74 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
branch brings a stream down from Arolla and the Mont 
Collon, the left arm is called the Val d’Hérens, and 
descends immediately from the Dent Blanche. And at 
the junction of the Y stands Evolena, where the traveller 
may spend the night. 
It was on a blazing morning that I set out from Evolena 
for Arolla, up the steep valley to the right, upon whose 
bare slopes of grass a pitiless sun was beating. ‘There is 
nothing but a track after Evolena, so that one must either 
walk or jog it on a mule. Where, in the lower valleys, 
it is a question of tramping endlessly upwards through 
sweltering forests, I myself prefer the mule as the least 
unpleasant of unpleasant ways to achieve a necessary piece 
of drudgery. (This may sound irreverent. Remember that 
I speak as a gardener. Opulent as the pine-woods are, 
they give a gardener very little of interest. And no one 
will deny that they can be stuffy and hot to an infernal 
degree.) But from Evolena, standing so high as it does, 
only desultory fringes of woodland are to be feared on our 
upward way to Arolla. So that with an undaunted heart 
one can set out to walk the six miles or so that lie between 
the two. 
Very soon one has to say good-bye to the Dent Blanche, 
which passes out of sight as one diverges from the Val 
d’Hérens. And it is almost with relief that one escapes 
from that overpowering presence. All ranges and peaks 
seem to me to have a personal character of their own. 
Indeed, this is inevitable. Since all things organic and in- 
organic, all rocks and mountains and trees must ultimately 
become Buddha, perfect and unchanging, it follows that, 
of these enormous pilgrims in the road of salvation, some 
must be farther advanced on the way than others—that 
all must, in fact, have personalities of their own. And, 
far down in the scale as the rocks must be, the Dent 
Blanche is surely farther down than many of its rivals, 
