I believe that the English are better acquainted with geography than other nations. I have been astonished at the ignorance on this point I have found in foreigners who otherwise were clever and well-informed men and women. When the Marquis de Claremont Tonnere was appointed to the office of Minister of the Marine and Colonies, upon the restoration of the Bourbons, a friend of mine had an audience with him, and it was not until a very angry discussion, and a reference to the map, that he could persuade the minister that Martinique was an _island_. However, in this instance we had nearly as great an error committed in our own Colonial office, which imagined that the Dutch settlement of Demerara upon the coast of South America, and which had fallen into our hands, _was_ an island; indeed, in the official papers it was spoken of as such. A little before the French Revolution, a princess who lived in Normandy determined upon a visit to her relations in Paris; and having a sister married to a Polish nobleman, she determined to take Poland in her way. To her astonishment, instead of a day to two, her voyage was not completed under four months. I have heard it often asserted, that you should not build your house so as to look at a fine prospect out of your windows, but so as to walk to view it at a short distance. This may be true with the finest prospects in other countries, but not so in Switzerland, where the view never palls upon the eye, from the constant changing which occurs in the tinting of the landscape. You may look upon the Lake of Geneva every day, and at no one day, or even portion of the day, is the effect the same. The mountains of Savoy are there, and change not their position: neither does the Lake; but at one time the mountains will appear ten miles nearer to you than they will at another. The changing arising from refraction and reflection is wonderful. Never did I witness anything finer than the Lake of Geneva at the setting of yesterday's sun. The water was calm and glassy as a mirror, and it reflected in broad patches, like so many islands dispersed over it, every colour of the rainbow. I cannot attempt to describe it; the effect was heavenly, and all I could say was, with the Mussulman, "God is great!" CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.