We Took Six Hours To
Travel From The Inn Where We Had Lodged Over The Mountain To
Limon, And Five Hours From Thence To Coni.
Here we found our
baggage, which we had sent off by the carriers one day before we
departed from Nice; and here we dismissed our guides, together
with the mules.
In winter, you have a mule for this whole journey
at the rate of twenty livres; and the
guides are payed at the rate of two livres a day, reckoning six
days, three for the journey to Coni, and three for their return
to Nice. We set out so early in the morning in order to avoid the
inconveniencies and dangers that attend the passage of this
mountain. The first of these arises from your meeting with long
strings of loaded mules in a slippery road, the breadth of which
does not exceed a foot and an half. As it is altogether
impossible for two mules to pass each other in such a narrow
path, the muleteers have made doublings or elbows in different
parts, and when the troops of mules meet, the least numerous is
obliged to turn off into one of these doublings, and there halt
until the others are past. Travellers, in order to avoid this
disagreeable delay, which is the more vexatious, considering the
excessive cold, begin the ascent of the mountain early in the
morning before the mules quit their inns. But the great danger of
travelling here when the sun is up, proceeds from what they call
the Valanches. These are balls of snow detached from the
mountains which over-top the road, either by the heat of the sun,
or the humidity of the weather. A piece of snow thus loosened
from the rock, though perhaps not above three or four feet in
diameter, increases sometimes in its descent to such a degree, as
to become two hundred paces in length, and rolls down with such
rapidity, that the traveller is crushed to death before he can
make three steps on the road. These dreadful heaps drag every
thing along with them in their descent. They tear up huge trees
by the roots, and if they chance to fall upon a house, demolish
it to the foundation. Accidents of this nature seldom happen in
the winter while the weather is dry; and yet scarce a year passes
in which some mules and their drivers do not perish by the
valanches. At Coni we found the countess C - from Nice, who had
made the same journey in a chair, carried by porters. This is no
other than a common elbow-chair of wood, with a straw bottom,
covered above with waxed cloth, to protect the traveller from the
rain or snow, and provided with a foot-board upon which the feet
rest.
It is carried like a sedan-chair; and for this purpose six or
eight porters are employed at the rate of three or four livres a
head per day, according to the season, allowing three days for
their return.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 256 of 276
Words from 132444 to 132955
of 143308
