the inn is situated.  The serving-man, however, whom he had bribed to arrange the fire, was caught and punished.  I knew by the name that he was the same man that the worthy innkeeper had given me as companion on my solitary journey across the glacier pass, and I heard at the same time that two travellers from Frankfort had perished on the same pass a short time before my own journey.  I consequently realised that I had in a really remarkable manner escaped a fatal danger which had threatened me.

I shall never forget my impressions of my journey through the continually descending valley.  I was particularly astonished at the southern vegetation which suddenly spreads out before one on climbing down from a steep and narrow rocky pass by which the Tosa is confined.  I arrived at Domodossola in the afternoon in a blaze of sunshine, and I was reminded here of a charming comedy by an author whose name I have forgotten, which I had once seen performed with a refinement worthy of Platen, and to which my attention had been drawn by Eduard Devrient in Dresden.  The scene of the play was laid in Domodossola, and described exactly the impressions I myself received on coming down from the Northern Alps into Italy, which suddenly burst upon one’s gaze.  I shall also never forget my first simple, but extremely well-served, Italian dinner.  Although I was too tired to walk any further that day, I was very impatient to get to the borders of Lake Maggiore, and I accordingly arranged to drive in a one-horse chaise, which was to take me on the same evening as far as Baveno.  I felt so contented while bowling along in my little vehicle that I reproached myself for want of consideration in having rudely declined the offer of company which an officer passing through the Vetturino made me by means of the driver.  I admired the daintiness of the house decorations and the pleasant faces of the people in the pretty villages I passed through.  A young mother, strolling along and singing as she spun the flax, with her baby in her arms, also made a never-to-be-forgotten impression on me.  Soon after sunset I caught sight of the Borromean Islands rising gracefully out of Lake Maggiore, and again I could not sleep for excitement at the thought of what I might see on the following day.  The next morning the visit to the islands themselves delighted me so much that I could not understand how I had managed to come upon anything so charming, and wondered what would result from it.  After stopping only one day, I left the place with the feeling that I had now to flee from something to which I did not belong, and went round Lake Maggiore, up past Socarno, to Bellinzona, where I was once again on Swiss soil; from there I proceeded to Lugano, intending, if I followed out my original plan of travel, to stay there some time.  But I soon suffered from the intense heat; even bathing in the sun-scorched lake was not refreshing.  Apart from the dirty furniture, which included the