* * * * On ev'ry nerve The deadly winter seizes, shuts up ev'ry sense, And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows a stiffen'd corse, Stretch'd out and bleaching in the northern blast.--THOMSON. Blood-horses do not suit precipices, I am very well aware of that; but the two beasts which they brought forth to carry us to the Eaux Chaudes, were so tremendously irregular in appearance, so like the mountains they were destined to climb, that when I got across the ridge of my unfortunate hack, I could have fancied myself astride upon the Pic du Midi. However, they did very well, much better in all probability than better beasts would have done, and thus they went away, jogging on, lashing themselves with their tails, and kicking most unmercifully to get rid of the flies, but always with a kind of solemn gravity, which showed them well accustomed to it all, and neither at all inclined to discompose themselves nor their riders. As we went on, returning on the path we had passed the day before, we saw all the world in the fields getting in the harvest, trotting up and down the mountains with their bare feet, and as gay as the larks that were singing over their heads. To bring home the hay, they gather it into large linen cloths, forming packages very like feather beds these they roll down the hills as far as they can. When they cannot do so, they carry them, as they carry everything all through the mountains, on their heads; and difficult as the man[oe]uvre may seem, we saw more than once a girl stoop down to drink at a well, satisfy her thirst, and rise again, without ever removing the immense load of hay she carried on her head.