viii PREFACE 



international flood, and sound the clarion to make 

 known, urbe et orhi, the springtime glory of our 

 fields. With this one little reservation to calm 

 the egotistical anxiety which is in me (Mr, Flem- 

 well, who is my colleague in the Swiss Alpine 

 Club, knows too well our national character not 

 to understand the spirit in which we make certain 

 reservations with regard to this invasion of our 

 mountains by the cosmopolitan crowd), I wish 

 to thank the author, and to compliment him upon 

 this fresh monument which he raises to the glory 

 of our flowers. 



He here presents them under a different aspect, 

 and shows us the Alpine field, the meadow, the 

 great green slope as they transform themselves 

 in springtime. He sings of this rebirth with his 

 poet-soul, and presents it in pictures which are 

 so many hymns to the glory of the Creator. And 

 he is justified in this, for nothing in the world 

 is more marvellous than the re-flowering of Alpine 

 fields in May and June. T have seen it in the 

 little vallons of Fully and of Tourtemagne in 

 Valais, in the fields of Anzeindaz and of Taveyan- 

 naz (Canton de Vaud), at the summit of the 



