YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 71 



Bourrit reports that on one occasion when de Saussure was 

 expected at Chamonix, a hunter who had gone out to secure a 

 chamois as a present to him perished in the chase, and that de 

 Saussure thereon behaved generously to his family. So great, 

 Bourrit adds, was the respect felt for de Saussure in the valley, 

 that the Chamoniards would habitually raise their hats in 

 mentioning his name. Their famous visitor was by no means 

 slow in returning the warm feelings entertained towards him by 

 the comrades of his climbs. But at the same time he was very 

 conscious of the weak points in the local character often brought 

 out by the emergencies of travel. He records the devices by 

 which on Mont Blanc his guides endeavoured to prevent him 

 from camping on the snow, the sorry trick by which they sought to 

 cut short his sojourn on the Col du Geant. But he has nothing but 

 praise for his first guide, Pierre Simon, who died about 1780, and 

 his successor, Marie Couttet. Of the former Bourrit has given us a 

 picture : 



1 This guide is one of the best recommended of the valley, and he 

 owes his reputation to M. de Saussure, who, recognising his good 

 qualities, trained him in his various excursions. He is short of stature ; 

 his head buried in a large hat ; small bright eyes, a short coat, heavy 

 nailed shoes, and a spiked stick, a peculiar language as difficult to under- 

 stand as to speak for everyone except his illustrious employer such 

 are his external qualities. What made me choose him was that he 

 was experienced, prudent, courageous, and faithful.' l 



The description will find an echo in the recollections of many 

 more recent climbers. De Saussure's later guide, Marie Couttet, 

 I picture as of the same type as his nephew, the guide of my own 

 boyhood, Michel Alphonse Couttet, and his son, Ruskin's com- 

 panion, Joseph Marie Couttet, so often mentioned in the pages of 

 Prceterita, tall, upright, with an almost military bearing, in dis- 

 position cautious, in conversation shrewd and sententious, on 

 the road or in rough quarters full of devices for an employer's 

 comfort, having for home a substantial house in the village. 

 The Balmats of fifty years ago, one of whom was Sir Alfred 

 Wills' guide, belonged to the same class. Balmat ' of Mont 

 Blanc ' was of another type, the peasant proprietors of the 



1 Bourrit's Description des Aspects du Mont Blanc, 1776. 



