But many pathless craggy mountains remained to be traversed after we had lost the protection of the trees. We then had nothing but the sagacity of our mules to trust to. For my own part, I was very soon convinced that it was much safer on all dubious occasions to depend on their’s than on my own: For as often as I was presented with a choice of difficulties, and the mule and I were of different opinions, if, becoming more obstinate than he, I insisted on his taking my track, I never failed to repent it, and often was obliged to return to the place where the controversy had begun, and follow the path to which he had pointed at first.
It is entertaining to observe the prudence of these animals in making their way down such dangerous rocks. They sometimes put their heads over the edge of the precipice, and examine with anxious circumspection every possible way by which they can descend, and at length are sure to fix on that which upon the whole is the best. Having observed this in several instances, I laid the bridle on the neck of my mule, and allowed him to take his own way, without presuming to controul him in the smallest degree.
This is doubtless the best method, and what I recommend to all my friends in their journey through life, when they have mules for their companions.
We rested some time, during the sultry heat of the day, at a very pleasingly situated village called Serve; and ascending thence along the steepest and roughest road we had yet seen, we passed by a mountain, wherein, they told us, there is a rich vein of copper, but that the proprietors have left off working it for many years.
As we passed through one little village, I saw many peasants going into a church.—It was some Saint’s day.—The poor people must have half-ruined themselves by purchasing gold-leaf.—Every thing was gilded.—The virgin was dressed in a new gown of gold paper;—the infant in her arms was equally brilliant, all but the periwig on his head, which was milk-white, and had certainly been fresh powdered that very morning.
I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this ridiculous sight, which the people beheld with as much veneration as they could have shewn, had the originals been present.
Upon calling up my eyes to the cieling, I saw something more extraordinary still: This was a portrait of God the Father, sitting on a cloud, and dressed like a Pope, with the tiara on his head. Any one must naturally be shocked at this, if he be not at the same instant moved to laughter at the infinite absurdity of the idea.
About six in the evening we arrived at the valley of Chamouni, and found lodgings in a small village called Prieuré. The valley of Chamouni is about six leagues in length, and an English mile in breadth. It is bounded on all sides by very high mountains. Between the intervals of these mountains, on one side of the valley, the vast bodies of snow and ice, which are called Glaciers, descend from mount Blanc, which is their source.