CHAPTER VII.
THE GLACIERE OF MONTHEZY, IN THE VAL DE TRAVERS.
I rejoined my sisters at Neufchatel on the 5th of July, and proceeded thence with them by the line which passes through the Val de Travers.
One of them had been at Fleurier, in 1860, on the day of the opening of this line, and she added an interest to the various tunnels, by telling us that a Swiss gentleman of her acquaintance, who had taken a place in one of the open carriages of the first train, found, on reaching the daylight after one of the tunnels, that his neighbour had been killed by a small stone which had fallen on to his head.

Where the stone came from, no one could say, nor yet when it fell, for the unfortunate man had made no sign or movement of any kind.
Every one must be delighted with the wonders of the line of rail, and the beauties through which the engineer has cut his way.

In valleys on a less magnificent scale, cuttings and embankments on the face of the hill are sad eyesores, as in railway-ruined Killiecrankie; but here Nature's works are so very grand, that the works of man are not offensively prominent, being overawed by the very facts over which they have triumphed.

When we reached the more even part of the valley, where the Reuse no longer roars and rushes far below, but winds quietly through the soft grass on a level with the rail, the whole grouping was so exceedingly charming, and the river itself so suggestive of lusty trout, and the village of Noiraigue[48] looked so tempting as it nestled in a sheltered nook among the headlong precipices, that I registered in a safe mental pigeon-hole a week at the auberge there with a fishing-rod, and excursions to the commanding summit in which the _Creux de Vent_ is found.

The engine-driver knew that he was in a region of beauties, and, when he whistled to warn his passengers that the train was about to move on, he remained stationary until the long-resounding echoes died out, floating lingeringly up the valley to neighbouring France.
We had no definite idea as to the _locale_ of the glaciere we were now bent upon attacking.