IX

ALPINE RESORTS

THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS[29]

BY FREDERIC HARRISON

Once more--perhaps for the last time--I listen to the unnumbered
tinkling of the cow-bells on the slopes--"the sweet bells of the
sauntering herd"--to the music of the cicadas in the sunshine, and the
shouts of the neat herdlads, echoing back from Alp to Alp. I hear the
bubbling of the mountain rill, I watch the emerald moss of the pastures
gleaming in the light, and now and then the soft white mist creeping
along the glen, as our poet says, "puts forth an arm and creeps from
pine to pine." And see, the wild flowers, even in this waning season of
the year, the delicate lilac of the dear autumn crocus, which seems to
start up elf-like out of the lush grass, the coral beads of the rowan,
and the beech-trees just begun to wear their autumn jewelry of old gold.

As I stroll about these hills, more leisurely, more thoughtfully than I
used to do of old in my hot mountaineering days, I have tried to think
out what it is that makes the Alpine landscape so marvelous a tonic to
the spirit--what is the special charm of it to those who have once felt
all its inexhaustible magic. Other lands have rare beauties, wonders of
their own, sights to live in the memory for ever.

In France, in Italy, in Spain, in Greece and in Turkey, I hold in memory