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The Ranz des Vaches of Vaud is in the patois of the country, a dialect that is composed of words of Greek and Latin origin, mingled on a foundation of Celtic. Like our own familiar tune, which was first bestowed in derision, and which a glorious history has enabled us to continue in pride, the words are far too numerous to be repeated.
That they could attain unity was a mere dream of their metaphysicians: they must rely on the cantonal organization, always provided that the French and Italian districts of Vaud and the upper Ticino were not subject to the central or German cantons: to prevent such a dishonour he would shed the blood of 50,000 Frenchmen: Berne must also open its golden book of the privileged families to include four times their number.
Their father was thus of the Canton de Vaud only their mother had been native among ourselves and sister to the Colonel of the castellations.
There is a proverb in the patois of Vaud which says 'Kan on vau dau pesson, sé fo molli; and on this the Bisuntians act, standing patiently half-way up the thigh in the river, as the Swiss on the Lake of Geneva and other lakes may be seen to do.
A well-known Swiss botanist, who has seen many strange sleeping-places in the course of sixty years of flower-hunting in the mountains of Vaud and Valais, has told me that on one occasion he had reached with great difficulty the only châlet in the neighbourhood of his day's researches, at a late hour of the night, the whole mountain being soaked with rain.
We were passing the summer at the Pays de Vaud; thence making excursions, as suited our inclination, to different portions of the country, always finding something new and striking something out of which we could draw profitable lessons for the future. On one of these occasions we made the ascent of Montanvert, and visited the Mer de Glace.
Before it was dark indeed one could still read I saw a group of houses beyond the Aar, and soon after I saw that my road would pass them, going over a bridge. When I reached them I went into the first, saying to myself, 'I will eat, and if I can go no farther I will sleep here. There were in the house two women, one old, the other young; and they were French-speaking, from the Vaud country.
The peasants of Vaud, of whom there were three and all of the lowest class, became confused and dull in their faculties though louder and more vehement in speech, each man appearing to balance the increasing infirmities of his reason by stronger physical demonstrations of folly.
The very recent secondary rocks everywhere present analogous phenomena; the molasse of the Pays de Vaud contains a fetid shelly limestone, and the cerite limestone of the banks of the Seine is sometimes mixed with sandstone. The strata of calcareous breccia are composed of an infinite number of sea-shells, from four to six inches in diameter, and in part well preserved.
In point of fact, I could buy more grapes for thruppence in London than in the Vaud; and the best grapes we had in Switzerland were some brought from Italy, and sold at a franc a pound in Montreux to the poor foreigners who had come to feast upon the wealth of the local vineyards.
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