We stopped a few hours, during the heat of the day, at a small village, called St. Ambrose, two or three posts from Turin. I never experienced more intense heat than during this day, while we were tantalized with a view of the snow on the top of the Alps, which seem to overhang this place, though, in reality, they are some leagues distant. While we remained at St. Ambrose there was a grand procession. All the men, women, and children, who were able to crawl, attended; several old women carried crucifixes, others pictures of the saint, or flags fixed to the ends of long poles; they seemed to have some difficulty in wielding them, yet the good old women tottered along as happy as so many young ensigns the first time they bend under the regimental colours. Four men, carrying a box upon their shoulders, walked before the rest. I asked what the box contained, and was informed by a sagacious looking old man, that it contained the bones of St. John. I enquired if all the Saint’s bones were there; he assured me, that not even a joint of his little finger was wanting; “Because,” continued I, “I have seen a considerable number of bones in different parts of Italy, which are said to be the bones of St. John.” He smiled at my simplicity, and said the world was full of imposition; but nothing could be more certain, than that those in the box were the true bones of the Saint; he had remembered them ever since he was a child—and his father, when on his death-bed, had told him, on the _word of a dying man_, That they belonged to St. John and no other body. At Novalezza, a village at the bottom of Mount Cenis, our carriages were taken to pieces, and delivered to Muleteers to be carried to Lanebourg. I had bargained with the Vitturino, before we left Turin, for our passage over the mountain in the chairs commonly used on such occasions. The fellow had informed us there was no possibility of going in any other manner; but when we came to this place, I saw no difficulty in being carried up by mules, which we all preferred, to the great satisfaction of our knavish conductor, who thereby saved the expence of one half the chairmen, for whose labour he was already paid.