YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 61 



the first page of his great work, the Voyages, has himself borne 

 eloquent witness to the inspiration he drew from his environment. 

 I quote the passage : 



' Geneva by its situation seema made to inspire a taste for Natural 

 History. Nature presents herself in her most brilliant aspect. She 

 displays an infinity of divine features, a lake brimming with clear 

 and azure waters, from which issues a beautiful river, surrounded by 

 charming hills which form the foreground of an amphitheatre of 

 mountains, crowned by the majestic summits of the Alps. These are 

 themselves dominated by Mont Blanc, clothed in a mantle of ice and 

 eternal snows reaching down to its foot, and presenting a surprising 

 contrast between its frosts and the beautiful verdure which covers 

 the hills and the lower ranges. This grand spectacle delights the 

 eyes and inspires the keenest desire to study and explore its marvels.' 



Before we pursue de Saussure's boyhood, the reader may, I 

 trust, not be unwilling to join in a short pilgrimage to the three 

 properties where de Saussure spent the best, if not the greatest, 

 part of his life. They He in different directions, respectively south, 

 east, and north-east of the town. 



The property at Conches, where de Saussure was born and 

 where he passed his last years, was of some extent, and lay enclosed 

 within a bend of the Arve, on its right bank, about two miles from 

 the gates. The road leading to it, shaded by old oak-trees, passes 

 between what were formerly open fields until the ground slopes 

 somewhat sharply towards the river, the opposite bank of which is 

 high, abrupt, and wooded. There seems reason to believe that 

 the site of the old farmhouse was identical with that of a modern 

 (or modernised) villa standing among meadows close to a pictur- 

 esque weir. Near at hand an ancient barn and stable and some 

 old garden walls indicate an earlier residence. There is little 

 distant view, and in de Saussure's day Conches must have been a 

 relatively remote and quiet retreat. 



Frontenex, the principal de Saussure estate, lies some two 

 miles east of Geneva. It still remains in the state in which 

 it was in the eighteenth century, when the Duke of Gordon, Lord 

 Palmerston, and other young Englishmen of rank and fashion, 

 who were being educated at Geneva, were glad to come out 

 and be entertained by the worthy old patrician, his clever son, 

 and handsome daughter. 



