Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/232

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226
ANNALS OF THE

make anything out of them, and intend clearing the whole land another year and get a better set." The landlady this day was pointing me from cabin to cabin, where lived an industrious man or tidy woman, and "I must lose them all." Proud mountain rose, in conical form upon mountain, as if by some volcano they had been shot up perpendicularly; streamlets were trickling from their sides, and the rich heath and sedge covered their surface. These lofty piles give pasturage to cattle, sheep, and goats, and we saw the faithful shepherd's dog leaping from rock to rock, gathering the flock to drive them to better forage, and the little shepherd-girl sitting upon a crag to watch the little charge; and under the mountain was nestled the cabin of the herder, who for twenty years, he told us, had guarded the flocks upon the tops and sides of these lofty mountains. By the wayside was a large fold, into which all the sheep are gathered when the different owners wish to ascertain if any are missing, or when any are wanted for use. The owner and not the shepherd sustains the loss, if the number be wanting. The sheep live and thrive upon these rich mountains, summer and winter. The mountain-goat, so peculiarly adapted for climbing the crags, we saw here; his shaggy mane waving in the breeze, as he nibbled the sedge and heath upon the highest peaks. Our road was upon a fearfully precipitous side of a hill, hanging over the lake. We had reascended the cart, and were obliged again to leave it, and the chubby Mrs. Garvey, in doing so, like a sack of wool, made a summerset and