BROACHING THE MOUNTAINS. 



their minds fresher and more susceptible to outward 

 impressions. Knowing nothing of conventions, nor 

 hardened or pressed down by want, they are, both 

 mentally and bodily, more healthy and more vigorous. 

 The purity of the air gives elasticity to the heart as 

 well as to the limbs, and their simple diet is most 

 surely not without a happy influence. Meat they 

 never taste, and their sole drink is milk or water. 

 Their pleasures are of the simplest kind : song is for 

 them at once an occupation and a pastime, and when 

 on the mountains, you are sure to hear some solitary 

 watcher over his herd beguiling the lonesome hours 

 with a mouth harmonicon, or filling the air with one 

 of their happy songs, quite as full of happiness in its 

 way as the carolling of the lark. Occasionally the 

 chamois-hunter descends to their dwelling, to cook a 

 warm meal or to pass the night under shelter of their 

 roof. From him they get the latest news of what is 

 going on in the vale ; they give him a hearty welcome, 

 and the evening is passed merrily, and concluded, may 

 be, with a dance ; for the Jager is sure to find favour 

 with the sex, and no young knight-errant was ever 

 better received by the fair dames of a castle where he 

 craved hospitality, than the trim and merry young 

 hunter by the Sennerinn on the mountain. 



But to return to the high-road. There was no 

 boat to be had at the moment to take me across the 

 lake to the little village of Egern ; so, putting my 

 portmanteau on the cart of a young peasant who was 

 just driving by, with rifle in hand up I jumped, and 



