COTTAGES OF THE ALES.

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of course, now speaking of the higher villages, in those remotedistricts where travellers rarely come to spend money, and whereshops are almost unknown. Near the great roads and favouriteplaces of resort, life appears to go more easily; visitors andtheir wants furnish plenty of work for the steady and able-bodied men in summer, and a fair* heap of francs may be laidup against the winter. But in such places as the lonely glensin the French and parts of the Italian Alps it is a differentstory. In these also fuel is often scarce, the soil and climatebeing unsuited for forests; so that in winter the people herdtogether with the cattle, occupying a room partly underground.This is the case to my knowledge in the upper valley of theArc and in the mountain villages near the Val d’Aoste , and isprobably a practice far from uncommon.

And then the cottage itself, built in many parts of the Alpsof rough stones, stuck together with coarse mortar, sometimesnot even plastered within ; its fireplace without a grate, pos-sibly without a chimney 1 . For furniture, one or two commontables, half a dozen chairs, or perhaps only a bench and a fewstools, a shelf with some odds and ends of crockery; and a crochetfastened to the wall above the fire, to hold the mar mite or bigpot in which everything is cooked;—there is an Alpine home.What wonder then if the people are as afraid of fresh water asa dog with the hydrophobia, and walk about protected from thecold by a permanent coat of dirt? I really doubt whether manyof the villagers take off their clothes from week’s end to week’send; in the chalets they certainly do not. Slovenly fashionsspread naturally, like all bad habits; thus I have been in cot-tages—owned by men of the yeoman class, who possessedseveral acres of corn land, a large number of cows, sheep andgoats, with extensive rights in pasture and forest,—to which

1 This latter is a common fashion in the Val Auronzo (Italian Tyrol), quiterespectable houses being without this, as we should think, necessary accom-modation.