268 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SATJSSURE 



in many Alpine villages. The bread was eaten when it was six 

 months old, first cut with a hatchet, then sopped in skimmed milk. 

 Cheese and ' a bit of cold cow or salt goat ' were dainties reserved 

 for feast-days and haytime ; as a rule, even the wealthier peasants 

 were content to flavour their bread with a bunch of garlic. Yet 

 those who had been abroad were eager to return to their native 

 valley and diet and loath to leave them again. 



' Their greatest fault,' concludes de Saussure, ' is their lack of hos- 

 pitality : not only are they reluctant to receive strangers, but if they 

 meet them on the road they seek to avoid them, and look on them 

 with an air of dislike and fear. Still the people at Macugnaga, where 

 we stayed ten or twelve days, after they had got accustomed to us, 

 came to greet us with friendliness ; we were even told they were 

 pleased at our taking an interest in their mountains. The mercenary 

 hospitality found in countries frequented by foreigners is, no doubt, 

 more convenient to travellers, but is it any proof of a better disposition 

 than the primitive rudeness of the dwellers round Monte Rosa ? ' 

 [Voyages, 2224.] 



As soon as fine weather returned, de Saussure put in hand the 

 expedition which was the prime aim of his journey. He had 

 promised his family he would make no attempt on any of the 

 peaks of Monte Rosa itself. His object, he assured his wife 

 no doubt he had got his information from Count Morozzo was a 

 safe and commodious mountain about the height of the Buet, the 

 Pizzo Bianco (10,552 feet), which rises in front of the great screen 

 formed by the peaks of Monte Rosa and opposite its south-eastern 

 angle. To make sure of having plenty of time for observations on 

 the top, he took his tents and slept for two nights at the Pedriolo 

 Alp (6733 feet), which occupies a superb position at the very base 

 of the great precipices of the Macugnaga face of Monte Rosa. 



' These meadows were bounded by the rocks and glaciers of Monte 

 Rosa, whose lofty peaks stood out magnificently against the deep blue 

 vault of heaven. Close to our tent ran a rivulet of the freshest and 

 clearest water ; on the other side was an overhanging boulder in whose 

 shelter we lit a fire of rhododendrons, the only fuel that grows at this 

 height.' [Voyages, 2136.] 



Up to a few years ago the site of de Saussure's camp was still 

 pointed out to travellers. 



De Saussure found the ascent from the alp fatiguing. It 

 presented the ordinary features of rough boulders followed by 



