As I was quite satisfied with the success of my work, and the weather was exceptionally cold and rainy, we made up our minds to return to our cosy winter residence in Zurich at the end of June.  I was resolved to stay there until the appearance of some real summer weather, when I intended to take a walking tour over the Alps, which I felt would be of great advantage to my health.  Herwegh had promised to accompany me, but as he was apparently prevented from doing so, I started alone in the middle of July, after arranging with my travelling companion to meet me in Valais.  I began my walking tour at Alpnach, on the Lake of Lucerne, and my plan was to wander by unfrequented paths to the principal points of the Bernese Oberland.  I worked pretty hard, paying a visit, for instance, to the Faulhorn, which at that time was considered a very difficult mountain to climb.  When I reached the hospice on the Grimsel by the Hasli Thal, I asked the host, a fine, stately-looking man, about the ascent of the Siedelhorn.  He recommended me one of his servants as a guide, a rough, sinister-looking man, who, instead of taking the usual zig-zag paths up the mountain, led me up in a bee line, and I rather suspected he intended to tire me out.  At the top of the Siedelhorn I was delighted to catch a glimpse, on one side, of the centre of the Alps, whose giant backs alone were turned to us; and on the other side, a sudden panorama of the Italian Alps, with Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa.  I had been careful to take a small bottle of champagne with me, following the example of Prince Puckler when he made the ascent of Snowdon; unfortunately, I could not think of anybody whose health I could drink.  We now descended vast snow-fields, over which my guide slid with mad haste on his alpenstock; I contented myself with leaning carefully on the iron point of mine, and coming down at a moderate pace.

I arrived at Obergestelen dead tired, and stayed there two days, to rest and await the arrival of Herwegh.  Instead of coming himself, however, a letter arrived from him which dragged me down from my lofty communings with the Alps to the humdrum consideration of the unpleasant situation in which my unhappy friend found himself as a result of the incident I have already described.  He feared that I had allowed myself to be taken in by his adversary, and had consequently formed an unfavourable opinion of him.  I told him to make his mind easy on that score, and to meet me again, if possible, in Italian Switzerland.  So I set out for the ascent of the Gries glacier, and the climb across the pass to the southern side of the Alps, in the company of my sinister guide alone.  During the ascent an extremely sad sight kept meeting my eyes; an epidemic of foot-rot had broken out among cows in the Upper Alps, and several herds passed me in single file on their way to the valley, where they were going to be doctored.  The cows had become so lean that they looked like skeletons, and dragged