It was always mountain, but a mountain so gradual of ascent, so vast, and yet so much like a broad reach of variegated low land, in its ornaments, cultivation, houses, villages, copses, meadows, and vines, that it seemed to be a huge plain canted into a particular inclination, in order to give the spectator a better opportunity to examine it in detail, and at his leisure, as one would hold a picture to the proper light.  Some of the ascents, nevertheless, were sufficiently sharp, and more than once we were glad enough to stop to cool ourselves, and to take breath.  At length, after crossing some lovely meadows, by the margin of beautiful woods, we came out at the spot which was the goal we had aimed at from the commencement of the excursion.  This was the castle of Blonay, of whose picturesque site and pleasant appearance I have already spoken in my letters, as a venerable hold that stands about a league from the town, on one of the most striking positions of the mountain.

The family of Blonay has been in possession of this place for seven hundred years.  One branch of it is in Sardinia; but I suppose its head is the occupant of the house, or castle.  As the building was historical, and the De Blonays of unquestionable standing, I was curious to examine the edifice, since it might give me some further insight into the condition of the old Swiss nobility.  Accordingly we applied for admission, and obtained it without difficulty.

The Swiss castles, with few exceptions, are built on the breasts, or spurs, of mountains.  The immediate foundation is usually a rock, and the sites were generally selected on account of the difficulties of the approach.  This latter peculiarity, however, does not apply so rigidly to Blonay as to most of the other holds of the country, for the rock which forms its base serves for little else than a solid foundation.  I presume one of the requisites of such a site was the difficulty or impossibility of undermining the walls, a mode of attack that existed long before gunpowder was known.

The buildings of Blonay are neither extensive nor very elaborate.  We entered by a modest gateway in a retired corner, and found ourselves at once in a long, narrow, irregular court.  On the left was a corps de batiment, that contained most of the sleeping apartments, and a few of the others, with the offices; in front was a still older wing, in which was the knight’s hall, and one or two other considerable rooms; and on the right was the keep, an old solid tower, that was originally the nucleus and parent of all the others, as well as a wing that is now degraded to the duties of a storehouse.  These buildings form the circuit of the court, and complete the edifice; for the side next the mountain, or that by which we entered, had little besides the ends of the two lateral buildings and the gate.  The latter was merely a sort of chivalrous back-door, for there was another between the old tower and the