per valley and Zermatt, now a place of
considerable resort, must be carried by porters, or on horseback; and we
pass or meet men and women, sometimes a dozen of them together, laboring
along under the long, heavy baskets, broad at the top and coming
nearly to a point below, which are universally used here for carrying
everything. The tubs for transporting water are of the same sort. There
is no level ground, but every foot is cultivated. High up on the sides
of the precipices, where it seems impossible for a goat to climb, are
vineyards and houses, and even villages, hung on slopes, nearly up to
the clouds, and with no visible way of communication with the rest of
the world.

In two hours' time we are at Stalden, a village perched upon a rocky
promontory, at the junction of the valleys of the Saas and the Visp,
with a church and white tower conspicuous from afar. We climb up to the
terrace in front of it, on our way into the town. A seedy-looking priest
is pacing up and down, taking the fresh breeze, his broad-brimmed,
shabby hat held down upon the wall by a big stone. His clothes are worn
threadbare; and he looks as thin and poor as a Methodist minister in
a stony town at home, on three hundred a year. He politely returns our
salutation, and we walk on. Nearly all the priests in this region
look wretchedly poor,--as poor as the people. Through crooked, narrow
streets, with houses overhanging and thrusting out corners and gables,
houses with stables below, and quaint carvings and odd little windows
above, the panes of glass hexagons, so that the windows looked like
sections of honey-comb,--we found our way to the inn, a many-storied
chalet, with stairs on the outside, stone floors in the upper passages,
and no end of queer rooms; built right in the midst of other houses as
odd, decorated with German-text carving, from the windows of which the
occupants could look in upon us, if they had cared to do so; but they
did not. They seem little interested in anything; and no wonder, with
their hard fight with Nature. Below is a wine-shop, with a little side
booth, in which some German travelers sit drinking their wine, and
sputtering away in harsh gutturals. The inn is very neat inside, and we
are well served. Stalden is high; but away above it on the opposite side
is a village on the steep slope, with a slender white spire that rivals
some of the snowy needles. Stalden is high, but the hill on which it
stands is rich in grass.