[Geneva—Sunday, 12 September 1869]
Sunday. Beds most uncomfortable at our fine hotel. Therefore we propose to go at once to Macon and sleep. We arrived about 8 o’clock to find the Frenchiest of rooms and the cleanest and dinner ready. We were much entertained at our salon which contained 3 doors, 3 windows, 50 candles (more or less) and was frescoed all over on the remaining portions of wall and ceiling. However we slept most comfortably and awoke the next day very early to find a lovely morning shining upon the river which ran just below our windows. We were quite ready to start, the sooner the better. Macon ‘if it must’ be confessed lost its charms by daylight & a more hopelessly dingy be-soldiered, be-priested, sluggish dirty little place outside of the hotel (where they seemed to have exhausted themselves on our behalf the previous evening as we could get nothing to speak of for breakfast) could scarcely be found by hard searching on a summer’s day.
