YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 6d 



This was probably the first ascent by a tourist. The most inter- 

 esting fact connected with de Saussure's 1760 visit is that he 

 issued a notice in each parish of the valley offering a handsome 

 reward to the first man to climb Mont Blanc, and further promising 

 to recompense any adventurers for time lost in searching for a way. 

 The amount offered has not been recorded. 



The young traveller's attention was not confined to the 

 mountains, but extended also to their inhabitants. The human 

 interest was always strong in de Saussure, whether in society or 

 during his rambles. He tells us at the beginning of his chapter on 

 the manners and customs of the Chamoniards that in his childhood 

 the common folk at Geneva called the snowy mountains ' the 

 Accursed Hills,' and believed that their eternal frosts the snow 

 and ice that grew in the place of forests on their mountain sides 

 were a punishment for the crimes committed by those who 

 lived under them. Until the Savoy highlands became better 

 known, this belief, absurd as it may seem, served as foundation 

 for a distrust which obtained credit even among people who might 

 have been expected to be above such prejudices. They had the 

 excuse that their superstition was far from being singular ; the 

 Pyrenees have their Maladetta, and many similar cases might be 

 cited . Waste places had to be peopled ; and Christianity converted 

 the classical fauns and nymphs either into demons and witches, 

 or elves and fairies. 



During de Saussure's life a great change came over Chamonix. 

 Up to 1765 the cure's house had afforded the only decent lodging in 

 the village. Twenty years later it boasted three large and good 

 inns and eighteen hundred tourists a year to fill them. This influx 

 of visitors to a certain extent corrupted the simplicity of the 

 inhabitants, but, apart from petty tricks used to obtain engage- 

 ment as guides, they were, we are told, honest, serviceable, and 

 well content with their pay of five or six francs a day. The male 

 population in summer was greatly reduced by the number who 

 sought employment abroad not only in the large towns, but as 

 cheesemakers in the French and Italian Alps . In this art they had 

 acquired a reputation which has lasted to the present day, and it 

 is by no means rare to find a Chamoniard employed in a chalet far 

 from his own valley. Those who stayed at home were little given 

 to field labour, which they left mostly to the women. Before the 



