56 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



resound with bursts of lively and uncontrolled laughter, the sure 

 accompaniment of simple and innocent pleasures. 



' But one day this mirth was checked by a fatal accident. A young 

 couple married on the same morning had come, with all their wedding 

 party, to the festival. To avoid for a moment the crowd, they had 

 approached the edge of the mountain, when the bride's foot slipped, 

 her husband tried to hold her, but was dragged over the precipice, 

 and they both ended their li ves together on their happiest day ! A 

 ruddy rock is pointed out which is reputed to be stained by their 

 blood.' [Voyages, 355.] 



I quote this passage in full, since it illustrates several sides of de 

 Saussure's character his feeling for nature, his early inclination 

 for botany, and his sympathy, none the less real for being coloured 

 in its expression by the sentiment of the day, for the simple life of 

 country people. On another occasion he describes how he met a 

 young girl from one of the villages on the Savoy shore of the 

 Lake of Geneva, who, having been courted by a youth from Canton 

 Fribourg, was starting off on a two days' tramp alone with her 

 lover, in order to visit his home, and satisfy herself as to his means 

 before accepting him. On this incident, as a proof both of the 

 worldly prudence and the high moral standard of a peasantry 

 who saw in it nothing compromising, de Saussure moralises 

 sympathetically. It is in this direction far more than in connec- 

 tion with the appreciation of the scenery of the High Alps that 

 any trace of Rousseau's influence can be detected in his pages. 

 He is always quick to record any human traits that interest him, 

 and he does not hesitate in the Voyages to wedge them in between 

 solid blocks of geological detail. 



Thus later in life he confesses to having filched some pears in 

 passing an orchard in the Vallee de Montjoie, near St. Gervais, 

 and having been delighted when the peasant woman to whom he 

 offered payment replied : ' It is not for that I come ; He who 

 made the fruits did not make them for a single owner.' No 

 better proof could be offered of the rarity of visitors in 

 de Saussure's day ! The indulgence that was extended to 

 the pious pilgrim or rare wanderer could hardly hope to 

 survive the inrush of the view-hunters and the visitors to the 

 glaciers. 



I must find space for one more passage, a description of the 



