After one of the inhabitants of Chamouni had enumerated many parishes where there were, and others where there were no Goîtres (which is the name they give this swelling), he concluded by telling me, I should see them in great abundance among the Valaisans, to whose country we were going.—When I told the man, I thought his country-people very happy, in being quite free from such an odious disease, which afflicted their poor neighbours—En revanche, said the peasant, nous sommes accablés des impôts;—et dans le pays de Vallais on ne paye rien.
The d——l is in the fellow, exclaimed I.—Were it in your choice, would you accept of Goîtres, to get free of taxes?
Très volontiers, Monsieur;—l’un vaut bien l’autre.
Quid causæ est, merito quin illis Jupiter ambas,
Iratas buccas inflet.
You see, my friend, that it is not in courts and capitals alone that men are discontented with their fortunes. The causes of repining are different in different places; but the effect is the same every where.
On the morning of the sixth day, we bid adieu to Prieuré; and having ascended the mountains, which shut up the valley of Chamouni at the end opposite to that by which we had entered, after various windings on a very rugged road, we gradually descended into a hollow of the most dismal appearance.
It is surrounded with high, bare, rugged rocks, without trees or verdure of any kind, the bottom being as barren and craggy as the sides, and the whole forming a most hideous landscape. This dreary valley is of a considerable length, but very narrow. I imagine it would have pleased the fancy of Salvator, who might have been tempted to steal a corner of it for one of his pieces, which, when he had enlivened with a murder or two, would have been a master-piece of the Horrible.
Having traversed this, we continued our journey, sometimes ascending, then descending into other vallies whose names I have forgot.—We had a long continued ascent over Mount Noir, a very high hill, covered with pine-trees, many of which are above a hundred feet in height. I was obliged to walk on foot most of this road, which is full as steep as any part of that by which we had ascended Montanvert.
We came at length to the pass which separates the King of Sardinia’s country from the little republic, called the Pays de Vallais. Across this there is an old thick wall, and a gate, without any guard. This narrow pass continues for several miles.—A few peasants arranged along the upper part of the mountains could, by rolling down stones, destroy a whole army, if it should attempt to enter into the country by this road.