TO HIS SISTERS.
Charney, 6th August, 1831.
My Dear Sisters,—You have read all through Ritter’s Africa of course, but I don’t fancy you know the whereabouts of Charney. Then fetch the old atlas up from the cellar, for you must be prepared to give me your company on my travels. Go with your finger from Vevay to Clarens, and then on to the peak of Jaman, straight as a string. This string is a footpath, and where you must go with your fingers I have come this morning on my feet. (It is now half-past seven, and I am still fasting.) I am going to have breakfast here, and am now writing in a clean wooden-walled room till the milk is hot.
From outside comes in the gleam of the bright, blue lake. I am beginning my diary here, and will go on with it while I travel on foot as well as I can.
After breakfast.—Great heaven! consider my misfortune. The hostess has come in with a face full of trouble to say there is no one in the village to be my guide to Jaman and carry my bundle except a young girl; the men are all at their work. You must know I always set out alone in the morning with my bundle
