One day I was told in the village that a funeral was to be held in the little mountain settlement above Champéry, and I trudged up the zigzag pathway as hurriedly as the occasion would allow, for I confess to having a penchant for witnessing these mournful conclaves in every foreign country I may visit.
I had no trouble in discovering the house of mourning, as a crowd of peasants hung about the door. Soon the little procession, headed by the priest and his attendants, filed out of the door and moved with solemn chant down the mountain-side towards the little churchyard below.
On inquiry, I learned that the departed one was the elderly husband of a bent and weather-beaten old peasant woman, who tottered along in faded black garments, the nether portion of which looked for all the world as if she had donned the “left-overs” of her dear departed. On her head was a crisp new crape toga, however, and as she hobbled along I confess that she made a pathetic as well as an incongruous figure.
THE VILLAGERS POSSESS LARGE HERDS OF FINE MILCH-GOATS, WHICH THE WOMEN LOOK AFTER WHILE THEIR MEN-FOLK STOP AT HOME.
From a Photo. by Jullien Bros.
Despite the fact that the women work hard out of doors, summer and winter, exposed to the worst of weathers, they are mostly long-lived and seldom know what illness is. I often saw them working in the hayfields with their babies lying blinking in the sunlight near by. At noon they lounged under the trees, talking mother-foolishness to the wee things, and their queer garments never seem so hideous and altogether distasteful as when they are nursing the children.
The lack of even the simplest understanding of remedies for either illness or accident has always struck me as most remarkable among the Swiss peasantry. They may live several hours’ journey away from a doctor or chemist without ever making the least attempt at learning what to do for even the simplest ailments.
I once knew one of these Champéry women to have sunstroke so badly that she became quite unconscious, and continued so long in that state that I was certain she would die.
“MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB”—THIS PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS CLEARLY THE “HOME-MADE” CUT OF THE TROUSERS AND THE CURIOUS HEAD-DRESS WORN BY THE WOMEN.