It would be easy to give many more examples of the patriotism of our neighbors, but perhaps for the sake of variety it may be desirable to turn the glass in the opposite direction and see what English patriotism has to say about France. We shall find the same principle at work, the same determination to believe that the foreign country is totally destitute of many things on which we greatly pride ourselves. I do not know that there is any reason to be proud of having mountains, as they are excessively inconvenient objects that greatly impede agriculture and communication; however, in some parts of Great Britain it is considered, somehow, a glory for a nation to have mountains; and there used to be a firm belief that French landscape was almost destitute of mountainous grandeur. There were the Highlands of Scotland, but who had ever heard of the Highlands of France? Was not France a wearisome, tame country that unfortunately had to be traversed before one could get to Switzerland and Italy? Nobody seemed to have any conception that France was rich in mountain scenery of the very grandest kind. Switzerland was understood to be the place for mountains, and there was a settled but erroneous conviction that Mont Blanc was situated in that country. As for the Grand-Pelvoux, the Pointe des Écrins, the Mont Olan, the Pic d'Arsine, and the Trois Ellions, nobody had ever heard of them. If you had told any average Scotchman that the most famous Bens would be lost and nameless in the mountainous departments of France, the news would have greatly surprised him. He would have been astonished to hear that the area of mountainous France exceeded the area of Scotland, and that the height of its loftiest summits attained three times the elevation of Ben Nevis.