BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 75 



tains absolutely free from clouds or mist. She was struck with 

 the beautiful and artistic carvings on the exteriors of the 

 many chalets that she saw, in contrast to the dirt and squalor 

 that prevailed within, and the pale and pinched faces of 

 women and children, testifying to the poor food, hard work, 

 and miserable surroundings. She learned that the guides had 

 a hard time to make both ends of the year meet, the season 

 being short, and their families often large. She felt sorry for 

 the expressionless faces of the people whom she saw. "The 

 little children look like old people, as if even at birth the age 

 of the mountains had reflected itself upon them." She was 

 amused at the absurd cut of their clothes; the men wearing 

 homespun of snuff -brown color. "Some of the older men, 

 when dressed in their best, have the tail of the coat cut very 

 short like an abbreviated dress-coat. Their boots are of the 

 clumsiest make with wooden soles and leather tops. ... A 

 story is told of how one of the mountaineers thus dressed went 

 to camp, and the officer who made the inspection to see if 

 his uniform and boots were right, looked with his one eyeglass 

 at such a pair of nailed, solid boots which the poor fellow had 

 brought, and asked him how he could fight in such boots. 

 The mountaineer replied, 'Your boots are to run in, mine 

 are to stand in.' With this he stamped his foot on the ground, 

 and looked with contempt on the thin shoes of the exquisite." 



At the Hotel de 1'Ours, at Grindelwald, she was delighted 

 not only with the homelike food and accommodations, but 

 also with the whole family of the proprietress, which con- 

 sisted of a lovely, refined girl, speaking very good English, 

 and seven sons. One of these sons, an alert, intelligent youth, 

 beaming all over with the daring and manliness that come 

 from an open-air, adventurous life, had been out chamois 

 hunting in the mountains for two days, and, more fortunate 

 than the famous Tartarin of Tarascon, had bagged one of 

 those rare deer. He had spent the night before camping out 

 in the deep snow, with the cold so intense that it had frozen 

 his bread, wine, and cheese. She says: 



"He was a Protestant, and spoke of the two Swiss parties 

 being powerfully divided on religious grounds, the Catholics 



