T Defcription of the VALAIS; and its fingular Natives. (Embellished with a View of the Country.) HE Valais, io Latin Vallefia, one of the countries ftyled the allies or confederates of the Swifs, is bounded on the north by the canton of Berne and the lake of Geneva; on the weft by Savoy; on the fouth by Piedmont and Milan; and on the caft by the Mayenthal, which belongs to the cantons in general, and by the canton of Uri; extending, according to Dr. Bufching, about one hundred miles in length from Eaft to Weft, and in fome parts it is upwards of ten in breadth. The whole country is one large vale that extends east and west, and on the north and fouth fides is bounded by very high mountains. Among the fouthern mountains, the most remarkable is that called Great St. Bernard's, antiently named Mons Penninus, a name given to the whole Appennine chain. The principal hill on the north fide is the Gemmi, which lies towards the frontiers of the canton of Berne, is impaffable in winter, and its defcent towards the valley of the Valais was of a dangerous fteepnefs, and very narrow. To remedy this inconvenience, in 1736, more than a league of the hard rock was blown up with gunpowder, the road in moft places widened to the breadth of feven feet, and walls raifed in the most steep and loofeft parts; To that travelling is at prefent much more fafe and commodious than formerly. The whole was completed in five years: an aftonishing work," fays Mr. Coxe, and proves that nothing is impracticable to human induftry." A country thus entirely inclofed within high Alps, and confifting of valleys, elevated plains, and lofty mountains, muft neceffarily exhibit a great variety of fituations, climates, and productions. Accordingly the Valais prefents to the curious traveller a quick fucceffion of profpects, as beautiful as they are diverti fied numberless vineyards; rich pafture grounds covered with cattle, corn, flax, fruit trees, and wild forefts; and thefe occafionally bordered by naked rocks whofe fummits are every where crowned with everlasting fnow, and inacceffible glaciers. This ftrong and ftriking contraft between the paftoral and the fublime, the cultivated and the wild, cannot but affect the mind of an obferver with the POL. MAG. VOL. X. APRIL, 1786. The beauties most pleafing emotions. The Valais is a very hot country; the midland and lower parts are remarkable for their fertility. The harvest begins, in May, and lafts till the latter end of October; the corn in the bottom of the chief valley being brought in firft; next that on the tide vallies; and laft of all, that on the mountains, which yields grain at an uncommon height. The low lands excel the upper in the produce of winter, and thefe again the former in fummer fruits. Befides the best kinds of grain, as wheat, barley, and rye, this country abounds in good wine, particularly in a fine muscadel, with plenty of apples, pears, plums, cherries, mulberies,chefnuts, and fmall nuts: and in the northern parts alfo grow pomegranates, figs, almonds, and other rich fruits. Thefe parts are also remarkable for producing good faffron. Both the hills and vallies feed great numbers of cattle, and afford plenty of deer, hares, and other game. It is fuppofed to have alfo mines of filver, copper, and lead; but the produce, it is faid, will not answer the expence of working them. Here is likewife pit-coal. The wine and corn which this country produces are more than fufficient for the confumption of its inhabitants, so that a confiderable quantity of both is yearly exported. Mr. Coxe fays, about Sion, the fig, the melon, and all the other fruits of Italy ripen to perfection; and fuch is the fingular variety of climates here, that he tafted in the fame day, what in other parts is ufually to be had only in gradual fucceffion, ftrawberries, cherries, plums, pears, and grapes each of them the natural growth of the country. The Valais is from one end to the other watered by the Rhone, which has its fource on the Furke mountain. At first it precipitates itself with great noife among feveral rocks, and down to the very plain in the valley has the appearance of a fingle cataract, with feveral cafcades. It is afterwards joined by the Meyenwang rivulet, which iffues from the Grimfel PP mountain The Valaifans, particularly the inhabitants of the upper part, are amazingly indolent; and the dirt and naftiness of the common people are difgufting beyond meafure. The languid heat of the climate, which caufes an almoft fpontaneous production of the fruits of the earth, both creates and indulges inactivity, fo that no manufactures of any confequence are carried on here; and the general ignorance of the people is no lefs remarkable than their indolence: they may be confidered, with regard to their knowledge, as fome centuries behind the Swifs. The Lower Valais is lefs hot, the foil lefs fruitful, and the natives lefs indolent. This country contains about 100,000 fouls, and all Catholics. Among these people a very remarkable pecularity prevails. Great numbers, both men and women, have large glandu lar excrefcences, which grow under the throat, and often increase to a most enormous fize; in fome, they are no larger than a walnut; in others, they are as big as a peck loaf: children are fometimes born with them. Thefe tumors the French call goiters; and Keyfler, who fpeaks ratather extravagantly concerning them, fuppofes that they are produced by drinking fnow water, which, as it flows from the mountains in great quantities, is, in many parts, the common drink of the lower clafs of people; he likewife afferts that the Valaifans are proud of this diftinction, which they confider as a great addition to perfonal beauty: but in both particulars he is equally erroneous. The water ufed in the districts where these fwellings prevail, is ftagnant, and strongly impregnated with certain ftoney particles, which obftruct the circulation through the minuter glands of the body; for where the inhabitants drink no other water than what they procure from those rivers and torrents which defcend from the glaciers, they are not subject to this malady and later travellers affert, that fnow-water, fo far from being a caufe, is esteemed even a preventative in this cafe. The inconceivable laziness and naftiness which prevail in this country, are likewife very efficacious in producing thefe tumors. It is to be prefumed that a people, accustomed to fee fuch excre. fcences daily, will not be at al! fhocked at their deformity, but they do not confider them as a beauty. "I cannot be lieve," fays Mr. Coxe, "that a Valaifan poet would venture to addrefs a copy of verfes to his mistress in praife of her goiter." In every district whore goitrous perfons abound, idiots are likewife to be met with in great numbers; which Mr. Coxe accounts for, by fuppofing, that as the fame caufes which affect the body, affect also the mind, fo the fame water which creates obftructions and goiters, alfo creates men. tal imbecillity and derangement: befides which, the children of the common peo ple are totally neglected by their parents, and with no more education than the meanest brutes, are like thofe, fuffered to wallow in the dirt, and to eat and drink whatever comes in their way: this fpecies of idiots are called Cretins. Mr. de la Pau, in his much admired work, intitled Recherches Philofophiques fur les Americains, compares thefe Cretins with the Blafards of the Ifthmus of Darien. He describes them as deaf and dumb, almoft infenfible to blows, and diftinguished by fuch prodigious wens, that they hang down almoft to the waift; that they are neither furious nor malignant, but totally ftupid and incapable of reafoning; they are not deficient in propenfities to the phyfical wants of nature, and they abandon themselves to all the gratifications of the fenfes, without imagining any crime or indecency annexed to them. The inhabitants of the Valais confider these Cretins as the guardian angels of their families: they call them fouls of God, without fin: and there are many parents who prefer their idiot children to those whofe understandings are perfect; becaufe they are incapable of intentional criminality, they confider them as more certain than the others of happiness in a future ftate. They never contradict them, but affiduously attend upon them, omit nothing for their amufement, or which ferves to gratify their tastes or appetites. It is remarkable that the Turks entertained very fimilar notions with respect to idiots. A progrefs in years produces no change in their condition, nor abates their ftupidity; but they retain this imbecillity even unto death, nor has any kind of remedy been found out for this mental difeafe. The The refpect paid to thefe ideots is equally bestowed on either fex. M. de Maugi ron, in a differtation upon the Cretins, which was read before the Royal Society of Lyons, affigns, as the caules of this defect, what have been already enumerated; and adds, "there probably exifts another specific caufe, which we shall be better acquainted with, when an opportunity fhall be found of diffecting one of thefe Cretins." Mr. Coxe fays that the number of goitrous perfons and idiots has confiderably decreased within these few years, owing to the attention which the magiftrates have beftowed to dry up the ftagnant waters, and the custom which now generally prevails of fending children to the mountains, by which they escape the bad effects of unwholesome air and water. The apparel and diet of the common people are coarfe; but the quality live very fplendidly. Moft of their houfes are of wood, particularly of the larchtree, which is very durable, and grows as black as ebony. They cover them with flate, and in-fome places build their houses with turrets and wings. In the Upper Valais the prevailing language is the German; but the inhabitants of Sider and Sion, with those in the Lower Valois, fpeak a corrupt French; though in both parts they apply themselves to the German, French, Italian and Latin, which are indifpenfibly neceffary in their intercourfe with the cantons of Berne and Uri, Savoy, Piedmont, and the Mila nefe. The republic of the Upper Valois con, fifts of feven parts, called Zenten, or Tythings. In fix of thefe, viz. Coms, Brieg, Rafen, Vifp, Leuk, and Sider, the government is democratical; but that of the feventh, which confifts of the city of Sitten, or Sion, is aristocratical. Each tything fends a reprefentative to the general diet, which affembles twice a year, that is in May and December, at Sitten, This diet has the management of the public concerns, both civil and military, befides appeals in proceffes brought before the Tythings it likewife gives audience to envoys, &c. Over each Tything is a chief, called a meyer or mayor, with a particular regency and jurifdiction; but the Tything court is compofed of the Tything judge, afflifted by twelve affeffors and judges, who act both in civil and criminal cafes. The military affairs of each Tything are under the direction of a ban. neret and captain, The famous hot baths, called the Baths of Leuck, are in a valley about two leagues diftance from a village of that name, inclofed on all fides by high mountains, through which there is only a narrow paffage to a wood on the fouth fide. They are formed by five springs, not far from each other. The largest, which fills eight baths, flows plentifully, and the water is hot enough for boiling eggs. It is for the most part clear; but fometimes changes its colour. It is purgative, and good against colds, the gout, weak stomachs, difcafes of the liver, lungs, and fpleen, dimnefs of fight, convulfions, defluxions, the dropfy, ftone, ulcers, diftempers of the womb, &c. There is another of the fprings good against the leprofy, and at a fmall diftance from thefe are feveral cold fprings, the largest of which flows only from May to September, that is, during the fummer, when other fprings are dried up; but this is ascribed to the melting of the fnow upon the Alps. Sitten, or Sion, in French, and in Latin Sedunum, the capital of the whole Valais, is feated on the river Sitten, at a small diftance from the Rhone, in the forty-fixth degree feven minutes north latitude, and in the feventh degree forty minutes east longitude. It ftands almoft in the centre between the Upper and Lower Valais, in a delightful plain, overlooked by pretty high hills on the eaft fide; on the highest of which is a palaee called Mayoria, in which the bishop generally refides, and here the general affembly is held. The city is neat and well built, and has four churches: the most remarkable of which is the cathedral. It is a place of great an tiquity, and was formerly the capital of the Seduni, who inhabited this part of the country in the time of Julius Cæfar. Mr. Coxe, who vifited it in the year 1777, faw fome remains of infcriptions which prove its antiquity; but they were in ge neral so obliterated, that he was not able to decypher them; one, however, he was able fo far to make out, as to learn that it was in honour of the emperor Augustus, and was put up during his eleventh confulfhip. In this infcription the town is called Civitas Sedunorum. In this country is the mountain of St. Bernard, which has on its fummit a large convent, where the friars maintain all travellets for three days gratis, whether Papifts or Proteftants: but people of fashion and gratitude make fome civil acknowledgment on their leaving this Pp3 houfe houfe of hofpitality. If any one dies here, they do not inter him, but carry him to a chapel at fome distance in the midft. of fnow, where the dead body lies without corruption from the extreme coldness of the place. Numerous travellers would be in danger of perifhing on this rugged mountain, were it not for thefe honeft friars, who send out people with brandy and other cordials to comfort them, efpecially in the winter, and upon great thaws, when they fometimes find the poor tras vellers ftretched on the ground, and almoft starved to death by the violence of the cold, or ready to drop down with fatigue from the difficulty of the road. This renders these friars fo well beloved all over Swifferland, that when they fend thither for a collection, which they do once a year, there is fcarce a family, rich or poor, Proteftant or Papift, but gives freely to the relief of the convent, which, though it is faid to be large enough to hald fix hundred people, and to be fo fhut up in fnow and ice that nothing: grows near it, yet fuch care is taken, that this houfe wants for nothing. Anecdotes of the late Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON, by Mrs. Piozzi. (Continued from our laft, Page 172.) His own Opinion of bis Dictionary-Remarks on Corneille, and the Scotch Writers-Inftances of extreme Rudeness-Cure for the Difcafes of the Imagination-His diflike of Whiggism, and kindness to the Poor -His Caprice, attended with good Nature-Tour to France with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale-His Singular Tafte in eating and drinkingAnecdotes of Goldfmith, Boyce, and others.-His general Incredulity His own Opinion of his Dictionary. MR. Johnfon had never by his own ac count been a clofe ftudent, and used to advise young peoplemever to be without a book in their pocket to be read at byetimes when they had nothing elfe to do, It has been by that means (faid he to a boy at our house one day) that all my knowledge has been gained except what I have picked up by running about the world with my wits ready to obferve, and my tongue ready to talk. A man is feldom in a humour to unlock his book-cafe, fet his defk in order, and betake himfelf to ferious ftudy, but a retentive memory will do fomething, and a fellow fhall have ftrange credit given him, if he can but recollect striking paffages from different books, keep the authors feparate in his head, and bring his flock of knowledge artfully into play: How elfe, (added he) do the gamefters manage when they play for more money than they are worth?" His Dictionary, however, could not, one |