During this journey, I remarked, that in some particular villages, and for a considerable tract of country, scarcely was there any body to be seen who had that swelling of the throat and neck, which is thought so general among all the inhabitants of the Alps. In particular, I did not observe any body at Prieuré with this complaint; and, upon enquiry, was informed, that there are many parishes in which not a single person is troubled with it, and that in other places at no great distance it is almost universal. In the valley of Chamouni there is only one hamlet where it is common; but in the Pays de Vallais, I was told, it is more frequent than in any other place. As this disease seems to be endemical, it cannot, as has been imagined, proceed from the drinking of water impregnated with snow or ice; for this beverage is common to all the inhabitants of the Alps, and of other mountains. If the water be in reality the vehicle of this disease, we must suppose it impregnated not only with dissolved ice and snow, but also with some salt, or other substance, possessed of the noxious quality of obstructing the glands of the throat; and we must also suppose, that this noxious substance is to be found in no other inhabited place but the Alps. After one of the inhabitants of Chamouni had enumerated many parishes where there were, and others where there were no Goîtres (which is the name they give this swelling), he concluded by telling me, I should see them in great abundance among the Valaisans, to whose country we were going.—When I told the man, I thought his country-people very happy, in being quite free from such an odious disease, which afflicted their poor neighbours—En revanche, said the peasant, nous sommes accablés des impôts;—et dans le pays de Vallais on ne paye rien. The d——l is in the fellow, exclaimed I.—Were it in your choice, would you accept of Goîtres, to get free of taxes? Très volontiers, Monsieur;—l’un vaut bien l’autre. Quid causæ est, merito quin illis Jupiter ambas, Iratas buccas inflet. You see, my friend, that it is not in courts and capitals alone that men are discontented with their fortunes. The causes of repining are different in different places; but the effect is the same every where. On the morning of the sixth day, we bid adieu to Prieuré; and having ascended the mountains, which shut up the valley of Chamouni at the end opposite to that by which we had entered, after various windings on a very rugged road, we gradually descended into a hollow of the most dismal appearance.