TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 161 



the monks of the St. Bernard. After de Saussure's first visit 

 they told his Bernese friend Wyttenbach that he seemed a worthy 

 man, but that it was a misfortune he should suffer from a ridiculous 

 mania for picking up all the stones he met with, filling his pockets, 

 and loading his mules with them. He describes the Hospice : 



' After leaving Airolo I came with much boredom and disgust to 

 sleep at the Hospice of the Capuchins. You know how I hate monks ! 

 To make matters worse, two more Capuchins on their travels arrived, 

 with whom we had to sup. We sat down at the same table, four 

 Capuchins, two tailors, a mason, Joseph, and myself. They served 

 us, with many polite speeches, a detestable supper. Next morning 

 (yesterday) I thought I should hang myself when on getting up I saw 

 the mountain covered with snow, and feared I should be forced to 

 spend one or two days in this wretched place, where I had come only 

 to be near the high summits. But at last, about nine, the clouds 

 broke, and I climbed very briskly one of the loftiest peaks on which 

 I have ever been and took my observations in the finest possible 

 weather ! I returned to the Capuchins to eat soup made of boiled veal 

 and the veal that had been boiled in the soup, and started at once to 

 descend to Urseren, whence I sent back my mules to Chamonix.' 



The summit lying west of the pass reached by de Saussure on 

 this occasion, to which he gives the name of the Fient, was un- 

 doubtedly that called in The Alpine Guide, La Fibbia, 8997 feet, 

 though de Saussure applies the latter name to a more distant 

 and loftier snow-peak he reckoned some 1500 feet higher. Despite 

 the description given by his guide Lombardo, ' who represented 

 the difficulties and dangers of the ascent with all the emphasis 

 of his mother-tongue,' the climb proved easy enough. On his 

 return to the Hospice, de Saussure found that an unprecedented 

 event had taken place. An English traveller had arrived in his 

 cabriolet. The St. Gotthard track at this time was fairly broad 

 and paved with large slabs, and de Saussure was informed that 

 on an average 1000 laden horses crossed it daily ! But it was 

 not held practicable for wheels. The eccentric Englishman 

 was Charles Greville, on his way to visit his uncle, Sir William 

 Hamilton, at Naples. His 'fantasy,' which we learn cost him 

 eighteen louis, was successfully accomplished. Greville in the 

 Voyages is politely qualified as a ' celebrated mineralogist,' but in 

 his letters home de Saussure describes him more accurately as an 

 ' amateur of natural history.' He was also an amateur of beauty, 



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