68 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



des Bossons, which is seen to descend from the summits neighbouring 

 on Mont Blanc ; its icy masses, wrought into the form of huge pyramids, 

 produce an astonishing effect in the centre of the pine woods which 

 they traverse and overtop. These majestic glaciers, separated by 

 great forests, and crowned by granite crags of astounding height cut in 

 the form of great obelisks and mixed with snow and ice, present one 

 of the noblest and most singular spectacles it is possible to imagine. 

 The fresh and pure air one breathes, so different from the close atmo- 

 sphere of the basins of Sallanches and Servoz, the good cultivation of 

 the soil, the pretty hamlets met with at every step, when seen on a 

 fine day, give the impression of a new world, a sort of earthly paradise, 

 enclosed by a kindly Deity in the circle of the mountains. The road, 

 continuously good and easy, 1 allows the traveller to give himself up 

 to delicious reveries and the pleasant, varied, and novel ideas which 

 crowd on his brain.' [Voyages, 510.] 



How are the ' Cursed Mountains ' transformed in the eyes of 

 the youth who was to lead Europe to do them homage ! At the 

 Prieure there was no accommodation except in one or two rough 

 cabarets, so that the young traveller found lodging with the cure, 

 doubtless in the pleasant house that still stands to the right of the 

 church as one looks up the village street. He undertook what 

 since Pococke and Windham's day was the inevitable excursion, 

 that which was afterwards described by a French tourist as 

 ' le Mont Blanc jusqu'au Montenvers.' There he saw the 'Pierre 

 des Anglais,' a shepherds' gite, under which local legend said 

 it appears falsely that the English visitors had passed the night, 

 but where, at any rate, they had lunched and drunk patriotic toasts, 

 including the health of ' the Roi Georges ' a precedent the guides, 

 no doubt pleased to share in the bottles opened, tried, we are told, 

 to impose on travellers of other nationalities. 2 De Saussure, bolder 

 than his predecessors, essayed the crossing of the glacier and 

 visited the solitary shepherd who kept his flock on the scanty 

 pasturage at the foot of the Aiguille du Dru. The old man asked for 

 tobacco, which de Saussure could not supply, but he seemed to 

 have no use for the coins offered him. 



De Saussure on this occasion also climbed the Brevent, guided 

 by Pierre Simon, whom for many years he constantly employed. 



1 This refers to the open valley above Les Houches as contrasted to the 

 defile of Les Montets. 



* Bordier, Voyage Pittoresque aux Olacilres de Savoie, Geneve, 1773. 



