This Must Render The
Air Moist, Frouzy, And Even Putrid, If It Was Not Well Ventilated
By Winds From The Mountains Of Swisserland; And In The Latter End
Of Autumn, It Must Be Subject To Fogs.
The morning we set out
from thence, the whole city and adjacent plains were covered with
so thick a fog, that we could not distinguish from the coach the
head of the foremost mule that drew it.
Lyons is said to be very
hot in summer, and very cold in winter; therefore I imagine must
abound with inflammatory and intermittent disorders in the spring
and fall of the year.
My reasons for going to Montpellier, which is out of the strait
road to Nice, were these. Having no acquaintance nor
correspondents in the South of France, I had desired my credit
might be sent to the same house to which my heavy baggage was
consigned. I expected to find my baggage at Cette, which is the
sea-port of Montpellier; and there I also hoped to find a vessel,
in which I might be transported by sea to Nice, without further
trouble. I longed to try what effect the boasted air of
Montpellier would have upon my constitution; and I had a great
desire to see the famous monuments of antiquity in and about the
ancient city of Nismes, which is about eight leagues short of
Montpellier.
At the inn where we lodged, I found a return berline, belonging
to Avignon, with three mules, which are the animals commonly used
for carriages in this country. This I hired for five loui'dores.
The coach was large, commodious, and well-fitted; the mules were
strong and in good order; and the driver, whose name was Joseph,
appeared to be a sober, sagacious, intelligent fellow, perfectly
well acquainted with every place in the South of France. He told
me he was owner of the coach, but I afterwards learned, he was no
other than a hired servant. I likewise detected him in some
knavery, in the course of our journey; and plainly perceived he
had a fellow-feeling with the inn-keepers on the road; but, in
other respects, he was very obliging, serviceable, and even
entertaining. There are some knavish practices of this kind, at
which a traveller will do well to shut his eyes, for his own ease
and convenience. He will be lucky if he has to do with a sensible
knave, like Joseph, who understood his interest too well to be
guilty of very flagrant pieces of imposition.
A man, impatient to be at his journey's end, will find this a
most disagreeable way of travelling. In summer it must be quite
intolerable. The mules are very sure, but very slow. The journey
seldom exceeds eight leagues, about four and twenty miles a day:
and as those people have certain fixed stages, you are sometimes
obliged to rise in a morning before day; a circumstance very
grievous to persons in ill health. These inconveniences, however,
were over-balanced by other agreemens.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 91 of 276
Words from 46785 to 47292
of 143308
