Vegetation had long been growing more
and more meagre, and it was now fast melting away into still deeper and
irretrievable traces of sterility, like the shadows of a picture passing
through their several transitions of color to the depth of the
back-ground. The larches and cedars diminished gradually in size and
numbers, until the straggling and stinted tree became a bush, and the
latter finally disappeared in the shape of a tuft of pale green, that
adhered to some crevice in the rocks like so much moss. Even the mountain
grasses, for which Switzerland is so justly celebrated, grew thin and
wiry; and by the time the travellers reached the circular basin at the
foot of the peak of Velan, which is called La Plaine de Prou, there only
remained, in the most genial season of the year, and that in isolated
spots between the rocks, a sufficiency of nourishment for the support of a
small flock of adventurous, nibbling, and hungry goats.
The basin just alluded to is an opening among high pinnacles, and is
nearly surrounded by naked and ragged rocks. The path led through its
centre, always ascending on an inclined plane, and disappeared through a
narrow gorge around the brow of a beetling cliff.
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