Embark in the Winkelried.--Discussion with an Englishman.--The Valais.--Free Trade.--The Drance.--Terrible Inundation.--Liddes.--Mountain Scenery.--A Mountain Basin.--Dead-houses.--Melancholy Spectacle.--Approach of Night.--Desolate Region.--Convent of the Great St. Bernard.--Our Reception there.--Unhealthiness of the Situation.--The Superior.--Conversation during Supper.--Coal-mine on the Mountain.--Night in the Convent. Dear ----, After spending a few more days in the same delightful and listless enjoyments, my friend C---- came over from Lausanne, and we embarked in the Winkelried, on the afternoon of the 25th September, as she hove-to off our mole, on her way up the lake. We anchored off Villeneuve in less than an hour, there being neither port, nor wharf, nor mole at that place. In a few minutes we were in a three-horse conveyance, called a diligence, and were trotting across the broad meadows of the Rhone towards Bex, where we found one of our American families, the T----s, on their way to Italy. C---- and myself ate some excellent quails for supper in the public room. An Englishman was taking the same repast, at another table, near us, and he inquired for news, wishing particularly to know the state of things about Antwerp. This led to a little conversation, when I observed that, had the interests of France been consulted at the revolution of 1830, Belgium would have been received into the kingdom. Our Englishman grunted at this, and asked me what Europe would have said to it. My answer was, that when both parties were agreed, I did not see what Europe had to do with the matter; and that, at all events, the right Europe could have to interfere was founded in might; and such was the state of south-western Germany, Italy, Savoy, Spain, and even England, that I was of opinion Europe would have been glad enough to take things quietly. At all events, a war would only have made the matter worse for the allied monarchs. The other stared at me in amazement, muttered an audible dissent, and, I make no doubt, set me down as a most disloyal subject; for, while extending her empire, and spreading her commercial system, (her Free Trade _à l'Anglaise!_) over every nook and corner of the earth where she can get footing, nothing sounds more treasonable to the ears of a loyal Englishman than to give the French possession of Antwerp, or the Russians possession of Constantinople. So inveterate become his national feelings on such subjects, that I am persuaded a portion of his antipathy to the Americans arises from a disgust at hearing notions that have been, as it were, bred in and in, through his own moral system, contemned in a language that he deems his own peculiar property. Men, in such circumstances, are rarely very philosophical or very just.