At Bâle it was freezing, but clear and bright, and a good breakfast and a
breath of clean, fresh air was truly enjoyable after the overheated
sleeping-car in which we had come from Paris.

It may seem unreasonable to grumble at the overheating of the "Sleeper"
after abusing the under-heating of our British railways. Surely, though,
there is a golden mean? I wish neither to be frozen nor boiled, and there
can be no doubt but that the heating of most Continental trains is
excellent, the power of application being left to the traveller.

The journey by the St. Gotthard was delightful, the day brilliant, and the
frost keen, while we watched the fleeting panorama of icebound peaks and
snow-powdered pines from the cushions of our comfortable carriage.

The glory of winter left us as we left the Swiss mountains and dropped
down into the fertile flats of Northern Italy, and at Milan all was raw
chilliness and mud.

Nothing can well be more depressing than wet and cheerless weather in a
land obviously intended for sunshine.

We slept at Milan, and the next day set forth in heavy rain towards Venice.
The miserable ranks of distorted and pollarded trees stood sadly in pools
of yellow-stained water, or stuck out of heaps of half-melted and
uncleanly snow.

No colour; no life anywhere, excepting an occasional peasant plodding
along a muddy road, sheltering himself under the characteristic flat and
bony umbrella of the country.