But you would not like to have been born in that state yourself?
Vous croyez donc, Monsieur, que j’aurois été bien attrapé?
Attrapé!—certainly:—don’t you think so too?
Pour cela, non, Monsieur; je n’aurois jamais travaillé.—
To one who has through life been obliged to work hard for a bare subsistence, labour appears the greatest evil, and perfect idleness the greatest blessing. If this soldier had been brought up in idleness, and had experienced all the horrors and dejection which attend indolent luxury, very possibly he would be of a different opinion.
During this journey, I remarked, that in some particular villages, and for a considerable tract of country, scarcely was there any body to be seen who had that swelling of the throat and neck, which is thought so general among all the inhabitants of the Alps. In particular, I did not observe any body at Prieuré with this complaint; and, upon enquiry, was informed, that there are many parishes in which not a single person is troubled with it, and that in other places at no great distance it is almost universal.
In the valley of Chamouni there is only one hamlet where it is common; but in the Pays de Vallais, I was told, it is more frequent than in any other place.
As this disease seems to be endemical, it cannot, as has been imagined, proceed from the drinking of water impregnated with snow or ice; for this beverage is common to all the inhabitants of the Alps, and of other mountains.
If the water be in reality the vehicle of this disease, we must suppose it impregnated not only with dissolved ice and snow, but also with some salt, or other substance, possessed of the noxious quality of obstructing the glands of the throat; and we must also suppose, that this noxious substance is to be found in no other inhabited place but the Alps.