Well, I waked up this morning, and the first thought was, "Here I am in the valley of Chamouni, right under the shadow of Mont Blanc, that I have studied about in childhood and found on the atlas." I sprang up, and ran to the window, to see if it was really there where I left it last night. Yes, true enough, there it was! right over our heads, as it were, blocking up our very existence; filling our minds with its presence; that colossal pyramid of dazzling snow! Its lower parts concealed by the roofs, only the three rounded domes of the summit cut their forms with icy distinctness on the intense blue of the sky!
On the evening before I had taken my last look at about nine o'clock, and had mentally resolved to go out before daybreak and repeat Coleridge's celebrated hymn; but I advise any one who has any such liturgic designs to execute them over night, for after a day of climbing one acquires an aptitude for sleep that interferes with early rising. When I left last evening its countenance was "filled with rosy light," and they tell us, that hours before it is daylight in the valley this mountain top breaks into brightness, like that pillar of fire which enlightened the darkness of the Israelites.
I rejoice every hour that I am among these scenes in my familiarity with the language of the Bible. In it alone can I find vocabulary and images to express what this world of wonders excites. Mechanically I repeat to myself, "The everlasting mountains were scattered; the perpetual hills did bow; his ways are everlasting." But as straws, chips, and seaweed play in a thousand fantastic figures on the face of the ocean, sometimes even concealing the solemn depths beneath, so the prose of daily existence mixes itself up with the solemn poetry of life, here as elsewhere.
You must have a breakfast, and then you cannot rush out and up Mont Blancad libitum; you must go up in the regular appointed way, with mule and guides. This matter of guides is perfectly systematized here; for, the mountains being the great overpowering fact of life, it follows that all that enterprise and talent which in other places develop themselves in various forms, here take the single channel of climbing mountains. In America, if a man is a genius he strikes out a new way of cleaning cotton; but in Chamouni, if he is a genius he finds a new way of going up Mont Blanc.
As a sailor knows every timber, rope, and spar of his ship, and seems to identify his existence with her, so these guides their mountains. The mountains are their calendar, their book, their newspaper, their cabinet, herbarium, barometer, their education, and their livelihood.
In fine, behold us about eight o'clock, C., S., W., little G., and self, in all the bustle of fitting out in the front of our hotel. Two guides, Balmat and Alexandre, lead two mules, long-eared, slow-footed, considerate brutes, who have borne a thousand ladies over a thousand pokerish places, and are ready to bear a thousand more. Equipped with low-backed saddles, they stand, their noses down, their eyes contemplatively closed, their whole appearance impressing one with an air of practical talent and reliableness. Your mule is evidently safe and stupid as any conservative of any country; you may be sure that no erratic fires, no new influx of ideas will ever lead him to desert the good old paths, and tumble you down precipices. The harness they wear is so exceedingly ancient, and has such a dilapidated appearance, as if held together only by the merest accident, that I could not but express a little alarm on mounting.
"Those girths—won't they break?"
"O, no, no, mademoiselle!" said the guides. In fact, they seem so delighted with their arrangements, that I swallow my doubts in silence. A third mule being added for the joint use of the gentlemen, and all being equipped with iron-pointed poles, off we start in high spirits.
A glorious day; air clear as crystal, sky with as fixed a blue as if it could not think a cloud; guides congratulate us, "Qu'il fait très beau!" We pass the lanes of the village, our heads almost on a level with the flat stone-laden roofs; our mules, with their long rolling pace, like the waves of the sea, give to their riders a facetious wag of the body that is quite striking. Now the village is passed, and see, a road banded with green ribands of turf. S.'s mule and guide pass on, and head the party. G. rides another mule. C. and W. leap along trying their alpenstocks; stopping once in a while to admire the glaciers, as their brilliant forms appear through the pines.
Here a discussion commences as to where we are going. We had agreed among ourselves that we would visit the Mer de Glâce. We fully meant to go there, and had so told the guide on starting; but it appears he had other views for us. There is a regular way of seeing things, orthodox and appointed; and to get sight of any thing in the wrong way would be as bad as to get well without a scientific physician, or any other irregular piece of proceeding.
It appeared from the representations of the guide that to visit Mer de Glâce before we had seen La Flégère, would no more answer than for Jacob to marry Rachel before he had married Leah. Determined not to yield, as we were, we somehow found ourselves vanquished by our guide's arguments, and soberly going off his way instead of ours, doing exactly what we had resolved not to do. However, the point being yielded we proceeded merrily.
As we had some way, however, to trot along the valley before we came to the ascending place, I improved the opportunity to cultivate a little the acquaintance of my guide. He was a tall, spare man, with black eyes, black hair, and features expressive of shrewdness, energy, and determination. Either from paralysis, or some other cause, he was subject to a spasmodic twitching of the features, producing very much the effect that heat lightning does in the summer sky—it seemed to flash over his face and be gone in a wink; at first this looked to me very odd, but so much do our ideas depend on association, that after I had known him for some time, I really thought that I liked him better with, than I should without it. It seemed to give originality to the expression of his face; he was such a good, fatherly man, and took such excellent care of me and the mule, and showed so much intelligence and dignity in his conversation, that I could do no less than like him, heat lightning and all.
This valley of Chamouni, through which we are winding now, is every where as flat as a parlor floor. These valleys in the Alps seem to have this peculiarity—they are not hollows, bending downward in the middle, and imperceptibly sloping upward into the mountains, but they lie perfectly flat. The mountains rise up around them like walls almost perpendicularly.
"Voilà!" says my guide, pointing to the left, to a great, bare ravine, "down there came an avalanche, and knocked down those houses and killed several people."
"Ah!" said I; "but don't avalanches generally come in the same places every year?"
"Generally, they do."
"Why do people build houses in the way of them?" said I.
"Ah! this was an unusual avalanche, this one here."
"Do the avalanches ever bring rocks with them?"
"No, not often; nothing but snow."
"There!" says my guide, pointing to an object about as big as a good-sized fly, on the side of a distant mountain, "there's theauberge, on La Flégère, where we are going."
"Up there?" say I, looking up apprehensively, and querying in my mind how my estimable friend the mule is ever to get up there with me on his back.
"O yes," says my guide, cheerily, "and the road is up through that ravine."
The ravine is a charming specimen of a road to be sure, but no matter—on we go.
"There," says a guide, "those black rocks in the middle of that glacier on Mont Blanc are the Grands Mulets, where travellers sleep going up Mont Blanc."
We wind now among the pine tree still we come almost under the Mer de Glâce. A most fairy-like cascade falls down from under its pillars of ice over the dark rocks,—a cloud of feathery foam,—and then streams into the valley below.
"Voilà, L'Arveiron!" says the guide.
"O, is that the Arveiron?" say I; "happy to make the acquaintance."
But now we cross the Arve into a grove of pines, and direct our way to the ascent. We begin to thread a zigzag path on the sides of the mountain.
As mules are most determined followers of precedent, every one keeps his nose close by the heels of his predecessor. The delicate point, therefore, of the whole operation is keeping the first mule straight. The first mule in our party, who rejoiced in the name of Rousse, was selected to head the caravan, perhaps because he had more native originality than most mules, and was therefore better fitted to lead than to follow. A troublesome beast was he, from a habit of abstract meditation which was always liable to come on him in most inconvenient localities. Every now and then, simply in accordance with his own sovereign will and pleasure, and without consulting those behind him, he would stop short and descend into himself in gloomy revery, not that he seemed to have any thing in particular on his mind,—at least nothing of the sort escaped his lips,—but the idea would seem to strike him all of a sudden that he was an ill-used beast, and that he'd be hanged if he went another step. Now, as his stopping stopped all the rest, wheresoever they might happen to be, it often occurred that we were detained in most critical localities, just on the very verge of some tremendous precipice, or up a rocky stairway. In vain did the foremost driver admonish him by thumping his nose with a sharp stick, and tugging and pulling upon the bridle. Rousse was gifted with one of those long, India rubber necks that can stretch out indefinitely, so that the utmost pulling and jerking only took his head along a little farther, but left his heels planted exactly here they were before, somewhat after this fashion. His eyes, meanwhile, devoutly closed, with an air of meekness overspreading his visage, he might have stood as an emblem of conscientious obstinacy.
[Illustration:of two men trying to force forward a stubborn mule with a female rider.]
The fact is, that in ascending these mountains there is just enough danger to make one's nerves a little unsteady; not by any means as much as on board a rail car at home; still it comes to you in a more demonstrable form. Here you are, for instance, on a precipice two thousand feet deep; pine trees, which, when you passed them at the foot you saw were a hundred feet high, have dwindled to the size of pins. No barrier of any kind protects the dizzy edge, and your mule is particularly conscientious to stand on the very verge, no matter how wide the path may be. Now, under such circumstances, though your guide assures you that an accident or a person killed is a thing unknown, you cannot help seeing that if the saddle should turn, or the girths break, or a bit of the crumbling edge cave away—all which things appear quite possible—all would be over with you. Yet I suppose we are no more really dependent upon God's providence in such circumstances, than in many cases where we think ourselves most secure. Still the thrill of this sensation is not without its pleasure, especially with such an image of almighty power and glory constantly before one's eyes as Mont Blanc. Our own littleness and helplessness, in view of these vast objects which surround us, give a strong and pathetic force to the words, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting arms."
I like best these snow-pure glaciers seen through these black pines; there is something mysterious about them when you thus catch glimpses, and see not the earthly base on which they rest. I recollect the same fact in seeing the Cataract of Niagara through trees, where merely the dizzying fall of water was visible, with its foam, and spray, and rainbows; it produced an idea of something supernatural.
I forgot to say that at the foot of the mountain a party of girls started to ascend with us, carrying along bottles of milk and small saucers full of mountain strawberries. About half way up the ascent we halted by a spring of water which gushed from the side of the mountain, and there we found the advantage of these arrangements. The milk is very nice, almost as rich as cream. I think they told me it was goat's milk. The strawberries are very small indeed, like our field strawberries, but not as good. One devours them with great relish, simply because the keen air of the mountain disposes one to eat something, and there is nothing better to be had. They were hearty, rosy-looking girls, cheerful and obliging, wore the flat, Swiss hat, and carried their knitting work along with them, and knit whenever they could.
When you asked them the price of their wares they always said, "Au plaisir" i. e., whatever you please; but when we came to offer them money, we found "au plaisir" meant so much atany rate, and as much more as they could get.
There were some children who straggled up with the party, who offered us flowers and crystals "au plaisir" to about the same intent and purpose. Thiscortégeof people, wanting to sell you something, accompanies you every where in the Alps. The guides generally look upon it with complacency, and in a quiet way favor it. I suppose that the fact was, these were neighbors and acquaintances, and the mutual understanding was, that they should help each other.
It was about twelve o'clock, when we gained a bare board shanty as near the top of La Flégère as it is possible to go on mules.
It is rather a discouraging reflection that one should travel three or four hours to get to such a desolate place as these mountain tops generally are; nothing but grass, rocks, and snow; a shanty, with a show case full of minerals, articles of carved wood, and engravings of the place for sale. In these show cases the Alps are brought to market as thoroughly as human ingenuity can do the thing. The chamois figures largely; there are pouches made of chamois skin, walking sticks and alpenstocks tipped with chamois horn; sometimes an entire skin, horns and all, hanging disconsolately downward. Then all manner of crystals, such as are found in the rocks, are served up—agate pins, rings, seals, bracelets, cups, and snuffboxes—all which are duly urged on your attention; so, instead of falling into a rapture at the sight of Mont Blanc, the regular routine for a Yankee is to begin a bargain for a walking stick or a snuffbox.
There is another curious fact, and that is, that every prospect loses by being made definite. As long as we only see a thing by glimpses, and imagine that there is a deal more that we do not see, the mind is kept in a constant excitement and play; but come to a point where you can fairly and squarely take in the whole, and there your mind falls listless. It is the greatest proof to me of the infinite nature of our minds, that we almost instantly undervalue what we have thoroughly attained. This sensation afflicted me, for I had been reining in my enthusiasm for two days, as rather premature, and keeping myself in reserve for this ultimate display. But now I stood there, no longer seeing by glimpses, no longer catching rapturous intimations as I turned angles of rock, or glanced through windows of pine—here it was, all spread out before me like a map, not a cloud, not a shadow to soften the outline—there was Mont Blanc, a great alabaster pyramid, with a glacier running down each side of it; there was the Arve, and there was the Arveiron, names most magical in song, but now literal geographic realities.
But in full possession of the whole my mind gave out like a rocket that will not go off at the critical moment. I remember, once after finishing a very circumstantial treatise on the nature of heaven, being oppressed with a similar sensation of satiety,—that which hath not entered the heart of man to conceive must not be mapped out,— hence the wisdom of the dim, indefinite imagery of the Scriptures; they give you no hard outline, no definite limit; occasionally they part as do the clouds around these mountains, giving you flashes and gleams of something supernatural and splendid, but never fully unveiling.
But La Flegerc is doubtless the best point for getting a statistically accurate idea of how the Alps lie, of any easily accessible to ladies. This print you may regard more as a chart than as a picture.
Our guide pointed out every feature with praiseworthy accuracy. Midmost is Mont Blanc; on the right the Glacier de Boisson. Two or three little black peaks' in it are the sleeping-place for travellers ascending—the zigzag line shows their path. On the left of the mountain lies Mer de Glâce, with the Arveiron falling from it. The Arve crosses the valley below us; the fall is not indicated in this view. The undulations, which, on near view, are fifty feet high, seem mere ripples. Its purity is much soiled by the dust and debris which are constantly blown upon it, making it look in some places more like mud than ice. Its soiled masses contrast with the dazzling whiteness of the upper regions, just as human virtue exposed to the wind and dust of earth, with the spotless purity of Jesus.
[Illustration:of a long view of mountains with glacial valley in foreground. What follows is a rough ASCII interpretation:
1/\/\ /\_/ \ 2/\/\ __ /\/\_ /'\/\/ \__/ \ \/\'/\/ / / \ 4_ / \3'' / \ | _/ __ __ 5 / \\, / ___,,__ ____,___/ / \_ \__—' _/ \ '—' | \____,|\ /9/ __/ |\ | \ \\ \ |\/ |/ | \ \ \\ \|| \ | \ \7 \\ \\6\ \ 8 \__ \ \\\ \\\\ \ \===-'—'——>'——-\=====================\ streams//settlement ||\ \_> >trees / /
1. Mont Blanc. 2. Deme de Goute. 3. Aiguille de Goute. 4. Grand Plateau. 5. Les Grands Mulets. 6. Glacier de Tacconnaz. 7. Glacier de Boisson. 8. Mer de Glâce. 9. Montauvert.]
These mulets, which at this distance appear like black points, are needle cliffs rising in a desert of snow, thus—
[Illustration:of narrow jagged dark rocks about 70 feet across at the base and rising to about 80 feet from the base.]
Coming down I mentally compared Mont Blanc and Niagara, as one should compare two grand pictures in different styles of the same master. Both are of that class of things which mark eras in a mind's history, and open a new door which no man can shut. Of the two, I think Niagara is the most impressive, perhaps because those aerial elements of foam and spray give that vague and dreamy indefiniteness of outline which seems essential in the sublime. For this reason, while Niagara is equally impressive in the distance, it does not lose on the nearest approach—it is always mysterious, and, therefore, stimulating. Those varying spray wreaths, rising like Ossian's ghosts from its abyss; those shimmering rainbows, through whose veil you look; those dizzying falls of water that seem like clouds poured from the hollow of God's hand; and that mystic undertone of sound that seems to pervade the whole being as the voice of the Almighty,—all these bewilder and enchant the discriminative and prosaic part of us, and bring us into that cloudy region of ecstasy where the soul comes nearest to Him whom no eye hath seen, or can see. I have sometimes asked myself if, in the countless ages of the future, the heirs of God shall ever be endowed by him with a creative power, by which they shall bring into being things like these? In this infancy of his existence, man creates pictures, statues, cathedrals; but when he is made "ruler over many things," will his Father intrust to him the building and adorning of worlds? the ruling of the glorious, dazzling forces of nature?
At the foot of the mountain we found again our company of strawberry girls, with knitting work and goat's milk, lying in wait for us. They knew we should be thirsty and hungry, and wisely turned the circumstance to account. Some of our party would not buy of them, because they said they were sharpers, trying to get all they could out of people; but if every body who tries to do this is to be called a sharper, what is to become of respectable society, I wonder?
On the strength of this reflection, I bought some more goat's milk and strawberries, and verily found them excellent; for, as Shakspeare says, "How many things by season seasoned are."
We returned to our hotel, and after dining and taking a long nap, I began to feel fresh once more, for the air here acts like an elixir, so that one is able to do twice as much as any where else. S. was too much overcome to go with us, but the rest of us started with our guides once more at five o'clock. This time we were to visit the Cascade des Pèlérins, which comes next on the orthodox list of places to be seen.
It was a lovely afternoon; the sun had got over the Mont Blanc side of the world, and threw the broad, cool shadow of the mountains quite across the valley. What a curious kind of thing shadow is,—that invisible veil, falling so evenly and so lightly over all things, bringing with it such thoughts of calmness, of coolness, and of rest. I wonder the old Greeks did not build temples to Shadow, and call her the sister of Thought and Peace. The Hebrew writers speak of the "overshadowing of the Almighty;" they call his protection "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Even as the shadow of Mont Blanc falls like a Sabbath across this valley, so falls the sense of his presence across our weary life-road!
As we rode along under the sides of the mountain every thing seemed so beautiful, so thoughtful, and so calm! All the goats and cows were in motion along the mountain paths, each one tinkling his little bell and filling the rocks with gentle melodies. You can trace the lines of these cattle paths, running like threads all along the sides of the mountains. We went in the same road that we had gone in the morning. How different it seemed, in the soberness of this afternoon light, from its aspect under the clear, crisp, sharp light of morning!
We pass again through the pine woods in the valley, and cross the Arve; then up the mountain side to where a tiny cascade throws up its feathery spray in a brilliantjet d'eau. Every body knows, even in our sober New England, that mountain brooks are a frisky, indiscreet set, rattling, chattering, and capering in defiance of all law and order, tumbling over precipices, and picking themselves up at the bottom, no whit wiser or more disposed to be tranquil than they were at the top; in fact, seeming to grow more mad and frolicsome with every leap. Well, that is just the way brooks do here in the Alps, and the people, taking advantage of it, have built a little shanty, where they show up the capers of this child of the mountain, as if he tumbled for their special profit. Here, of course, in the shanty are the agates, and the carved work, and so forth, and so on, and you must buy something for a souvenir.
I sat down on the rocks to take, not a sketch,—for who can sketch a mountain torrent?—but to note down on paper a kind of diagram, from which afterwards I might reconstruct an image of this feathery, frisky son of Kuhleborn.
And while I was doing this, little G. seemed to be possessed by the spirit of the brook to caper down into the ravine, with a series of leaps far safer for a waterfall than a boy. I was thankful when I saw him safely at the bottom.
After sketching a little while, I rambled off to a point where I looked over towards Mont Blanc, and got a most beautiful view of the Glacier de Boisson. Imagine the sky flushed with a rosy light, a background of purple mountains, with darts of sunlight streaming among them, touching point and cliff with gold. Against this background rises the outline of the glacier like a mountain of the clearest white crystals, tinged with blue; and against their snowy whiteness in the foreground tall forms of pines. I rejoiced in the picture with exceeding joy as long as the guide would let me; but in all these places you have to cut short your raptures at the proper season, or else what becomes of your supper?
I went back to the cottage. A rosy-cheeked girl had held our mules, and set a chair for us to get off, and now brings them up with "Au plaisir, messieurs" to the bearers of our purse. Half a dozen children had been waiting with the rose des Alps, which they wanted to sell us "au plaisir" but which we did not buy.
These continual demands on the purse look very alarming, only the coin you pay in is of such infinitesimal value that it takes about a pocket full to make a cent. Such a currency is always a sign of poverty.
We had a charming ride down the mountain side, in the glow of the twilight. We passed through a whole flock of goats which the children were driving home. One dear little sturdy Savoyard looked so like a certain little Charley at home that I felt quite a going forth of soul to him. As we rode on, I thought I would willingly live and die in such a place; but I shall see a hundred such before we leave the Alps.
Thursday, July 7. Weather still celestial, as yesterday. But lo, these frail tabernacles betray their earthliness. H. remarked at breakfast that all the "tired" of yesterday was piled up into to-day. And S. actually pleaded inability, and determined to remain at the hotel.
However, the Mer de Glâce must be seen; so, at seven William, Georgy, H., and I, set off. When about half way or more up the mountain we crossed the track of the avalanches, a strip or trail, which looks from beneath like a mower's swath through a field of tall grass. It is a clean path, about fifty rods wide, without trees, with few rocks, smooth and steep, and with a bottom of ice covered with gravel.
"Hurrah, William," said I, "let's have an avalanche!"
"Agreed," said he; "there's a big rock."
"Monsieur le Guide, Monsieur le Guide!" I shouted, "stop a moment. H., stop; we want you to see our avalanche."
"No," cried H., "I will not. Here you ask me to stop, right on the edge of this precipice, to see you roll down a stone!"
So, on she ambled. Meanwhile William and I were already on foot, and our mules were led on by the guide's daughter, a pretty little lass of ten or twelve, who accompanied us in the capacity of mule driver.
We found several stones of inferior size, and sent them plunging down. At last, however, we found one that weighed some two tons, which happened to lie so that, by loosening the earth before and under it with our alpenstocks, we were able to dislodge it. Slowly, reluctantly, as if conscious of the awful race it was about to take, the huge mass trembled, slid, poised, and, with a crunch and a groan, went over. At the first plunge it acquired a heavy revolving motion, and was soon whirling and dashing down, bounding into the air with prodigious leaps, and cutting a white and flashing path into the icy way. Then first I began to realize the awful height at which we stood above the plain. Tracts, which looked as though we could almost step across them, were reached by this terrible stone, moving with frightful velocity; and bound after bound, plunge after plunge it made, and we held our breath to see each tract lengthen out, as if seconds grew into minutes, inches into rods; and still the mass moved on, and the microscopic way lengthened out, till at last a curve hid its further progress from our view.
What other cliffs we might have toppled over the muse refuses to tell; for our faithful guide returned to say that it was not quite safe; that there were always shepherds and flocks in the valley, and that they might be injured. So we remounted, and soon overtook H. at a fountain, sketching a pine tree of special physiognomy.
"Ah," said I, "H., how foolish you were! You don't know what a sight you have lost."
"Yes," said she, "all C. thinks mountains are made for is to roll stones down."
"And all H. thinks trees made for," said I, "is to have ugly pictures made of them."
"Ay," she replied, "you wanted me to stand on the very verge of the precipice, and see two foolish boys roll down stones, and perhaps make an avalanche of themselves! Now, you know, C., I could not spare you; first, because I have not learned French enough yet; and next, because I don't know how to make change."
"Add to that," said I, "the damages to thebergersand flocks."
"Yes," she added; "no doubt when we get back to the inn we shall have a bill sent in, 'H. B. S. to A. B., Dr., to one shepherd and six cows, —fr.'"
And so we chatted along until we reached theauberge, and, after resting a few moments, descended into the frozen sea.
Here a scene opened upon us never to be forgotten. From the distant gorge of the everlasting Alpine ranges issued forth an ocean tide, in wild and dashing commotion, just as we have seen the waves upon the broad Atlantic, but all motionless as chaos when smitten by the mace of Death; and yet, not motionless! This denser medium, this motionless mass, is never at rest. This flood moves as it seems to move; these waves are actually uplifting out of the abyss as they seem to lift; the only difference is in the time of motion, the rate of change.
These prodigious blocks of granite, thirty or forty feet long and twenty feet thick, which float on this grim sea of ice,do float, and aredrifting, drifting down to the valley below, where, in a few days, they must arrive.
We walked these valleys, ascended these hills, leaped across chasms, threw stones down thecrevasses, plunged our alpenstocks into the deep baths of green water, and philosophized and poetized till we were tired. Then we returned to theauberge, and rode down the zigzag to our hotel.
The Mer de Glâce is exactly opposite to La Flégère, where we were yesterday, and is reached by the ascent of what is called Montanvert, or Green Mountain. The path is much worse than the other, and in some places makes one's nerves twinge, especially that from which C. projected his avalanche. Just think of his wanting to stop me on the edge of a little shelf over that frightful chasm, and take away the guide from the head of my mule to help him get up avalanches!
I warn you, if ever you visit the Alps, that a travelling companion who has not the slightest idea what fear is will give you many a commotion. For instance, this Mer de Glâce is traversed every where bycrevassesin the ice, which go to—nobody knows where, down into the under world—great, gaping, blue-green mouths of Hades; and C. must needs jump across them, and climb down into them, to the mingled delight and apprehension of the guide, who, after conscientiously shouting out a reproof, would say to me, in a lower tone, "Ah, he's the man to climb Mont Blanc; he would do well for that!"
The fact is, nothing would suit our guides better, this clear, bright weather, than to make up a party for the top of Mont Blanc. They look longingly and lovingly up to its clear, white fields; they show us the stages and resting-places, and seem really to think that it is a waste of this beautiful weather not to be putting it to that most sublime purpose.
Why, then, do not we go up? you say. As to us ladies, it is a thing that has been done by only two women since the world stood, and those very different in theirphysiquefrom any we are likely to raise in America, unless we mend our manners very much. These two were a peasant woman of Chamouni, called Marie de Mont Blanc, and Mademoiselle Henriette d'Angeville, a lady whose acquaintance I made in Geneva. Then, as to the gentlemen, it is a serious consideration, in the first place, that the affair costs about one hundred and fifty dollars apiece, takes two days of time, uses up a week's strength, all to get an experience of some very disagreeable sensations, which could not afflict a man in any other case. It is no wonder, then, that gentlemen look up to the mountain, lay their hands on their pockets, and say, No.
Our guide, by the way, is the son, or grandson, of the very first man that ascended Mont Blanc, and of course feels a sort of hereditary property and pride in it.
C. spoke about throwing our poles down the pools of water in the ice.
There is something rather curious about these pools. Our guide saw us measuring the depth of one of them, which was full of greenish-blue water, colored only by the refraction of the light. He took our long alpenstock, and poising it, sent it down into the water, as a man might throw a javelin. It disappeared, but in a few seconds leaped up at us out of the water, as if thrown back again by an invisible hand.
A poet would say that a water spirit hurled it back; perhaps some old under-ground gnome, just going to dinner, had his windows smashed by it, and sent it back with a becoming spirit, as a gnome should.
It was a sultry day, and the sun was exercising his power over the whole ice field. I sat down by a great ice block, about fifty feet long, to interrogate it, and see what I could make of it, by a cool, confidential proximity and examination. The ice was porous and spongy, as I have seen it on the shores of the Connecticut, when beginning to thaw out under the influence of a spring sun. I could see the little drops of water percolating in a thousand tiny streams through it, and dropping down on every side. Putting my ear to it, I could hear a fine musical trill and trickle, and that still small click and stir, as of melting ice, which showed that it was surely and gradually giving way, and flowing back again.
Drop by drop the cold iceberg was changing into a stream, to flow down the sides of the valley, no longer an image of coldness and death, but bearing fertility and beauty on its tide. And as I looked abroad over all the rifted field of ice, I could see that the same change was gradually going on throughout. In every blue ravine you can hear the clink of dropping water, and those great defiant blocks of ice, which seem frozen with uplifted warlike hands, are all softening in that beneficent light, and destined to pass away in that benignant change. So let us hope that those institutions of pride and cruelty, which are colder than the glacier, and equally vast and hopeless in their apparent magnitude, may yet, like that, be slowly and surely passing away. Like the silent warfare of the sun on the glacier, is that overshadowing presence of Jesus, whose power, so still, yet so resistless, is now being felt through all the moving earth.
Those defiant waves of death-cold ice might as well hope to conquer the calm, silent sun, as the old, frozen institutions of human selfishness to resist the influence which he is now breathing through the human heart, to liberate the captive, to free the slave, and to turn the ice of long winters into rivers of life for the new heaven and the new earth.
All this we know is coming, but we long to see it now, and breathe forth our desires with the Hebrew prophet, "O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence."
I had, while upon this field of ice, that strange feeling which often comes over one, at the sight of a thing unusually beautiful and sublime, of wanting, in some way, to appropriate and make it a part of myself. I looked up the gorge, and saw this frozen river, lying cradled, as it were, in the arms of needle-peaked giants of amethystine rock, their tops laced with flying silvery clouds. The whole air seemed to be surcharged with tints, ranging between the palest rose and the deepest violet—tints never without blue, and never without red, but varying in the degrees of the two. It is this prismatic hue diffused over every object which gives one of the most noticeable characteristics of the Alpine landscape.
This sea of ice lies on an inclined plane, and all the blocks have a general downward curve.
I told you yesterday that the lower part of the glacier, as seen from La Flégère, appeared covered with dirt. I saw to-day the reason for this. Although it was a sultry day in July, yet around the glacier a continual high wind was blowing, whirling the dust anddébrisof the sides upon it. Some of the great masses of ice were so completely coated with sand as to appear at a distance like granite rocks. The effect of some of these immense brown masses was very peculiar. They seemed like an army of giants, bending forward, driven, as by an invisible power, down into the valley.
It reminds one of such expressions as these in Job:—
"Have the gates of death been open to thee, or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?" One should read that sublime poem in such scenes as these. I remained on the ice as long as I could persuade the guides and party to remain.
Then we went back to the house, where, of course, we looked at some wood work, agates, and all the et cetera.
Then we turned our steps downward. We went along the side of the glacier, and I desired to climb over as near as possible, in order to see the source of the Arveiron, which is formed by the melting of this glacier. Its cradle is a ribbed and rocky cavern of blue ice, and like a creature born full of vigor and immortality, it begins life with an impetuous leap. The cold arms of the glaciers cannot retain it; it must go to the warm, flowery, velvet meadows below.
The guide was quite anxious about me; he seemed to consider a lady as something that must necessarily break in two, or come apart, like a German doll, if not managed with extremest care; and therefore to see one bounding through bushes, leaping, and springing, and climbing over rocks at such a rate, appeared to him the height of desperation.
The good, faithful soul wanted to keep me within orthodox limits, and felt conscientiously bound to follow me wherever I went, and to offer me his hand at every turn. I considered, on the whole, that I ought not to blame him, since guides hold themselves responsible for life and limb; and any accident to those under their charge is fatal to their professional honor.
Going down, I held some conversation with him on matters and things in general, and life in Chamouni in particular. He inquired with great interest about America; which, throughout Europe, I find the working classes regard as a kind of star in the west, portending something of good to themselves. He had a son, he said, settled in America, near St. Louis.
"And don't you want to go to America?" said I, after hearing him praise the good land.
"Ah, no," he said, with a smile.
"Why not?" said I; "it is a much easier country to live in."
He gave a look at the circle of mountains around, and said, "I love Chamouni." The good soul! I was much of his opinion. If I had been born within sight of glorious Mont Blanc, with its apocalyptic clouds, and store of visions, not all the fat pork and flat prairies of Indiana and Ohio could tempt me. No wonder the Swiss die for their native valleys! I would if I were they. I asked him about education. He said his children went to a school kept by Catholic sisters, who taught reading, writing, and Latin. The dialect of Chamouni is a patois, composed of French and Latin. He said that provision was very scarce in the winter. I asked how they made their living when there were no travellers to be guided up Mont Blanc. He had a trade at which he wrought in winter months, and his wife did tailoring.
I must not forget to say that the day before there had been some confidential passages between us, which began by his expressing, interrogatively, the opinion that "mademoiselle was a young lady, he supposed." When mademoiselle had assured him, on the contrary, that she was a venerable matron, mother of a thriving family, then followed a little comparison of notes as to numbers. Madame he ascertained to have six, and he had four, if my memory serves me, as it generally does not in matters of figures. So you see it is not merely among us New Englanders that the unsophisticated spirit of curiosity exists as to one's neighbors. Indeed, I take it to be a wholesome development of human nature in general. For my part, I could not think highly of any body who could be brought long into connection with another human being and feel no interest to inquire into his history and surroundings.
As we stopped, going down the descent, to rest the mules, I looked up above my head into the crags, and saw a flock of goats browsing. One goat, in particular, I remember, had gained the top of a kind of table rock, which stood apart from the rest, and which was carpeted with lichens and green moss. There he stood, looking as unconscious and contemplative as possible, the wicked fellow, with his long beard! He knew he looked picturesque, and that is what he stood there for. But, as they say in New England, he did it "as nat'ral as a pictur!"
By the by, the girls with strawberries, milk, and knitting work were on hand on the way down, and met us just where a cool spring gushed out at the roots of a pine tree; and of course I bought some more milk and strawberries.
How dreadfully hot it was when we got down to the bottom! for there we had the long, shadeless ride home, with the burning lenses of the glaciers concentrated upon our defenceless heads. I was past admiring any thing, and glad enough for the shelter of a roof, and a place to lie down.
After dinner, although the Glacier de Boisson had been spoken of as the appointed work for the afternoon, yet we discovered, as the psalm book says, that
"The force of nature could no farther go"
[Illustration:of an ice climbing party scaling a large serac.]
What is Glacier de Boisson, or glacier any thing else, to a person used up entirely, with no sense or capability left for any thing but a general aching? No; the Glacier de Boisson was given up, and I am sorry for it now, because it is the commencement of the road up Mont Blanc; and, though I could not go to the top thereof, I should like to have gone as far as I could. In fact, I should have been glad to sleep one night at the Grands Mulets: however, that was impossible.
To look at the apparently smooth surface of the mountain side, one would never think that the ascent could be a work of such difficulty and danger. Yet, look at the picture of crossing acrevasse, and compare the size of the figures with the dimensions of the blocks of ice. Madame d'Angeville told me that she was drawn across acrevasselike this, by ropes tied under her arms, by the guides. The depth of some of thecrevassesmay be conjectured from the fact stated by Agassiz, that the thickest parts of the glaciers are over one thousand feet in depth.
Friday, July 8.—Chamouni to Martigny, by Tête Noir. Mulesen avant. We set off in acalèche. After a two hours' ride we came to "those mules." On, to the pass of Tête Noir, by paths the most awful. As my mule trod within six inches of the verge, I looked down into an abyss, so deep that tallest pines looked like twigs; yet, on the opposite side of the pass, I looked up the steep precipice to an equal height, where giant trees seemed white fluttering fringe. A dizzy sight. We swept round an angle, entered a dark tunnel blasted out through the solid rock, emerged, and saw before us, on our right, the far-famed Tête Noir, a black ledge, on whose face, so high is the opposite cliff, the sun never shines. A few steps brought us to a hotel. William and I rolled down some avalanches, by way of getting an appetite, while dinner was preparing.
[Illustration:of the rearing head and neck of a bridled mule.]
After dinner we commenced descending towards Martigny, alternately riding and walking. Here, while I was on foot, my mule took it into his head to run away. I was never more surprised in my life than to see that staid, solemn, meditative, melancholy beast suddenly perk up both his long ears, thus, and hop about over the steep paths like a goat. Not more surprised should I be to see some venerable D. D. of Princeton leading off a dance in the Jardin Mabille. We chased him here, and chased him there. We headed him, and he headed us. We said, "Now I have you," and he said, "No, you don't!" until the affair began to grow comically serious. "Il se moque de vous!" said the guide. But, at that moment, I sprang and caught him by the bridle, when, presto! down went his ears, shut went the eyes, and over the entire gay brute spread a visible veil of stolidity. And down he plodded,slunging, shambling, pivotting round zigzag corners, as before, in a style which any one that ever navigated such a craft down hill knows without further telling. After that, I was sure that the old fellow kept up a "terrible thinking," in spite of his stupid looks, and knew a vast deal more than he chose to tell.
[Illustration:of a mule's head lowered, with ears flattened.]
At length we opened on the Rhone valley; and at seven we reached Hotel de la Tour, at Martigny. Here H. and S. managed to get up two flights of stone stairs, and sank speechless and motionless upon their beds. I must say they have exhibited spirit to-day, or, as Mr. C. used to say, "pluck." After settling with our guides,—fine fellows, whom we hated to lose,—I ordered supper, and sought new guides for our route to the convent. Our only difficulty in reaching there, they say, is thesnow. The guides were uncertain whether mules could get through so early in the season. Only to think! To-day, riding broilingly through hay-fields—to-morrow, stuck in snow drifts!
Dear Henry:—
You cannot think how beautiful are these Alpine valleys. Our course, all the first morning after we left Chamouni, lay beside a broad, hearty, joyous mountain torrent, called, perhaps from the darkness of its waters, Eau Noire. Charming meadows skirted its banks. All the way along I could think of nothing but Bunyan's meadows beside the river of life, "curiously adorned with lilies."Thesewere curiously adorned, broidered, and inwrought with flowers, many and brilliant as those in a western prairie. Were I to undertake to describe them, I might make an inventory as long as Homer's list of the ships. There was the Canterbury bell of our garden; the white meadow sweet; the blue and white campanula; the tall, slender harebell, and a little, short-tufted variety of the same, which our guide tells me is called "Les Clochettes," or the "little bells"—fairies might ring them, I thought. Then there are whole beds of the little blue forget-me-not, and a white flower which much resembles it in form. I also noticed, hanging in the clefts of the rocks around Tête Noir, the long golden tresses of the laburnum. It has seemed to me, when I have been travelling here, as if every flower I ever saw in a garden met me some where in rocks or meadows.
There is a strange, unsatisfying pleasure about flowers, which, like all earthly pleasure, is akin to pain. What can you do with them?—you want to do something, but what? Take them all up, and carry them with you? You cannot do that. Get down and look at them? What, keep a whole caravan waiting for your observations! That will never do. Well, then, pick and carry them along with you. That is what, in despair of any better resource, I did. My good old guide was infinite in patience, stopping at every new exclamation point of mine, plunging down rocks into the meadow land, climbing to the points of great rocks, and returning with his hands filled with flowers. It seemed almost sacrilegious to tear away such fanciful creations, that looked as if they were votive offerings on an altar, or, more likely, living existences, whose only conscious life was a continued exhalation of joy and praise.
These flowers seemed to me to be earth's raptures and aspirations —her better moments—her lucid intervals. Like every thing else in our existence, they are mysterious.
In what mood of mind were they conceived by the great Artist? Of what feelings of his are they the expression—springing up out of the dust, in these gigantic, waste, and desolate regions, where one would think the sense of his almightiness might overpower the soul? Born in the track of the glacier and the avalanche, they seem to say to us that this Almighty Being is very pitiful, and of tender compassion; that, in his infinite soul, there is an exquisite gentleness and love of the beautiful, and that, if we would be blessed, his will to bless is infinite.
The greatest men have always thought much of flowers. Luther always kept a flower in a glass, on his writing table; and when he was waging his great public controversy with Eckius, he kept a flower in his hand. Lord Bacon has a beautiful passage about flowers. As to Shakspeare, he is a perfect Alpine valley—he is full of flowers; they spring, and blossom, and wave in every cleft of his mind. Witness the Midsummer Night's Dream. Even Milton, cold, serene, and stately as he is, breaks forth into exquisite gushes of tenderness and fancy when he marshals the flowers, as in Lycidas and Comus.
But all this while the sun has been withering the flowers the guide brought me; how they look! blue and white Canterbury bells, harebells, clochettes, all bedraggled and wilted, like a young lady who has been up all night at a ball.
"No, no," say I to the guide; "don't pick me any more. I don't want them. The fact is, if they are pretty I cannot help it. I must even take it out in looking as I go by."
One thing is evident; He who made the world is no utilitarian, no despiser of the fine arts, and no condemner of ornament; and those religionists, who seek to restrain every thing within the limits of cold, bare utility, do not imitate our Father in heaven.
Cannot a bonnet cover your head, without the ribbon and the flowers, say they? Yes; and could not a peach tree bear peaches without a blossom? What a waste is all this colored corolla of flowers, as if the seed could not mature without them! God could have created the fruit in good, strong, homely bushel baskets, if he had been so disposed.
"Turn off my eyes from beholding vanity," says a good man, when he sees a display of graceful ornament. What, then, must he think of the Almighty Being, all whose useful work is so overlaid with ornament? There is not a fly's leg, nor an insect's wing, which is not polished and decorated to an extent that we should think positive extravagance in finishing up a child's dress. And can we suppose that this Being can take delight in dwellings and modes of life or forms of worship where every thing is reduced to cold, naked utility? I think not. The instinct to adorn and beautify is from him; it likens us to him, and if rightly understood, instead of being a siren to beguile our hearts away, it will be the closest affiliating band.
If this power of producing the beautiful has been always so fascinating that the human race for its sake have bowed down at the feet even of men deficient in moral worth, if we cannot forbear loving the painter, poet, and sculptor, how much more shall we love God, who, with all goodness, has also all beauty!
But all this while we have been riding on till we have passed the meadows, and the fields, and are coming into the dark and awful pass of the Tête Noir, which C. has described to you.
One thing I noticed which he did not. When we were winding along the narrow path, bearing no more proportion to the dizzy heights above and below than the smallest insect creeping on the wall, I looked across the chasm, and saw a row of shepherds' cottages perched midway on a narrow shelf, that seemed in the distance not an inch wide. By a very natural impulse, I exclaimed, "What does become of the little children there? I should think they would all fall over the precipice!"
My guide looked up benevolently at me, as if he felt it his duty to quiet my fears, and said in a soothing tone, "O, no, no, no!"
Of course, I might have known that little children have their angels there, as well as every where else. "When they have funerals there," said he, "they are obliged to carry the dead along that road," pointing to a road that resembled a thread drawn on the rocky wall.
What a strange idea—such a life and death! It seemed to me, that I could see a funeral train creeping along; the monks, with their black cloaks, carrying tapers, and singing psalms; the whole procession together not larger in proportion than a swarm of black gnats; and yet, perhaps, hearts there wrung with an infinite sorrow. In that black, moving point, may be a soul, whose convulsions and agonies cannot be measured or counted by any thing human, so impossible is it to measure souls by space.
What can they think of, these creatures, who are born in this strange place, half way between heaven and earth, to whom the sound of avalanches is a cradle hymn, and who can never see the sun above the top of the cliff on either side, till he really gets into the zenith?
What they can be thinking of I cannot tell. Life, I suppose, is made up of the same prosaic material there that it is every where. The mother thinks how she shall make her goat's milk and black bread hold out. The grandmother knits stockings, and runs out to see if Jaques or Pierre have not tumbled over the precipice. Jaques and Pierre, in return, tangle grandmother's yarn, upset mother's milk bucket, pull the goat's beard, tear their clothes to pieces on the bushes and rocks, and, in short, commit incredible abominations daily, just as children do every where.
In the night how curiously this little nest of houses must look, lighted up, winking and blinking at the solitary traveller, like some mysterious eyes looking out of a great eternity! There they all are fast asleep, Pierre, and Jaques, and grandmother, and the goats. In the night they hear a tremendous noise, as if all nature was going to pieces; they half wake, open one eye, say, "Nothing but an avalanche!" and go to sleep again.
This road, through the pass of the Tête Noir, used to be dangerous; a very narrow bridle-path, undefended by any screen whatever. To have passed it in those old days would have had too much of the sublime to be quite agreeable to me. The road, as it is, is wide enough, I should think, for three mules to go abreast, and a tunnel has been blasted through what seemed the most difficult and dangerous point, and a little beyond this tunnel is the Hotel de la Couronne.
If any body wanted to stop in the wildest and lonesomest place he could find in the Alps, so as to be saturated with a sense of savageness and desolation, I would recommend this hotel. The chambers are reasonably comfortable, and the beds of a good quality—a point which S. and I tested experimentally soon after our arrival. I thought I should like to stay there a week, to be left there alone with Nature, and see what she would have to say to me.
But two or three hours' ride in the hot sun, on a mule's back, indisposes one to make much of the grandest scenes, insomuch that we were glad to go to sleep; and on awaking we were glad to get some dinner, such as it was.
Well, after our dinner, which consisted of a dish of fried potatoes and some fossiliferous bread, such as prevails here at the small hotels in Switzerland, we proceeded onward. After an intolerably hot ride for half an hour we began to ascend a mountain called the Forclaz.
There is something magnificent about going up these mountains, appalling as it seems to one's nerves, at particular turns and angles of the road, where the mule stops you on the very "brink of forever," as one of the ladies said.
Well, at last we reached the top, and began to descend; and there, at our feet, as if we were looking down at it out of a cloud, lay the whole beautiful valley of the Rhone. I did not know then that this was one of the things put down in the guide book, that we were expected to admire, as I found afterwards it was; but nothing that I saw any where through the Alps impressed me as this did. It seemed to me more like the vision of "the land that is very far off" than any thing earthly. I can see it now just as distinctly as I saw it then; one of these flat, Swiss valleys, green as a velvet carpet, studded with buildings and villages that looked like dots in the distance, and embraced on all sides by these magnificent mountains, of which those nearest in the prospect were distinctly made out, with their rocks, pine trees, and foliage.
The next in the receding distance were fainter, and of a purplish green; the next of a vivid purple; the next, lilac; while far in the fading view the crystal summits and glaciers of the Oberland Alps rose like an exhalation.
The afternoon sun was throwing its level beams in between these many-colored ranges, and on one of them the ruins of an old Roman tower stood picturesquely prominent. The Simplon road could be seen, dividing the valley like an arrow.
I had gone on quite ahead of my company, and as my mule soberly paced downward in the almost perpendicular road, I seemed to be poised so high above the enchanting scene that I had somewhat the same sensation as if I were flying. I don't wonder that larks seem to get into such a rapture when they are high up in the air. What a dreamlike beauty there is in distance, disappearing ever as we approach!
As I came down towards Martigny into the pasture land of the great mountain, it seemed to me that the scenery might pass for that of the Delectable Mountains—such beautiful, green, shadowy hollows, amid great clumps of chestnut and apple trees, where people were making their hay, which smelled so delightfully, while cozy little Swiss cottages stood in every nook.
All were out in the fields, men, women, and children, and in one hayfield I saw the baby's cradle—baby, of course, concealed from view under a small avalanche of a feather bed, as the general fashion in these parts seems to be. The women wore broad, flat hats, and all appeared to be working rather lazily, as it was coming on evening.
This place might have done for Arcadia, or Utopia, or any other of those places people think of when they want to get rid of what is, and get into the region of what might be.
I was very far before my party, and now got off my mule, and sat down on a log to wait till they came up. Then the drama enacted by C.'s mule took place, which he has described to you. I merely saw a distant commotion, but did not enter into the merits of the case.
As they were somewhat slow coming down, I climbed over a log into a hayfield, and plucked a long, delicate, white-blossomed vine, with which I garlanded the top of my flat hat.
One is often reminded of a text of Scripture in these valleys—"He sendeth springs into the valleys, which run among the hills."
Every where are these little, lively, murmuring brooks falling down the rocks, prattling through the hayfields, sociably gossiping with each other as they go.
Here comes the party, and now we are going down into Martigny. How tired we were! We had to ride quite through the town, then through a long, long row of trees, to come to the Hotel de la Tour. How delightful it seemed, with its stone entries and staircases, its bedrooms as inviting as cleanliness could make them! The eating saloon opened on to a beautiful garden filled with roses in full bloom. There were little tables set about under the trees for people to take their strawberries and cream, or tea, in the open air if they preferred it, a very common and pleasant custom of continental hotels.
A trim, tidy young woman in a white cap, with a bunch of keys at her girdle, ushered us up two flights of stone stairs, into a very clean, nice apartment, with white muslin window curtains. Now, there is no feature of a room that speaks to the heart like white muslin window curtains; they always shed light on the whole scene.
After resting a while we were called down to a supper of strawberries and cream, and nice little rolls with honey. This honey you find at every hotel in Switzerland, as one of the inevitables of the breakfast or tea table.
Here we were to part from our Chamouni guides, and engage new ones to take us to St. Bernard. I had become so fond of mine that it really went quite to my heart; we had an affecting leave-taking in the dark stone entry, at the foot of the staircase. In the earnestness of my emotion I gave him all the change I had in my pocket, to buysouvenirsfor his little folks at home, for you know I told you we had compared notes on sundry domestic points. I really flattered myself that I was doing something quite liberal; but this deceitful Swiss coin! I found, when I came to tell C. about it, that the whole stock only amounted to about twenty cents: like a great many things in this world, it looked more than it was. The good man, however, seemed as grateful as if I had done something, wished all sorts of happiness to me and my children, and so we parted. Peace go with him in his Chamouni cottage.