Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/116

132 by the host and hostess upon an unfortunate traveler, who stayed there alone during a night in the autumn. A memory worthy of this melancholy region!

But my bearers go on cheerfully, and, as I could fancy, with still lighter steps. They know that the place of rest is at hand; and just as they swing round to the left, a large, gray, two-storied house comes in sight between the naked gray mountains. It is “l'Hospice du Grimsel,” the goal of our day's journey, and we have arrived in good time. We find here a great number of travelers of all classes, but, luckily for us, we can obtain two small rooms, though of the homeliest kind, and in them the prospect of rest and shelter against the increasing storm.

Sitting at my window, I amuse myself during the evening by watching the milking of two hundred goats, which operation is performed by two men, who each bears, fastened round his middle by a strap, a little stool with one leg in the middle. With this they go round from goat to goat, and seat themselves upon it whilst they milk. It looks as if it were a part of their body, and produces the most comic effect. They say that an English lady quite seriously believed that this projecting wooden leg was a tail, and that they who carried it were the aborigines of the country. But—what do they not tell about English ladies?

This morning the greater number of the travelers have left the hotel in rain and mist. We still remain, in hope of a change. The bad weather, which continued the whole night and this forenoon, has just cleared off—at 12'o clock in the day—by a violent storm.