CHAPTER IX.

COURMAYEUR.

CERTAINLY our first impression was dismal enough. But we would not yield to it, and were full of hope as to this much-praised resort. It was only the rain we said. What mountain place is not dreary under a steady downpour? So we cheerfully rattled past two promising hotels through the main street of lowbrowed shops and taverns, by a picturesque church perched above a wide, tree-set terrace overhanging the valley, and on to the outlying hamlet of Larzay where we had ordered our rooms.

But one night's experience of the damp, dirty, illkept house was enough. The next day saw us established in the Hôtel Royal of Courmayeur, content to pay royal terms for cleanliness and comfort in the

worst rooms of that famous hostelry. All the good apartments were pre-engaged for the season at prices considerably higher than those of Zermatt, or other luxurious Swiss resorts; and this we found to be the rule throughout Piedmont. There is no great travelling middle-class public to create competition, and so these mountain hotels cater for wealthy and noble patrons, who can afford to be lavish, and who, provided the table be good, are ready to put up with very cramped and inferior accommodation.

Bertolini's "Royal Hotel," though badly placed in the village street, is a spacious house of the Aostan style, with wide covered galleries on every floor, and big succursales across the road and behind. Our northern windows under the roof faced the glaciers and peaks of the "Giant's Tooth," with dusky Mont Fréty at the foot of the ice.

The dome of Mont Blanc is hidden from Courmayeur by the Chétif, an obtrusive, ill-conditioned, sugar-loaf of a mountain, bare topped, and with a few starved firs on its stony side. To the right the bold

cliffs of La Saxe mask the glaciers and peaks of Les Jorasses, but serve as an effective background to the fine church tower. This tower plays a gay part in the village life, for its bells sound tinkling carillons at frequent intervals on all high days and holidays, to a jig-like measure, more provocative of dancing than devotion.

The inhabitants are a well-grown, hard-working, courteous race; the men often handsome, the women robust and well-favoured while young, but terribly hideous in old age. Their stiff little white straw hats, decked with gay ribbons, feathers, and tinsel, give them the air of an opera chorus in the hay-fields. The French element shows in their high cheek-bones, neat attire, and trimly shod feet; while also, as in France, the children wear close caps and bourrelets, and are never seen bare-footed. The villagers' speech is a soft, drawling patois; they sometimes understand Italian, but always return your greetings in excellent French. They seem to be healthy and well-fed, there are few cases of goitre, and a refreshing scarcity of

idiots. There is one poor deformed innocent, but she comes from Aosta. With a withered, death's-head face, and stunted, twisted limbs, this unhappy creature wanders about decked in tags and rags of faded finery. Her craze is to believe herself a beautiful young lady, betrothed to an officer, who is shortly. coming to marry her. The village folk call her the "Countess," and follow her with mocking cries, for she courts attention, and has a word for everyone. Now and then she turns on her tormentors, and, hurling ugly words at them, gets cruelly pelted with mud and stones. It is a sorry sight, and even respectable inhabitants seem shamefully ready to join in the sport. Once we found the poor cripple, after one of these conflicts, washing her mudstained face at the fountain, and carefully adjusting her battered bonnet with the aid of a pocket-mirror. It was

touching to see her misery turn to joy at the gift of a few pence.

Arriving before the season began, we saw Courmayeur gradually open its eyes. Long-closed shutters

displayed miscellaneous shops and bazaars, tables and chairs sprouted on the uneven flags by the café door, white curtains fluttered from the rival hotel, and groups of ladies and children occupied the casino courtyard. The baker stacked sheaves of alpenstocks beside his loaves and grissini; a smiling French milliner arrived from San Remo with hats and adornments; the postmaster-a doleful personage with a black bandage round his head-renewed and enlarged his stock of stamps; and the slapping of linen and clatter of women's tongues went on all day at the washing-tank opposite the hotel; and several times a day big brand-new diligences and travelling carriages brought fresh loads of people and boxes.

But daily our wonder increases as to how all these visitors pass their time. Those who take the waters are well employed toiling by shadeless paths to the iron springs of La Victoire, across the valley, to the hydropathic establishment down by the river, or to the sulphur baths of La Saxe beyond Larzay. But how do the rest dispose of the long, blazing days?