the comfort and convenience in the vehicle is the first thing considered, that of the baggage the next, and that of the passengers the last.[32] Fortunately for the horses, there were but four passengers, though the vehicle could have carried eight.  One, by his little green cap, with a misshapen shade for the eyes; light, shaggy, uncombed hair; square high shoulders; a coat that appeared to be half-male half-female; pipe and pouch—­was undeniably a German student, who was travelling south to finish his metaphysics with a few practical notions of men and things.  A second was a Jew, who had trade in every lineament, and who belonged so much to the nation, that