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“The caravan will start to-day, English sir.”

I was the English sir alluded to, and the caravan was a motley collection of vehicles, beasts of burden, and men of various ranks and nationalities, who had been detained for several days at the foot of the St. Gothard pass.

It was early spring; the snow was softening under the effects of the sun, but on dark days the cold was yet severe, and heavy snow had fallen and blocked the difficult mountain road. The pretty village of Airolo, nestling among its chesnut groves, just underneath the precipices of granite and schist glimmering with mica that flashed golden where the white snow-crust had thawed