70 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



career of guides was open to them they resorted either to the 

 search for crystals or to chamois -hunting, both highly dangerous 

 pursuits in which many lives were lost. De Saussure tells several 

 dramatic stories of the perils of the chase and the jealousy of 

 the hunters of different districts . The charge of luring peasants to 

 destruction which has sometimes been brought against moun- 

 taineers is obviously unsustainable, since the profession of guide is 

 far less dangerous than the pursuits it has superseded. It is 

 surprising to find as early as 1787 another charge a less serious 

 one brought against the guides' employers. Tourists, a visitor 

 alleges, anxious to make records so long to the Montenvers, 

 so many minutes in crossing the Mer de Glace forced their 

 laden guides to keep up an excessive pace, with the deplorable 

 result that the guides, worn out by constant and excessive effort, 

 became old men at forty. The same writer admits that many of 

 the guides had already the fault of being too exacting, but points 

 out that several may be found who retain the simplicity and 

 disinterestedness of their fathers .* 



There can be no doubt that the new form of employment 

 created by the visitors to the glaciers was a great boon to a district 

 which could not maintain its population. Unlike as Bourrit 

 points out the independent peasant -farmers of the Bernese 

 Oberland, who found sufficient sustenance in their fields and 

 broad alps, the Chamoniards, shut up in their narrow valley and 

 subject to the exactions of a religious community, were ready to 

 welcome eagerly any new mode of wage -earning. The relative 

 poverty of Chamonix was one cause of its school of guides attaining 

 to a pre-eminence which was not seriously contested for many 

 years by the men of Grindelwald and the Hasli Thai. Another was 

 the quickness with which they picked up the icecraft called for in 

 ascents of Mont Blanc . In my own early years Chamonix men were 

 unrivalled on a difficult glacier. Icefalls locally deemed impractic- 

 able were a pastime to Frangois Devouassoud. Yet another 

 qualification may be found in the wandering habit of the Savoyard 

 peasantry. From very early days Chamoniards with their mules 

 were ready to accompany travellers on extensive tours, and to act, 

 as Ruskin's guide did, more or less as couriers. 



1 Excursion dans les Mines du Haul Faucigny, Berthoud van Berchem file 

 (Lausanne, 1787). 



