sufficient to admit the passage of a carriage, and by various windings he arrives in the valley of Magi an, which presents a still more interesting variety of objects, amongst others the cascade of Nant d'Arpennas and many other inferior ones, which tumble from the mountains, and increase the rapidity of the Arve. About a league beyond the fall d'Arpennas is an excellent view of _Mont Blanc_, which crowned with all the horrors of a perpetual winter, presents one of the most sublime, and majestic spectacles, which it is possible to conceive. To describe the contrast between its snowy summit, and the cultivated valley beneath, so as to convey any just idea of the scene, to those who have not themselves seen it, would require all the descriptive powers of a _Radcliffe_. We arrived to a late dinner at the hotel de Mont Blanc, at St Martin, which is a large single house situated about a quarter of a league from the little town of Salenche, of which I do not recollect having heard any thing remarkable, except that the right of burgership may be purchased for forty-five livres. The windows of our hotel commanded a most astonishing extent of mountain scenery diversified by the windings of the Arve through a well cultivated valley. The hotel was sufficiently comfortable, but the bill was extravagant beyond any precedent in the annals of extortion. We had occasion to remonstrate with our host on the subject, and our French companion exerted himself so much on the occasion, that at last we succeeded in persuading the landlord to make a considerable reduction in his charges, which were out of all reason, making every allowance that his house was so situated, as not to be accessible during the whole year. We were afterwards told that he would have considered himself amply paid by receiving the half of his first demand, and I found it is often the practice to ask of the English at least double of what is charged to travellers of any other nation. Appearances were so much against our landlord, that one might say to him in the words of the epigram, _"If thou art honest thou'rt a wondrous cheat."_