called Wallis country. . . After that we hal again to ascend the still loftier and more dreadful mountain called Grimsel (Gries), before we could reach the borders of Italy, which delighted us with many pleasant things. For we passed, as it were, from mere deserts and wildernesses into the finest country that can be imagined, with grassy walks, cornfields, vineyards, and splendid fruit trees planted along the very fields and roads, as if they were all gardens. But the first city we came to was Domo, a small fortified town; and there the commandant would have arrested us, not only on account of our passport, but our appear ance also, for, being covered with dust and sweat, we might have passed for vagabonds, particularly Westen, who had lost his peruke out of his pocket, and really looked like a good-for-nothing. But for our good luck, the commandant and garrison were Germans, with whom we were able to come to an explanation: so we got leave to pass. Further on, we came to a town called Sesto, &c. &c. &c.

....

We were warned by some persons whom we met that our guide was suspected of having murdered two or three travellers whom he was guiding, which information put us into low spirits; and, in fact, he played us several tricks. For instance, one day as we sat enjoying our dinner in a beautiful garden in Milan, in which several hundred persons were dining at the same time, he spoke evil of us to the landlord, telling him that we were heretics, and that it would be no sin to get as much out of us as he could. This was overheard by a Calvinistic journeyman from Switzerland, who had but lately arrived at Milan from Spain by way of Barcelona and Genoa, and was now on his road home again. He was civil enough to come into the garden and inform us, that we might be on our guard, believing us to be Swiss like himself; on which account, for our greater safety, we took this young journeyman into our company on our homeward way, providing him his victuals. In the course of this our return, we caused ourselves to be rowed to an island in Lago Maggiore, called Isola Bella,

belonging to the Borromeo family; in it there was a splendid palace, and an immense garden with orange and lemon trees growing in the very ground, and a laurel wood, where the fallen leaves lay under the trees an ell thick. Thence we went by the same road as we had come, and our heavenly Father brought us, after an absence of seventeen days, safe back to our employers at Berne; whom we feared to find mightily incensed against us for tarrying so long without permission, for they might well suppose that we had deserted or come to harm. But, on our humble supplication, they proved not implacable, and were right glad to have us again. To the wives of both of them we had brought presents of fruit from Isola Bella, of which they were pleased to accept... Switzerland is so strangely and wonderfully constructed, that you have got to march now up some lofty mountains, and then down into some deep valley. On the highest parts of the Grimsel and Greis Alps, you walk as it were among the clouds, and in many places the mountain is covered for several miles together with ice many ells in thickness, which never melts, and in which you often find cracks half an ell wide, reaching down sometimes to the very abyss, at the bottom of which you can hear the water roaring; and there is no help for it but to jump across, for bridges there are none. Indeed, the thing likest a bridge, as far as ever I could see, was here and there a wisp of straw thrown down to show which way the road went; for once there you see nothing all round you but an ocean of ice; and it is as cold in August as in winter. . . . I shudder to this day whenever I think of that journey, and I wonder how we could make up our minds to attempt it; but youth, health, and a desire to see the world, carried us through all difficulties; which could not, however, have been the case had not the blessed God so manifestly by His almighty hand guided, upheld, and guarded us from sickness and all other adversity for which His holy name be for praised!"

"Anno 1727 I left my situation in

2

this operation was ever tried, or, if tried, whether it succeeded, I cannot say for certain."

In 1725, Seidelin left Berlin and found his way to Strasburg, where he remained for a year. We can afford to pass over his reminiscences of this first visit to France. Let us follow him rather to Switzerland, where he went in the society of a fellow-countryman of like profession with himself, with whom indeed he shared the greater part of his future wanderings. They both found situations in Berne, though with different employers, and their tastes seem to have coincided. Alpine travel in the earlier half of last century was so rarely undertaken con amore-anything like a tourist's account of passes and glaciers in those days is so scarce-that the following narrative may be entertaining. An old man of seventy-nine, writing from memory more than half a century after his tour, may be forgiven for confounding the Grimsel and the Gries. I have let the blunder stand, all the more as the Danish editor has also done so. Distances, both here and in the other extracts, are given in English miles, unless the contrary is specified.

66

". . . . But by far the most remarkable thing either for Westen or myself was the following:-Having entered on our situations in Berne about Easter, we immediately formed the resolution that if it were possible we should visit and try to ascend the loftiest of the Swiss Alps which begin at a distance of about fifty miles from Berne, and what was more, that we should also try to continue the journey as far as Milan in Italy; but this our design we kept hidden lest we should be altogether prevented by our employers from undertaking the excursion. Yet in the month of August we carried our plan into execution, having in the first place obtained the necessary permission to go to see the Alps. We enlisted ten young fellows of our acquaintance to bear us company, each of whom had to supply himself with a great-coat, a canvass jacket, a pair of boots, a hunting-knife, some linen, a pair

on his hat, and a good stick in his hand. Thus we all pursued our journey on foot till we came, one Sunday, to a place pretty high up in the mountains, where we found a church, a hall of justice, and an inn, at which we caused ourselves to be served with dinner,—and never in my life did I dine in greater style. . Each one of us had, on his word of honour, to make a declaration of how much money he had about him, all which being put in a common purse, we found the sum, as far as we could guess, sufficient for the whole journey, thither and back. We next procured a passport in the names of twelve persons, Swiss, and hired a guide, who understood Italian, at the charge of half-a-dollar, with victuals, per diem, until he should have brought us back to the same place. On the next day, which was Monday, we set out; but, having that day to ascend a part of the high Alps-the beginning of the great Gries (Grimsel) mountainsour travelling companions grew all at once tired of so laborious an expedition, and resolved to turn back, which greatly chagrined Westen and me, as we thus not only lost the pleasure and security which their society would have afforded us, but found our passport also, which was in the name of twelve, useless and suspicious; moreover, we had to pay all the expenses of our guide. None the less did we resolve to go on our way, with guide and passport as they were,— a most hazardous resolution, owing to our ignorance of the Italian language. But, God being our guide, we reached Milan on the fourth day, and after sojourning there for three days, accomplished, in the same manner, our return to Berne,to Berne, a journey altogether of more than three hundred miles, the whole of which we performed on foot, save that on one or two occasions we sailed for a few miles across some lake or canal. Nevertheless, all this was not done without many hardships and much that was disagreeable being mingled with our enjoyment. At the very outset, as soon as we had parted from our companions, it behoved us to ascend the lofty Gries

....

called Wallis country. After that we had again to ascend the still loftier and more dreadful mountain called Grimsel (Gries), before we could reach the borders of Italy, which delighted us with many pleasant things. For we passed, as it were, from mere deserts and wildernesses into the finest country that can be imagined, with grassy walks, cornfields, vineyards, and splendid fruit trees planted along the very fields and roads, as if they were all gardens. But the first city we came to was Domo, a small fortified town; and there the commandant would have arrested us, not only on account of our passport, but our appearance also, for, being covered with dust and sweat, we might have passed for vagabonds, particularly Westen, who had lost his peruke out of his pocket, and really looked like a good-for-nothing. But for our good luck, the commandant and garrison were Germans, with whom we were able to come to an explanation: so we got leave to pass. Further on, we came to a town called Sesto, &c. &c. &c. .. We were warned by some persons whom we met that our guide was suspected of having murdered two or three travellers whom he was guiding, which information put us into low spirits; and, in fact, he played us several tricks. For instance, one day as we sat enjoying our dinner in a beautiful garden in Milan, in which several hundred persons were dining at the same time, he spoke evil of us to the landlord, telling him that we were heretics, and that it would be no sin to get as much out of us as he could. This was overheard by a Calvinistic journeyman from Switzerland, who had but lately arrived at Milan from Spain by way of Barcelona and Genoa, and was now on his road home again. He was civil enough to come into the garden and inform us, that we might be on our guard, believing us to be Swiss like himself; on which account, for our greater safety, we took this young journeyman into our company on our homeward way, providing him his victuals. In the course of this our return, we caused ourselves to be rowed to an island in Lago Maggiore, called Isola Bella,

belonging to the Borromeo family; in it there was a splendid palace, and an immense garden with orange and lemon trees growing in the very ground, and a laurel wood, where the fallen leaves lay under the trees an ell thick. Thence we went by the same road as we had come, and our heavenly Father brought us, after an absence of seventeen days, safe back to our employers at Berne; whom we feared to find mightily incensed against us for tarrying so long without permission, for they might well suppose that we had deserted or come to harm. But, on our humble supplication, they proved not implacable, and were right glad to have us again. To the wives of both of them we had brought presents of fruit from Isola Bella, of which they were pleased to accept... Switzerland is so strangely and wonderfully constructed, that you have got to march now up some lofty mountains, and then down into some deep valley. On the highest parts of the Grimsel and Greis Alps, you walk as it were among the clouds, and in many places the mountain is covered for several miles together with ice many ells in thickness, which never melts, and in which you often find cracks half an ell wide, reaching down sometimes to the very abyss, at the bottom of which you can hear the water roaring; and there is no help for it but to jump across, for bridges there are none. Indeed, the thing likest a bridge, as far as ever I could see, was here and there a wisp of straw thrown down to show which way the road went; for once there you see nothing all round you but an ocean of ice; and it is as cold in August as in winter. . . . I shudder to this day whenever I think of that journey, and I wonder how we could make up our minds to attempt it; but youth, health, and a desire to see the world, carried us through all difficulties; which could not, however, have been the case had not the blessed God so manifestly by His almighty hand guided, upheld, and guarded us from sickness and all other adversity for which His holy name be for praised!"

"Anno 1727 I left my situation in

while we also get up?" Thus everything betwixt us was conducted with regularity, propriety, and familiarity.

Yet this familiarity was the cause of a certain difficulty into which I got on the subject of religion. For, happening one day to lose one of our travelling companions, a respectable man, whose journey was at an end,-we got in his stead for some hours a monk, a sharp fellow, who, on hearing that we were foreigners and Danes, put several questions to me about Denmark, he knowing very well that the Lutheran religion was the only one practised in our country, and that the government was absolute. Now, when this monk had left us, and they by his means had learned that we were Lutherans, the younger lady did attack us with might and main, saying: -Ah! Messieurs, how it grieves me to hear that such honnêtes gentilhommes, to whom we are so greatly indebted, should be so unfortunate as to call themselves Lutheran heretics! Ah! I beseech you, for the love of God and Mary and Joseph, and all the saints, forsake your errors and turn to the true religion, that you may be saved!' To which I replied: Mademoiselle, you mistake in your thoughts of the Lutherans: I assure you that they are orthodox evangelical Christians.' What, then, do you believe?' she inquired. Do you believe in the true Three-One God and in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became man, and suffered death on the cross?' When I had given satisfactory answers to these questions, she inquired further, whether we believed that the Virgin Mary was the mother of Christ, and worthy of all adoration: item, that the Pope was sacred and infallible, &c. I replied that we certainly did believe the Virgin Mary to be the mother of Christ, and highly favoured among women; but that the Pope, being a man, could be infallible, we did not believe. 'O' quoth she, then you are in error after all.' Thus did she continue, probably at her mother's instigation, to assail me, and insisted on

teaching me some prayers to the Virgin

heart; and, perceiving me to be so apt a scholar, she urged Westen and myself to accompany her and her mother to a Catholic priest in the next town we came to, in order to profess their religion. But I paid her the compliment of assuring her that, if any person in the world were able to convert me to the Catholic religion, she herself was that person, adding, that the matter was too important to permit any man at once to profess himself of another religion without being thoroughly grounded in it beforehand. They then requested us to visit them frequently in Paris, where there would be no lack of learned priests to give us the needful instruction. This we promised to do, yet not with the design of fulfilling our promise: neither did we fulfil it.

"Having arrived within a few miles of Paris, where the country is beautiful, with many splendid palaces and delightful gardens, there met us the carosse of the Duke of Noailles, with six horses and lackeys, to fetch Madame d'Aubigni and her daughter, who were related to the duke:1 and inside the carriage sat an old prior from a convent in Paris, who turned out to be Madame d'Aubigni's brother; so here we had to separate. Westen and myself took leave of both mother and daughter with all submission, much kissing of hands, and many expressions of thanks for the favours shown us. But Madame d'Aubigni said: My daughter, it is not right that you take leave of these worthy Messieurs and Danish gentilhommes who have shown us so great civility, without bestowing on them a kiss.' Of this permission we were not slow to avail ourselves; after which, with fresh kissing

1 The original editor remarks: "These ladies were, doubtless, related to Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, whose niece, Amable Charlotte Françoise d'Aubigné, in 1698, married a Duc de Noailles. This is confirmed by the fact that Seidelin afterwards met them at Versailles. They probably belonged to the branch of Madame de Maintenon's family which proceeded from her uncle, Nathan d'Aubigné, whose descendants were for the most

part in a comparatively humble walk of life

one, for instance, was a priest, another a phy