116 ALPINE FLOWERS [PART I. 



looking Lake Leman, with vast ranges of snowy mountains 

 beyond its broad expanse, give the traveller a rose-coloured 

 impression of the Alps, which forty-eight hours' journey from 

 Geneva was quite sufficient to modify in my case. The country 

 has every conceivable variety of attractive pastoral scenery, and, 

 better still, the human beings in it seem to partake of the felicity 

 which appears to be here the lot of all animated nature. Their 

 cottages and houses, nestling in nooks in flowery fields, and 

 carved out of the abundant wood of the region, snug gardens, 

 vine-clad slopes, numerous flocks, and high ridges of mountain- 

 lawn, with noble groups of Pines, in vast natural parks, form 

 pictures of which the eye never wearies. 



THE SAAS VALLEY. 



Compared to the shores of the lake I had passed the day 

 before, the Saas valley, with its deeply-worn river-bed and vast 

 sides of gloomy rock, looked anything but a cheerful pass to the 

 Monte Eosa district ; but, fortunately, I had other resources 

 than those of the landscape or the sky, and as yet the weather 

 permitted of enjoying them, for here were countless tufts of the 

 Cobweb Houseleek. It was the first time I had ever met with it 

 in a wild state, and cushioned in tufts, over the bare rocks, in the 

 spaces between the stones that here and there had been built 

 up to support the side of the pathway, and in almost every 

 chink there were thousands of it. Although some of the House- 

 leeks are among the most singular of dwarf plants, they are the 

 succulent plants of the Alps : they are among the hardiest of 

 all plants, enduring any weather, and living even in smoky 

 towns. 



Next, an old friend, the Hepatica, came in sight, peeping 

 here and there under the brushwood, but rarely in such strong 

 tufts as one sees it make in our gardens. In a wild state it has, 

 like everything else, to fight for existence, and is none the worse 

 for it. To meet this in its wild home would have rewarded 

 one for a day's hard walking in these solitudes, and it had many 



