The Argosy — page 123: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

108 En Voyage. breakfast. Wenham is, of course, too incapable both in mind and body, for lack of her usual morning cup of tea, to be of much use. After much struggling, three characteristic bundles are produced : Aunt Caroline’s, compact and symmetrical, like a well-made roly- poly pudding ; my own, fairly even, but flabby; Mabel’s, a really disgraceful performance, shaped like a wedge, and with the corner of a fringed shawl protruding. We are nearing Culoz. On either side of us rise rocky walls, so high and close that only by leaning forward and peering upwards can we see how bright and blue is the sky above us. Soon they fall back, and we are surrounded by hills, some near to us, dark and rugged ; others, far off, soft and translucent-looking, as if of such stuff as clouds are made of. ‘Their hues, varied like their shapes, are in all the delicate tones and semi-tones of colours that lie between dark violet and tenderest lilac. Each minute a new group is before us. Peace, Mr. Ruskin; nature thus viewed from the window of a railway carriage is not without its own peculiar charm. There is a strange fascination in watching these mountain forms and tints melting, kaleidoscope-like, into one another, as we sweep onwards. Here is Culoz. A crowd of hungry travellers pour forth upon the platform and across to the breakfast-stalls. We catch fragments of many languages from the general Babel, as we rush off to try vainly to wash and be clean in ice-cold water and with soap of the con- sistency of iron, which the government mockingly provides. After-_ wards we sup our welcome and hot café-au-lait like soup, with a spoon, whilst a waiter walks up and down shouting reassuringly : ‘““Ne pressez pas, messieurs et dames; vingt minutes d’arrét.” And then we sally forth, still munching our sour rolls, to breathe the fresh air. What air it is, this atmosphere of the highlands and the morn- ing. No wine ever so gladdened the heart as this cup of Nature’s own mingling, bubbling with ozone. We feel that we could dance for very pleasure ; and, indeed, Mabel does perform a solitary trois- temps, to the music of her own singing. ‘This is the joy of the old paradise, the delight of mere existence, carried by healthy blood to brains untroubled by care or aspiration. Oh, let us linger and enjoy it, and forget there are such things as time or tide, luggage and trains. Fortunately, perhaps, Aunt Caroline’s older and stronger head 1s less easily affected by the aerial draught. We are, by her, led off, unwilling prisoners, to be cribbed, cabined and confined once more in a dusty railway carriage. But our murmurings are soon hushed by the sight of the beautiful world, fresh with the bloom of early morning, now opening to us. Let us curl up into the corner and drink it in. There lies the Lac du Bourget, bright and blue as the sky it mirrors, and sheltered by the grand hills, whose bases are still steeped in the silver mists of morning. Ona high rock, jutting into ECORNIELIOOKS,E@ m