Under this castle is a sort of dungeon, not narrow, nor very dark, in which are seven stout dark-grey pillars, and an eighth, half-built into the wall; and one of them which has an iron ring, as well as the ground around it, is all worn away by some prisoner or prisoners once chained there; and in the pillar the word 'Byron' engraved. This made me remember that a poet of that name had written something about this place, and two days afterwards I actually came upon three volumes of the poet in a room containing a great number of books, many of them English, near the Grand Bailli's _bureau_: and in one I read the poem, which is called 'The Prisoner of Chillon.' I found it very affecting, and the description good, only I saw no seven rings, and where he speaks of the 'pale and livid light,' he should speak rather of the dun and brownish gloom, for the word 'light' disconcerts the fancy, and of either pallor or blue there is there no sign. However, I was so struck by the horror of man's cruelty to man, as depicted in this poem, that I determined that she should see it; went up straight to her rooms with the book, and, she being away, ferreted among her things to see what she was doing, finding all very neat, except in one room where were a number of prints called _La Mode_, and _débris_ of snipped cloth, and medley. When, after two hours, she came in, and I suddenly presented myself, 'Oh!' she let slip, and then fell to cooing her laugh; and I took her down through a big room stacked with every kind of rifle, with revolvers, cartridges, powder, swords, bayonets--evidently some official or cantonal magazine--and then showed her the worn stone in the dungeon, the ring, the narrow deep slits in the wall, and I told the tale of cruelty, while the splashing of the lake upon the rock outside was heard with a strange and tragic sound, and her mobile face was all one sorrow. 'How cruel they must have been!' cries she with tremulous lip, her face at the same time reddened with indignation. 'They were mere beastly monsters,' said I: 'it is nothing surprising if monsters were cruel.' And in the short time while I said that, she was looking up with a new-born smile. 'Some others came and set the plisoner flee!' cries she. 'Yes,' said I, 'they did, but--' 'That was good of them,' says she. 'Yes,' said I, 'that was all right, so far as it went.' 'And it was a time when men had al-leady become cluel,' says she: 'if those who set him flee were so good when all the lest were cluel, what would they have been at a time when all the lest were kind? They would have been just like Angels....!' * * * * *