The next morning the rain was even more steady and incessant than before; yet I left the high road to cut across the marshes to the ferry over the Rhone, and in so doing lost my way, and had to walk almost in the water. I crossed the Rhone at Chessel. In winter, I am told that the stream is bright and clear, but in summer always thick and muddy, from the glaciers which supply it; whereas at Geneva it always leaves the lake pure, and of a deep blue. Thence I walked along the new road to St. Gingouf. Whatever faults Napoleon may have had, he was certainly a capital road-maker; and here, had his object been beauty, instead of dry utility, he could not have chosen a finer line; the lake and its surrounding mountains are on the right; on the left, lofty hills shaded with chesnut trees, some of which are of the grandest size; and here and there the opening of a little valley exposes a pointed summit of the Alps. A Russian countess had engaged the whole inn at St. Gingouf; but the landlady very justly observed, that this order could not be understood to include her own bed, and she gave that up to me.
In the morning I walked to Meillerie, where the road has been cut out of the solid rock, and a wide and excellent road it is; no contrivances or make-shifts, but completely as it should be. An inconsiderable work of this sort, well done, excites more pleasure than a much larger one imperfectly performed. In the first case the power shows itself superior to the obstacle, and the mind is satisfied: in the latter the mind is not satisfied, because we seem to feel the limits of the power employed. After viewing the rocks, I took a boat, and crossed the lake to Ouchy, and from Ouchy walked to Lausanne, but the cloudiness of the weather injured the prospect.
From Lausanne there are some very fine views over the lake, but a long and almost unbroken hill opposite, in the Pays de Chablais, which in great measure shuts out the higher Alps, is a displeasing feature. Yet with this defect, there are few places in the world equal to Lausanne. Gibbon’s house offers nothing remarkable, excepting as a memorial of the Historian, I was rather surprised at the table d’hôte, where several gentlemen of the neighbourhood were present, that his name was unknown to them.