TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 147 



built against the hillside, having opposite them the stony bed of the 

 torrent and on all sides mountains of alarming height which offer only 

 snow and barren rocks. In every direction one hears the hideous 

 roar of torrents. A man not accustomed to similar situations might 

 easily contract melancholia. Charles, who was much more tired than 

 I, and perturbed to an indescribable extent by the passage of the 

 mountain, was, as you may imagine, not cheered up ; he managed, 

 however, to take great care of my belongings and to cook my supper, 

 and I was better satisfied with him than I could have hoped to be. 

 I had the honour to sleep in a bed, but I regretted my hay of the 

 previous night, for the bed was harder than a plank, while my hay 

 was most luxurious.' 



It may be remembered that on de Saussure's first tour of 

 Mont Blanc in 1767, the Genevese servants of the party had been 

 so terrified by the Bonhomme that on being told at Chapieu that 

 the Col de la Seigne was worse, they plotted to force the travellers 

 to go round by the Little St. Bernard : 



' It seemed to us amusing,' de Saussure wrote, ' to find ourselves 

 in the position of the navigators who, setting out for great discoveries, 

 have to combat the mutiny of their crews.' 



The accommodation at Chapieu remained very much the same 

 for the next eighty years, and de Saussure's description might 

 very well have served as late as 1856, when the writer first visited 

 the spot. Nor does he exaggerate in his denunciation of the 

 landscape. It attains a stony ugliness rare in the Alps, at any 

 rate outside Dauphine. 



At the head of the glen above Chapieu the gorge expands into 

 a pastoral basin, which contains the alp of Les Mottets. De 

 Saussure, always interested in peasant life, describes his reception 

 there : 



' A short distance above the hamlet of Glacier is a large chalet 

 inhabited by a family of peasants from St. Maurice in the Tarentaise. 

 All the surrounding pastures belong to this family, and they are 

 extensive enough to feed in summer a herd of cows, of which sixty 

 are their own. This is a considerable and rare fortune in the district ; 

 with such resources it would be possible not only to live without 

 working, but even to occupy a good position in a town. Yet these 

 people have lost nothing of the simplicity of their condition : the wife 

 of the head of the family passes the summer at the chalet, and looks 



