Another thing I know
about this tunnel which makes me regard it with veneration as a
boundary line in countries, namely, that on every high ground after
this tunnel on clear days Mont Blanc may be seen. True, it is only
very rarely seen, but I have known those who have seen it; and
accordingly touch my companion on the side, and say, "We are within
sight of the Alps"; a few miles farther on and we are at Dijon. It
is still very early morning, I think about three o'clock, but we
feel as if we were already at the Alps, and keep looking anxiously
out for them, though we well know that it is a moral impossibility
that we should see them for some hours at the least. Indian corn
comes in after Dijon; the oleanders begin to come out of their tubs;
the peach trees, apricots, and nectarines unnail themselves from the
walls, and stand alone in the open fields. The vineyards are still
scrubby, but the practised eye readily detects with each hour some
slight token that we are nearer the sun than we were, or, at any
rate, farther from the North Pole. We don't stay long at Dijon nor
at Chalon, at Lyons we have an hour to wait; breakfast off a basin
of cafe au lait and a huge hunch of bread, get a miserable wash,
compared with which the spittoons of the Diners de Paris were
luxurious, and return in time to proceed to St.
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