III.
At no great distance, the little town of Aix, in Savoy, steaming with
its hot springs, and redolent of sulphur, is seated on the slope of a
hill covered with vineyards, orchards, and meadows. A long avenue of
poplars, the growth of a century, connects the lake with the town, and
reminds one of those far-stretching rows of cypresses which lead to
Turkish cemeteries. The meadows and fields, on either side of this
road, are intersected by the rocky beds of the often dried-up mountain
torrents and shaded by giant walnut-trees, upon whose boughs vines as
sturdy as those of the woods of America hang their clustering branches.
Here and there, a distant vista of the lake shows its surface,
alternately sparkling or lead-colored, as the passing cloud or the hour
of the day may make it.
When I arrived at Aix, the crowd had already left it. The hotels and
public places, where strangers and idlers flock during the summer, were
then closed. All were gone, save a few infirm paupers, seated in the
sun, at the door of the lowest description of inns; and some invalids,
past all hope of recovery, who might be seen, during the hottest hours
of the day, dragging their feeble steps along, and treading the
withered leaves that had fallen from the poplars during the night.
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