ccounted by
one who hears of it as confined to but three valleys. Spread out these
valleys into level plains, and you find that they form a large country.
It is not only the broad bottom of the valley that is cultivated;--the
sides of the hills are clothed up to the very clouds with vineyards and
corn-lands, and are planted with all manner of trees, yielding fruit
after their kind. Where the husbandman is compelled to stop, nature
takes up the task of the cultivator; and then come the chestnut-groves,
with their loads of fruit, and the short sweet grass on which cattle
depasture in summer, and the wild flowers from which the bees elaborate
their honey. Overtopping all are the fields of snow, the great
reservoirs of the springs and rivers which fertilize the country. This
arrangement admitted, moreover, of far greater variety, both of climate
and of produce, than could possibly obtain on the plain. There is an
eternal winter at the summit of these mountains, and an almost perpetual
summer at their feet.

In accordance with this great productiveness, I found the hills of the
Vaudois exceedingly populous. They are alive with men, at least as
compared with the solitude which our Scottish Highlands present. I had
brought thither my notions of a valley taken from the narrow winding and
infertile straths of Scotland, capable of feeding only a few scores of
inhabitants. Here I found that a valley might be a country, and contain
almost a nation in its bosom.

But, not to dwell on other peculiarities, I would remark, that such a
dwelling as this--continually presenting the grandest objects--must have
exerted a marked influence upon the character of the inhabitants. It was
fitted to engender intrepidity of mind, a love of freedom, and an
elevation of thought. It has been remarked that the inhabitants of
mountainous regions are less prone than others to the worship of images.
On the plain all is monotony. Summer and winter, the same landmarks, the
same sky, the same sounds, surround the man. But around the dweller in
the mountains,--and especially such mountains as these,--all is variety
and grandeur. Now the Alps are seen with their sunlight summits and
their shadowless sides; anon they veil their mighty forms in clouds and
tempests. The living machinery of the mist, too, is continually varying
the landscape, now engulphing valleys, now blotting out crags and
mountain peaks, and suspending before the eye a cold and cheerless
cur