HUNTING THE CHAMOIS. 49 



food ; bread so dry that he is sometimes obliged to break it 

 between two stones, or with the hatchet he carries with him to 

 cut out steps in the ice. 



Having thus made his solitary and frugal repast, he puts a stone 

 below his head for a pillow, and goes to sleep, dreaming on the 

 route which the chamois may have taken. But soon he is awakened 

 by the freshness of the morning; he gets up, benumbed with cold; 

 surveys the precipices which he must traverse to overtake his 

 game ; drinks a little brandy, of which he is always provided with 

 a small portion, and sets out to encounter new dangers. Hunters 

 sometimes remain in these solitudes for several days together, 

 during which time their families, their unhappy wives in particular 

 axperience a state of the most dreadful anxiety: they dare not go 

 to rest for fear of seeing their husbands appear to them in a dream ; 

 for it is a received opinion in the country, that when a man has 

 perished, either in the snow, or on some unknown rock, he appears 

 by night to the person he holds most dear, describes the place that 

 proved fatal to him, and requests the performance of the last duties 

 to his corpse. "After this picture (says M. Saussure,) of the life 

 which the chamois hunters lead, could one imagine that this chase 

 would be the object of a passion absolutely unsurmountable ? I 

 knew a well-made, handsome man, who had just married a beau- 

 tiful woman: 'My grand-father, said he to me, lost his life 

 in the chase ; so did my father ; and I am persuaded, that I too 

 shall die in the same' manner ; this bag which I carry with me 

 when I hunt, I call my grave-clothes, for I am sure I will have no 

 other ; yet if you should offer to make my fortune on condition of 

 abandoning the chase of the chamois, I could not consent. I made 

 some excursions on the Alps with this man; his strength and 

 address were astonishing ; but his temerity was greater than his 

 strength ; and I have heard, that two years afterwards, he missed 

 a step on the brink of a precipice, and met with the fate he had 

 expected.' 



