Despite the fact that the women work hard out of doors, summer and winter, exposed to the worst of weathers, they are mostly long-lived and seldom know what illness is. I often saw them working in the hayfields with their babies lying blinking in the sunlight near by. At noon they lounged under the trees, talking mother-foolishness to the wee things, and their queer garments never seem so hideous and altogether distasteful as when they are nursing the children. The lack of even the simplest understanding of remedies for either illness or accident has always struck me as most remarkable among the Swiss peasantry. They may live several hours’ journey away from a doctor or chemist without ever making the least attempt at learning what to do for even the simplest ailments. I once knew one of these Champéry women to have sunstroke so badly that she became quite unconscious, and continued so long in that state that I was certain she would die. [Illustration: “MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB”--THIS PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS CLEARLY THE “HOME-MADE” CUT OF THE TROUSERS AND THE CURIOUS HEAD-DRESS WORN BY THE WOMEN.] There were any number of old men and women gathered round wailing, but none of them seemed to know what to do in such a case. The woman’s mother suggested giving her a cup of coffee, which was attempted, most of it being spilt over her. Then someone took off her shoes and began slapping the soles of her feet with a piece of board. I chanced to have a “first aid” case with me, and--greatly to the distrust of the peasants--administered what suitable remedies I had; I also insisted on one going post-haste down the valley for a medical man. But they would do nothing except wail and shake their heads. Finally the patient came round all right, saying that her head “felt full of hot things,” and the next morning, when I called to inquire after her, I found that she was at work in the hayfields, hatless, under the scorching sunlight, as usual. At another time a little child of three was taken with convulsions from having eaten too much cheese, and died without having anything done to save the little creature; the old women simply wagging their heads wisely and muttering something about their all “going” when taken like that. With them it is evidently a case of the survival of the fittest. Last summer I was in Champéry at the time of the great Swiss national holiday, when everybody celebrates Swiss freedom by making as much noise as possible during the day and lighting huge bonfires at night. Everyone was dressed in holiday finery, many of the younger women appearing in grey-check trousers and hats with artificial flowers! One happy family party, consisting of the father and mother and four children, had evidently a decided fondness for royal purple--or perhaps this was the colour of their clan--for the six of them, even to the babe in arms, were arrayed in the purple of kings and emperors!