The landlord of the inn informed us, with much pride, that Couvet was the birthplace of the man who invented a clock for telling the time at sea; by which, no doubt, he meant the chronometer, invented by M.Berthoud.At Motiers, the next village, Rousseau wrote his _Lettres de la Montagne_, and thence it was that he fled from popular violence to the island on the Lake of Bienne.
The 'Ecu' promised us dinner in half an hour, and we strolled about in the garden of that unsophisticated hotel for an hour and a half, reconciled to the delay by the beauty of the neighbouring hills, the winding of the valley giving all the effect of a mountain-locked plain, with barriers decked with firs.

It will readily be conceived, however, that three practical English people could not be satisfied to feed on beauty alone for any very great length of time, and we caught the landlady and became peremptory.

She explained that dinner was quite ready, but she had intended to give us the pleasure of an agreeable society, consisting of sundry Swiss who were due in another half-hour or so: she yielded, nevertheless, to our representations, and promised to serve the meal at once.

We were speedily summoned to the _salle-a-manger,_ and entered a low smoke-stained wooden chamber, with no floor to speak of, and with huge beams supporting the roof, dangerous for tall heads.

The date on the door was 1690, and the chamber fully looked its age.