16 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



ing him is a troop of goats, all unadorned save one 

 in front; and after them comes the maiden who 

 tends them, smart in her holiday attire. Bringing 

 up the rear, like the baggage-train of an army, a 

 waggon is lumbering on with household necessaries 

 piled high upon it, and drawn by two sturdy oxen, 

 whom a little peasant boy, with face as cheerful as the 

 morn, guides along. The merry scene pleases him; 

 he does not regret to leave the mountain, for what 

 child ever yet grieved at change of place ? But gay 

 and festal as " the return from the Aim " always is, it 

 is by far not so pleasing an event to the Senner and 

 Sennerinn as the departure for "the mountain" in 

 spring. Then, as the forester's young wife told me, 

 who stood looking at them with her baby laughing on 

 her arm, then if you meet them, and, wishing them 

 good day, ask whither they are going, the reply, " Auf 

 die Aim* !" is quite musical with pleasure, and their 

 faces are radiant with thoughts of the life awaiting 

 them on the green mountain slopes. But when meet- 

 ing them in autumn, on their downward path, you 

 put the same question, the answer, " Home !" tells at 

 once by its tone how reluctant they are to leave their 

 summer dwelling-place. 



And indeed it is not to be wondered at. On some 

 high spot, sheltered perhaps by perpendicular walls of 

 rock a thousand feet, closed in, in a sort of "happy 

 valley " up among the mountains, or else may be on 

 a verdant piece of table-land, free and unbounded 



* " To the pastures on the mountain !" 



