Rollo in Switzerland

by Jacob Abbott

In due time the party reached the little hamlet where Ninette lived. The hamlet consisted of a scattered group of cabins and cow houses on a shelving green more than a thousand feet above the valley. The girl led the party to the door of her father's hut; and there, through the medium of Henry as interpreter, they purchased the two bows for a very small sum of money. They also bought a drink of excellent milk for the whole party of Ninette's mother and then resumed their journey.

As they went on they obtained from time to time very grand and extended views of the surrounding mountains. Whether they turned their eyes above or below them, the prospect was equally wonderful. In the latter case they looked down on distant villages; some clinging to the hillsides, others nestling in the valleys, and others still perched, like the one where Ninette lived, on shelving slopes of green pasture land, which terminated at a short distance from the dwellings on the brink of the most frightful precipices. Above were towering forests and verdant slopes of land, dotted with chalets or broken here and there by the gray rocks which appeared among them. Higher still were lofty crags, with little sunny nooks among them—the dizzy pasturages of the chamois; and above these immense fields of ice and snow, which pierced the sky with the glittering peaks and summits in which they terminated. Mr. George and Rollo paused frequently, as they continued their journey, to gaze around them upon these stupendous scenes.

At length, when the steepest part of the ascent had been accomplished, Mr. George said that he was tired of climbing, and proposed that Rollo should dismount and take his turn in walking.

"If you were a lady," said Mr. George, "I would let you ride all the way. But you are strong and capable, and as well able to walk as I am—better, I suppose, in fact; so you may as well take your turn."

"Yes," said Rollo; "I should like it. I am tired of riding. I would rather walk than not."

So Henry assisted Rollo to dismount, and then adjusted the stirrups to Mr. George's use, and Mr. George mounted into the saddle.

"How glad I am to come to the end of my walking," said Mr. George, "and to get upon a horse!"

"How glad I am to come to the end of my riding," said Rollo, "and to get upon my feet!"

Thus both of the travellers seemed pleased with the change. The road now became far more easy to be travelled than before. The steepest part of the ascent had been surmounted, and for the remainder of the distance the path followed a meandering way over undulating land, which, though not steep, was continually ascending. Here and there herds of cattle were seen grazing; and there were scattered huts, and sometimes little hamlets, where the peasants lived in the summer, to tend their cows and make butter and cheese from their milk. In the fall of the year they drive the cattle down again to the lower valleys; for these high pasturages, though green and sunny in the summer and affording an abundance of sweet and nutritious grass for the sheep and cows that feed upon them, are buried deep in snows, and are abandoned to the mercy of the most furious tempests and storms during all the winter portion of the year. Our travellers passed many scattered forests, some of which were seen clinging to the mountain sides, at a vast elevation above them. In others men were at work felling trees or cutting up the wood. Rollo stopped at one of these places and procured a small billet of the Alpine wood, as large as he could conveniently carry in his pocket, intending to have something made from it when he should get home to America. The woodman, at Henry's request, cut out this billet of wood for Rollo, making it of the size which Rollo indicated to him by a gesture with his finger.

At one time the party met a company of peasant girls coming down from the mountain. They came into the path by which our travellers were ascending from a side path which seemed to lead up a secluded glen. These girls came dancing gayly along with bouquets of flowers in their hands and garlands in their hair. They looked bright and blooming, and seemed very contented and happy.