In one spot a sac d'eau, one of those reservoirs of water which
form among the glaciers on the summits of the rocks, had broken, and,
descending like a water-spout, it had swept before it every vestige of
cultivation, covering wide breadths of the meadows with a debris that
resembled chaos. A frightful barrenness, and the most smiling fertility,
were in absolute contact: patches of green, that had been accidentally
favored by some lucky formation of the ground, sometimes appearing like
oases of the desert, in the very centre of a sterility that would put the
labor and the art of man at defiance for a century. In the midst of this
terrific picture of want sat a cretin, with his semi-human attributes, the
lolling tongue, the blunted faculties, and the degraded appetites, to
complete the desolation. Issuing from this belt of annihilated vegetation,
the scene became again as pleasant as the fancy could desire, or the eye
crave. Fountains leaped from rock to rock in the sun's rays; the valley
was green and gentle; the mountains began to show varied and pleasing
forms; and happy smiling faces appeared, whose freshness and regularity
were perhaps of a cast superior to that of most of the Swiss.
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