They set out on this difficult enterprise, attended by eighteen guides, but were at length obliged to desist, after running many hazards, and after having expended at least £50. If they failed in accomplishing their undertaking, they had at least the satisfaction of exciting much wonder amongst the surrounding peasants, at the curiosity and rashness of the English. Our party were more easily satisfied; and having seen as much as could be accomplished without very great difficulty, we were contented to judge of the rest from the ample descriptions that have been published respecting them.
I could have wished, however, that time and the consent of the majority of the party, would have permitted my ascending to the convent on the Great St. Bernard; but being left in the minority, I did not feel disposed to make the excursion by myself, and I therefore prepared to accompany my friends back to Geneva. At Martigny, we entered on a part of the grand road of the Simplon, and bidding adieu to our mules, and to the mountains over which they had carried us, we proceeded on our journey in a charaban (or light country cart, with seats across it) to Bex. I did not observe that extreme indolence in the inhabitants of the Lower Valais, with which they have been reproached by some travellers. They are no doubt very poor, but their cottages are not devoid of neatness and comfort. Our attention was soon attracted by the famous cascade called the Pisse Vache, the beauty of which consists chiefly in its seeming to issue immediately from a cavity in the rock, which is surrounded by thorns and bushes. Its perpendicular height cannot be estimated at less than 200 feet, although many make it double that, or even more. The country of the Valais is remarkable for the vast numbers of persons it contains, affected with the goitres and also of idiots. The neighbouring provinces are also more or less affected with these maladies.
Many writers have exerted their ingenuity in endeavouring to account for this singularity with greater or less success; but what at Geneva is considered as the best treatise on the subject, is that by Coxe in his Account of Switzerland. A gentleman there lent me a French edition of this valuable work, from which I extracted the following account of the origin of the Goitres, (or extraordinary swellings about the glands of the throat,) which in Switzerland is considered as very satisfactory. Mr. Coxe says,
"The opinion that water derived from the melting of snow, occasions
these excrescences, is entirely destitute of foundation, which one
cannot doubt if it is considered how generally such water is used
in many parts of Switzerland, where the inhabitants are not at all
subject to this malady, which is, however, very prevalent in parts
where no such water abounds.
"These swellings are also frequently seen near Naples, in Sumatra,