Here, in this little monastery--so they tell us--is where Napoleon made his headquarters for a time when he led his troops over the mighty mountains to the sunny plains of Italy. We stop long enough to admire the St. Bernard dogs, and then on down the mountains. When we begin the descent some of the party assert that this ride will be less interesting than that of the morning when we were all the time climbing upward. Possibly it is; but it is far more exciting. Five horses going at full speed towards a precipice which drops away for a full thousand feet, the leaders seemingly pawing into space before they turn the corner, the outer wheels of the diligence constantly flirting with the edge of the precipice--these are things that lead to nervous prostration. As I look back at that trip I am satisfied that it was only by leaning hard toward the inside of the road that I saved the passengers and the whole outfit from untimely destruction. When the Amsterdam doctor descanted upon the deliciousness of the trout served in the Brieg hostelry, he awakened memories of the Nepigon and the Adirondacks, of northern Wisconsin and the Miramichi! I formed a resolution, then and there, to catch as well as to eat some of the trout for which Brieg was said to be famous. Arriving at Brieg at 5.30 p.m. after our drive of forty miles, I at once interviewed the concierge of the hotel, who assured me that it would be no trick at all to catch a mess of trout before dinner-time. Away to a tackle store, where line and leader and hooks were bought and a cane-pole rented, an interview with the hotel “boy,” who dug a can of worms fat enough to have come from Holland, and then for the Rhone, which was rushing along the valley about half a mile distant. The first sight of the river somewhat dampened my ardour. It was of a dirty milk colour, and no respectable American trout would live in it for a moment. But then, I reasoned, Swiss trout may not know any better--so here goes. I fished in the rapids and in swirling pools, under low bending alders and by the side of huge rocks. I skittered those fat worms on the surface, and dropped them down to the bottom. Every trick of the angler learned by experience or gathered from conversation and reading, was tried in vain. Tell it not in Skegemog and publish it not on Prairie River!--but I never had a bite. And yet I was not cast down. The setting sun was turning the mountain tops into glory, the laughter of reapers in a neighbouring field, the tinkle of goats’ bells far up the mountain side, the gurgle and singing of the Rhone, the beauty of that matchless valley--I had gained all these by my efforts, even though of fish I had none. Let no hard-hearted reader giggle over my poor luck, for when I sat down that night to dinner, and the far-famed Brieg trout were placed before me, behold! they were not trout at all, but some sort of a sucker, full of pronged bones and with soft white meat. I never had any ambition to catch suckers.