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rift in a mountainous mass of granite, where all is denuded to absolute sterility. Below it, a thousand enormous masses of granite are bouldered by the materials brought down and thrown upon them by the fall.’
    More chilling matter is to come. Murray tells us that, a mile above Novasca,
    there is a terrific gorge where enormous precipices overhang the course of the Orca, which rumbles through a succession of cataracts between these herbless precipices. The path which leads to the summit is cut out of the rocks, and a flight of steps, practicable for mules, is carried up through the gorge; sometimes on the actual brink of the precipice which overhangs the foaming torrent; in others, cut so deep into its side, that the rocky canopy overhangs the precipice. In some places there is not room enough for the mounted traveller, and there is danger of his head striking the rocks above him. This extraordinary path extends half a mile. In its course, crosses are observed, fixed against the rock to mark the spots of fatal accidents: but as three such accidents happened in company with an old miscreant who lived at the foot of the Scalare, suspicions were entertained of these having been murders which he had committed there. He underwent severe examinations; yet, though no doubt existed of his guilt, there was not evidence enough to convict him. It is believed that, at the spot where the crosses are placed, he pushed his victims over in an unguarded moment, where a child, unheeded, might have destroyed a giant.
    Our traveller would sooner or later bring Geneva into his itinerary, and put up at the Hôtel des Bergues, ‘a grand establishment, recently built, facing the lake – expensive’. Reading the page of history in his Murray he would learn that: ‘The feuds arising between the high and low town were not few, nor void of interest; indeed, they would fill a long and amusing historical chapter: they often led to bloodshed, but the democrats below generally brought their exalted neighbours to reason by the simple expedient of cutting off the water-pipes, taking especial care to guard the hydraulic machine which furnished the supply to the upper town, and which is situated in their quarter.’
    Thirty thousand people were said to visit the town every year, and one object of interest was the Natural History Museum. ‘There is the skin of an elephant, which lived a long time in a menagerie in the town, but at length becoming unruly, was shot.’
    Some of the inhabitants remembered the horrors of the French Revolution, associated with the Botanic Gardens. ‘On this spot took place fusillades and butcheries, too horrible to be detailed, in which the blood of the most respectable citizens of the town was shed, condemned to execution by a band of wretches, most of whom where their fellow-citizens. Here, as in other places, subjected to the madness of the reign of terror, the atrocities were committed by a mere handful of assassins, while thousands looked on, disapproving, but yet not raising a voice to condemn, nor an arm to resist.’
    On the nearby lake, the village of Clarens, sentimentally described by Rousseau in La Nouvelle Héloïse , was a poor and dirty place, says Murray, ‘far less attractive than many of its neighbours, and it probably owes its celebrity to a well-sounding name, which fitted it for the pages of a romance. The spot on which the beautifully ‘bosquet de Julie’ is sought for is now a potato field.’
    In the historical note on Geneva Baedeker tells us that Jean Jacques Rousseau, the son of a watchmaker, was born there in 1712, and lived in the town during his early youth. ‘His writings, which exhibited ability of the highest order, exercised a great influence over the opinions of his age, but their tendency was highly injurious to society, and he passed a troubled and agitated life. At the instigation of Voltaire and the university of Paris, and by order