20 word; and the woman let her infant suck a goat, which, accustomed to this manner of milking, willingly offered the udder to the babe. As the provisions, so was the conversation; a strange mixture of Patoir, French, Spanish, and Danish. Night at length came on, and every one had to look out for a sleeping-place. Happy he who had a jacket to rest his head upon! I slept very little, for filth and cold, and a stone couch agree but ill with one who is accustomed to French luxury. Among the guests assembled in the cottage was a hermit, from Eremitage d'Artrique Telline: he intended, the next day, to attend a solemnity at Venasque; and as we were rather exhausted by the fatigue of the day past, we agreed with him to make use, by turns, of his mule. At three o'clock the caravan was set in motion. The country through which we travelled was singular. If on the top of Pennablanca it was a forthcoming world, it was here a world passing away. Huge remnants of mountains, mouldering fragments of rock, withering trees, dilapidated cottages, precipitating and destroying cataracts, these were the objects with which we met. It appeared as if the covenant of life with organised nature had expired. Men were fled; seldom was there seen even a hovering lorous pysphocorax; and every where death sat enthroned on the ruins of life! At seven o'clock we were in Venasque, a rich, yet miserably-built city'; with a fortress that is defended by seven soldiers and a governour; but which, according to Ramon, was once the capital of a king, who, when angry, could raise five hundred men. Before we reached the city we passed several batteries, some of which were constructed in places that seemed almost impregnable; and if the * These birds (which build in deep caverns) were sometimes our guides, when, on our excursions, we were doubtful of our way for as in the morning they fly from these caverns, so at night they return to them. We Spaniards acquired no glory by defending them, yet they deserved our admiration in the construction of them. The city was crowded with people, who were assembled to celebrate a solemnity to the honour of St. Martial, formerly Bishop of Limoge, and now the guardian patron of this place. There being here no publick inn, we had recourse to a merchant, who had been recommended to us from Bagneres. Seeing, from our letters of introduction, that we were honest people from Denmark, he admitted us to lodge in his house; but he seemed afterwards to regret this accommodation, when he and his ladies discovered that we did not. believe in Maria Sanctissima. were, however, invited to attend the solemnity, which began with a procession the most ridiculous that can be imagined. First came a great troop of men dressed in dark, all covered with those black nets commonly used in Spain; then followed a great number of young boys, continually whiffling on small pipes, like those which are given to children for fair-presents; now were seen four stout fellows, with a saint on a handbarrow; next came a choir of some tall ill-looking persons, who were called students, and who constitute a kind of seminary for clergymen; these were followed by the chief saint himself, on a throne, surrounded with every kind of insipid trimmings, and ceremonies alike tasteless to the eye and the ear. After him came the whole body of the clergy, consisting of the bishop from Saragoza, and a great multitude of priests and monks; of whom some really resembled Fitz-James (the famous ventriloquist, at Paris,) who, to mimick one of the fraternity, wept with one side of his face, and laughed with the other. The ladies of the city and its environs, terminated this motley procession. At times they stopped, and bawled forth some insupportably monotical and disharmonious chorusses; wherever they proceeded, every spectator uncovered the measure of the musick with castanets; having finished the circle, he was joined by another, and so on till all the dancers were on their legs; now each of them took his female partner, who instead of castanets, made use of her fingers for marking the measure of the musick. There was in all this no great display of art, but their motions were very graceful, and some of the men rattled the castanets with admirable skill. The dresses were rather interesting, and the young women full as handsome, but not so spritely as those on the French side. his head, and strewed, as a kind of incense, poppy and lovage, those offensive plants, before the saint! In this order they marched round the city, and returned after the lapse of one hour. Meantime, we had taken our station in the church; where, as did all the rest, we kneeled down when the saint passed us. We had soon reason to repent of our curiosity; and I must confess, though Lichtenberg is often right, when he says, "that the body kneels when the mind rises," we could not here invert this position, and say, that the mind rose when the body kneeled. For the crossing of the bishop, the deus vobiscum, the hand-kissing of the priests, the incensing, and kneeling were repeated to the utmost disgust; and even the most ardent adorers seemed to grow weary in the faith in proportion as their knees grew sore. The next morning we returned by the same way to the hospice; turning, however, to the right, to go through Port de la Picade. This passage rises to the same height, but has not so much snow as Port de Venasque. The weather was so fine, the sky so serene, and the prospects so charming, that the most peevish Heraclite must here have found the world delightful. Reaching the pass, we had yet a mountain on our left, which obstructed the prospect towards the west. This we climbed: and now we looked over a pile of mountains, strangely heaped upon each other. Among them Maladetta rose the highest, the greatest, the most inaccessable; the sun shone on its magnificent ice, which reflected the rays with unspeakable splendour. But on its highest summit the snow was stronger than the sun, which was not capable of melting it, consequently not of producing an icy ocean, a phenomenon only to be met with on the lower heights of the mountains. We here stood on a ridge of the rock, which forms an admirable barrier between the two countries. It is in many parts so narrow, that, if the Heraclite were here to indulge his gloomy mood, the tears from one of his eyes would flow with the wàters of the Garonne into the Atlan tick ocean; while those from the other would join the Ebro, and fall into the Mediterranean. Not far from this place we saw a small stream At length a monk ascended the pulpit; and delivered a discourse, that lasted one hour and a quarter, of which I understood very little, and under the operation of which the most zealous kneelers and crossers fell a-sleep! Even a young peasant, with a cow-stupid-staring mien (as Baggesan says) who stood at my side, and bravely smote his breast, and, when he did not smite, crossed himself, felt the effects of the oratory of the monk. When this preachment was ended, again we were entertained with incensing, crossing, the blessing of the bishop, the bawling of the students, noise from the organ, and, at length, the long wished-for amen. Without the church we happened to to witness a scene of a more amusing nature. All the shepherds and peasants from the surrounding country, with their women, assembled on an open place, where a national ball commenced, as soon as the solemnity had closed. In the midst of them a drummer and a bag-piper were sitting, to whose musick they danced. One, who led the dance began by walking round a large circle with continual gambols, and rattling to descending from one of the sides of Maladetta towards the frontier mountains; here it finds a hole, where, like a Proteus it slips in and appears again on the other side of the mountains, as one of the principal sources of the Garonne. 7 of the commission of voluntary evil. While with alacrity he testifies his gratitude to many, Truth and Justice oblige him to insinuate to others, that if the right to complain be urged, the cause is in part attributable to themselves. Buxom Entering the French territory we met a bear-hunter, who complained Health, alert Spirits, and indus trious Habits often succeed to that throne, which has been usurped by Sickness and Languor; but that he had found no game. We accompanied him for a while, but he finding no traces, we soon left him. Shortly after our conversation, how-nothing will flourish even under ever, he shot a very large bear. On a finely inclining slope we walked through numberless flocks and herds, by the fertile Valle d'Aran, towards our home. In four hours we reached Castelvieil, and shortly after our lodgings, were the landlord and his nine daughters waited, with true Pyrennean curiosity, for the rarities which we were expected to bring. TO OUR READERS. such a reign, if the sunshine of whose life was devoted to the cause THE LAW THE SAME ALSO? Though the voice of complaint, such is the extreme delicacy of our friends and patrons, has not, except in a solitary instance reached on an imperishable page, by one ed our ears, yet the Editor, with his accustomed frankness declares to his subscribers, that for some months past, ill health and the effects of the Embargo, have compelled him to give to the pages of The Port Folio, nothing but an interrupted and desultory attention. Shortly after that profligate and pernicious act was passed, which has baffled the enterprize, manacled the industry, and crippled the commerce of the country, the Editor, a claimant upon his subsciption list to the bona fide amount of Ten Thousand Dollars, found notwithstanding the partial punctuality of a few of the more opulent, that the rills of remittance were either choked up, or dried. The Editor is stating a fact, not making an apology. HE MAKES NO APOLOGIES, but when conscious For The Port Folio. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. Mr. Mathew Carey, bookseller of this city, has just published in a style of much neatness and correctness, that invaluable fragment of the works of Tacitus, which, as distinguished from the annals, is, with perfect propriety, denominated history. This American edi article commended, with a warmth that he felt, Mr. Carey's various and valuable editions of the Sacred Scriptures, it was insinuated by the malevolence of party that the praise was ironical, and the language foreign to the heart. But that gentleman may be assured the malicious inuendo was equally false and foolish, and that whenever he dedicates his active faculties to the dissemination of High and Ho tion, which we hope will be studied not only by scholars and statesmen, but by schoolboys, is regulated by the superiour accuracy of the text of Brotier not without occasional reference to the read ings of Gronovius and Barbou. In a very unpretending preface, the Editor modestly narrates his mode of conducting the work, and we can discern no objection either to his plan or execution. This preface, contrary to established ly, and Polite and Classical Literausage, is written in the English language; but Mr. Carey may be defended by the example of Mr. Gibbon, who dedicated, in his vernacular idiom, an Essay in French on the study of polite literature. Moreover, as from the avocations of a busy and enterprising bookseller, Mr. Carey cannot be supposed to have much leisure for Latin composition, he probably with that high sense of honour which we know he posseses, disdained any artifice of concealment, and expressed his ideas in the language most familiar to him. 4 We are highly pleased with a promise from this bookseller that should this portion of the remains of TACITUS be received with complacency the residue of the works of this Historian will probably appear, in the words of Horace, Cum Zephyris et hirundine prima. We anticipate that the publick favour will enable Mr. Carey to fulfil his implied engagement, and we cordially wish his labours may be crowned with that success which liberal enterprise, judiciously directed, always deserves. On a formeroccasion when the writer of this ture, he shall always receive from the Editor of The Port Folio a copious measure of honest approbation. Let a competent individual, of whatever political or religious creed, publish such immortal pages as the Holy Bible and the purer authours of antiquity, and he shall always find in the conductor of this paper nothing but zeal to second efforts so honourable to mankind. MERRIMENT. At Mr. Beckford's sale at Fonthill, a gentlman purchased a bed at a very high price, and found when it was knocked down to him, that he had bid against his most intimate acquaintance, who expressed his concern; and his friend most cordially shook him by the hand, and made an urgent inquiry after his health, which the purchaser assured him was never so well. "I am rejoiced to hear it," said the other," because, in that case, I'm sure you'll let me have the bargain." " Nay my friend," said the purchaser, what has that to do with it." "Because," said he, " if you are quite well, you can't want to keep your bed." The price of The Port Folio 1s Six Dollars per annum, to be paid in advance. Printed and Published, for the Editor, by SMITH & MAXWELL, Various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change and pleased with novelty, may be indulged-Cowp. Vol. VI. Philadelphia, Saturday, October 15, 1808. No. 16. ORIGINAL PAPERS. For The Port Folio. TRAVELS. LETTERS FROM GENEVA AND FRANCE. Written during a residence of between two and three years in different parts of those countries, and addressed to a lady in Virginia. (Continued from page 234.) LETTER L. OUR conductor was a good-natured, hard-featured mountaineer; he had placed our baggage upon his mule, and the gentle animal sometimes preceding, and sometimes following us, after stopping to take a mouthful of grass, chose a road for itself, with all the appearance of great natural sagacity, cultivated by long experience: the master told us, that this mule supported his family, and that he hoped in time to buy another, for which purpose he was laying up all he could: his views were not likely to be crossed by extravagance, in telling me how his family lived, I could perceive, that he consi for dered cheese as a luxury; he modestly at first refused it, when I offered him some; it put me in mind of the pinch of snuff, which Sterne says, was thought an object of importance in a circle of beggars: he spoke Italian very fluently, and I was beginning to make myself understood with some facility in that language. At a mile or two from the village we passed a solitary house, which now serves as a hospice, I know no word for such a place in English; it was formerly the temporary residence of a Vallaisan gentleman, who having made a large fortune in trade was suddenly stript of a greater part of it in an insurrection of the people; they had always been in the custom of exercising a rude sort of Ostracism, which you will see described in Coxe; but it would surely have been wiser to have had good sumptuary laws, than to have recourse to such barbarous expedients; a new hospice is to be erected, Hh |