THE ROOT-GRUBBER OF THE ALPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2008, 18 August 1892, Page 39

THE ROOT-GRUBBER OF THE ALPS.

Usually the root-grubber is a man who has failed in other trades ; perhaps an old soldier, or a day labourer who yearns for independence. Never a young man, generally one with grey in his hair.

When the mountain streams begin to swell and foam, he becomes restless, looks at the snowy heights, marks the return of the swallows, notes what flowers are opening in the meadows by the river. Then one fine day he dons his leather breeches and thick woollen stockings, puts on his heavy shoes with iron cramps in the Holes, takes his spud and pick— comes into the kitchen, claps bis old woman on the back, and says, " So I the time is come. You will not see my brown face again till the first snows, and then it will be 10 times browner — like your coffee berries. Now, old wife, you know what I want up in the heights."

She nods. She has it ready — a supply of flour, salt, bread, and a bottle of holy water. He would go without bread rather than without this latter.

The root-grubber is careful to provide himself with something besides pick and spud — and that is a rifle, for when in the mountains he relies for his food to some extent on tho chamois he can kill.

He builds himself a little hut high up of interwoven branches oE pine, roofed with bark held down by stones. Here he kindles his fire, cooks bis food, and sleeps. Tho hovel is destitute of every convenience, is pervious to wind and rain, and is not calculated to endure beyond the summer. But the situation is magnificent. The richest verdure clothes the slope on which it is planted, and the snowy peaks and glittering glaciers surround it. The air is mubical with the bells of the pasturing cattle. He cares little enough apparently, for the beauties of nature — his object in life is to find roots, especially those of the gentian ella, that which is dark blue and the rarer yelJow gentian. Formerly, when the Gentiana acaulis starred every green sward, his labours were not arduous nor perilous. But as the Alps have been rifled, the flowers have to bo sought on spots hitherto unexplored, and for this purpose the man must tread where hardly a goat can find foothold.— Cornhill Magaxine.