The brilliant hues of the skies, and the bright fireflies, are all Italian, and so is the soft relaxing climate, which, whilst it inspires an ardent longing to breathe the mountain air, incapacitates the traveller for the exertion necessary to scale paths, for the most part too steep and rugged even for the sure-footed mule. The native historian, Léger, speaks with natural warmth of the productions of his country—of its majestic eagles, its wild goats, and mountain chamois, the hunting of which is still pursued with avidity, and the flesh eaten with relish. We have often met the returning hunting party, and seen the once beautiful creature laid lifeless across the successful huntsman’s shoulder. Of the flower-hunt we can better share the historian’s enthusiasm, and join con amore in his admiration of the beauty of these Vaudois blossoms, although we have not tested the wonderful medicinal and meteorological properties which he affirms they possess. It has not, for instance, been our good fortune to find a certain thistle which he warrants to be “a delicious food and ravishing sweetmeat, an infallible barometer, and excellent antidote to the plague!”
The Vaudois cling with affectionate tenacity to their native soil, even where it is barest and bleakest, and the mountaineer is to be found on the most uninviting heights earning a scanty and precarious livelihood, content if his rood of ground and his summer toil furnish him and his family with a frugal subsistence. In the higher latitudes, unable to procure a sufficiency of fuel, the inhabitants live under the same roof with their cattle—this animal warmth during the severity of an Alpine winter alone enabling them to support the extreme cold of these mountain regions.
The population of the valleys is between twenty and twenty-five thousand. Twenty hours would suffice a good
