“That is an odd name for a hotel,” said I.

“You see, Monsieur, it was made famous because of the dejeuner which Napoleon took there on his march with his army of 30,000 across the Pass in the month of May, 1800, and that is the reason of the name.  The madame who has the house now, is a grand-daughter of the innkeeper of that day; and she will show you the room where Napoleon breakfasted, with all the furniture just as it was then, and on the wall the portraits of her grand-parents, who waited on the great man.”

“At all events, we will rest and have something to eat there,” I said.  “Then, if it be not too late, we might push on further.  I like the idea of the lonely Cantine de Proz.”

My opinion of the Pass was changing for the better, before we reached the straggling town of stony pavements, which could not have a more appropriate patron than St. Pierre.  True, our road was always narrow, and poorly kept for a great mountain highway; so far, none of the magnificent engineering which impressed one on the Simplon.  But here and there dazzling white peaks glistened like frozen tidal waves against the blue, and the Dranse had a particular charm of its own.  Joseph said little when I patronised the Pass with a few grudging words of commendation.  He had the secretive smile of a man who hides something up his sleeve.

It was five o’clock when we arrived at Bourg St. Pierre, and having climbed a dark and hilly street, closely shut in with houses which age had not made beautiful, Joseph pointed out a neat, white inn, standing at the left of the road.

“That is the ‘Dejeuner de Napoleon,’” said he, “and near by are some Roman remains which will interest Monsieur if——­”

“By Jove, two donkeys!” I broke in, heedless of antiquities, in my surprise at seeing two of those animals which experience had taught me to look upon as more rare than Joseph’s “seldom plant.”  “Two donkeys in front of the inn.  Where on earth can they have sprung from?  I would have given a good deal for that sight a few days ago, but now”—­and I glanced at the dignified Finois—­“I can regard them simply with curiosity.”

“I have been over this Pass more than twenty times,” said Joseph (who was a native of Chamounix, I had learned), “yet rarely have I met with anes.  And see, Monsieur, the woman who is with them.  She is not of the country, nor of that part of Italy which we enter below the Pass, at Aosta.  It is a strange costume.  I do not know from what valley it comes.”

“Well,” said I, as we drew near to the group in the road outside the hotel, “if that girl, or at any rate her hat, did not come from the Riviera somewhere, I will eat my panama.”

Involuntarily I hastened my steps, and Joseph politely followed suit, dragging after him Finois, who seemed to be walking in his sleep.  I felt it almost as a personal injury from the hand of Fate, that after my unavailing search for donkeys in a land where I had thought to be forced to beat them off with sticks, I should find other persons provided with not one but two of the creatures.