112 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



and it was always a pleasure to look at his sinewy 

 legs as he stepped lightly along up the mountain 

 before me. A chamois-hunter has never any super- 

 abundant flesh ; he is spare of habit, and I have re- 

 marked, or perhaps only fancied I did so, that in his 

 eye is something peculiar, common to all of his class. 

 It has seemed to me that, animated as it is when on 

 the mountain or under the influence of surprise or 

 excitement, at other times when meeting him by 

 chance in common daily intercourse its expression is 

 wanting, as though the feelings that gave it life were 

 slumbering. If there be anything in this beyond 

 mere fancy, I can well account for the circumstance. 

 A chamois-hunter on the plain is like a sailor on 

 shore, he is surrounded by uncongenial objects, and 

 these and the incidents that exist and take place 

 about him are to him matters of little interest : they 

 in no wise awaken his sympathy. As the seaman 

 is ill at ease on land and wants to be afloat again, 

 so the hunter is impatient to get back to his moun- 

 tains. There he is at home, in all that surrounds 

 him he feels an interest. But the flat land and its 

 occupations are to him tame and tedious; and so 

 he saunters along, and the sparkle of his eye is 

 dimmed by listlessness. Let however but a sound 

 be heard which calls his attention, and at once the 

 eye is dilated; it is wide open and prominent, the 

 lids drawn far back, and the pupil is seen in a large 

 surrounding space of white. The habit of attentive 

 watching, of ever-constant vigilance, the frequent pre- 



