Vevey, Clarens and Chillon were familiar to Byron from his previous boat trip with Shelley, but on Thursday 19 September he and Hobhouse set out for what was new territory for them both. They were using a well-known guide book for travellers in Switzerland by Johann Gottfried Ebel, a French translation of which Hobhouse had acquired before he left England. The route they followed roughly corresponds to what is tour number 33 in Ebel and they both gave day-to-day accounts of it, Hobhouse in his diary and Byron in a long letter he wrote to Augusta in diary form. Sending Joseph and the char-à-banc on the easier road which passes through Bulle to the lake of Thun, they themselves (accompanied by Berger and a local guide) tackled the mountainous country behind Montreux on horseback, climbing steeply through the villages of Chernex and Les Avants until they reached what is known as the col de Jarman. Byron was surprised there by just how high in the mountains there was pasture for cattle. He was enchanted by the constant noise of cow bells with which he was then surrounded, and by the sounds of the shepherds (as he describes them) calling to each other on the crags above, or playing their pipes. It was an idyllic scene, which realised perfectly all he had ever heard or seen of what he called ‘a pastoral existence’, and which also chimed in conveniently with the contemporary image of Switzerland as not only a country full of high mountains where visitors could find their better selves or communicate with higher powers, but also one made up of small peasant communities that were hardy, austere, republican, and uncorrupted by modern life.

The col they had reached lies just below the ‘Dent de Jarman’ and the two travellers began climbing this massive rocky projection so that they could enjoy the splendid view back to the lake and all the surrounding countryside (Hobhouse made it to the top but Byron had to stop twenty yards below). Scrambling down again to recover their horses, they pressed on to the village of Montboven where they met the main road from Bulle and stayed the night.