I believe my arm is a trifle better than it was when I started.

The mention in the foregoing letter of the Napoleon effigy is the beginning of what proved to be a rather interesting episode.  Mark Twain thought a great deal of his discovery, as he called it—­the giant figure of Napoleon outlined by the distant mountain range.  In his note-book he entered memoranda telling just where it was to be seen, and added a pencil sketch of the huge profile.  But then he characteristically forgot all about it, and when he recalled the incident ten years later, he could not remember the name of the village, Beauchastel, from which the great figure could be seen; also, that he had made a record of the place.

But he was by this time more certain than ever that his discovery was a remarkable one, which, if known, would become one of the great natural wonders, such as Niagara Falls.  Theodore Stanton was visiting him at the time, and Clemens urged him, on his return to France, to make an excursion to the Rhone and locate the Lost Napoleon, as he now called it.  But Clemens remembered the wonder as being somewhere between Arles and Avignon, instead of about a hundred miles above the last-named town.  Stanton naturally failed to find it, and it remained for the writer of these notes, motoring up the Rhone one September day, exactly twenty-two years after the first discovery, to re-locate the vast reclining figure of the first consul of France, “dreaming of Universal Empire.”  The re-discovery was not difficult—­with Mark Twain’s memoranda as a guide—­and it was worth while.  Perhaps the Lost Napoleon is not so important a natural wonder as Mark Twain believed, but it is a striking picture, and on a clear day the calm blue face outlined against the sky will long hold the traveler’s attention.

To Clara Clemens, in Ouchy, Switzerland: 

Afloat, 11.20 a.m., Sept. 29, Tuesday.  Dear old Ben,—­The vast stone masses and huge towers of the ancient papal palace of Avignon are projected above an intervening wooded island a mile up the river behind me—­for we are already on our way to Arles.  It is a perfectly still morning, with a brilliant sun, and very hot—­outside; but I am under cover of the linen hood, and it is cool and shady in here.

Please tell mamma I got her very last letter this morning, and I perceive by it that I do not need to arrive at Ouchy before Saturday midnight.  I am glad, because I couldn’t do the railroading I am proposing to do during the next two or three days and get there earlier.  I could put in the time till Sunday midnight, but shall not venture it without telegraphic instructions from her to Nimes day after tomorrow, Oct. 1, care Hotel Manivet.