TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 143 



I shall not attempt here to follow in their chronological order 

 the Alpine tours of which we have records. In his Voyages de 

 Saussure summarised and combined the results of several tours 

 under three separate headings. The first of these is the tour of 

 Mont Blanc. This, de Saussure, when in 1786 he published the 

 second of his four volumes, had already made four times. He 

 gives as a second ' Voyage ' his passage of the Mont Cenis and his 

 visits to the Riviera and Provence. 1 The third 'Voyage ' is a 

 very condensed account of his many visits to the Gries, the St. 

 Gotthard, and the Italian lakes. 



Further journeys, of which little or no mention is found in the 

 Voyages, are that of 1777 to the Bernese Oberland and over the 

 St. Gotthard and Gries to the Lake of Como, returning by the 

 Spliigen, Chur, Wallenstadt, and Zurich, and that of 1784, mainly 

 sub -alpine, which included a visit to Engelberg and an ascent 

 of the Graustock (8737 feet) above the Joch Pass. 



De Saussure had made his first tour of Mont Blanc in 1767 

 in company with Jean Louis Pictet, an astronomer and student 

 of physics, and a young friend, Jalabert. On his second tour in 

 1774 he was alone with his guides. On his third tour, in 1778, he 

 had the company of Jean Trembley, and his pupil and greatest 

 ally, Marc Auguste Pictet. In the published narrative he refers to 

 the advantage and pleasure he derived from their company ; but 

 his subsequent practice indicates that there were certain drawbacks. 

 De Saussure found that his observations often took more time than 

 his companions wished to spend. In later Alpine journeys, when 

 not travelling with his wife and family or his son, he, as a rule, 

 went alone, no doubt finding it left his attention more free to keep 

 his notebooks in constant use. 



His letters to his wife written during his second journey, in 

 1774, furnish many picturesque details of Alpine travel in its 

 earlier stages . Here is the description of his quarters at Sallanches : 



' The inn has a long gallery, not ornamented with pictures and 

 sculptures like that of the Villa Lullin, 2 but with a view of the course 

 of the Arve through a valley surrounded by mountains of immense 

 height arid the strangest forms crowned by Mont Blanc, which nowhere 



1 They are dealt with in chapters xiii. and xiv. 



- The villa at Genthod, which belonged to his wife's family. 



