M.Thury's list gave the following information:--'_Glaciere de Motiers, Canton de Neufchatel, entre les vallees de Travers et de la Brevine, pres du sentier de la Brevine_;' and this I had rendered somewhat more precise by a cross-examination of the guard of the train on my way to Besancon.

He had not heard of the glaciere, but from what I told him he was inclined to think that Couvet would be the best station for our purpose, especially as the 'Ecu' at that place was, in his eyes, a commendable hostelry.

Some one in Geneva, also, had believed that Couvet was as likely as anything else in the valley; so at Couvet we descended.[49] This is a very clean and cheerful village, devoted to the lucrative manufacture of _absinthe_, and producing inhabitants who look like gentlemen and ladies, and promenade the ways in bonnets and hats, after a most un-Swiss-like fashion.

They carefully restrict themselves to the making of the poisonous product of their village, and have nothing to do with the consumption thereof:[50] hence nature has a fair chance with them, and they are a healthy and energetic race.

The beauties of the surrounding mountains, with their fitful alternations of pasture and wood, and grey face of rock, are not marred by the outward appearance, at least, of that which Bishop Heber lamented in a country where 'every prospect pleases.' An old lady is commemorated in the annals of Couvet as an example of the healthiness of the situation, who saw seven generations of her family, having known her great-grandfather in her early years, and living to nurse great-grandchildren in her old age.