After dinner we
trudge on, the scenery constantly improving, the snow drawing down
to us, and the Romanche dwindling hourly; we reach the top of the
Col du Lautaret, which Murray must describe; I can only say that it
is first-class scenery. The flowers are splendid, acres and acres
of wild narcissus, the Alpine cowslip, gentians, large purple and
yellow anemones, soldanellas, and the whole kith and kin of the high
Alpine pasture flowers; great banks of snow lie on each side of the
road, and probably will continue to do so till the middle of July,
while all around are glaciers and precipices innumerable.
We only got as far as Monetier after all, for, reaching that town at
half-past eight, and finding that Briancon was still eight miles
further on, we preferred resting there at the miserable but cheap
and honest Hotel de l'Europe; had we gone on a little farther we
should have found a much better one, but we were tired with our
forty-two miles' walk, and, after a hasty supper and a quiet pipe,
over which we watch the last twilight on the Alps above Briancon, we
turn in very tired but very much charmed.
Sunday morning was the clearest and freshest morning that ever
tourists could wish for, the grass crisply frozen (for we are some
three or four thousand feet above the sea), the glaciers descending
to a level but little higher than the road; a fine range of Alps in
front over Briancon, and the road winding down past a new river (for
we have long lost the Romanche) towards the town, which is some six
or seven miles distant.
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