L Y O N S .
Il
I WAS at Vienne in Dauphiny when I projected the excursion which is the subject of
the following pages ; and with an earnest desire of attentively exploring a celebrated
portion of the Aeria: Allies, I set out, as soon as I had prepared matters for my journey,
towards Lyons, where the valley of the Rhône gradually widens, and the secondary
mountains of the Alps and Vivarès, which screen it on both sides, diverge in an equal
proportion, and leave the course of that beautiful river to be traced by a succession of
fertile and well-cultivated hills, each seeming to surpass the other in vegetation.
This superb amphitheatre is covered alternately by meadows and vineyards, where
the luxuriant branches hang negligently from the trees, which consist chiefly of
apple, plum, cherry, &c.; through which a variety of elegant villas, and neatlylooking
cottages, peeping between their variegated tufts, serve, when combined
with the pellucid waters of the Rhône, and the various moeanderings or windings of
its course, greatly to enrich the prospect, and render the scene highly picturesque.
The situation, therefore, of Lyons, in the middle of such a fertile country, and at the
confluence of the two rivers, the Rhone and the Saone, must surely be, in many respects,
a truly enviable spot, and such as is peculiarly adapted to the establishment of an
inland commercial town : for those two great rivers, after having separately watered,
and by their sediments manured and fertilised, the different provinces through which
they flow, unite at the southern extremity of tlie city, as if to encourage and stimulate by
that union the industry and activity of the inhabitants, and serve as a channel for the
easy and extensive conveyance of the several articles of that astonishing trade which
for years characterised that beautiful city.
Lyons, or Ljtgdunum Segiisianonm, or Cellarum, is one of the most ancient towns in
France, and was, after Paris, the most magnificent, prior to the revolution. It appears to
have existed long before die conquest of Gaul by the Romans, as the capital of an
extensive kingdom, of which the Saone and the Rhône were the limits, and which formed
that kind of delta described by Polybius, chap. 10, as being the place where Hannibal