in order to afcertain the height of Mountains. 535. 
o’clock we had the good luck to find ourfelves at the very 
hovel, where we were to reft that night. I own I now 
found myfelf quite contented, though I did not at all 
know what kind of place I was going to enter. It proved 
to be a little hut made of boards, confiftingof one apart- 
ment only, eighteen or twenty feet fquare, and about 
twelve high in the center, without any windows or 
chimney for the fmoke, except what was made by the 
holes in the roof, and the interftices between the boards- 
at the fides, which were rudely put together, fcarce 
clofer than park-palings, affording an equal entrance to 
the wind, rain, and fnow; for as thefe hovels are inha- 
bited only for about four months in the fummer, they 
are conftruCted without the leaft mortar or cement in 
the world an humiliating, witnefs this, how fimple the 
architecture which nature and neceffity fuggeft. On en- 
tering we found a comfortable fire, and the littl q cabana 
inhabited by a couple of Alpine Ihepherdefles and their 
two cows, on whofe whey and fome very coarfe bread 
they wholly fubfifted, not difcontented but even proud of 
their lot ; and who, out of a lingular fpecies of contempt, 
call the inhabitants of the plain mange-rotis,t hat is, eaters of 
roaft-meat. Their language too was different ; not French 
nor Italian, but partaking fomething of both ; or, as I have 
been fince informed, a corruption of the ancient Celtic, 
c A few 
