We rode up this mountain, which has been described in such formidable terms, with great ease. At the top there is a fine verdant plain of five or six miles in length, we halted at an Inn, called Santa Croce, where Piedmont ends and Savoy begins. Here we were regaled with fried trout, catched in a large lake within sight, from which the river Doria arises, which runs to Turin in conjunction with the Po. Though we ascend no higher than this plain, which is the summit of Mount Cenis, the mountains around are much higher; in passing the plain we felt the air so keen, that we were glad to have recourse to our great-coats; which, at the bottom of the hill, we had considered as a very superfluous part of our baggage. I had a great deal of conversation in passing the mountain with a poor boy, who accompanied us from Novalezza to take back the mules; he told me he could neither read nor write, and had never been farther than Suza on one side of the mountain, and Lanebourg on the other. He spoke four languages, Piedmontese, which is his native language; this is a kind of Patois very different from Italian; the Patois of the peasants of Savoy, which is equally different from French; he also spoke Italian and French wonderfully well; the second he had learnt from the Savoyard chairmen, and the two last from Italian and French travellers whom he has accompanied over Mount Cenis, where he has passed his life hitherto, and which he seems to have no desire of leaving. If you chance to be consulted by any parent who inclines to send their sons abroad merely that they may be removed from London, and acquire modern languages in the most œconomical manner, you now know what place to recommend. In none where opportunities for this branch of education are equal, is living cheaper than at Mount Cenis, and I know nothing in which it has any resemblance to London, except that it stands on much the same quantity of ground. I asked this boy, why he did not learn English.—He had all the inclination in the world.—“Why don’t you learn it then as well as French?” “On attrape le François, Monsieur, bon gré, mal gré,” answered he, “mais Messieurs les Anglois parlent peu.”