THE DENTS DU MIDI FROM GRYON ABOVE BEX.
This accident caused a good deal of discussion among Alpine climbers, and it is possible that one outcome of it will be to protect guides by more stringent regulations against the urgency of climbers who wish to incur dangers of which they are ignorant.
There are, however, to be enjoyed in Switzerland very many Alpine climbs which come within an ample margin of safety, requiring guides in some cases, but not taking any extravagant toll either on the purse or on the muscles. Thus from Adelboden one may go to the summit of the Gemmi Pass and back within a day: or over the Bunderchrinde to Kandersteg; or to the Bonderspitze (8343 feet), the Elsighorn (7697 feet), the Elsigfirst (8366 feet), the Albristhorn (8366 feet), the Gsür (8894 feet). Or from the same point of departure with a little more expense, but no more danger, the Wildstrubel (10,715 feet) may be climbed. There is a fine glacier (the Strubel) on this route. From another point of departure, Champery, the various peaksof the Dents du Midi are easily reached. In the Dents du Midi group the highest is the most accessible. To climb the Haute Cime one usually sleeps at Bonaveau, whence one starts off at early morning through the Pas d'Encel, the valley and the pass of Susanfe. With a guide these can easily be done and without difficulty in six hours. From the summit the panorama embraces all of the central and western Alps. From Les Plans (to mention another centre) there are no less than fifty good climbs, most of them suitable for the modest Alpinist. For an example of a "big" climb from this centre take the ascent of the Grand Muveran (10,040 feet). It is a steep and difficult ascent, not dangerous, but a guide is a necessity. The starting-point is Les Plans. From there to the summit takes at least five hours. The expedition is less fatiguing if the climber passes the night at the Rambert shelter. From this hut to the top of the mountain it is a climb of two hours. From the Muveran the view over the Valais is particularly good. The ascent of the Diablerets (10,663 feet), the summit of the Vaudois Alps, is more difficult, but in good weather not attended with any risk.
In bad weather almost any climb can be dangerous, and one needs to be a particularly expert and keen Alpinist to attempt an ascent when storms are likely. But for that expert and keen Alpinist it seems that there is "a music in the thunder and the growling of the gale," and a joy in breasting and overcoming an Alpine storm. A stirring description of such a storm by a famous climber:
The gathering squadrons of the sky grow dark, and seem to hold the just departed night in their bosoms. Their crests impend. They assume terrific shapes. They acquire an aspect of solidity. They do not so much seem to blot out as to destroy the mountains. Their motion suggests a great momentum. At first too they act in almost perfect silence. There is little movement in the oppressively warm air, and yet the clouds boil and surge as though violently agitated. They join together, neighbour to neighbour, and every moment they grow more dense and climb higher. To left and right, one sees them, behind also and before.The moments now are precious. We take a last view of our surroundings, note the direction we should follow, and try to fix details in our memories, for sight will soon be impossible. Then the clouds themselves are upon us—a puff of mist first, followed by the dense fog. A crepitating sound arises around us; it is the pattering of hard particles of snow on the ground. Presently the flakes grow bigger and fall more softly, feeling clammy on the face. And now probably thewind rises and the temperature is lowered. Each member of our party is whitened over; icicles form on hair and moustache, and the very aspect of men is changed to match the wild surroundings. Under such circumstances the high regions of snow are more impressive than under any other, but climbers must be well-nourished, in good hard condition, and not too fatigued, or they will not appreciate the scene. No one can really know the high Alps who has not been out in a storm at some great elevation. The experience may not be, in fact is not, physically pleasant, but it is morally stimulating in a high degree, and æsthetically grand. Now must a climber call up all his reserves of pluck and determination. He may have literally to fight his way down to a place of shelter. There can be no rest, neither can there be any undue haste. The right way must be found and followed. All that can be seen is close at hand and that small circle must serve for guidance. All must keep moving on with grim persistence, hour after hour. Stimulants are unavailing and food is probably inaccessible. All depends upon reserve stores of health and vigour, and upon moral courage. To give in is treason. Each determines that he for his part will not fail his companions. Mutual reliance must be preserved.
The gathering squadrons of the sky grow dark, and seem to hold the just departed night in their bosoms. Their crests impend. They assume terrific shapes. They acquire an aspect of solidity. They do not so much seem to blot out as to destroy the mountains. Their motion suggests a great momentum. At first too they act in almost perfect silence. There is little movement in the oppressively warm air, and yet the clouds boil and surge as though violently agitated. They join together, neighbour to neighbour, and every moment they grow more dense and climb higher. To left and right, one sees them, behind also and before.
The moments now are precious. We take a last view of our surroundings, note the direction we should follow, and try to fix details in our memories, for sight will soon be impossible. Then the clouds themselves are upon us—a puff of mist first, followed by the dense fog. A crepitating sound arises around us; it is the pattering of hard particles of snow on the ground. Presently the flakes grow bigger and fall more softly, feeling clammy on the face. And now probably thewind rises and the temperature is lowered. Each member of our party is whitened over; icicles form on hair and moustache, and the very aspect of men is changed to match the wild surroundings. Under such circumstances the high regions of snow are more impressive than under any other, but climbers must be well-nourished, in good hard condition, and not too fatigued, or they will not appreciate the scene. No one can really know the high Alps who has not been out in a storm at some great elevation. The experience may not be, in fact is not, physically pleasant, but it is morally stimulating in a high degree, and æsthetically grand. Now must a climber call up all his reserves of pluck and determination. He may have literally to fight his way down to a place of shelter. There can be no rest, neither can there be any undue haste. The right way must be found and followed. All that can be seen is close at hand and that small circle must serve for guidance. All must keep moving on with grim persistence, hour after hour. Stimulants are unavailing and food is probably inaccessible. All depends upon reserve stores of health and vigour, and upon moral courage. To give in is treason. Each determines that he for his part will not fail his companions. Mutual reliance must be preserved.
It seems certainly a fine experience—to recall afterwards. But I confess that I never really enjoyed a mountain storm except in the case of one that I saw from above the clouds, fighting out its quarrel in the valleys below Mount Kosciusko. To see a storm from above—thatis a spectacle of grandeur; and there is no threat of danger or of discomfort to the spectator.
THE SCHWARTZHORN FROM THE FLUELA HOSPICE.
But the idea must not be gathered from the descriptions of the dangers of mountaineering that it is a sport suitable only for the exceptionally sturdy. Any one with fair physique who has not reached old age can join an Alpine Club and enjoy Alpine climbing, so long as actually dangerous and freak ascents are avoided. Mr. Symonds, who went to the Alps apparently a hopeless invalid, was able to enjoy Alpine climbing, and has given in prose and verse some fine pen-pictures of its joys; this in particular of an ascent of the Schwartzhorn:
'Neath an uncertain moon, in light malign,We trod those rifted granite crags, whereunder,Startling the midnight air with muffled thunder,Flowed infant founts of Danube and of Rhine.Our long-drawn file in slow deliberate lineScaled stair on stair, subdued to silent wonder;Wound among mouldering rocks that rolled asunder,Rattling with hollow roar down death's decline.Still as we rose, one white transcendent starSteered calmly heavenward through the empurpled gloom,Escaping from the dim reluctant barOf morning, chill and ashen-pale as doom;Where the day's chargers, champing at his ear,Waited till Sol should quit night's banquet-room.Pure on the frozen snows, the glacier steep,Slept moonlight with the tense unearthly charmOf spells that have no power to bless or harm;But, when we touched the ridge which tempests sweep,Death o'er the murk vale, yawning wide and deep,Clung to frost-slippery shelves, and sharp alarm,Shuddering in eager air, drove life's blood warmBack to stout hearts and staunch will's fortress-keep.Upward we clomb; till now the emergent morn,Belting the horror of dim jagged eastern heights,Broadened from green to saffron, primrose-pale,Felt with faint finger-tips of rose each horn,Crept round the Alpine circuit, o'er each daleDwelt with dumb broodings drearier even than night's.Thus dawn had come; not yet the day: night's queenAnd morning's star their state in azure kept:Still on the mountain world weird silence slept;Earth, air, and heaven held back their song serene.Then from the zenith, fiery-white betweenMoonshine and dayspring, with swift impulse sweptA splendour of the skies that throbbing leaptDown to the core of passionate flame terrene—A star that ruining from yon throne remote,Quenched her celestial yearnings in the pyreOf mortal pangs and pardons. At that signThe orient sun with day's broad arrow smoteBlack Linard's arrogant brow, while influent fireSlaked the world's thirst for light with joy divine.
'Neath an uncertain moon, in light malign,We trod those rifted granite crags, whereunder,Startling the midnight air with muffled thunder,Flowed infant founts of Danube and of Rhine.Our long-drawn file in slow deliberate lineScaled stair on stair, subdued to silent wonder;Wound among mouldering rocks that rolled asunder,Rattling with hollow roar down death's decline.Still as we rose, one white transcendent starSteered calmly heavenward through the empurpled gloom,Escaping from the dim reluctant barOf morning, chill and ashen-pale as doom;Where the day's chargers, champing at his ear,Waited till Sol should quit night's banquet-room.
Pure on the frozen snows, the glacier steep,Slept moonlight with the tense unearthly charmOf spells that have no power to bless or harm;But, when we touched the ridge which tempests sweep,Death o'er the murk vale, yawning wide and deep,Clung to frost-slippery shelves, and sharp alarm,Shuddering in eager air, drove life's blood warmBack to stout hearts and staunch will's fortress-keep.Upward we clomb; till now the emergent morn,Belting the horror of dim jagged eastern heights,Broadened from green to saffron, primrose-pale,Felt with faint finger-tips of rose each horn,Crept round the Alpine circuit, o'er each daleDwelt with dumb broodings drearier even than night's.
Thus dawn had come; not yet the day: night's queenAnd morning's star their state in azure kept:Still on the mountain world weird silence slept;Earth, air, and heaven held back their song serene.Then from the zenith, fiery-white betweenMoonshine and dayspring, with swift impulse sweptA splendour of the skies that throbbing leaptDown to the core of passionate flame terrene—A star that ruining from yon throne remote,Quenched her celestial yearnings in the pyreOf mortal pangs and pardons. At that signThe orient sun with day's broad arrow smoteBlack Linard's arrogant brow, while influent fireSlaked the world's thirst for light with joy divine.
AN ALPINE MEADOW IN BLOOM.
THE FLOWERS OF THE ALPS
The Swiss Alps have their chief worshippers in the summer for the climbing, in the winter for the sports. A few insist that the rich colouring of autumn is the best season of all. A larger and a growing number visit the Alps in the spring for the flowers. They are wise, for truly the sight of an Alpine meadow in bloom is the most joyous manifestation of Nature in a sunny mood that man can know. Whether it be that the flowers, fertilised by the detritus which the winter's snow has brought to their roots, are really more luxuriant and brighter in colour than the same flowers in a garden or a woodland dell of the plains; or that the clear air and the contrast with the white snow around make them seem more brilliant—Alpine flowers shine out with an exquisite and star-like grace that canbe noted nowhere else; and the green of Alpine grass seems of a clear brightness that no other herbage can rival.
The nearness to the snow has certainly an effect in enhancing the charm of these Alpine meadows. The flowers, wearing the colours of the sun, rush bravely to the very edge of the snow-fields as though they were jostling the winter aside. The white has barely disappeared before there is green and gold and red to give cheerful greeting to the spring sky, and declare another foot of territory won from the frost. Indeed, if you will look closely at the line of the retreating snow—not a straight line but a billowy one, here receding into a big bay, here stubbornly holding out a promontory of white—you will note that the crevellated edge of the vanishing snow mass is not joined to the earth at all, but forms a little overhanging cliff of ice. The melting warmth is coming up from the ground rather than from the sun in the last stage of the snow-field's flight, and underneath this tiny cliff the vegetation can be seen already pushing up to life.
The lower Alps in April and May flaunt first the gay banners of the crocus, which "breakslike fire" over the ground as soon as the chains of the ice are broken. But other flowers are but little in the rear, and the snow has scarce gone before under the pine woods there is a carpet of the mauve-blue hepatica, in the gorges the yellow and white of the snowflakes and the red of the sticky primrose, over the meadows the white and purple of the soldanella and the celestial blue of the spring gentian, while the marshes flaunt their marigolds and the rose-red bird's-eye primrose. It is a blaze of rich colour, and yet (to quote Mr. G. Flemwell's work on Alpine flowers):
The steel-blue of winter is still in the air—indeed, one feels it in the very flowers. Even though no snowy Alp be in sight, and nothing but floral gaiety around, there is yet a sense of austerity. The vegetation, though colourfull, is neither coarse nor rank, nor even luxurious, as judged by English standard. Nature is crisp and brisk; the air is thin and clear; everywhere is great refinement, quite other than that of spring in England. It were as though the severity of the struggle for existence could be read in the sweet face of things, just as we may often read it in the smiling face of some chastened human being—lines of sweetness running side by side with lines of acute capacity; a strong face beautiful; a face in which optimism reigns sovereign over an active pessimism. Nature in the Alps is instinct with the stern necessity for perpetual endeavour, whereasin England, where conditions are not so harsh, we have a sense of a certain indolence and ease of circumstance of Nature which we call homeliness and repose. Repose, in this sense, there certainly is not in the Alpine spring. Every suspicion of lassitude orlaissez-faireis unknown; all is keen and buoyant, quick with an earnestjoie de vivrewhich is as exquisite in its way as anything more voluptuously sentimental that England can produce.
The steel-blue of winter is still in the air—indeed, one feels it in the very flowers. Even though no snowy Alp be in sight, and nothing but floral gaiety around, there is yet a sense of austerity. The vegetation, though colourfull, is neither coarse nor rank, nor even luxurious, as judged by English standard. Nature is crisp and brisk; the air is thin and clear; everywhere is great refinement, quite other than that of spring in England. It were as though the severity of the struggle for existence could be read in the sweet face of things, just as we may often read it in the smiling face of some chastened human being—lines of sweetness running side by side with lines of acute capacity; a strong face beautiful; a face in which optimism reigns sovereign over an active pessimism. Nature in the Alps is instinct with the stern necessity for perpetual endeavour, whereasin England, where conditions are not so harsh, we have a sense of a certain indolence and ease of circumstance of Nature which we call homeliness and repose. Repose, in this sense, there certainly is not in the Alpine spring. Every suspicion of lassitude orlaissez-faireis unknown; all is keen and buoyant, quick with an earnestjoie de vivrewhich is as exquisite in its way as anything more voluptuously sentimental that England can produce.
Following fast upon the earlier flowers come the anemones, the rhododendrons, the ranunculi, the forget-me-nots, the Alpine roses, the saxifrages, the violets, the pinks, the heaths, the orchids, St. Bruno's lily, the daffodils, and a score of other blossoms. The feast of colour is spread, day after day, in varying shades, but with unvarying richness, until there comes the time when with another riot of colour the herdsmen enter into the field with their cattle, or the scythes lay all prostrate for the winter hay.
Whilst the best of the Alpine spring shows of flowers are in April and May on the lower and richer Alpine meadows, one may follow the banners ofprimaveraup the mountains, almost until August, encountering on the higher levels later seasons. Writing from Zermatt as late as the end of July, a correspondent to theMorning Postchronicled:
HEPATICA IN THE WOODS AT BEX.
The dog roses, the brilliantly pink sweet briar, the willow herb, also of a præternatural brilliance owing to the altitude, still make gay the Zermatt Valley, while the last of the martagon lilies are being mown ruthlessly down by the peasants in their hayfields. Everywhere on the rocks the red house leeks and other plants of the stonecrop, saxifrage, and sedum varieties are appearing; while the mountain pinks, arnica, and Alpine asters grow almost down into the village itself. For some reason the flower-plunderer has either stayed his hand in this valley or has passed it by, for here several of the rarer and choicer sorts of Alpine blossoms, almost extinct, or at least very rare in most parts of Switzerland, are still flourishing. Martagon lilies, for instance, are common, though how long they will remain so I cannot say. The paths are often literally bordered with the true Alpine rose, deepest crimson in hue. Many a meadow is purple and gold with the starry flowers of the Alpine aster, common here as a field daisy; many a rock slope is overgrown with mountain pinks; while as for thearnica montana, the rhododendrons, and the creeping gypsophila, I have never seen anything like them elsewhere. The arnica covers whole slopes and carpets woods until the ground is oranged completely over with its blossoms; the creeping gypsophila clothes the bare rocks and borders the paths with its tufts of white and pale pink flowers; and the rhododendrons make the semi-shaded slopes beneath the larches almost a sheet of rosy-red. Somewhere, too, the true Alpine columbine must be growing plentifully. I have not discovered it, but I have, I am sorry to say, seen great handfuls of this loveliest of Alpine flowers being brought down from the Zermatt slopes.At one altitude or another, indeed, there are few Alpine flowers which are not to be found somewhere in the Zermatt range during this month of July. Certain damp-loving species, such as campanulas and orchis and the whole primula family, are certainly less well represented here than in the rainier Bernese Oberland, yet still there are entire slopes pale blue with the bearded campanula, and more than one kind of primula is to be found still in bloom high up or in the crevices of rocks, while the slopes at the head of the Zermatt valley are even now covered with Alpine and sub-Alpine blossoms of a variety and brilliance which I have never seen excelled and seldom equalled. The short grass above eight thousand feet or thereabouts is blue with Alpine forget-me-nots or mauve with pansies, starred with the small gentian, or patched with the pink of the "marmot's bread" (silene); higher up, to 11,000 feet and more,ranunculus glacialisand the hardiest and lowest-growing flowers are still blooming; while slightly lower down, especially where there is the moisture of streams and the shelter of rocks, grow fields ofarnica montana, pinks, asters, geums, rock roses, sweet alyssum, sedums,semper vivum, arabis, Alpine toadflax, louseworts, wild thyme, edelweiss, rampions, Alpine clovers in great variety, gypsophila, even stray orchis and primulæ, the dominant tones being orange and pale yellow, thrown into relief by the many mauves and the bright pinks and creamy whites.
The dog roses, the brilliantly pink sweet briar, the willow herb, also of a præternatural brilliance owing to the altitude, still make gay the Zermatt Valley, while the last of the martagon lilies are being mown ruthlessly down by the peasants in their hayfields. Everywhere on the rocks the red house leeks and other plants of the stonecrop, saxifrage, and sedum varieties are appearing; while the mountain pinks, arnica, and Alpine asters grow almost down into the village itself. For some reason the flower-plunderer has either stayed his hand in this valley or has passed it by, for here several of the rarer and choicer sorts of Alpine blossoms, almost extinct, or at least very rare in most parts of Switzerland, are still flourishing. Martagon lilies, for instance, are common, though how long they will remain so I cannot say. The paths are often literally bordered with the true Alpine rose, deepest crimson in hue. Many a meadow is purple and gold with the starry flowers of the Alpine aster, common here as a field daisy; many a rock slope is overgrown with mountain pinks; while as for thearnica montana, the rhododendrons, and the creeping gypsophila, I have never seen anything like them elsewhere. The arnica covers whole slopes and carpets woods until the ground is oranged completely over with its blossoms; the creeping gypsophila clothes the bare rocks and borders the paths with its tufts of white and pale pink flowers; and the rhododendrons make the semi-shaded slopes beneath the larches almost a sheet of rosy-red. Somewhere, too, the true Alpine columbine must be growing plentifully. I have not discovered it, but I have, I am sorry to say, seen great handfuls of this loveliest of Alpine flowers being brought down from the Zermatt slopes.
At one altitude or another, indeed, there are few Alpine flowers which are not to be found somewhere in the Zermatt range during this month of July. Certain damp-loving species, such as campanulas and orchis and the whole primula family, are certainly less well represented here than in the rainier Bernese Oberland, yet still there are entire slopes pale blue with the bearded campanula, and more than one kind of primula is to be found still in bloom high up or in the crevices of rocks, while the slopes at the head of the Zermatt valley are even now covered with Alpine and sub-Alpine blossoms of a variety and brilliance which I have never seen excelled and seldom equalled. The short grass above eight thousand feet or thereabouts is blue with Alpine forget-me-nots or mauve with pansies, starred with the small gentian, or patched with the pink of the "marmot's bread" (silene); higher up, to 11,000 feet and more,ranunculus glacialisand the hardiest and lowest-growing flowers are still blooming; while slightly lower down, especially where there is the moisture of streams and the shelter of rocks, grow fields ofarnica montana, pinks, asters, geums, rock roses, sweet alyssum, sedums,semper vivum, arabis, Alpine toadflax, louseworts, wild thyme, edelweiss, rampions, Alpine clovers in great variety, gypsophila, even stray orchis and primulæ, the dominant tones being orange and pale yellow, thrown into relief by the many mauves and the bright pinks and creamy whites.
The Alpine flowers, in addition to their spectacular beauty, have a very definite scientific botanical interest. It has been observed that the magnificence and profusion of flower, incomparison with the size, of the Alpine plants is a trait of beauty with a charming scientific explanation. To the Alpine flowers more urgently than to most races of mortal things, Nature whispers "Carpe Diem." Life for them must be very, very short. Its length is inexorably decreed by the snows of winter. The Alpine plant, feeling the renewing warmth of the spring, must rush at once into flower, as brilliant, as attractive, as irresistible flower as it may, so that fertilising bees and butterflies will come and ensure the next generation.
On the same principle, at the opposite end of the pole, the desert plants store up their seeds in extraordinarily thick and strong capsules, so that they may rest safely through many seasons of fierce drought, awaiting the coming of water to fertilise them. In Australia the desert flowers, such as Sturt's Desert Pea, will come up after good rains in places where to the knowledge of man they have not grown for many years; and of some wild Australian plants the seeds need to be roasted before they will germinate.
Accepting that the remarkable beauty and richness of flowering of Alpine plants is the response to Nature's stern conditions of existence,there seems to lurk in the flowers, as in the people of Switzerland, a moral for those gentle enthusiasts who would do away with the cruelty of the struggles between nations and between classes, and set up conditions of universal peace and of general Communism. Perhaps, alas, it will be found, if ever those ideals are carried far into practice, that without struggle the human race will deteriorate, and with too easy conditions of life will tend to decay. I would not push the case too far, but it is worth recording as a fact, if not an argument, that when the Alpine dweller fertilises artificially a meadow the flowers tend to disappear. Conditions of life have been made too easy, and sterility follows.
Alpine flowers, again conforming themselves skilfully to the conditions of their existence, send roots down to astonishing depths. A little tuft or rosette of leaves, the size round of a five-shilling piece, will often have a system of roots extending a foot or more down into the soil or into the depths of some crevice in the rock. These roots are the plants' larders and storerooms. Buried often for some nine months in the year beneath the snow, the plants need must have well-stocked larders to draw upon. Sometimes,even, it may be years before they see the sun and breathe the mountain air again. It is not every summer that the sun has power to rid the sheltered little Alpine valleys of the winter snow; often must a plant wait in patience for at least two years before it can bring forth flowers, and take a new supply of life from the sun.
ALPINE GARDEN (LA LINNEA) At Bourg St. Pierre, on the road to the Grand St. Bernard, at the beginning of August.
Apart from winning grateful hymns for their beauty, and interesting the botanist by their curiosities of structure, some of the flowers peculiar to the Alps (or to Alpine regions) have, because of their rarity, inspired a sport of flower-hunting, the more keenly appreciated when it is associated with danger. Since this flower-hunting leads to the destruction of rare species and to some loss of human life, it seems to have a strong hostile case to answer, especially as the rare Alpines are now cultivated by the florists, and you may have, for example, edelweiss grown by the gardeners around Paris. Yet deaths ascribable to "gathering edelweiss" continue to be recorded. The edelweiss is accepted as the typical Swiss Alpine flower, but it is not at all peculiar to the Swiss Alps, and is found in Siberia, Japan, the Himalayas, and the NewZealand Alps. It is fond of growing in the crevices of precipitous rock faces, but can be found in safer places, including the commercial florists' rockeries.
The Swiss Alps are very rich in medicinal plants. There is the aconite plant, much favoured in homœopathic doses for the cure of colds and fevers, very efficacious to put an end to "life's fitful fever" if used in a strong dose; the arnica plant, sovereign remedy for bruises, its leaves used by the peasants in place of tobacco for smoking; the gentian, which makes a famous tonic bitter, much employed by doctors for themalade imaginaire, since it has a most convincingly bitter taste, and may be trusted to do no harm if it does no good; the meadow-rue, used as a specific against jaundice and malarial fever; and the Carline thistle, which was said to have been used as a plague specific by Charlemagne.
It is pleasant to note that the practical Swiss recognise the necessity of guarding the flower life as well as the forest life of their land. There is a Swiss "Association for the Protection of Plants," formed in 1883, which sets itself to two tasks, that of discouraging vandals who recklessly destroy plant life, and that of setting upshelter gardens where Alpine flowers may be collected and strictly preserved. Some of the Canton authorities help the work of the Society by enforcing close seasons for certain plants. Thejardins refugesset up by the Society are not the least valuable of the means adopted for preserving one of the great natural beauties of the country; and these gardens, where are collected as in a botanical park as many specimens as possible of Alpineflora, give interesting objectives for special expeditions. The chief of these Alpine botanical gardens are at the Pont de Nant near Bex, at Rochers de Naye above Montreux, and at Bourg St. Pierre on the Grand St. Bernard. These gardens are at widely differing altitudes, and each one is at its best at a different season of the year.
But if one has no fever of botanical curiosity the best way after all to know the Alpine flowers is in the mass, with the crocus and the gentian in their vivid green settings flaunting the spring in the face of the snow-fields.
SWISS SPORTS
There is a great distinction between the national sports of the Swiss and those of Switzerland. The games which attract so many thousands to the Alps in winter are in no cases peculiar to Switzerland, and are rarely indigenous. Tobogganing and ski-ing, like mountain-climbing (as a pleasure), have been introduced to Switzerland by visitors. Even skating does not seem to have been much favoured by the Swiss until there came the great modern incursion of tourists, seeking not an asylum from religious or political persecution, nor the pleasure of seeing Voltaire or Madame de Staël, but ice sports under a bright sun in mid-winter.
The Swiss National Sports make a short and a dull list. They are rifle-shooting, gymnastic games, and rustic dancing to jödelling. Theyreflect the character of a little nation which, almost alone of the peoples of the world, finds it a matter of joy and not of labour to undertake military training, and carries the love of that training so far as to make rifle-shooting the chief national sport. The Swiss become very expert marksmen, and the government wisely encourages this fancy for so patriotic and useful a sport. The citizen is allowed to keep his government rifle at home, and to use it as much as he likes for his private pleasure.
The gymnastic sports are organised on national lines like the old Greek games. They embrace almost every form of manly exercise from wrestling to weight-lifting. Mr. Symonds, whose pictures of Swiss village life are very intimate and revealing, makes frequent references to the Turnfests (sports gatherings) of the Turnvereins (gymnastic clubs) of the Cantons. He recalls once being invited to drink wine at an inn with a band of gymnastic victors:
The gymnasts had thrown off their greatcoats, and stood displayed in a costume not very far removed from nudity. They had gained their crowns, they told me, that evening at an extraordinary meeting of the associatedTurnvereinsof the Canton. It was the oddest thing in the world to sit smoking in a dimly-lighted, panelled tap-room with seven such companions. They were all of them strapping bachelors between twenty and twenty-five years of age; colossally broad in the chest and shoulders, tight in the reins, set massively upon huge thighs and swelling calves; wrestlers, boxers, stone-lifters, and quoit-throwers. Their short bull-throats supported small heads, closely clipped, with bruised ears and great big-featured faces, over which the wreaths of bright green artificial foliage bristled. I seemed to be sitting in a dream among vitalised statues of the later emperors, executed in the decadence of art, with no grasp on individual character, but with a certain reminiscence of the grand style of portraiture. Commodus, Caracalla, Alexander Severus, the three Gordians, and Pertinax might have been drinking there beside me in the pothouse. The attitudes assumed by these big fellows, stripped to their sleeveless jerseys and tight-fitting flannel breeches, strengthened the illusion. I felt as though we were waiting there for slaves, who should anoint their hair with unguents, gild their wreaths, enwrap them in the paludament, and attend them to receive the shouts of "Ave Imperator" from a band of gladiators or the legionaries of the Gallic army.
The gymnasts had thrown off their greatcoats, and stood displayed in a costume not very far removed from nudity. They had gained their crowns, they told me, that evening at an extraordinary meeting of the associatedTurnvereinsof the Canton. It was the oddest thing in the world to sit smoking in a dimly-lighted, panelled tap-room with seven such companions. They were all of them strapping bachelors between twenty and twenty-five years of age; colossally broad in the chest and shoulders, tight in the reins, set massively upon huge thighs and swelling calves; wrestlers, boxers, stone-lifters, and quoit-throwers. Their short bull-throats supported small heads, closely clipped, with bruised ears and great big-featured faces, over which the wreaths of bright green artificial foliage bristled. I seemed to be sitting in a dream among vitalised statues of the later emperors, executed in the decadence of art, with no grasp on individual character, but with a certain reminiscence of the grand style of portraiture. Commodus, Caracalla, Alexander Severus, the three Gordians, and Pertinax might have been drinking there beside me in the pothouse. The attitudes assumed by these big fellows, stripped to their sleeveless jerseys and tight-fitting flannel breeches, strengthened the illusion. I felt as though we were waiting there for slaves, who should anoint their hair with unguents, gild their wreaths, enwrap them in the paludament, and attend them to receive the shouts of "Ave Imperator" from a band of gladiators or the legionaries of the Gallic army.
Apart from the rifle-shooting (which is commonly practised on Sundays), the frequent gymnastic meetings (which mark every feast-day), and the dancing festivals of the various harvest celebrations, the Swiss have no strictly national sport, unless it be chamois hunting. That last has been almost wholly given up to the visitors,who are willing to pay large prices for guides and shooting rights. The chamois is rare in Switzerland now; though there are rumours that enterprising hotel-keepers are beginning to "stock up" the heights near their places with bred specimens.
A wild chamois hunt offers the perfection of excitement and hunting risk. The animals are very nimble and very wary. As they browse they set an old doe as sentinel—a concession to femininity which seems to be dictated by wisdom—and it needs the greatest skill and daring to get past her watch and approach near enough for a shot. Lest there may be a doubt as to the scarcity of the true chamois in the mind of the reader, let me explain that the "chamois skin" of commerce, so plentifully used for gloves and for polishing cloths, is not, as a rule, chamois skin at all, but the dressed hide of rough-woolled sheep—the same hide which, after different methods of dressing, serves for all kinds of gloves—chamois, kid, "reindeer skin," dog-skin, doe-skin. All may come from the sheep.
Mr. John Finnemore gives a picturesque description of a herd of chamois in flight alarmed by the hunter:
The merry little kids forsake their gambols, and each runs to its mother and presses closely against her flank. The older ones leap upon boulders and rocks, and gaze eagerly on every hand to discover the whereabouts of the intruder. A few moments of watchful hesitation pass, and then, perhaps, a wandering breeze gives them a sniff of tainted air, and they fix upon the direction from which the foe is advancing.Now follows a marvellous scene—that of a band of chamois in full retreat. The speed and agility of their flight is wonderful. They are faced by a precipice. They skim up it one after the other like swallows. There is no path, no ridge, no ledge: but here and there little knobs of rock jut out from the face of the cliff, and they spring from projection to projection with incredible sureness and skill, their four feet sometimes bunched together on a patch of rock not much larger than a man's fist. They vanish with lightning rapidity, and the hunter must turn away in search of another band, for these will not halt till they are far beyond his reach in some sanctuary of the hills quite inaccessible to him.Very often a number of hunters go together, and close upon the chamois from every side. Then the swift creatures are in a ring, and, as they rush away down-wind, they are bound to come within shot of those posted on the side towards which they flee. Sometimes the chamois are turned back by long stretches of cord set upon sticks, and drawn across places where they could escape from the ring of hunters and drivers. From the cord flutter bright pieces of cotton cloth—red, blue, or yellow—and at sight of these the chamois face about and try another path. But when drivento the extremity of terror, chamois have been known to dash upon the line of flags, some clearing the obstacle with a flying leap, others bodily charging the rope, and bursting a way through. Very often the latter entangle their horns in the rope, and go whirling through the air in a double somersault. But they are on their legs again in a moment, and off at tremendous speed.
The merry little kids forsake their gambols, and each runs to its mother and presses closely against her flank. The older ones leap upon boulders and rocks, and gaze eagerly on every hand to discover the whereabouts of the intruder. A few moments of watchful hesitation pass, and then, perhaps, a wandering breeze gives them a sniff of tainted air, and they fix upon the direction from which the foe is advancing.
Now follows a marvellous scene—that of a band of chamois in full retreat. The speed and agility of their flight is wonderful. They are faced by a precipice. They skim up it one after the other like swallows. There is no path, no ridge, no ledge: but here and there little knobs of rock jut out from the face of the cliff, and they spring from projection to projection with incredible sureness and skill, their four feet sometimes bunched together on a patch of rock not much larger than a man's fist. They vanish with lightning rapidity, and the hunter must turn away in search of another band, for these will not halt till they are far beyond his reach in some sanctuary of the hills quite inaccessible to him.
Very often a number of hunters go together, and close upon the chamois from every side. Then the swift creatures are in a ring, and, as they rush away down-wind, they are bound to come within shot of those posted on the side towards which they flee. Sometimes the chamois are turned back by long stretches of cord set upon sticks, and drawn across places where they could escape from the ring of hunters and drivers. From the cord flutter bright pieces of cotton cloth—red, blue, or yellow—and at sight of these the chamois face about and try another path. But when drivento the extremity of terror, chamois have been known to dash upon the line of flags, some clearing the obstacle with a flying leap, others bodily charging the rope, and bursting a way through. Very often the latter entangle their horns in the rope, and go whirling through the air in a double somersault. But they are on their legs again in a moment, and off at tremendous speed.
HUNTING THE CHAMOIS.
Apart from the national sports of the Swiss, the national sports of Switzerland—in which, since they were acclimatised, the Swiss take part and frequently excel—are skating, hockey, tobogganing, bob-sleighing, curling, and ski-ing. Skating is, I suppose, common to all lands where there is much ice. Tobogganing was introduced to Switzerland from America, and ski-ing from Norway. Another interesting recent sport is a modification of skating, and is known as ice-sailing. The skater rigs up a sail which he holds with his arms stretched out as yards—himself the ship. Skimming the ice one can keep thus up only till the arms are tired, but a most exhilarating speed is possible. Ice-sailing with yachts has been recently imported to the Swiss lakes from America. For ice-yachting, an expert says, "Dress as if you were going through the Arctic Circle on a fast motor-car in the worst of snow-storms. Goggles, leathers,and furs are indispensable. Use your eyes like a lynx, your rudder like a silk rein on a blood-mare—and you will quite enjoy it." It has enough of the element of danger as well as of speed to be attractive to the adventurous.
Tobogganing strictly is a Red Indian sport, and the name is Red Indian. But it is so closely related to sleighing that the germ of the sport can be discovered in almost all ice-covered countries. It was natural that in cold climates the wheels of waggons should be replaced, when the earth was frozen, with runners, and thus the sleigh came. The toboggan is a sporting variety of sleigh. Early traces of it can be found in Switzerland. An English visitor to the Alps noticed that the local postman used a rough sleigh to slide down the hills which he had to descend; was intrigued by the idea of the swift gliding; and there thus began to be cultivated the sport which has its culminating glory in the Cresta Run at St. Moritz—said, by the way, to have been planned by an Australian. Tobogganing has the charm of a great bicycle "coast" many times multiplied. Artificial difficulties have been developed to add to its risks and its excitement. The simpletoboggan slide, the dragging of a toboggan up a smooth snow slope, and then sliding down at a pace reaching to thirty miles an hour, is old-fashioned and tame. Nowadays, the slide must be so arranged as to secure a much higher speed, and to give awkward turnings which need cool courage to negotiate. A speed of sixty miles an hour has been reached tobogganing.
Perhaps a charm of the toboggan is that it is not very useful. The flat board, set on runners, can only slide down hill, and you must draw it up first. The ski, on the other hand, has a very definite use. It enables snow-covered country to be traversed with safety at great speed, and a proof of its practical value is that the Swiss army is trained to march on ski. Down a steep slope a pace of forty miles an hour can be reached by the expert ski-runner, and he can leap great heights and great distances with the aid of the momentum of that speed. But to become an expert ski-runner calls for some trouble and pain.
With ski the exploration of the Alps in all kinds of weather has become possible. A recentJournal de Genèvegave the account of an extraordinary adventure of two Swiss ski-runners.On Easter Sunday, 1913, these two set out with a companion from Saas Fee for the Britannia Hut. This hut was reached at 8a.m., and the three ski-runners went on to the Allalin Pass, but were compelled by mist to return to the hut, which they reached about 5p.m.On the Sunday evening three Genevese climbers came to the hut, and one of the party of three ski-runners went home, leaving two. These two intended to go to Zermatt over the Adler Pass, but the weather was so bad that it was Saturday before they could start. They were seen to reach the Allalin Pass, and no more was seen or heard of them for a very long time. But it seems that the ski-ers went down to the Findelen Glacier, up to the Stockjoch, and downviathe Monte Rosa Glacier to the Gorner Glacier; thence up again to the Bétemps Hut, where they spent the night. The following day, Sunday, in uncertain weather, they went down on to the glacier again, meaning to go to Zermatt. One of the two, named Dehns, was going on ahead. The wind had blown away all trace of the track made by them the previous day, and the man who had remained behind noticed that Dehns was going too much to the left, and called outto him that he was not taking the right way, but too late. He had not gone more than about sixty yards on to the glacier before he disappeared into a crevasse, hidden beneath a quantity of fresh snow.
"I advanced," says the narrator, "cautiously to the brink of the crevasse, and called to Dehns, who replied that he was all right, only he had torn one ear and broken the point off one of his ski. I must use his rope to help him out, he said. I tied the ends of my puttees to my ski-sticks, my bootlaces, and anything else which could possibly serve the purpose of string, and I let everything down to him so that he could tie the rope to it. Dehns could understand what I said, but I could hear nothing that he said owing to the wind and the snowstorm which had begun."
Finally Dehns cut his way out of the crevasse in which he had been for four hours. He was a little frost-bitten and much bruised; and his ski were lost. They made their way to the Bétemps Hut, and there they remained for twelve days. They had very little in the way of provisions, half of what they had had with them being down the crevasse. Eventually the uninjuredman contrived to burst open the door of the hut cellar, where he found food and wine.
Without ski it was impossible for the prisoners to leave, for eight or ten feet of fresh snow had fallen. Moreover, the condition of Dehns, who was badly bruised and in much pain, was sufficient to prevent him reaching Zermatt even with ski. On the twelfth day Dehns was better, and they made an expedition to attempt to recover the lost ski, but in vain. Next they attempted to make a pair of ski out of planks. But that was not successful. The next day they were rescued by a search party. The facts illustrate the value of ski for travelling in the snow and the helplessness of the voyager without them.
Skating, of course, is excellent in Switzerland in the winter. Most of the hotels catering for the tourist have set up rinks which are "artificial" to the extent that Nature is assisted a little to produce a clear smooth surface of ice. But the skating, like the tobogganing, is limited in its area. The visitor who would have the keys of the Alpine snows must learn the use of the ski.
It will be of interest to chronicle the chief winter sports centres. Good tobogganing, bob-sleighing,skating, ski-ing, ice-hockey, and curling are to be enjoyed at Arosa, Celerina, Davos, Klosters, Lenzerheide, Maloja, Pontresina, and at St. Moritz in the Canton Grisons; at Andermatt, at Engelberg, at Adelboden, Beatenberg, Grindwald, Gstaad and Wengen in the Bernese Oberland; at Les Brenets, at Caux, Château-d'-Oex, Chesieres, Diablerets, Les Avants, St. Cergue, Villars-Ollon in the Canton de Vaud; at Champery and Loèche-les-Bains in the Canton de Valais; and at Chamonix and le Planet in the Chamonix Valley.
As for summer sports, there are golf links at Aigle, Axen-Fels, Campfér, Celerina, Geneva, Gottschalkenberg, Interlaken, Les Rasses (near St. Croix), Lucerne, Lugano, Lugano-Paradiso, Maloja, Menaggio, Montana, Mont-Pélerin, Montreux, Pontresina, Ragaz, Samaden, St. Moritz-Dorf, Territet, Villeneuve, and Zurich-Dolder.
Tennis courts are almost everywhere attached to the hotels. Certainly no large village is without them, and they exist in plenty at Adelboden, Chamonix, Engelberg, Grindwald, Interlaken, Lucerne, Berne, St. Moritz, Wengen, and other cities.
The spring season in the Alps begins as earlyas March in some places, but more generally in April. It is the chief season around Lake Leman. The summer season begins with June, and is the chief season in eastern Switzerland, the Bernese Oberland, Lake Neuchâtel, Zurich, St. Gothard, and many other parts. Indeed, there is a summer season in all Switzerland. For the autumn, many favour the Lake of Lucerne and the Lake of Leman. The winter season begins usually with December, and again embraces almost all of Switzerland, but the chief centres for this season correspond with the list of the towns (already given) which make special provision for winter sports.
I do not know whether bath-resorts can be described fittingly as sport centres; but it is well to chronicle somewhere the fact that Switzerland is well off for thermal and medicinal baths. Baden is the chief of the bath centres. Owing to its excellent climate and to its hot springs Baden was, in Roman times, the most important watering-place and health-resort to the north of the Alps. Numerous excavations, inscriptions, remains of temples, statues, coins and surgical instruments confirm this fact. In Roman times the principal military road of Helvetialed through Baden, connecting the watering-place with Vindonissa, the great Helvetian fortress, six miles away. In the year 1892, beyond the Roman road in Baden, in the direction of Vindonissa, there were discovered the foundations of a large connected block of buildings, which, when fully excavated, revealed fourteen apartments of various sizes, from 10 to 88 feet in length. The architecture of this building, the medical and surgical instruments and utensils found there, and the proximity of the Helvetian fortress of Vindonissa, where Roman legions were stationed, and the thermal springs show without much doubt that this was the site of a Roman military hospital. Besides those at Baden there are medicinal springs at Ragaz, Champery, Lavey-les-Bains, Passagg, Aigle, St. Moritz-Bad, Grinel-les-Bains, and many other centres. They will provide entertainment for those whose life is not happy without some devotion to a more or less real ailment.
A CORNER OF AIGLE SKATING RINK.
SWISS SCHOOLS
Coming to the end of the limits set for this volume, the writer finds that many aspects of Swiss life have been perforce neglected. No space could be found, for example, to deal with the educational system, which both in its primary and secondary forms and in its devotion to technical instruction has aroused the admiration of experts in many countries. This Swiss educational system is at once generous and practical, with compulsory attendance enforced and gratuitous instruction, books, and materials provided. Teaching begins in the national schools, called the Primarschule, which are attended by children of all ranks and at which attendance is compulsory from the age of nine until the completion of the fifteenth year, unless children pass from these to higher schools. The classesare mixed and contain from 40 to 44 children, who are taught by both men and women teachers. The school course ensures the boys and girls a general elementary education, including a knowledge of French—so essential in a country with three national languages—which is taken during the last two years at school. Considerable time is also devoted to physical exercise, carpentry, needlework, and cookery. The plan of studies in the secondary schools, which scholars may enter after four years in the primary schools, and where they remain until the age of fifteen, is much more extensive, and includes a more profound study of French (five years' course) and an advanced course of the sciences, geometry, and drawing. The instruction is gratuitous, and the passing of a preliminary examination the only condition of entry. From the secondary schools scholars have the option of ultimately entering the Gymnasium or the industrial and commercial schools.
The secondary school is succeeded by the higher schools. TheMunicipal Gymnasium(grammar school) accepts all boys and girls above the age of ten who pass the entrance examination. In theProgymnasium, which correspondsto the secondary school in its course of studies, instruction is gratuitous up to the age of fifteen; after that the annual fees amount to sixty francs. There are great Universities in the chief cities, which are much favoured by foreign pupils.
It is a sign of the practical side of the Swiss character that very special attention should be given to technical schools: the Swiss technical schools are said to be the most thorough in the world, and they will teach anything, from waiting to watch-making. Another sign of the practical is the Swiss custom to keep the schools in mountain villages open only during the long Alpine winter—from the beginning of October till the following Easter. All through the summer, lads and boys tend sheep or cows in the fields, help their fathers to make hay, roam in the woods, and get their fill of air and sunshine. The schoolmasters have gone to their own villages, where they mow and gather in the crops like the other peasants to whose households they belong. This is good from the point of view of health, and also from that of domestic economy.
Leaving their schools strong in body because of the organised system of gymnastic training;strong in national pride because of the attention which has been paid by their teachers in impressing the glorious story of the past; with well-balanced, sane, practical minds the Swiss are ready to face the tasks of life with a fearless confidence. Their pride does not teach them to despise labour, even in forms which may appear contemptible. Their sense of thrift, which almost verges on a sense of greed, does not make them inhospitable. They show their virtues in the sphere of the commonplace, as servants, traders, petty masters. But they are heroic in the sphere of commonplace; and no one, looking back on their history, can dare to doubt that if great occasion arose in the future they would respond to it as courageously as in the past, and hold their hills against any attempt at conquest.
In every respect they seem to preserve their historic national character. Since the earliest of the Middle Ages, Switzerland was accustomed to find asylum for the saint fleeing from a monarch's anger, the reformer dreading the persecution of a church, the thinker seeking a safe corner from which he could invite mankind to consider some daring hypothesis. There wasa complaint in the European newspapers only this year (1913) that:
Geneva has for a long time past been a centre for eccentric and ill-regulated individuals of every description, a certain proportion being in addition idle and generally undesirable characters. Her University is, of course, the main cause of a condition of things far from pleasing to the responsible authorities. It has long attracted, and still continues to attract, students from all parts of the world—crop-haired Russians, wild-looking Bulgarians, Greeks, Levantines, and Egyptians.
Geneva has for a long time past been a centre for eccentric and ill-regulated individuals of every description, a certain proportion being in addition idle and generally undesirable characters. Her University is, of course, the main cause of a condition of things far from pleasing to the responsible authorities. It has long attracted, and still continues to attract, students from all parts of the world—crop-haired Russians, wild-looking Bulgarians, Greeks, Levantines, and Egyptians.
The chief cause of dissatisfaction at the moment, it seems, was that Geneva University had become the headquarters of the so-called Permanent Committee of the Young Egyptian Party:
These young Egyptians (often not really Egyptians at all, but Levantines) loom largely in the public eye. Throughout the present summer, for instance, more than a fortnight or three weeks have never elapsed without their meeting in Geneva, ostensibly to pass some resolution or to appeal to England to keep her engagements regarding the eventual evacuation of Egypt, or, it might be, to draft some letter of protest to be sent to Sir Edward Grey. These resolutions are invariably transmitted without delay to the foreign Press agencies established in Geneva, and by them telegraphed right and left throughout Europe. It frequently happens, of course, that the more serious and better-informed newspapers treat these resolutionsfor what they are worth, but far more frequently, especially by German newspapers or journals, which for some reason or other are not friendly disposed to Great Britain, or are wholly ignorant of British administration in Egypt, they are publishedin extenso, as if they were the decisions arrived at by the British Association, the French Academy, or some other society of long-established reputation and recognised standing. It must be admitted that the "Young Egyptians" in Geneva are very clever in hoodwinking a large number of foreign editors, and in causing themselves to be taken far more seriously than they deserve.
These young Egyptians (often not really Egyptians at all, but Levantines) loom largely in the public eye. Throughout the present summer, for instance, more than a fortnight or three weeks have never elapsed without their meeting in Geneva, ostensibly to pass some resolution or to appeal to England to keep her engagements regarding the eventual evacuation of Egypt, or, it might be, to draft some letter of protest to be sent to Sir Edward Grey. These resolutions are invariably transmitted without delay to the foreign Press agencies established in Geneva, and by them telegraphed right and left throughout Europe. It frequently happens, of course, that the more serious and better-informed newspapers treat these resolutionsfor what they are worth, but far more frequently, especially by German newspapers or journals, which for some reason or other are not friendly disposed to Great Britain, or are wholly ignorant of British administration in Egypt, they are publishedin extenso, as if they were the decisions arrived at by the British Association, the French Academy, or some other society of long-established reputation and recognised standing. It must be admitted that the "Young Egyptians" in Geneva are very clever in hoodwinking a large number of foreign editors, and in causing themselves to be taken far more seriously than they deserve.
But it is not likely that the "Young Egyptians" will find their stay in Geneva interfered with by the Swiss authorities. The tradition of the "right of asylum" is too strong; and provided that the line is drawn at actual criminality, no Power will successfully ask for their expulsion from Switzerland. Yet the presence of these futile conspirators must be of annoyance to the Swiss Government, which wishes to live at peace with all the world, and finds sometimes a threat of interference with its tourist traffic in foreign resentment at Swiss-sheltered disloyalists. But in this matter historic sentiment defeats the practical. The Swiss are determined to be hospitable, even to their own loss. And Europe generally is inclined to sympathise with,and respect, this little mountain people set in the midst of great Powers, from whose disputes they rigorously hold aloof, seeking to maintain their liberty by a sturdily pacific policy, but keeping in reserve for national defence a great military organisation.