CHAPTER IV.
Rhone overflowed—Baths ofLouëche—Tourtemagne—Visp—Ravagesof the Rhone—Madonnas placed to stop its further rise—Glys—Brieg—Ascent ofSimplon—Ganther—Gallery ofSchalbet—The toll-gate—Hospice—The Barons of Stockalper—Village of theSimplon-Broken road—Algaby—Gorge of Gondo—Fanny too near the edge—Gap in the road—Part of gallery carried away—Opportune aid—Arrival at Gondo—Broken road nearIsella—Accident during the storm—Remnant of a carriage—Thedouanier’said—Anauberge—The military post—My consolation—An amiable hostess—Good company in a quiet kitchen—A French gentleman expecting murder—An Italianvetturino—TheJuge de paixand his interested verdict—Torrent or bedchamber—Our hostess’s supper—Departure—First difficulty—Road completely swept away—Impossibility of advancing—A lady and her guide killed—Way over theTrasquiera—Fanny aiding her conductor—A painful path—A draught of water—Top of the mountain—Inhabitants—Milk and apples—Fanny’s leap—Danger of Grizzle—Descent—Bridge gone—Torrent forded—Gallery ofCrevola—The broken column—Arrival—Our friend’s welcome—Domo d’Ossola.
18th September.
LeftSierreearly, and found, when but a short distance on our way, that the damage done by the Rhone had not been exaggerated. Wecrossed it on a bridge, and beyond, in lieu of the road which had been there, found a broad and deep deposit of the river, which had broken and swept it away. Three hundred workmen are employed since the overflow, and, as none of our party could swim, we stopped to inquire at which part it might be fordable. One of the men came good-naturedly forward to lead Fanny, and in and to her shoulder in water we went, Grizzle following, and arrived safe at the opposite shore. Rode fast up the hill to dry ourselves, leaving our friend grinning at his fee, and shaking himself like a gay poodle. The route here turns through a pine forest, a wild and beautiful way, St. Bernard and the range of brother Alps behind. TheGemmi, to the left, topped with snow, and the Rhone at its foot, and, on our right, cliff above cliff,—not cold, white, or grey, but rich with tints warm and beautiful; and fir woods below them and around us, covering the peculiar and conical mounds. A tract of forest on one of these had been burned, probably by lightning or inadvertence, and the scathed and blackened trunks stood like the plague-stricken among their green fellows. The road skirted the river, still on our left, and we saw opposite, on the mountain, a romantic village with an old turreted castle, to which conduct a wooden bridge, sinking ominously in its centre,and a steep winding road. It commands the noble gorge in the grey rock, through which rushes the Dala river, and theGemmisurmounts it in turn. This is the village ofLouëche, and its famous baths are about nine miles higher in the mountain. I might give you an account of these hot springs, which flow at five thousand feet above the level of the sea, but that I think I might weary you. They must be of extraordinary efficacy, as the cold of morning and evening atLouëchedoes not impede the cure, though snow sometimes falls there in July; and crowds frequent them notwithstanding their inconvenient position and the total want of comfort, often of necessaries, in the dilapidated wooden dwellings which receive the sick. It is strange that the water which at its source will harden an egg and scald a fowl, and in which one cannot, from its extreme heat, plunge the hand, so soon loses this quality, that it may be received in a glass and immediately swallowed without annoyance.
NearTourtemagnen, where there is a strange looking inn, but I hear comfortable notwithstanding, the beauty of the country wholly disappeared, for the road ran among pools and marshes—the melancholy cows standing to their knees in water to eat the high coarse grass which half grows, half floats, around—thefew trees which have attained any size bent and blasted by the searching wind; the wretched stunted women, who would be prodigies of ugliness even without the goitre, were digging in the mud for the unwholesome potatoes which grew there.
The day had grown cold and foggy, and lighted sadly the late ravages of the Rhone—painfully visible; as its widened bed now dry once more swept over meadows and fields of Indian corn, and left, on its retreat, desolating heaps of stones and sand. We passed here and there a shattered mill and a ruined habitation—the owners mostly standing idly and hopelessly on the bank—a few striving to combat with misfortune, and reap the rotting harvest; or at least collect the logs flung to their feet on the shore—relics of bridges broken and scattered in the contempt of the waters they had spanned for a time. We compared it to a land visited by a curse;—the struggle seemed so unequal between earth’s frailest race and her heaviest disasters.
I think it is after passing a village of some miserable huts called St. Pierre, that it improves for a space—green pastures once more ascending to the pine forests, and neater wooden houses covered, for the first time, with trained vines. The peasants seemed miserable as ever,ragged, and famished, but a spice of coquetry remaining through it all, for the outwork of broad riband with a tinsel border eternally trimmed the low crown of the felt hat.
With the exception of this and one other portion of better land, the marshes stretch to Visp, and the thick air is impregnated with miasmas. Visp is built where the valley parts itself in two distinct branches. The one, down which rushes the torrent which gives its name to the village, leading toMonterosa; but it is the Haneck and notMonterosawhose white mass, seen from this spot, terminates the defile of the Moro. The Visp is here broad and rapid as the Rhone, yet this place, situated near their junction, is filthy as all villages in the catholic cantons,—their united streams cannot wash the blackamoor white.
After traversing the streets, our road wound grandly and perilously round the base of rocks blasted for its formation; but this portion passed, we were again amidst the marshes, and between Visp and Glys the overflow of the Rhone has done most damage, as it is hereabouts swollen by numberless tributary streams—most turbulent vassals. Our horses sank above the fetlock in soft mud, which covered the whole face of the valley: Indian corn and pumpkins floating on its surface. The ground floorsof the deserted cabins were flooded, for through this desolate tract wound a stream whose deposits made pools deep and broad; and planted in the mud, or half drowned in the water, were several small wooden crucifixes and Madonnas, placed there to deprecate its further rise.
We passed through Glys, in whose church lie buried Georges of Flue and his twenty-three children. At the entrance-gate stands the Virgin Mary, the iron glory round her head resembling the snakes of Medusa; and over the portico is a painting of the heavenly Father, extending his mantle over multitudes of the faithful, who look like deformed children,—the native artist drew, alas! his inspiration from the goitre-afflicted and the cretin. The last bridge which we crossed over theSaltineleads directly toBrieg, and at the window of thehôtel de la Postewe saw the pretty face of Mrs. —— looking out to greet our coming. The pine log fire blazing in the wide hearth was agreeable this chill evening, and her voice and laugh aided to dispel the impressions left by the dull air of that desolate valley. There are rumours of the impossibility of crossing theSimplon, of roads injured and bridges broken by some recent storm—the postmaster’s son has been sent hence to verify their truth, and we wait his fiat.
September 19th.
It is decided that we are to go, the courier fromSierrehaving passed throughBriegat daybreak with news that the road is open.
September 21st.,Domo d’Ossola.
After two days’ silence, I write again to give you a recital of adventures which have befallen us wayfarers. Our friends and ourselves, with the rest of the party assembled atBrieg, left after breakfast, and we hardly said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. H——, in whose company we were to dine atDomo d’Ossola.The morning was cloudy and cool, changing to the loveliest of days. Half a mile aboveBriegwe passed the covered bridge which crosses theSaltine, and is the first of the works of the mountain, for it is on the direct road, which begins from Glys, but is seldom taken, as there is no inn there. At this spot they join, and the ascent grows steeper, turning away from theGlytzhorn,which bounds the valley on the right, towards its comrade theBreithorn.Our horses, at a walk, soon left behind the posters and heavy carriages, and we passed beneath a hill, at whose summit is a Calvary, the stations conducting thither peeping whitely out among the thick dark firs. The valley of the Rhone looked beautiful below,Briegin the plain, the tin globeswhich surmount her minaret-like steeples shining in the sun as if his rays had kindled so many stars; behind the town and the high bridge which spans theSaltine, dashing towards the Rhone, arose the mountains—parted by the deep and narrow cleft whence the river issues; and again above these were the glaciers, their forms half concealed by the vapours which, as we ascended, partially veiled the range of Bernese Alps also, but made our road the lovelier;—where, skirting the precipice from the depths of the gorge through which theSaltinefoams, they rose curling thin and delicate as the smoke from a cottage chimney, or, lying at our feet for a few moments, impenetrable as a floor, slowly opened to show the torrent, glittering among its black crags, and the green forests, all dew and sunshine. At several of the windings of the road, now steep but always smooth and broad, and almost always protected, we again hung over what seemed a miniature ofBriegand the valley as far asTourtemagnen, till arrived at a certain height, it runs nearly on a level along the edge of the ravine of the Ganther to the bold bridge at its extremity. Beneath its arch, from the rocks which back it, rushes the torrent, forming a cascade in its leap, where in winter roll the avalanches. Crossing this bridge, we returned on a parallelline with that we had already gone on the opposite side of the valley: we could distinguish the carriages some miles behind. The route ascends thence in steep zigzags toBerisol,a post-house and poor inn.
Fanny sometimes started at a pine trunk fallen on her path, or a cow feeding above us with its tinkling bell, or obstinately refused to pass some unfamiliar object, such as the poor priest who, book in hand, was summoning a dozen white goats from the pinnacles on which they were perched feeding, and who came bounding from crag to crag at his call. At such times, to distract her attention, we cantered along through the sunshine and sweet air, acknowledging its influence, for on the broad road there was little danger; it is certain the mind has less energy, and the body feels more fatigue, on the plain. Somewhere hereabouts we crossed a bridge of planks without parapets, not dangerous however. Here also a stream gushes from the rock, and passes under to foam and lose itself among the pine trees,—some standing to fringe its shores, others, broken by its force, lying at its feet to do it homage. It is one of the sweetest glimpses on theValaisside ofBerisol.The last named place consists of two houses, connected by a roof which crosses the road; and here we passed more carriages, ourselves proud andrejoicing in the lesser weight which enabled us to desert them all. Continuing to mount higher, our way became more wild till we had passed the pine region, and the crags were clothed with rhododendron only, whose blossoms lent beautiful tints to the far mountain side. Here and there we saw a solitary tree broken by some avalanche, or raising boughs withered and whitened by the ungenial climate. But the sterility is almost total near the Gallery ofSchalbet, the first which we traversed: it is hollowed through a rock which obstructed the passage of the road, here cut along the verge of the precipice and edge of the bare mountain, narrower and without barriers.
From the fifth refuge, which immediately follows this cavern of ninety-five feet long, to the summit, is the place of peril in the time oftourmentesand avalanches. I looked with some attention to the snow, which, lately fallen, had accumulated thick and far above our heads, and to the track of the avalanches, now marked by stream and torrent, which rush down the chasms uttering their ominous roar, repeated and prolonged by all the mocking echoes of the mountain. We were beneath the glaciers of theKalt Wasser,and, to afford adequate protection to the road they threaten, two houses of refuge, three galleries, and anhospital, have been erected within a brief distance. The second of these galleries passes beneath one of the mighty falls, and our horses started to find themselves wet with its spray, as, carried over the roof, it dashes down before one of the apertures which light it.
The longest of these glacier galleries has been blasted through the living rock, within which it turns, and damp and cold it is as a dungeon—the water distilling through the fissures in its roof, forming in winter long needles of crystal, but now dropping mercilessly on our heads, changing the soil to a sea of mud; and the draught of air striking a chill so penetrating, that to save the horses from harm, we trotted them the one hundred and thirty feet which form the length of this gloomy cavern.
A little further, we passed the sixth refuge, which is the toll-gate also. The receiver, who came running out, found time to tell that he had served in the Hanoverian guard, and fought at Waterloo, and also to cheat us of two francs per horse, the toll amounting to four for the two. It was twelve o’clock, he said, so that we had ascended in three hours, for here is the cross which marks the highest point of the road. It continues bare and wild; but down in the meadow, which seems rather to produce a kind of moss than grass,there are scattered a few wretched cottages; heaven knows what the inhabitants exist on. The hospice founded by Napoleon, and at present occupied by a few Augustine monks, is a fine-looking building without, but desolate and unfinished within. We were saluted as we rode by two of the lonely brothers, who were wandering on the irregular hillocks which surround it, bare of bush or verdure, surmounted by the unchanging snows. In the broad valley below our road, shut in by rocks naked as itself, rises on a mound the square six-storied building, or rather tower, which served for hospice ere this was instituted. A few cows were standing before it, chewing the cud—“of sweet and bitter fancies” it must have been,—for there appeared nothing to swallow bodily. It is said that the old barons of Stockalper were in the habit of sending hither their children to preserve them from the baleful influence of the air of the plain: it still belongs to a proprietor of the same name.
From this place the road commences and continues to descend. We were among green and living things once more, and the milder temperature restored to activity that worst of all species of crawling fly which had already so persecuted our horses in the ascent, and, notwithstanding my long apprenticeshipin fly murder, consequent on our ride, resisted all efforts to kill, being cased in armour, till I adopted suffocation, and therefore, for the benefit of future horse travellers, recommend that they be pressed between finger and thumb until death shall ensue.
Crossing a torrent on a bridge, at last, about two leagues from the summit, we entered the most dirty village of theSimplon, where we had decided to stop only to feed the horses, who were well able to end their day’s journey atDomo d’Ossola: it is built on a knoll above the rapid stream, commanding an unproductive valley. The houses, built in stone, take mellow and picturesque tints from the moss and lichens which clothe them, and winter lasting here during two-thirds of the year, the small garden, which each possesses, is cultivated almost in vain. The clearing of the snows and the transport of merchandise (for it has been calculated that at least two hundred horses pass weekly in the severe season) supply to its hardy inhabitants, the profit more easily won in other regions, preserving from the misery which would seem their doom. Traversing courageously heaps of manure and pools of abomination, D—— accompanied the horses to the stables, while I walked into the inn opposite, before which stood a collection of English and other carriages, and on the steps,in discussion or dispute, discomfited gentlemen and villanous-looking Italians. The house was crowded to overflow, a circumstance which appeared to improve neither its attendance nor the politeness of its landlady: for when I asked the last-mentioned fat personage for some refreshment, she handed me to her sharp-faced, thin daughter, who left me on the stairs, saying thesallewas at the top, and disappeared, promising to ask the cook if he had anything to eat, which she said she believed he had not, owing to the immense influx of guests who had come thus far, unapprized of the road’s real state, and stayed from the impossibility of proceeding. As she did not come back, I found my way through corridors innumerable to the kitchen, and stood opposite the cook and his company ofmarmitons. Perhaps he felt mortified that the uninitiated should perceive the nakedness of the land, devoid of both food and fire; certainly he received me unamiably, proffering only a foot of raw beef sausage, and being sulky when I declined it; informing me that it had been five times the length, and all the remainder of the guests had been very glad to eat it raw. When I assured him, that although it might serve his house to spare fuel, it by no means suited me, he produced two shining slices of ham and a piece of bread, the last in the house; he saidhe had sent toDomo d’Ossolafor more, and I returned in triumph to the eating-room, a littlemarmitoncarrying the hot ham and dry crust behind me. I found there several disconsolate groups, and as companions in misfortune we were in five minutes acquainted: there were two American gentlemen, who from their accent I thought Irish, and from their kind politeness afterwards made me feel that Mrs. Trollope’s recital was not always fair; and an amiable English family, about to turn back, the extortion of the Italians who in the morning had asked 500f. for transporting their carriage, now raising it to 1000. The Americans had determined on going on, though every one assured them it was wholly impossible, and D—— said we might follow where they went: so, having given our horses proper repose, we mounted them again,—our new acquaintances having the start of us by about half an hour. For some distance the road was good and smooth, the first awkward-looking portion we approached being where it bends backward like the coil of a snake, beyond the village. The light carriage had passed; for close to the edge of the precipice were the marks left by its wheels, and as we led our horses over we agreed that the damage had been probably exaggerated, and we should want no guide. The gallery of Algaby, 115 feet long,conducted us from the more open space to the gorge of Gondo. In 1814 it was converted to a military post, and its entrance is half closed by a wall, pierced with loopholes to defend the pass. It is the most savage of stony glens: no sunshine in its recesses, for the cliffs rise to a height of more than 2200 feet; no vegetation, except you can call such the broken line of firs here and there seen on the tops of the bare black crags, so nearly met overhead, that
“The wanderer’s eye may barely viewThe summer heaven’s delicious blue”—
“The wanderer’s eye may barely viewThe summer heaven’s delicious blue”—
“The wanderer’s eye may barely view
The summer heaven’s delicious blue”—
their fragments lying in the stream, which frets against and over them with a roar so deafening, that we could not hear each other’s voices; as sometimes (I speak for myself), awed by the silence of all saving nature, we rode along a narrower road, guarded only by far severed granite posts, unconnected by pine trunks, advancing like a cornice on the edge of the rock and over the abyss,—proving, it is true, that the work of man has been mighty; but also showing, by the masses of crags scattered like chaff, and the rush of unnumbered waterfalls, which might bring destruction with them from the mountain top, how easily his skill may be baffled. Fanny’s sudden fright at one of these had very nearly closed my journal:while, in consequence of her starts, Grizzle placed outside as a bulwark, we were walking our horses, a sharp turn brought us suddenly on one of these cascades, bounding down a cleft in the rock and crossing the road, she swerved violently behind Grizzle and towards the edge, which of course she did not see, as her bright eye was fixed on the waterfall. The curb-stone was slippery with the spray, and we were within a foot of it; so close that I said, “We are going over;” but at the same time, from instinct, struck poor Fanny with all my force, and the pain made her bound forward, and pass the peril. D—— looked pale and frightened, it being one of the cases in which aid was impossible: I had not time to be afraid. ThePonte Alto,a superb bridge, which, with two enormous crags for support, spans the Doveria, conducts the road to its opposite shore. The still narrowing gorge is at every step more deep sunken and wild, almost resembling a cavern. We had passed a break on the road of small consequence, and had again commenced remarking on Italian exaggeration, when we arrived at a gap, some forty feet wide, cut by the rise of the Doveria. Hid in it were a few men, rather examining than repairing what would have required fifty. To our surprise we saw the marks of the carriage-wheels on the softearth,—it had been dragged in and out again. We led our horses down the steep, the men significantly pointing to some holes through which we might have sunk too far,—and Fanny, whose rein I held, pulled me gallantly up on the other side. At the wooden bridge which, some steps farther, again traversed the torrent, we found our American acquaintances, tying up their pole which had broken there. We exchanged a few words: on their side promises of help, if help were needed, and thanks on ours, and a portion of undamaged road led us to the gallery of Gondo, 683 feet long, (according to guide-books), blasted through the rock, whose mass stood forth to bar the way: the two vast apertures, made towards the torrent, formerly lighted it but feebly, but this was not the case to-day,—for a part of its rocky roof and wall had been carried away also. Issuing at its mouth, we came, to my surprise, and not, considering my late adventure, to my pleasure, on the bridge, which immediately after crosses the superb waterfall ofFrascinodithundering down its immense volume from the high glacier, and along the hollow of the cliff below the arch with a spray which blinds and a roar which deafens, falling into the deep gulf, where, struggling among the crags, groans, as if in pain, the Doveria.
Having ridden down the abrupt descent which immediately follows, ere the bending of the road concealed this view, we turned to look at it once more. It is that of which we have so often seen drawings, the noblest in theSimplon: the graceful stone arch—the tall rocks and the chasm—the fall and the torrent,—and where the foam was not, the water in the basin it has hollowed in the crag, of that pale clear green seen in the crevices of a glacier.
Before reaching the village of Gondo we again passed the carriage, but were soon stopped ourselves by a ruined piece of road which, though dangerous to horses’ knees only, was exceedingly embarrassing, as D—— could not lead two; and I found that, even without the care of Fanny, I was fully employed in keeping my footing while scrambling up and down the mounds of crag and loose stones, and through the stream which, shrunk and quiet now, had done this damage. I tried my skill notwithstanding, and arrived at the top of the first heap, whence Fanny refused either to slide or jump into the water; and we were very much in the situation of statues on a pedestal, when our kind fellow-travellers arrived to my aid, altering Fanny’s determination, and in consequence Grizzle’s, who will not stir a step unless she leads the way.
The carriage was dragged over with a difficultywhich several times made me fear that our acquaintances and those with them would have been forced along with it into the Doveria: for it required the united strength of all to preserve its equilibrium along the narrowed way, now barely the width of its wheels. It tottered several times on the slopes, and it made me dizzy to see the men on the verge opposing to its weight their own, where a false step would have cast them below to be mangled among the stones of the rapid torrent. Another and worse obstacle waited us at the entrance of Gondo: for here the stream, which descended from the mountains, was still three feet deep, and its violence made the crossing it a work of danger; though with the aid of our friends we accomplished it, scrambling over piles of smooth rock and rolling stones, and through the water. The carriage was taken off its wheels, as no vehicle made with human fingers could have passed here; and the poor post-horses, who, no care bestowed on them, had hitherto picked their own way, could go no farther. We therefore proceeded alone to Gondo, a melancholy village of a few cabins and a chapel, and a strange building of eight stories, with barred windows, which I certainly should rather have supposed a prison than an inn belonging to the family of Stockalper. Could we have imagined thatit boasted common accommodation, as Artaria assures it does, we should have remained there to pass the night, being wet and weary; but deceived as to its destination, we applied at an inn some steps farther, and after screaming at the entrance of the dark corridor till we had roused every cur in the neighbourhood, a solitary woman appeared, to say that this was not, as we had fancied,Isella; that she had neither bed for ourselves, nor food for our horses, and we must go on, and should do well to make haste as the evening was closing and there was a “cattivo passo.” Fortunately for us (our friends being no longer within call) at the frontier of theValaisand Italy, where on the left to mark it there is a humble chapel on the crag, and on the right poised above the torrent a colossal fragment of fallen rock, we found some good-natureddouaniers, who assured us of the impossibility of passingIsella, and the difficulty of even arriving there, and offered to accompany us, a proposal we gladly accepted as the evening was growing dusk, and my hand was almost useless in leading Fanny over such ground as we had been treading.
At this place, between the frontier andIsella, on the 15th, the day of the storm, a carriage was passing under the torrents of rain, and the postilion, who, fortunately, was of themountains and on his guard, walking at the heads of his horses, saw above, symptoms of the coming earth avalanche. He had time to shout to the travellers to descend and to cut the traces, when it came rushing down, the carriage was swept into the Doveria with its luggage, and instantly shattered to atoms: for the largest remnant rescued, a portion of the coach-box, was placed as a memento on a rock by the road-side, and is hardly longer or broader than a man’s hand.
Our difficulties had now seriously begun.Isellawas in sight, but between it and us a space of the road for about two hundred yards had been swept away, leaving in its room piled rocks and masses of stone, which had been its foundation; a torrent, not very deep but furious in its rapidity, was boiling down, crossing these, and had already hollowed a bed athwart the ruin. Thedouanierscame up to assist as we stopped in dismay and discouragement. How the horses got over, and without fall or stumble, is to me a matter of wonder; they scrambled over the rocks and jumped down descents, and struggled through the water, and up the high mound of loose stones, which yielded beneath their hoofs, doing honour to their blood and race.
I had been so completely wet before that, but that the force of the stream was well nighenough to lift me off my feet, I should have preferred it to the plank thrown over by some Samaritan.
AtIsella, however, we were, passing the custom-house, which I had hoped might be the inn, being a building of decent exterior, to arrive at the most miserableaubergeever owned by even Italian masters: a wretched shed on one side for stable, the sharp air blowing in on our wet horses, no groom to dry them, and filth for a bed; straw so rare, that it was sold by the pound, at an inconceivable price. Aposteof “carabinieri reali” joined the inn on the other side, and this was my consolation, for while D—— was watching our poor four-footed companions eat such hay and oats as this place afforded, with apparent satisfaction, I made my entry, mounting a ladder-like stair which several Italians were descending, one of whom held his candle in my face, as I passed him on my way to the kitchen, where I found (a red handkerchief tied above an assassination-looking face) a most furious Italian woman, distributing spirits, by the light of one tallow candle, to a band of lawless looking personages, who were shouting and swearing.
As nobody made way for me, I asked mine hostess for a room, to which she said, “Patienza;” and having assuaged the thirst of allher dark-faced customers, she set herself to stirring a caldron full of some ill-scented mixture on her hearth.
On my applying for attention once more, she said, with a toss of her head and spoon, that I must wait, as she had not time to mind me; and as I was really afraid of offending her, I took a seat, which adouanierwho was smoking by the fire offered me by his side, and sate close to him, placing my confidence in his presence, and the vicinity of thecarabinieri.
The turbulent party round my landlady continued to drink and to smoke till I could hardly see them through the cloud. As my courage rose and the atmosphere grew stifling, besides that I was weary of the Swiss Italian of my companion, I got up to see if, till D—— should have left his horses, I had, by passing through the open door, a chance of more humanized society, or at least of none. To my extreme pleasure, on the balcony I found an old French gentleman, with his son and grandson, who had arrived some hours before ourselves. They hailed the addition which we and the Americans, who were on their way, would make to their party, for the old man said they had stopped only because they could get no further, as he in his own person haddoubts of his hostess, and thought it would be as well that we each should know the other’s sleeping apartment, to afford help reciprocally, “dans le cas,” he added, “que nous soyons assassinés!”
His son was complaining bitterly of an Italianvetturino, who, when on starting he agreed for a certain sum to conduct his passengers to Milan, already knew the state of the road, as the 13th and 14th the storm had been raging on the Italian side, though its greatest fury was on the 15th. Under theKaltwasserglaciers a sudden gust of wind had overturned his carriage, absolutely on the verge of the tremendous precipice. The poor pale boy had shown great courage, and even the horses and carriage received no injury.
Arrived at the first impediment beyond theSimploninn, thevoituriervery truly asserted he could go no farther, but also insisted on his fare as far as Milan. The point had been referred for arbitration to ajuge de paix,whose interference the French gentleman demanded, and the Italian consented to abide by; but when the former arrived in his presence, he found him washing dishes! He was anaubergiste,and unusually busy from the influx of travellers, brought by untrue accounts of theroad, given as far asVevayby postilions and innkeepers; of course he gave his verdict in favour of thevetturino.
D—— and the American gentlemen arrived together, the carriage of the latter left till morning at the other side of the broken road, between it andIsella, where it had been benighted, so that its imperials and portmanteaus were carried over in the dark to undergo the inspection of thedouane.The landlady signified to me that it was now her pleasure to conduct me to my chamber, therefore with due docility I followed through the kitchen, where the troop drinking at the long table had been increased by those who aided in the transport of Mr. C——’s carriage, and up another break-neck flight, at the top of which was a closet with two beds, over a part of the before-named kitchen, therefore reaping the full benefit of its merriment, and disputes, and tobaccoed air.
She first informed me, that one bed only could be placed at my disposal, as other travellers might arrive; and when I objected to this arrangement, named with great coolness the price she, as monarch of the mountain, had assigned to it, it being her best apartment, chosenper respetto per me. I said very politely, being in awe of her, that I thought her terms high, adding in the most amiabletone I could assume, that I had seen turn back all the travellers now at theSimplon, and it was likely the inns would be ruined along the road, as its reparation would not be commenced till spring.
In reply to this, she said she had no time to listen to my conversation, and I had better make my mind up; adding, I suppose by way of aiding me in the effort, “E là il torrento; si prende o si lascia,”—“Take it or leave it, there is the torrent;” and as this was very true, I resigned myself, for there indeed was the torrent, roaring below like a wild beast before his fatal bound, and not only the torrent, but no bridge, it had been swept away, and there was none, barring a plank, as an Irishman would say, which had been flung slopingly across from rock to rock, high above the Doveria, as a communication between the inn and custom-house and the few hovels on the opposite shore, which formed the rest of the village ofIsella.
There were no stars, and the faint lights which glimmered in a few of these cottages were all I could distinguish through the darkness, and the sound of the angry stream almost covered the noise of the company below. I asked my amiable companion for some hot water, wishing to neutralize the effect of the cold baths I had undergone to the ancle in thecourse of my day’s travel, to which she said, “A chè serve?” and that she could not attend to whims; and when my patience, long on the wane, deserted me, sent me some by her squinting brother, in a broken coffee cup, so that seeing the remedy I had meditated was not attainable, I drank it.
Our next suffering was supper, and here again we excited our hostess’s ire by ordering eggs in the shell, as the only incorruptible kind of food, instead of sharing the greasy liquid and nameless ragouts which it pleased her to serve up before our companions. Her ill-favoured brother waited on us, the old French gentleman asserting he looked like a wretch quite ready to murder when his sister should have robbed; an opinion which must have flattered him if he understood French, but it was decided he did not, though I thought he grew a shade more hideous during the physiognomical study. After regretting that all travelled without arms, and determining to try any pass in the morning rather than stay there, we retired to our apartments. To obviate the bad effects produced by the stifling size and dirt of ours, I tried to admit the air, but the casement was merely fixed in its place, and had no hinges, so that having deranged its economy, I had some trouble in restoring it and keeping it fast by help of the brokenchair. To speak the truth, I had intended to lie awake till day, a design which I thought the noise and the bad bed rendered easy to accomplish, but fatigue was stronger than the resolution, and after a few moments I forgot that the door would not shut, lost the impression of resting my feet on ground which gave way under them, which had pursued me like the motion of a ship after a voyage, and slept far more soundly than I should have done in my own bed and home. The PrincessBacciochioccupied this same chamber two days before me—I pitied her.
We were on our uncleaned horses at seven, our kind hostess, with “a laughing devil in her sneer,” asserting she should see us again, and one or two of thecarabinierssmiling confirmation of her hope of plunder. It was a cold misty morning, and we started without breakfast, there being nothing at the inn. I believe the beauty of the scenery was almost lost on us, yetIsellais beautifully situated, and the uniformity of crag and pine forest is broken by the brighter green of fruit trees as well as by masses of beech, which here clothe the mountain. The gallery ofIsella, a few paces below the village, is picturesque in form as in situation, for it is rather a deep archway, and the jutting rock it traverses is supported by a gigantic and naturally formed column.Looking back, we could seeIsellaand our place of durance through the frame the dark rock made. A bend in the road the next moment concealed both, exhibiting an obstacle at our feet which seemed fatal to further progress. It was evident the Americans had passed, but they had no horses with them, and one of the thousand streams in which the melted glacier had descended to swell the Doveria had here brought down an avalanche of stones, and piled them to form its banks. The broken road beforeIsella, though of greater extent, was far less difficult of passage. D—— with his grey got first over, and one of the men, roused to good nature, advanced to hold her while he returned for Fanny; but I had half slipped, half jumped the descent in search of the best mode of bringing her without danger, and the little creature sprang lightly down after me as if she had been on her native turf. Grizzle was far less intelligent, and difficult to lead through the foaming water, but neither even stumbled. I got my first footpath, increasing the sensation of shivering, perhaps produced by starting in a mountain fog with fast unbroken.
We proceeded perhaps a hundred yards without obstacle, followed by severalcantonniers,telling us we went in vain, and a sudden turn we again made proved it was indeedhopeless, showing not now the remnant of a road, but the place it had occupied, for not a vestige remained—it was difficult to believe it had been there. The length of this gap was about half a mile. The Doveria had partly changed her course, and left some distance from her opposite bank dry; and dashing against this with doubled violence, had formed a wild bay inclosed, opposite us, by a far advancing promontory, round whose foot the road had circled, but which now rose perpendicularly from the water; on this side, by the same road, broken like a branch, and between both swept angrily over the ruins, unwilling its trophy should prove its barrier.
Our American friends, whose carriage waited here, about to be carried over piece-meal, came up to consult with D——, and leaving the horses in my charge, they set forth together to inspect what might be done; for thecantonnier en chefoffered to take his men there, and construct a path three feet wide, along which horses might be led before night: it was now near nine o’clock, we had already lost two hours.
I watched D—— (having taken his first plunge from the high ground we stood on to the water) scramble through the foam and rocks, clinging to, or climbing over them, here ten to twelve feet high, and keeping near aspossible to shore on account of the depth and strong current, crawl up the precipice to a cottage which had been left unharmed, when the earth cracked and fell from around and under it. This, my companion thecantonniersaid, was easy to accomplish; the difficulties were beyond, and, the path having traversed the jutting point, they were henceforth invisible. I sate on my horse employed in fancying their nature, till I again saw D—— returning by his inconvenient footway, poising himself on the slippery rocks, and arriving to my surprise without limbs broken. Some of the men had already gone to cut this path, which was to be widened ere nightfall, but D—— said it would be impossible to travel; even supposing there should be a space of three feet between the upright wall of earth and the precipice, which goes down to the Doveria, inasmuch as there was a rapid descent, and where it ceased, a sharp turn, so that a horse hurried down could scarcely fail to be precipitated into the torrent.
One of the ruined spaces we had already traversed, a German gentleman with his lady, and a guide leading her mule, had attempted to pass on the 18th, a day before ourselves. The animal slipped on the verge, and the guide, in his effort to save the lady, was dragged over also. Her body, for she waskilled on the spot, was recovered and carried toIsella, that of the unfortunate man was swept away. This was a warning; we proposed to ford the torrent, thus circling round the base of the mountain where it was shallow, but the men, whose aid we demanded, treated the idea as madness, and refused positively, we therefore paid thecantonnieren chef for his trouble, and turned our horses’ heads towards theSimploninn; for, discouraging as it was to seek again obstacles once surmounted, to do so seemed the one thing possible. As we turned, disconsolately thinking of the wearisome valley of the Rhone, and the long detour we must make by Geneva, a young officer ofcarabinieri,with whom we had been in conversation before, and a priest, came up to accost us. There was a way, he said, which might be just passable, over theTrasquiera, he had gone it once in search of deserters; but a guide to lead Fanny was indispensable, and none was to be had. Chance served us well, for as we were looking about with but faint hope of seeing one, (all thecantonniersbeing gone to their work a mile away, and no one walking there for pleasure,) came up a young man, to whom the kind priest immediately applied, asking him for what recompense he would accompany us across the mountain, and toDomo d’Ossola: he said sevenfrancs, but that he did not know the way; and our embarrassments would have recommenced, but that theParocosummoned his young brother, a pretty slight boy of twelve, who knew all the paths and precipices within five miles round. TheTrasquieraalmost hangs overIsella, and the zigzag path up its side commences from the broken road we had crossed after leaving the village that morning. Over this our poor horses were led again, and bidding good bye to the priest and officer, we commenced our ascent, the boy leading the way, Fanny climbing like a goat and pulling up the guide, who, having never touched a horse’s rein before, rather hung by it than was of service; D—— supporting Grizzle, who was very frightened and awkward, and I bringing up the rear, and though they were obliged to pause every ten steps for breath, often at a distance; as the weight of my habit encumbered me, and this path is not even used by mules, and by the country people rarely to drive their cattle to the pastures, as there is a better on the other side the mountain. For the first five minutes we went on trusting it would improve; after the first quarter of hour, because to turn became almost impossible, the track being at no part more than two feet broad, and winding in zigzags along the extreme verge above atorrent, which, though neither so broad nor deep as the Doveria, would, asMercutiosaid, “serve,” and besides formed like an irregular stair of steps of stone two and three feet high, small and pointed, broad and smooth. I often used hands as well as feet, catching at rocks and roots. Poor Grizzle went sorely against her will; only the boy and Fanny, who were far a-head, seemed to enjoy it.
As the road grew steeper and I found I must have both hands free, I took off the skirt of my habit and laid it over the latter’s saddle, thinking at the time I never saw a prettier object than her little thorough bred form in the guise of a packhorse, but stepping on with a demeanour as dignified as if she had been at a review in the Champ de Mars. The path now became absolutely vertical, and the more difficult from its being over smooth loose ground. As we had dined lightly the day before and not breakfasted this, even on a cup of water, I have perhaps an excuse for the giddiness and fear produced by exhaustion, which took momentary possession of me, and certainly brought with them my only real danger, for worn out by the scorching heat and harassing walk, I felt unable to climb higher, too giddy to look back, and unable to sit down, as the ground from its excessive slope afforded no support, and I was afraid ofslipping in a minute from the height I had passed three hours in attaining. I believe I was going to scream, but I thought better of it, and seized a pine branch and arrived at the stones and safer ground before D——, who had therefore left Grizzle to her fate, could arrive to help me. Here was the first chalet, but it was locked, left by its owners, who were gone to the high pastures, and we were disappointed in our hoped for draught of water. There was a spring, the boy said, half an hour’s walk farther, so we rested a few minutes and then went on patiently, though it was twelve o’clock and we were parched with thirst, and mountain air, renovating as it is, will not supply the place of all things. We were now in a tract of pine forest, and at its steepest part found our way barred by half a-dozen Italian woodcutters, who were felling the trees, one of which lay across our path. D—— said afterwards he expected a worse adventure here, for we had a large sum in gold about us, and the odds were in their favour, besides that the ground was of such nature, that a push would have been sufficient to settle matters without trouble. The Italians were, however, better than their countenances; they opened their dark eyes wider in wonder at the apparition of English horses there, but dragged aside the pine; and when I, who hadstruck my foot against some roots and could get no farther, called to them to give me “la mano,” good naturedly pulled me up, each consigning me to the broad black hand of his comrade, so that I arrived at the summit of the mound with more ease than accompanied my climbings heretofore. After this followed a few steps of what the guide denominated plain. The direction of our road had changed, and now too high above the unseen Doveria to hear its roar, we looked through vistas of pines to those of the mountains on its opposite bank, seeming a continuation of these forests without a symptom of the abyss between. We toiled on some time longer, D—— casting back at me looks of pity, and I trying to smile, though I should have been puzzled to say for what. We found too juniper berries and hips and haws, and shared them after the manner of the babes in the wood, but the delight was the spring, at which we arrived at last, trickling from a rock. D—— bent the top of his hat into a hollow, and out of this cup we drank, I do not know how many draughts, but certainly the best in our lives; for my own part the relief it afforded seemed to dispel all fatigue, and we went on merrily, though our path lay across the bed of a torrent, which, though hardly flowing, had still sufficient water to make slippery itssmooth shelving stones, polished like marble by its passage.
The ascent continued, but it was no longer rapid, and half an hour brought us on the mountain pastures at the summit, and among the chalets. We saw nobody; the priest’s brother said it was not the hour for finding milk, so there was nothing to be done but to lie down on the short fine grass, irrigated by a hundred rills, and let the horses drink from them, and drink ourselves out of the palm of our hands. The guide murmured for the fiftieth time “paese del Diavolo,” and the boy laughed at me. Though he had knocked at one of these habitations and found no one, he was fortunately wrong as to the absence of all, and the wondrous sight we indeed constituted there, attracted some of the half wild mountain women, good looking and picturesquely attired with bright kerchiefs on their heads, and cloth leggings instead of stockings on their feet, coarse brown jackets and blue cloth petticoats with a deep crimson border.
The first who issued from the dwelling seeing the perseverance with which I drank out of my hand from the mountain stream, came smiling to offer a long ladle, which was an admirable substitute. An old woman seeing, I suppose, that I looked pale and faint, plunged her hand into a long pocket and drew forthtwo apples. We accepted them with great gratitude, and asked if we could get some milk; it really was not the hour, but several of the good natured creatures set forth different ways in search, and our first benefactress, who had left us for a moment, returned, this time her apron quite full of the small sweet apples, and with her half a dozen companions came close to watch us eat them, and say “povero” and “poverina” every minute. They asked the guide and the boy fifty questions without obtaining satisfactory answers, for they spoke a patois, which neither clearly comprehended. For my own part,Giuseppe’sSwiss Italian was bad enough; the boy spoke purely, for he was from the shores of theLago Maggiore,but of this not a word in ten was intelligible to me. I understood, however, that the horses were even more than ourselves the objects of their curiosity. Their admiration was unwearied; they walked round them and clapped their hands, and laughed to see them eat and drink, repeating some of the few Italian words they knew, “Oh la bella bestia, la bella bestia,” and that they had never seen a horse before. How far this is possible to people, who, though on a mountain, are but three hours removed from the most frequented road in Europe, I leave you to decide. The guide confirmed it; the women, he said, were employed all the summeron the pastures and in making cheese, which the men carried for sale below, and in the season when the snows fell, which at this height happens early, they spun their own wool and lived inclosed in their mountain village. Certainly the men were less primitive in their manners than the women, and also less prepossessing in appearance. Several, when the females gone in search of milk returned, came in their company inspecting us with less merriment but more attention. We began to think it would be unwise to be benighted on the mountain, and paying the good women for our breakfast in a way they thought splendid, I mounted Fanny for the five minutes during which the plain lasted, and was hardly on her back, when she thought proper to leap a stream, through which I should have preferred her walking quietly. Whether or no the mountain women had ever seen a horse before, I doubt they will ever see one leap that rivulet again. At the next we reached, for they are innumerable, Grizzle, whom D—— was still leading, following her comrade’s example, but as usual in the wrong place, jumped it with great energy, knocking her master down.
A bad path and steep ascent led hence to another meadow, where Grizzle was injeopardy, for her saddle, valise, and all, turning, she was so frightened as to start away from D——, who had quitted her bridle to arrange them, and towards the bushes on the verge, where she would have rolled over, for the meadow was a mere platform, with precipices all round it. We saved her by an appeal to her greediness: she stopped short to eat the clover I gathered for the purpose. Met here an old man, who asked the guide whence we came, and said, in reply, “Non scenderanno mai,” which was encouraging. Continuing to ascend, we were on the summit in half an hour more, in presence of the miserable village and desert inn. No one is there save on fête days, the boy said. We sate under the shed which is its appurtenance, on the stone seat which surrounds the stone table. A few steps further, on the mountain’s very verge, is the small church, painted and ornamented, and here the priest’s brother left us, delighted with his fee, as the descent began at this spot, whence the mule-path winds to the valley. For a few minutes it appeared more promising, but for a few minutes only, for though cut in broader zigzags and its precipices less appalling, it was still but four feet wide, and its steep steps of loose stone made Grizzle groan with fear as she slipped down them, her head in the air, and her feet thrownforward most helplessly. It would have been impossible to lead her, but that Fanny was first, hurrying gaily forward, and picking her steps like a mule,—the guide said, “Va d’incanto.” The rain had commenced falling as we passed the church, a circumstance we were too busy to notice: it was at all events preferable to the overpowering sun, whose heat we had suffered. Arrived at the bottom, under the shelter of some noble chestnut trees, an improvement after brushwood and barrenness, there is a hamlet under the wall of rock, and before it and us, theQuerasca,which joined the Doveria a stone’s throw further. Our guide had sought this spot for the sake of its wooden bridge, left unharmed when the storm swept away that of stone.
Arrived at the torrent’s edge, and looking about in vain, he asked a peasant girl to conduct him thither, but it had disappeared also, carried down the current the day after its comrade.Giuseppenever despaired—we had done so during this expedition twenty times over,—but all he said was “Adesso vedremo;” and now, the wooden bridge being wholly invisible, we went on to the high road opposite the ruin of the other and the avalanche of stones occupying the place of a farm which had been carried away, and stood under the pouring rain on the brink of the torrent,which this time had changed its course in its fury, leaving the one arch which remained standing an island.Giuseppesaid the same thing. With the calm blue eye of a northern, he was in all things a contrast to the Italians we had met hitherto; for his courage was always quiet and ready, and he never tried to enhance his services, and in the most difficult moments looked round with an encouraging smile on his good-natured face. If ever I pass throughCrevolaagain, I will look forGiuseppe Sala.On our side the gulf, and on the commencement of the vanished bridge, were standing about a dozen Italians, not at work, but in contemplation; andGiuseppe, brave fellow as he was, after looking a moment at the turbid water, intimated his intention of fording it. We desired him to employ one or two of these to assist him in crossing. The ill-looking idlers came crowding round in consequence, talking fast and loud; “they did increase the storm,” but insisted on it, that if one were hired all must be, andGiuseppegently said, “Io solo,” and walked into the water with Fanny. The torrent was broad, and, though not more than four feet deep, fearfully rapid, and only by clinging to her he got safe over, though not without extremely alarming us, for in its very centre, where it rushed most furiously among the masses ofstone, she stopped to drink, and we almost expected to see both swept away. As they turned the opposite point of land, we lost sight of them, but were soon reassured by Fanny’s violent screamings for her comrade, and the sight ofGiuseppe, very wet and triumphant, running back to us along the pine trunk flung from the high ground to the shore. He had less trouble with Grizzle, for it had become impossible to hold her, and in her impatience to join her comrade, she rushed through rocks and water, dragging him along without any effort of his own. Our turn was now come, and we were to cross the pine trunk, which, considered an easy comfortable bridge in the mountains, made me giddy to look at. I believe we both would have preferred the water, but necessity makes the head steady, and shame prevented our hesitation, for an old woman crossed it before us, composedly, as if it had been a meadow, with a pile of faggots on her back for ballast, and her bare feet clinging to the asperities of the bark, wherein she had an advantage over us. I called to her from the other side to hold out her hand, but the poor soul returned the whole length and then walked it backwards, leading and nodding to me, with the stream flowing ten feet below, and when I wanted to pay her, ran away and over it once more.D—— arrived, marshalled by a boy, and we found the horses waiting: Fanny held by a youth, who complained of having lost in the water, which he had not entered, shoes never made for him. The rain had fallen during two hours without interruption, and now gave place to scorching sun once more. Ere we rode on, we looked up at the little church on the summit of theTrasquiera, in wonder that our horses had been there, but our hour of tranquillity was not yet come, and a very short distance brought us to an obstacle impassable as atIsella, and resembling it closely, for there was picturesque confusion in place of the road, of which no vestige remained, and a tongue of high land, round which foamed the Doveria. Here, however,Giuseppeknew his road, and led among vineyards, by ways we should have thought steep and bad at other times, to a picturesque village—it must have been Dovedro—and thence across the dry bed of a stream, and under long arcades of the trellised vine.Giuseppegathered grapes for us, for which (in poetical justice) we paid a woman carrying a sickly child, to whom they did not belong.
Further on our way, for we made a round of a mile,Giuseppeand the horses fording another tributary torrent, and ourselves passing it partly on a plank, partly by wadingthrough, we arrived at and kept the high road, crossing breaks innumerable—none so important as to force us aside, though elsewhere I would have ridden twenty miles to avoid one of them.
The last gallery was that ofCrevola, cut for the length of one hundred and seventy feet, in a straight line, through the solid rock. The scenery had lost its naked horror, and grown beautiful as well as grand; trees fringing, far below the road, the banks of the deep torrent; and, as we ascended the hill, we passed on our right hand, prostrate on our way, and expressive in its silence, a broken column, once on its road to be a monument of Napoleon’s glory. From the summit of this hill we had a noble view of the high bridge ofCrevola, over which we were to pass, and to which the road descends gradually; its two arches rest on a pillar one hundred feet high, and beneath them the Doveria utters its dying roar, and spends its last fury in its encounter with theTosa.
Having crossed this bridge, we were out of the Val Doveria and in that of theTosa, trellised vineyards covering the slopes to the right, the broad river flowing along its centre, and on the left, gentler mountains, with green woods dotted with villas, and the high white campanile rising each above its village. Still,after the descriptions I have read of this valley, its aspect disappointed me. It was a relief from contrast certainly, to ride along a level, and unaccompanied by the roar of the torrent, and our previous fatigue might perhaps indispose us to admire what beauty it really possesses, or it might be saddened by the mists of that dull evening. To me it had a look of desolation, for theTosa, which had swollen and now shrunk again, had left a broad track of sand and stone through the ravaged meadows; and a short distance fromDomowe found a sign and token of its power, for the fine stone bridge was carried away, and, for the convenience of foot-passengers, a plank, sloping considerably, had been laid from the high remnant, on the one side, to the ground, where there was no vestige, on the other. On the right of thisci-devantbridge, the ravaged space extended wide and far, the river still flowing in its centre.Giuseppesaid, “Adesso vedremo,” and ran down to seek a fitting place for crossing with the horses, for it seemed, to the left of the bridge, so deep and broad as to give little hope of finding a ford. An Italian lady and gentleman had, however, driven fromCrevolabefore us, I suppose to see the state of the route, and good-naturedly recalled our guide, saying, the only possible place was there. The sun had long been set, and the brief twilightwas fading also, so that we had no time to lose.Giuseppewent in without hesitation, this time above the waist. I watched him in fear, for though there were now no rocks in his way, the strength of the current was such as, but for clinging to the horses, he could not have mastered. This was our last impediment, and we arrived at dark atDomo d’Ossola; it was well for our vanity that we made our entry then, D——’s hat, which had served, as I told you, for tea-cup, and my tattered boots and muddy habit, looking unlike the garb of conquerors such as we considered ourselves to be.Giuseppetook leave of us in the yard ofla Posta.I had asked him to conduct us to the best hotel, to which he said, “Son tutti ladri, ma è questo un buon ladro.” He had not thought of increasing his demand, and looked surprised at receiving gold and a supper. The horses had a good stable and wondrous appetite, Fanny rolling ever and anon, and recommencing with fresh energy.
A knock at the door of our apartment announced our amiable American friends (whose carriage had been carried over), come to congratulate us on our safety. Our dinner was served about ten, and very acceptable as the first meal during the day. We shall remain a day or two, for the inn is comfortable and, as the hand-book observes, clean asItalian hotels usually are. I should prefer bright rubbed floors to the matting which covers these, and seems seldom or never swept, but the cabin atIsellais a good foil for all that may follow.