84 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



In a preceding chapter I spoke of the high estimation in 

 which the Solachers hold their calling ; how they love it 

 above every other, and look upon all other joys as tame 

 and insignificant, when compared to those which their 

 free mountain-life affords. Some such feeling Kobell* 

 has embodied in a little poem, of which the following 

 verses are a translation ; and I give them here, because 

 they seem to be not misplaced in a picture of mountain 

 life. 



Eije Cjjamot'g J^unter. 



Where Edelweisf blooms on the bare rock's face, 

 Up there right well do I know each place ; 

 Up there how gladsome is life, how free ! 

 Methinks it could nowhere more joyous be. 



No praters are there to watch and pry, 

 It's too far for them, 'tis up too high ; 

 Up there you are with your God alone, 

 And mild and better your heart has grown. 



And let them say whatever they will, 

 By night 't is there so solemn and still ; 

 And when the peaks in the starlight gleam 

 To pray more readily then I seem. 



* Franz von Kobell is weU known as the author of some volumes of 

 poems in the Bavarian dialects. 



f JEdelweis — Gnaphalium Zeontopodium — a flower met with only on 

 some of the highest mountains in certain parts of Tyrol and Bavaria. 

 It is to be found in Berchtesgaden, and on the Scharfreuter in the 

 Hinter Biss. It is much valued for the snowy purity of its colour, as 

 well as on account of the difficulty of getting it. The very name, " Noble 

 Purity," (edel, noble, weiss, white,) has a charm about it. Strangely 

 enough it always grows in a spot to be reached only with the utmost 

 peril. You will see a tuft of its beautifully white flowers overhanging a 

 precipice, or waving on a perpendicular wall of rock, to be approached 



