the pleasant society of their English friends. But it is pleasant, also, to be abroad at a time when there is a chance of meeting others than the friends whom you can see every day at home. Sometimes you meet no other travellers at all; but with the last week of May, two couples arrived at our Chamonix hotel-one American, the other French. The Americans were from Philadelphia, and were very typical of their kind. They were making "the grand tour" for the sake of the husband's health. Poor fellow! he had been forty years at his business with never a holiday or even a "day off," and he had, in consequence, lost all his hair, so that he now wore a luxuriant black wig. His wife informed us in a cheerful manner that

August and September would then hardly recognize it, so quiet and peaceful is it. The hotels have just opened, and there are to be enjoyed all the advantages due to the tourist hordes with none of the drawbacks. You are not crowded out into a little back bedroom over the stables, but are given a spacious and parqueted apartment, with a splendid view on to Mont Blanc. You are not obliged to look at the fire from a respectful distance behind a surly, sleepy crowd in the salon, but have a pile of logs set alight solely on your own behalf by an obsequious waiter. All your movements are not reconnoitred through a telescope, and you do not find the summit of every near hill covered with broken ginger-beer bottles and sandwich papers. The fat landlord stands smiling" the medical men said he'd go silly if he in the doorway to receive you, instead of bustling you aside to make way for some titled grandee, as would very probably happen later on. He welcomes you as we welcome the early spring birds, heralds of summer, and, taking you aside, informs | you, rubbing his hands cheerily, that "it is well monsieur has come, for the chef de cuisine has just arrived yesterday from Turin for the season." You realize this important fact when, half an hour later, you sit down to a triumph of the gastronomic art. Lucky mortal!- and all this grandeur is for you, and only you!

stayed at his desk much longer, so they'd now come away for a year's holiday, and had left the son-in-law to manage the 'business.' They'd come out, bound to see everything. There was nothing they were going to shirk now that they were over in Eu-rope." The husband was a bright, eager little man, with sharp, beady eyes. Except for the effect of his wig, he looked remarkably youthful. He was enraptured with Switzerland. They had just left Interlaken. "We've seen the Jung-fraw," he said. "Mont Blank can hardly beat that." They had only half a day to spare So it is worth while to go to Chamonix for Chamonix, and were going on by the in May if only for once in a lifetime - Tête Noire in the afternoon. So, in the to feel "monarch of all one surveys." morning, they went out for a five minutes' But there is another and stronger induce- walk. "We've seen it," said husband and ment. All nature is then at her best. wife triumphantly, coming back. So ChaThe low-lying pastures are not burnt up monix was ticked off from the list, and by the sun's rays; the cascades are more they wended their way further. abundant; the air is clearer; the freshly these good people," we thought, "even fallen snow gleams more brightly; while the grand new elevator railroad up the the flowers are innumerable, and the but-Jung-fraw' will be superfluous." The terflies also. The droning hum of the grasshoppers makes a kind of sleepy song, to the accompaniment of "the sound of many waters." It must surely have been in May or early June that the poet wrote:

"For

French couple were of a quite different type. The man was an almost exact copy of" Tartarin," and his wife was a little, fat woman, who dressed for mountaineering excursions in the extreme of Parisian fashion. These stayed only two days, and their most formidable excursion was on mules to the Glacier des Bossons. Their "start" on this occasion was very comic. The husband wore an enormous Panama hat, exactly like his wife's, trimmed with a wreath of woollen roses; he got wildly excited, and whacked his poor little mule unmercifully. Two guides, with wild cries, ran after the couple, as their montures tore along with them up the road.

These were our only foreign friends at Chamonix in May. But, foreigners being absent, you have a chance of making

He

gradually sank so low that not even the
free gift of one hundred days' indulgence
each, from a snuffy old priest who had got
in at Annemasse, could succeed in raising
them. But at the inn a blazing fire, a good
dinner, and Mr. King's engrossing book of
travels, contented us for that night, and
next day the fine weather set in and re-
mained. And what a paradise we enjoyed!
If there are days on which "the heavens
seem brought down to the earth," it was
surely those. We seldom made very long
excursions; we often started walking with-
out an idea in the world as to whither we
were going; and yet we always in the end
found ourselves at some foaming cascade,
glacier, or point of view. Sometimes we
spent whole days on the mountain, fragrant
with aromatic scents, without meeting
even a peasant in our wanderings. Only
the scattered sheep and goats occasionally
came up and rubbed their noses affection-
ately against us. Often close under the
"eternal silences" of the glaciers, we
gazed up to where

For a great sign the icy stair doth go
Between the heights to heaven,

friends with the natives. We were fortunate once in finding a friend in our sole travelling companion on the diligence from Geneva. It was a drenching downpour, and "the gates of the hills" were swathed in cruel grey rolls of mist. But a cheery voice soon came from a tall, somewhat bent, middle-aged man, wearing a peasant's blouse, who astonished us by greeting us in English, with a fine American twang. He was very communicative, and we soon discovered that he was a native of the valley who had just returned from fifteen years' work in San Francisco, having "made his pile." He was now prepared to seek a wife, buy a little homestead, and settle down for good in the old country. Accustomed to American go-ahead farming operations, he groaned terribly over the archaic methods in vogue in the valley. "Ah!" he said regretfully, as we passed one humble homestead after another each with its rough wooden balcony, its pile of manure heaped up against the house, and its poor garden plot-"ah! I could teach them a thing or two!" was a knowing hand, this Savoyard-Yankee. Long residence in America had not dimmed his remembrance of his country- and it seemed almost sacrilege to break men's ways. At Geneva, he told us with the stillness. Even the poets have not pride, he had purchased his cotton blouse, broken silence before Mont Blanc quite for otherwise they would have imposed successfully. Coleridge has, perhaps, upon him as on a stranger; "and," he come nearest to the grandeur of his theme added, "I shall save the price of it many in the "Hymn before Sunrise," but he, times before I get to Chamonix." And so too, is inadequate. it proved; for, on comparing our respective diligence fares, we found that, though | we all occupied precisely the same seats in that ramshackle old vehicle, he had paid only one-third of what we had. At Sallanches he avoided the table d'hôte and lunched on his own account in a separate room. "Ah!" he said, on coming out, "what did you pay? Four francs! Why, I had exactly the same food as you had, but I got it for half the price." What a pity that we, too, had not invested in blue cotton blouses at Geneva! for, obviously, it is but the blouse that makes the peasant and commands peasant prices. Our friend bore otherwise no resemblance to a rustic; he was a distinct fraud; his clothes were beyond reproach, he wore gold rings, his shirt was fine, and he fingered his napoleons with the ease of a millionaire. He was very fond of the hills; "I loved them," he said, "when I was a boy, but I hardly dared to speak of them. Damn the mountains!' my father would say; they give us no food."

We parted company with him at Les Ouches, and the rain increasing, our spirits

You can make no "grand ascents,” of course, in May; but you will be unwise if you do not make friends with a guide or two- they are the pick of the peasants, and all the Savoyard peasants are worth knowing. They are much pleasanter than the Swiss of the Rhone valley; and, indeed, the first thing that strikes one on passing over the Tête Noire to Martigny is the curt grunt-or, oftener, stony glare

that takes the place of the pleasant bon voyage on the French side of the pass. It is wonderful, too, how simple and unspoiled the Chamonix people still are, considering the demoralizing tendency of the tourist crowd. In May, before the "season" sets in, they all seem unaffectedly glad to see you, and have plenty of time to talk about themselves. Our chief friend was one Séraphin Simond, of the village of La Tour; he is considered a man of property, for he keeps three cows. As a gentleman of property should be, Simond is a decided Conservative. He would have driven our Savoyard-Yankee friend of the diligence to utter despair, for to Simond every custom of the country

was as the law of the Medes and Per-
sians, which altereth not." Walking one
day up the valley, en route for the Flégère,
we wondered why every cow or goat pas-
turing in the meadows required a special
attendant - either man, woman, or child
-set apart for its own use; no animal
being ever seen without its caretaker. We
remarked to Simond that this seemed
rather a waste of time and energy. "C'est
bien possible!" gravely replied the owner
of three cows;
"mais"—and this refrain
constantly came "c'est une habitude du
pays." Simond was never surprised by
anything we said; he listened respectfully,
but always remained of his own opinion.
However, this particular instance of ap-
parent waste of time is no doubt due to
the communal system. The peasant pays
so much per cow for the right of common
pasturage; therefore his object is that his
cow should get as much as possible from
the common land and not feed on his own,
nor, of course, trespass on his neighbor's.
And tending cows is not by any means
such waste of time as would appear, for
we discovered that you can do three things
at a time mend stockings, carry a load
of wood, and tend a cow. Many women
knitted beside their cow; one we saw
reading a book. Often small children are
told off to tend cows and goats, and a
pretty handful they seem to find them.
At Martigny once we saw a lame old man
whose cow was just like a pet dog, turn-
ing round to be patted, and even sniffing
at his coat pockets for bread. Although
we embarked on no very arduous excur-
sions, Simond expressed great admiration
of the powers of walking displayed by
"madame." One day, as we were cross-
ing the Mer de Glace from Montanvert, he
exclaimed approvingly, "Madame grimpe
comme un chamois." Madame felt flat-
tered at this till she remembered that all
the guides always said as much, on princi-
ple, to everybody. Like the children of
Heine's ballad, they have probably

Made the very same speeches
To many an old cat since.

Simond and another guide Bertrand, accompanied us to the Jardin one cloudless day. Bertrand, a tall, silent young fellow, also pretended to be lost in amazement at madame's walking. "Yes, monsieur and madame ought certainly to ascend Mont Blanc," said Simond. "Madame would do it capitally." This seemed to require confirmation. Bertrand was appealed to. He grinned, then spoke gravely: "Two good guides," he said, "can safely take

any one-any old gentleman or lady up Mont Blanc." This was not so flattering. "It is a mere nothing of an expedition," added Simond. "It may affect madame unpleasantly at first; she will be a little sickle mal de montagne - that is all; or she may turn a little black in the face. But we will get her up to the top nicely."

"Certainement, car madame a de bonnes jambes," concluded Bertrand earnestly — and critically.

A propos of the ascent of Mont Blanc, Simond pointed out to us a fine house with green shutters, situated high up the valley, near Argentière. This, he said, was inhabited by the well-known English lady who had married her guide after an ascent of Mont Blanc in mid-winter. Jean Charlet, the husband, was “un pauvre garçon," added Simond, and she was "très riche." Jean had been her guide for fourteen years, and they were both middle-agednearly forty- when they married, and that was now about ten or twelve years ago. "Had they ever ascended Mont Blanc since?" we asked. "Non, jamais. Elle fait le ménage, elle élève ses deux garçons; c'est une personne très convenable." "Are they happy? we inquired. "Yes, very," Simond asseverated. "She must have been very strong to have gone up in winter." "Oui, c'est une dame très forte, très robuste; elle a de bonnes jambes." Bertrand no doubt imagined when he delivered the critical opinion above mentioned that all English ladies were built on the same pattern.

Our favorite halting-place on many excursions was a humble little auberge at the hamlet of Les Ouches, where they never had any kind of meat, but always excellent bread, milk, eggs, and red wine. The landlady and her husband were strong, bustling people, who had a good deal of "custom in a small way. We noticed once a little heap of something sitting on a high chair at the door. On looking closer we imagined it to be a sickly baby; but it was the couple's only son, and it turned out that he was over twenty. It seemed that he had had a bad fever at nine years old, and in consequence of this he was all wizened and deformed, and sat all day at the door or in the chimney-corner, propped up on tiny crutches; it was a sad sight. The waiter at Chamonix, who was sympathetic and conversa. tional, told us afterwards that the parents were gens de bien, and that last year, when the "conscription" came, the father was obliged, according to the regulations, to

bring the boy up to be examined "pour | bread, but we did our best, so as not to être soldat," and that "le père avait pleuré en l'amenant."

The story brought tears to our own eyes.

hurt his feelings. He really seemed terribly ashamed to have nothing better to offer us. Poor simple paysan! alone in his solitary cabin on the far away Alp with This little inn at Les Ouches was a real no wife, no child, only a few goats for his comfort, for the one drawback if draw companions. Two or three of the comback must be confessed to Chamonix in mon green glazed pots of the valley stood May was that when on many of our ex-in the windows of his hut, gay with trailcursions, thirsty and tired, we longed for ing plants. The old peasant was evidently a refreshing drink, we were apt to find the a lover of flowers; perhaps they were the Alpine inn on which our hopes had long sole brighteners of his solitude. been set all deserted and boarded up for the winter. Most of these high-lying inns do not open until at least the first of June, and only a disconsolate goat or two wandered about their inhospitable doors. But on one occasion, when returning sad and weary, cheated of a meal, from the deserted inn on the Col de Voza, we met an old peasant toiling up the steep hill slope to his poor little châlet, under a heavy crate filled with faggots, we told him how hungry we were, and begged him to direct us to the nearest inn. Instantly he led the way to his poor hut, brought out his rough wooden stools, placing them for us on the grassy Alp outside, and fetched all his provisions. Alas! they were only black bread, and an almost uneatable cheese made from goats' milk. No wine, no milk did he possess. "Je suis honteux," he said sadly, "d'apporter cela pour une dame, mais je suis simple paysan." We could hardly manage to bite the black

But happy, after all, is he who can confess to so few wants! Our SavoyardYankee, with all his latest improvements in the way of civilization, is probably the less happy man of the two. We met him again at Les Ouches, just before leaving. He was still loafing about in his blouse, and apparently teaching the rustics a thing or two, for he was followed about by a crowd of admiring little boys. He seemed less bent than before on coming back to settle in his native valley. He was so disgusted, he said, with the poor way in which they lived, and with the old-world style of agriculture. "But you will wake them up a bit, as you proposed to do," we remarked a little unkindly. "Oh, no!" he replied gloomily; "it's hopeless. I can't get them to pick up any new notion." So they will remain simples paysans still. The chance of learning something of these simple peasants is not the least of the charms of Chamonix in May.

THE SOLDIER OF 1854 AND 1891. In 1854 the soldier was tightly buttoned, tightly stocked, and closely shaved, till, in consequence of comments "in those horrible newspapers," the torture was relaxed by orders from home; but I am bound to say that the infantry of that day, if they suffered for it in the flesh, looked far better than the men of 1891. The shako (or "Albert hat," as it was called), heavily as it weighed upon the head, was prettier if less martial, with all its show of brass ornament and tuft, than the pickelhaube worn by the 32nd and other Russian regiments on the Alma, recently copied by our army from the all-conquering Prussian. The uniforms fitted better to the men, and were of finer-looking cloth than they are now. The officer was epauletted and bestrapped, and his blue frock-coat or double-breasted swallow-tail sat closely to his figure. The Guards loomed larger and taller than they do now. They and the Fusilier regiments sported far loftier bearskins, and there were many distinctive regimental badges on shako and button. The line cavalry were much more brilliant. Hussars and horse artillery wore pelisses, and there was a brilliant display of lace and feathers

generally in all arms, and along the line the colors marked the centre of each regiment. I confess that it seems to my eye as if the days of smartness have fled from the army, with the exception of the cavalry and some special corps; but it matters little if the spirit, of which that smartness was taken to be a soldierly indication, still beats under the shapeless sack in which the frame of the warrior is encased at present.

Dr. W. H. Russell, in Army and Navy Gazette.

WARMING RAILWAY CARRIAGES. - The new steam-heating wagons for the Prussian State Railways have just been put for the first time on the line from Berlin to Potsdam. They are built in the form of a luggage van, are painted brown, and are marked “Heizwagen." One of these wagons is placed in the middle of the train, the steam for warming the carriages being conveyed to the latter through flexible tubing from each end of the wagon. A low chimney through the roof is provided for the smoke from the boiler furnace.

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