256

THE ALPINE REGIONS.

stone, such as that on the Pelvoux, which I have described, beinghis sole shelter from the storm, and a shout from some distanthunter or shepherd his only intercourse for days together withhis fellow-men. A little dry cheese and drier bread (or polenta)is his food, his clothes hardly hang together, and a few francs atthe end of the year are his wages. The flock which he guards isoften a joint-stock affair belonging to several villagers not so verymuch richer than himself. Sometimes the access to one of theseAlpine oases is so difficult that the animals have all to hecarried singly over a glacier upon men’s backs, or be hauled by arope up a cliff. There is such a. place above the western side of theMer de Glace (Chamouni). Hither when the snow's have meltedsome thirty sheep are carried, and left to spend the summer.When their owners return for them, though two or three aregenerally missing, having fallen down the rocks, the rest are sofat that the loss is more than compensated. Were it not fortheir stupidity and pig-headedness, which often prevents themfrom finding their way back, when they have wandered too far,they could take pretty good care of themselves. The agility ofa goat is proverbial, but that of a mountain sheep is scarcelyinferior. I remember that one day as we w r ere descending fromthe Grandes Rousses (Dauphind), we met a flock on a narrowtrack along the face of a cliff, which fell down some forty feet ormore. It was not absolutely a precipice, but a very steep slope ofgneiss rock, which had apparently been smoothed at some formertime by glacial action, and it now seemed impossible that eitherthey or we could maintain a footing on it for a moment. Thepath too was only a few inches wide, so it was distinctly a caseof “ suppose you come, we go.” We advanced, and they for amoment stood still; then, scorning to turn tail, broke and‘ skedaddled ’ down the rock at a run, as easily as if it had beena gentle slope of turf; stopping themselves once or twice bysome almost imperceptible crack or knob, and turning round towatch us. Both sheep and goats on the mountains seem to be