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CHAPTER VIII.
WE had now reached Switzerland, so long the final mark and aim of our
exertions. We had looked, I know not wherefore, with hope and pleasing
expectation on her congregation of hills and snowy crags, and opened our
bosoms with renewed spirits to the icy Biz, which even at Midsummer used to
come from the northern glacier laden with cold. Yet how could we nourish
expectation of relief? Like our native England, and the vast extent of
fertile France, this mountain-embowered land was desolate of its
inhabitants. Nor bleak mountain-top, nor snow-nourished rivulet; not the
ice-laden Biz, nor thunder, the tamer of contagion, had preserved them--
why therefore should we claim exemption?
Who was there indeed to save? What troop had we brought fit to stand at
bay, and combat with the conqueror? We were a failing remnant, tamed to
mere submission to the coming blow. A train half dead, through fear of
death--a hopeless, unresisting, almost reckless crew, which, in the
tossed bark of life, had given up all pilotage, and resigned themselves to
the destructive force of ungoverned winds. Like a few furrows of unreaped
corn, which, left standing on a wide field after the rest is gathered to
the garner, are swiftly borne down by the winter storm. Like a few
straggling swallows, which, remaining after their fellows had, on the first
unkind breath of passing autumn, migrated to genial climes, were struck to
earth by the first frost of November. Like a stray sheep that wanders over
the sleet-beaten hill-side, while the flock is in the pen, and dies before
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