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History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland: / With Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni. cover

History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland: / With Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni.

Chapter 3: HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS' TOUR.
By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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Travel Writing

About This Book

A travel narrative combines a journal and letters detailing a six-week journey across parts of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, offering scene-by-scene impressions of towns, mountain lakes, glaciers, and river passages. The author records daily travel incidents, weather, accommodations, and encounters with local people, blending practical observations with contemplative responses to dramatic landscapes. Appended correspondence describes a sail on Lake Geneva and close encounters with the Chamouni glaciers, while a lyric poem registers the emotional impact of the high Alps. The tone pairs youthful enthusiasm with sensory description and reflective commentary on travel and scenery.

HISTORY
 
OF
 
A SIX WEEKS' TOUR.

It is now nearly three years since this Journey took place, and the journal I then kept was not very copious; but I have so often talked over the incidents that befell us, and attempted to describe the scenery through which we passed, that I think few occurrences of any interest will be omitted.

We left London July 28th, 1814, on a hotter day than has been known in this climate for many years. I am not a good traveller, and this heat agreed very ill with me, till, on arriving at Dover, I was refreshed by a sea-bath. As we very much wished to cross the channel with all possible speed, we would not wait for the packet of the following day (it being then about four in the afternoon) but hiring a small boat, resolved to make the passage the same evening, the seamen promising us a voyage of two hours.

The evening was most beautiful; there was but little wind, and the sails flapped in the flagging breeze: the moon rose, and night came on, and with the night a slow, heavy swell, and a fresh breeze, which soon produced a sea so violent as to toss the boat very much. I was dreadfully seasick, and as is usually my custom when thus affected, I slept during the greater part of the night, awaking only from time to time to ask where we were, and to receive the dismal answer each time—“Not quite half way.”

The wind was violent and contrary; if we could not reach Calais, the sailors proposed making for Boulogne. They promised only two hours' sail from shore, yet hour after hour passed, and we were still far distant, when the moon sunk in the red and stormy horizon, and the fast-flashing lightning became pale in the breaking day.

We were proceeding slowly against the wind, when suddenly a thunder squall struck the sail, and the waves rushed into the boat: even the sailors acknowledged that our situation was perilous; but they succeeded in reefing the sail;—the wind was now changed, and we drove before the gale directly to Calais. As we entered the harbour I awoke from a comfortless sleep, and saw the sun rise broad, red, and cloudless over the pier.