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I HAD been out of sorts all the spring; my business engagements had kept me longer than usual in town, and prevented my getting a little relaxation. It was not until the end of August I was able to put into execution a long-contemplated visit to some relatives in Italy, and try what change of air and a holiday would do for me.
So away we started—a party of four, my wife and two ladies under my charge—and armed with Cook’s tickets we made our way _via_ Newhaven to Paris, which we reached late at night. Next day, as our train for Italy did not leave till the evening, we wandered about Paris, visiting the sad scenes of Communistic destruction. Plenty of photographs in every shop illustrative of the wretched devastation which was visible on all sides. In a place like Paris there was of course all qualities, shapes, and sizes; and, in addition to _souvenirs_ of the ruined public buildings, there were to be bought a great variety purporting to be faithful representations of the events of the siege, such as barricades, executions, streets with dead bodies lying in them, and so forth. These, it is needless to say, were fictitious, carefully-arranged tableaux, but terribly natural, and greedily bought by tourists, the greater portion of whom never for one moment questioned the reality of the representation.
At night we started from the Lyons station for our long-through journey over Mont Cenis, for the tunnel was not yet complete. By morning we were travelling through the lovely scenery from Chambery to St. Michel, the commencement of the Fell railway over the mountain. Here there is a splendid field for the photographic artist, and, so far as I could discover, hitherto unworked. As the railway wound its tortuous way amidst the charming mountain scenery the landscape changed at every turn—bridges, cottages, foliage of every variety, rivers, brooks, and torrents coming into view every instant. Here a photographer might spend weeks without exhausting the rich field for his camera.
At three o’clock St. Michel was reached, and after some inexplicable delay—which, however, gave us the opportunity of making a comfortable dinner—we changed from the ordinary line of railway to the special narrow-gauge carriages on the Fell system for crossing the mountain. A grand journey it is—zigzagging over the steep ascent, through scenery of charming and varied character! This Fell system has been so often described I shall forbear to say more about it, except that it contrasted very favourably both in time and comfort with the old diligence journey I had undergone some years before over the same route.