CHAPTER XXTHE VALE OF CHAMONIX

MONTE ROSA.

“From the hut on Le Cervin no disrespect to Monte Rosa is possible. The true sovereign is restored to rank and position. The mountain is seen to be vast, mighty, magnificent as it is not from any other point of view; its rivals are humbled, and its summit, gracious and noble rather than haughty, shines unquestionably the highest of all in the sky.”

Then came the sunset:—

“The vast triangular shadow of Le Cervin stretched before us across the Furgg and the Théodule glaciers as far as the Gorner glacier. At our left the Zermatt valley already lay in a bluish darkness; it seemed as if the night were emerging from those depths. A moment later and the whole amphitheater of snow-covered cliffs shone with a divine glory. Only two tints, but those graduated in a thousand delicate shades, were used in this mighty painting. One was a soft deep azure, the azure of the invading shadows; the other a pure ethereal gold flung forth by the last rays of the sun. In the sky the two tints intermingling, shed a splendid violet reflection on the zenith.”

A slight hint at the dangers to which theclimber is exposed was afforded just before they had left the couloir for the shoulder. A projecting knob on which they had set foot slipped away and went bounding down the side a thousand meters: “The Cervin counted one more wrinkle!”

When they reached the arête they had their last chance for resting:—“Before us towered the escarpment of rugged red rocks and above them the last heights of Le Cervin, the crest of which was invisible. On both sides of the arête were blood-curdling abysses. Seated on a narrow ridge, surrounded by precipices and near the scene of one of the most tragic of Alpine accidents, we passed in silence one of those moments that refuse to be forgotten. About a hundred meters higher, on the steep slope, must have occurred the fall of the four unfortunates who were dashed to pieces during the first ascent. I tried to revisualize that dreadful drama. I failed; the abyss had resumed its eternal silence. What meant to it the fall of those four men, full of life, youth and intelligence? Only the least of the avalanches that furrow it in a season.”

The two men roped themselves together, and using the extremest care to get a foothold either in the ice or on bosses of the rock, theymounted to the very edge of the vertical wall which measured the whole height of the Cervin. The summit, says Javelle, is only the culminating point of a sharp, notched arête about a hundred meters long. On the south side is a frightful precipice out of sight. “It is impossible to stand on the slender summit; its crest is too sharp and the wind playing over it usually crowns it with needles of ice. With his ax Knubel made a hole in the ice a little lower down. This was our seat, and what monarch ever had such a throne?

“All around the summit lay an immense bottomless void, above which stood the circle of the giants of the Valais—Monte Rosa and her proud rivals, the Mischabel, the Weisshorn, the Rothorn, La Dent Blanche; then all the Alps with their maze of gigantic ramifications from the Viso group to considerably beyond the Ortler, an innumerable army of glittering or somber peaks, the immense undulating line of which was lost in the blue at the two ends of the horizon. To the north extended the unbroken profile of the Jura; then beyond, merging into the sky, the hills of France toward the Haute-Champagne or the Franche-Comté.”

After half an hour on the peak, Javelle andhis guide started back and in safety reached the valley of Zermatt. Since then one might almost say familiarity with that wonderful peak has bred contempt. Javelle, himself, in a later article describing another ascent, complains:—“To-day alas! for the true lovers of the Cervin, the whole of this side of the noble mountain seems to be profaned.”

Already it has been planned to build a railway up Le Cervin. The day of conquering mighty peaks in the Alps is past. Scarcely one is now left for the adventurer to grapple with and the Alpine guides are finding profitable fields in the vastly mightier mountains of the Himalaya or the Canadian Rockies.

For the old and the lazy, for delicate women, the electric cars that climb Mont Blanc, and so many others of the Alpine mountains, give the effect of the height and the enormous stretch of horizon; but still, even though the Alpine Club builds shelters and attaches aerial ladders and climbing chains, there is something exhilarating in the actual climbing of lofty mountains, and that the danger is not wholly eliminated is shown by the reports that come every summer of some unfortunate parties who try to “negotiate” those jealous giants of the skies. And when one is standing or sitting on one of their peaks one can say with John Stuart Blackie:—

“I love the eye’s free sweep from craggy rim;I love the free bird poised at lofty easeAnd the free torrent’s far up-sounding hymn;I love to leave my littleness behindIn the low vale where little cares are great.”

“I love the eye’s free sweep from craggy rim;

I love the free bird poised at lofty ease

And the free torrent’s far up-sounding hymn;

I love to leave my littleness behind

In the low vale where little cares are great.”

THE NEEDLE OF THE MATTERHORN.

WEsaw everything that there was to see at Zermatt—the relics of the early climbers in the little museum; the pathetic graveyard where the victims of their mad ambition are commemorated, and the Imfeld relief-maps of the surrounding region. Here I had my first experience in what one might call mountain-climbing by proxy; we took the electric train up to the Gornergrat. Sir John Lubbock says:—

“It is impossible to give any idea in words of the beauty of these high snow-fields. The gently curving surfaces, which break with abrupt edges into dark abysses or sink gently to soft depressions or meet one another in ridges, the delicate shadows in the curved hollows, the lines of light on the crests, the suggestion of easy movement in the forms, with the sensation of complete repose to the eye, the snowy white with an occasional tinge of the most delicatepink, make up a scene of which no picture or photograph can give more than a very inadequate impression, and form an almost irresistible attraction to all true lovers of nature.”

It is perfectly true: words fail to express one’s feelings.

Just earth and rocks and snow and ice and light and shade. What power must have been exerted to squeeze those mighty strata and tip them up and bend them over and hurl them against one another. Everything is relative, and I find I can imagine what an ant might feel when climbing over the furrows of a plowed field. The earth itself seems so small when poised in the universe—just a microscopic atom, and the mightiest mountains are only the wrinkles of an apple. Yet here we were ten thousand feet above the sea with a vast panorama of mountains on every side. More than a score of Horns, besides Jochs and Cime and Grats and Gabeln; twenty of them are more than four thousand meters high; Monte Rosa topping them all with her four thousand six hundred and thirty-eight meters. Somehow mountains do not sound so high when expressed in meters, but one does not belong to Metrical Societies without being consistent! A dozen immense glaciers pour their cracking, dazzling,monstrous streams of liquid solidity down, for ever changing yet, like rivers of waters, for ever the same. Year after year appear the great crevasses where the glacier tumbles over a precipice and becomes a cataract of ice, yet remains the same. Verily the mountains themselves, seen by the great eye of the Father of Time are moving; he sees that the whole crest of the Alps is slowly moving northward: this is proved by the fact that one side is steeper than the other.

It is rather amusing to see how many persons have been disgusted with their first view of a glacier. They are covered, in many cases, with mud, and look dirty and unkempt. They plow out the rocks; great showers of boulders fall down on them, and especially where they have flowed down to the melting level and begun to deposit their freight, making what are called terminal moraines, they are not white and glittering. But, seen from a distance, the glaciers of the high Alps are most impressive. And to think that a very slight lowering of the average temperature of the year would bring these great cold snaky monsters over the habitations of men again. The ice-age might once more be renewed and wipe out our civilization.

While we were on the Gornergrat I saw and heard an avalanche. A small snow-ball may start one. Roaring louder and louder with thunderous echoes it hurls itself down the steep incline, and, like a colossal, titanic bomb-shell, it bursts into the valley. The noise made by a snow-slide from a steep roof is startling enough, but imagine it multiplied a thousand times,—as if the top of the world were tumbling. It is impossible to estimate the thousands of tons of ice and snow that go dashing and crashing and smashing into the valleys. It is Nature engaged in her slow but certain work of destruction. The bombardment of the avalanches is one of the most impressive phenomena in the mountains.

ON THE GLACIER.

I do not know whether Tennyson ever climbed to the Gornergrat, but he gives a picture of Monte Rosa which is well worth remembering:—

“I climbed the roofs at break of day;Sun-smitten Alps before me lay,I stood among the silent statuesAnd statued pinnacles, as mute as they.“How faintly flushed, how phantom fairWas Monte Rosa hanging thereA thousand shadowy-penciled valleysAnd snowy dells in the golden air.”

“I climbed the roofs at break of day;Sun-smitten Alps before me lay,I stood among the silent statuesAnd statued pinnacles, as mute as they.

“I climbed the roofs at break of day;

Sun-smitten Alps before me lay,

I stood among the silent statues

And statued pinnacles, as mute as they.

“How faintly flushed, how phantom fairWas Monte Rosa hanging thereA thousand shadowy-penciled valleysAnd snowy dells in the golden air.”

“How faintly flushed, how phantom fair

Was Monte Rosa hanging there

A thousand shadowy-penciled valleys

And snowy dells in the golden air.”

I had a pensive longing to spend the whole summer among this giant Brotherhood of peaks, making excursions to one after another—provided the weather allowed. From each summit, from each col and shoulder, there would be a different aspect of mountain scenery; different cloud-effects; different sunsets; different risks and different escapes. I do not know how many chances there are of putting hundred franc notes into the pockets of guides. But the zest of discovery is gone; all climbing now is only imitation and repetition, and it is of no use to regret the old days or to repine because one must turn one’s back on the possibilities of adventure.

We returned as we came. As the train stopped at Stalden Will told me of a wonderful excursion he had enjoyed the preceding year. He and two German friends of his, one a professor, the other a doctor, had walked up to Saas-Fee and ascended the Allalinhorn.

“We had to go down, before we went up,” said Will. “There is a bridge which crosses the Matter-Visp, and after getting to the other side we followed up through the Saastal by a path which gives you the most enchanting pictures of tumbling water-falls. We spent the night at Saas-Grund and the next morningearly reached Saas-Fee, which, I think, affords one of the finest views in Switzerland. The glacier called the Fee is perfectly surrounded with magnificent peaks—I can’t remember half of them; but they are all from ten to thirteen thousand feet high. The Alphubel is over fourteen thousand. We took guides and went up the Allalinhorn. There were six of us roped together and it was over snow all the way. The pass is nearly twelve thousand feet up, and cold. But the view from the rounded summit well repaid us for our pains. Directly across, so that one could almost leap it, is the jagged peak of the Rimpfischhorn, its black dorsal fin sticking out of the dazzling snow as ugly, though not so prominently uprising, as the Matterhorn. Switzerland,” he added, “for a little country has more ups and downs in it than any other in the world.”

At Visp our Moto was waiting for us. Some of the people whom we met did not believe that we had been permitted to ascend the Rhône valley, as it had been at one time closed to motor-cars. But either the report of what the French are doing to attract wealthy travellers by buildingLa route des Alpeswholly in French territory from Paris to Nice or a realizationof the direct loss of patronage caused by illiberal motor-laws has changed some of the interpretations of them. In parts of Switzerland it is perfectly justifiable to shut automobiles out. Where the roads are narrow and are used largely by pedestrians or for driving cattle and there is real danger it is probably for the interest of the many for the few to be subjected to restraint. Even the hotel-keepers of the Grisons and of the Bernese Oberland agree that more are benefited by excluding motor-cars than by admitting them, for there are a thousand that go by horses or on foot to every hundred that come in automobiles.

We had to go back to Martigny, and as we were so near we went to see the Gorges du Trient. This is a colossal fissure from one hundred and eighty to three hundred meters deep, and frequently not more than a couple of meters across. The only access is by a wooden gallery nearly half a mile long hung on iron cramps and supports, while far below rushes the torrent with a deafening roar.

From Martigny one follows a zigzagging road over the Col de la Forclaz and then passes Argentière over the Col des Montets to Chamonix. The chief feature is the Tête Noire which Miss Havergal, who climbed it, declares“is a magnificent high level valley or gorge, winding for four or five hours at a good height along mountains with as picturesque a combination of heights and depths, rocks, torrents, cascades, pine trees, ferns, flowers and precipices as exists anywhere.”

For the first time on our trip we had trouble with the Moto. First one of the front tires burst with a report that woke the echoes like a gun. Then, when going down a long incline, the brakes caused so much friction that we nearly got on fire; but by waiting for a while the danger was passed and we reached Chamonix safely.

The name of Chamonix, or, as the French spell it, Chamouni, is derived from the Latincampus munitus,champs muni, the fortified field. The earliest mention of the name in the modern form is found in an atlas of 1595; but in 1091, Aymon, Count of Geneva, bestowed the valley on the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Michel de la Cluse; it was then called by its Latin name. Three hundred years later a priory was founded there, which, in the early part of the Sixteenth Century, came into the jurisdiction of the Canons of Sallanches, who so maltreated the peasantry that at last they rose in revolt, destroyed the monastery and wroughttheir freedom. It was occasionally visited in the Seventeenth Century, but in 1741 two Englishmen, Pococke and Windham, with six others and five servants, went there from Geneva. The feud between the Chamoniards and the monks of Sallanches had, in some way, made people believe that the valley was inhabited by brigands, and the Pococke-Windham party went armed and camped out in the open air with sentinels posted. Their bravery is commemorated in the “Englishmen’s Stone,” bearing their names and the date. The following year Pierre Martel, the son of a Geneva shoemaker, hearing about their wonderful adventures among the glaciers, was moved to see them for himself. He wrote an account of his journey and for the first time gave a name to Mont Blanc. What a pity he did not give a better one! He set the fashion of visiting “the glaciers” and people began to come more and more, to see them and to study them.

The young scientist De Saussure was one of the first to make a study of glacial action. Then, in 1762, the young Duc d’Enville made a study of the glaciers of Savoy, and wrote an interesting account of them, which may be found in the Annuaire du Club Alpin for 1893.Seventy years later Professor Forbes began to make scientific studies of the motion of the glaciers and was the first to discover that they were really rivers of ice moving like other rivers, faster in the centre than at the sides. He calculated that their daily progress was ten inches near the top, twenty-five inches near the bottom, at the centre, and sixteen inches at the sides. He discovered in the ice, fragments of wood which were recognized as belonging to a ladder which De Saussure had left at the upper end of the Mer de Glace in 1788. They had been brought down five thousand meters in forty-five years. In 1837 Louis Jean Rodolphe Agassiz, whom America claims as one of her glories, though he was born on Lake Morat “In the pleasant Pays de Vaud,” read a paper before the Helvetic Society of Natural Sciences meeting at Neuchâtel, in which he propounded the now-accepted theory. As it was opposed he made tests of the motion of the glaciers at Chamonix, at Zermatt and near the Grimsel-Pass. He spent a number of years in this work, assisted by Count de Pourtalès and others. All sorts of tests were made but the proof of time is absolutely convincing.

Thus in 1820 a party had reached the upperend of the Grand Plateau and were just starting up the “ancien passage” when the snow on which they were climbing began to slide. All of them were swept down to the edge of the great crevasse which they had safely crossed a short time before. Three of the guides were swallowed up in it. In 1861 the remains of their bodies began to appear at the lower end of the Glacier des Bossons, more than a kilometer from the place. Bits of clothing, a cooked leg of mutton, a forearm with its hand came into sight. One of the surviving guides was present when they were discovered and exclaimed:—“Who would have thought I should once more shake hands with my good comrade again!” These remains had travelled more than one hundred and fifty meters a year for forty-one years.

De Saussure’s monument stands on the east bank of the Arve; Balmat’s on the other side, near the church.

The valley of Chamonix is supposed to be due to glacial action. Those who have studied it show that it is a part of the great folding up of the Jurassic strata nipt in between crystalline rocks by the tremendous lateral compression to which Switzerland was subjected as the earth cooled and shrank. The Valais, the Urserental and the region of the Vorder Rhein belong to the same cosmic cataclysm.

“JAGGED NEEDLES AND PINNACLES OF CRUEL ROCK.”

The great-great-grandchildren of that prehistoric glacier still inhabit the mountain-valleys. The greatest of them is the Mer de Glace, on which every visitor must set his foot. Farther up the valley is l’Argentière, which stretches from side to side between the rugged mighty ridges that lift themselves into fantastic jagged needles and pinnacles of cruel rock. It is at least a hundred meters deep, and one can look down into vivid blue crevasses and hear the rushing of the ever-wearing waters far below. The five glaciers make the five streams which the poets sing about. At one time the Glacier des Bois dammed the Arve, but in time the persistent river cut through it, forming the Passage des Tines, which has a height of one hundred and seventy meters. The great erratic blocks of granite scattered through the valley are mute witnesses of the ancient days. The eye that can read will see all along the faces of the cliffs the hieroglyphics of the ice.

This is what William Cullen Bryant says about the Arve. By the way, I noticed that while Coleridge pronounced it in two syllables, Shelley gives it one. So does Bryant:—

“Not from the sands or cloven rocks,Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow;Nor earth within its bosom locksThy dark, unfathomable wells below.Thy springs are in the cloud, thy streamBegins to move and murmur firstWhere ice-peaks feel the noonday beam,Or rain-storms on the glacier burst.“Born where the thunder and the blast,And morning’s earliest light are born,Thou rushest swoln and loud and fastBy these low homes as if in scorn:Yet humbler springs yield purer waves;And brighter, glassier streams than thine,Sent up from earth’s unlighted caves,With heaven’s own beam and image shine.“Yet stay! for here are flowers and trees;Warm rays on cottage roofs are here,And laugh of girls and hum of bees,—Here linger till thy waves are clear.Thou heedest not, thou hastest on;From steep to steep thy torrent falls,Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone,It rests beneath Geneva’s walls.”

“Not from the sands or cloven rocks,

Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow;

Nor earth within its bosom locks

Thy dark, unfathomable wells below.

Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream

Begins to move and murmur first

Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam,

Or rain-storms on the glacier burst.

“Born where the thunder and the blast,And morning’s earliest light are born,Thou rushest swoln and loud and fastBy these low homes as if in scorn:Yet humbler springs yield purer waves;And brighter, glassier streams than thine,Sent up from earth’s unlighted caves,With heaven’s own beam and image shine.

“Born where the thunder and the blast,

And morning’s earliest light are born,

Thou rushest swoln and loud and fast

By these low homes as if in scorn:

Yet humbler springs yield purer waves;

And brighter, glassier streams than thine,

Sent up from earth’s unlighted caves,

With heaven’s own beam and image shine.

“Yet stay! for here are flowers and trees;Warm rays on cottage roofs are here,And laugh of girls and hum of bees,—Here linger till thy waves are clear.Thou heedest not, thou hastest on;From steep to steep thy torrent falls,Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone,It rests beneath Geneva’s walls.”

“Yet stay! for here are flowers and trees;

Warm rays on cottage roofs are here,

And laugh of girls and hum of bees,—

Here linger till thy waves are clear.

Thou heedest not, thou hastest on;

From steep to steep thy torrent falls,

Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone,

It rests beneath Geneva’s walls.”

“That expression, ‘rests beneath Geneva’s walls,’ seems to me singularly inappropriate,” said I. “I did not know it rested anywhere.”

“By the way,” said Will, “it is a curiousthing: almost all visitors to the Rhône valley remember the river as a greyish muddy-looking stream; yet it is true, for seven months of the year it runs with a clear current, of a greenish colour very much like Niagara’s. I suppose it does its work of disintegration mainly in the summer, when it has the help of the sun.”

Chamonix, which so short a time ago was almost a lost valley, is now the very centre of the mercenary traffic in Nature’s most marvellous mysteries. One may reach dizzy heights now by the railway, and there are restaurants a mile above the sea.

My nephew happened to be personally acquainted with M. Fidèle Eugster, whose fertile brain devised a scheme for building solid pylons over which should run an aerial line from Chamonix up to the Aiguille du Midi, three thousand eight hundred and forty-two meters—only a little less than nine hundred and sixty-five meters less than the monarch himself. He happened to be there himself and he invited Will and me to ride up as far as the construction-car went. Ruth contented herself with watching us and taking a walk about town. The car, seating twenty persons, starts from Chamonix and swings up two thousand meters over the twenty-seven of these immense pylons alreadyconstructed. They are from twenty-five to seventy-five meters apart. The power-station, where there are electric motors of seventy-five horse-power each, is near Pierre Pointue at a height of one thousand six hundred and seventy-nine meters. From there over twenty-four more pylons a cable one thousand four hundred meters long took us to the foot of the Aiguille. There we got into a smaller basket-car and were swung up to a protogen pinnacle directly opposite the Grands Mulets. From there we were taken to the first tension-pylon which breaks the enormous stretch to the Col du Midi, where the terminal station will be constructed. It is a tremendous swoop of between eight and nine hundred meters and the last stathmos will be nearly six hundred more. The car glissades down the curves; then the cable pulls it up the incline. It is like a series of gigantic scallops but there is no shock, no jar; only a clicking as you pass the pylons.

Next to my flight in the hydro-aeroplane this was the greatest experience of my life. What can I say of that swoop through the air? Words utterly fail. Below lay the valley with its thickly clustered hotels and houses and the ramifications of the rushing rivers and streams like veins in a dissected hand. Below us laythe glacier with its séracs diminished to etchings. All around rose the haughty Brotherhood scornfully watching the machinations of puny, mighty-minded man. They know that they can sometimes catch him napping, but only his body can they hurt. His soul is bigger and grander than their icy hearts. They can fling down avalanches and hurl enormous boulders or bullet-like stones at him, tearing themselves to pieces in their blind fury to do so, but here he is above them. They can’t shake off the shackles which his genius and his power fasten to their gigantic frames. Atlas must bear the Earth on his shoulders and there is no Perseus to relieve him of the weight.

Compared to the cost of some of the other Swiss roads this aerial line is comparatively inexpensive. It has been estimated that twenty-four million francs will build it and equip it. Its success will doubtless cause other “inaccessible peaks” to be harnessed in the same way. All the difficulty and most of the danger—I suppose one might be struck by lightning or die of heart-failure on the way up—and a vast amount of time, will be eliminated.

While we were in the valley we had a most glorious sunset. I will not attempt to describe the indescribable; there are no terms to differentiatethe tints that glowed on the clouds and the shades of lavender and violet and royal purple. There is nothing more impressive than to see the outburst of cloud masses from a mountain-valley rising dark and stormy and then, as it were, putting on the panoply of their royal state—furnished them by their servant the sun. I recalled Moore’s poem on Mont Blanc at sunset:—

“’Twas at this instant—while there glowedThis last, intensest gleam of light—Suddenly thro’ the opening roadThe valley burst upon my sight!That glorious valley with its lakeAnd Alps on Alps in clusters swelling,Mighty and pure and fit to makeThe ramparts of a godhead’s dwelling.“I stood entranced—as rabbins say.This whole assembled, gazing worldWill stand upon that awful dayWhen the ark’s light aloft unfurledAmong the opening clouds shall shineDivinity’s own radiant sign!“Mighty Mont Blanc, thou wert to meThat minute, with thy brow in heaven,As sure a sign of deityAs e’er to mortal gaze was given.Nor ever, were I destined yetTo live my life twice o’er again,Can I the deep-felt awe forget,The dream, the trance that rapt me then.”

“’Twas at this instant—while there glowed

This last, intensest gleam of light—

Suddenly thro’ the opening road

The valley burst upon my sight!

That glorious valley with its lake

And Alps on Alps in clusters swelling,

Mighty and pure and fit to make

The ramparts of a godhead’s dwelling.

“I stood entranced—as rabbins say.This whole assembled, gazing worldWill stand upon that awful dayWhen the ark’s light aloft unfurledAmong the opening clouds shall shineDivinity’s own radiant sign!

“I stood entranced—as rabbins say.

This whole assembled, gazing world

Will stand upon that awful day

When the ark’s light aloft unfurled

Among the opening clouds shall shine

Divinity’s own radiant sign!

“Mighty Mont Blanc, thou wert to meThat minute, with thy brow in heaven,As sure a sign of deityAs e’er to mortal gaze was given.Nor ever, were I destined yetTo live my life twice o’er again,Can I the deep-felt awe forget,The dream, the trance that rapt me then.”

“Mighty Mont Blanc, thou wert to me

That minute, with thy brow in heaven,

As sure a sign of deity

As e’er to mortal gaze was given.

Nor ever, were I destined yet

To live my life twice o’er again,

Can I the deep-felt awe forget,

The dream, the trance that rapt me then.”

We went through the paces demanded of visitors to the valley. We made excursions to the Glacier des Bossons especially to see the little lake which so exquisitely mirrors Mont Blanc—so detestible the artificial ruins which insult its beauty!—we even paid our franc to penetrate the artificial grotto in the ice—and we went as far as the Cascade du Dard. We went also to Flegère for the sake of its extraordinary panoramic view; but I thought best of all was the Brévent which faces so closely the whole range.

We reluctantly left the wonderful valley and returned to Lausanne by the way of Cluses, where we had our watches set, thence across to Bonneville, down to Geneva and along the lake. We were warmly welcomed by the three children who, however, had been well looked after by the trustworthy French bonne.

AFEWdays later Will and I got to talking about the ancient passages of the Alps. Hannibal’s was the first. We got out a copy of Polybius and read the simple narrative of that almost incredible expedition. Polybius, who was present at the destruction of Carthage, had probably a fairly accurate knowledge of his subject; but to this day it has not been absolutely decided where the great Carthaginian crossed the Alps. One man believes he went by the Little Mont Cenis; a Frenchman argued that he descended into Italy by the Col de la Seigne; but the most convincing argument, that put forward by William John Law, fixes the route as from Roquemaure, where he crossed the Rhône, up to Vienne by Bourgoin, the Mont du Chat, Constans, Bourg Saint-Maurice, thence over the Little Saint-Bernard to Aoste into Italy.

We read some of the passages describing thedifficulties of the route, attempted so late in the season. This is what Polybius says:—

“Hannibal, having arrived upon the Rhône, straightway set about affecting the passage where the river ran in a single stream, being encamped at a distance of nearly four days’ journey from the sea....

“By this time a crowd of the barbarians was collected on the opposite shore for the purpose of preventing the passage of the Carthaginians. Looking well at these, and considering from existent circumstances that it would neither be possible to force a passage in the face of so numerous an enemy nor to keep his position without expecting the enemy upon him from all sides, Hannibal, as the third night was coming on, sent off a division of the army under command of Hanno, son of the King Bomilcar, joining to them natives of the country as guides.

“After marching up the river for a distance of two hundred stadia and coming to a place where it is divided into two branches around an island, they halted there; and, having got timber from a neighboring forest, they soon fitted out a number of rafts, sufficient for their purpose, partly by framing the timbers together, partly by tying them. On these they were safely ferried over....

“As the fifth night came on, the division which had already crossed the river pushed forward about the morning watch, against the barbarians, who were opposite to the Carthaginian army. Hannibal now, having his soldiers all ready, was intent on the work of crossing, having filled the barges with the light-shielded cavalry; and the canoes with the lightest of the infantry....

“The barbarians, seeing the purpose of their enemies, rushed out from their entrenchments in a disorderly and confused manner, persuaded that they could readily prevent the landing of the Carthaginians. But Hannibal, as soon as he perceived that his own troops were already coming down on the farther side, for they gave signal of their approach by smoke, as had been agreed upon, at once ordered all to embark, and for the managers of the ferry-boats to make all possible headway against the current.

“This being speedily done, and the men in the boats working with keen rivalry and shouting and striving against the force of the current, ... the barbarians in front raised their war-song and their challenges. The scene was one of terror and of incitement to the conflict.

“At this moment the Carthaginians, whohad first crossed to that side of the river, suddenly and unexpectedly appeared among the tents of the barbarians, which had been left vacant. Some set fire to the encampment; while the majority rushed upon those that were guarding the passage of the river. In view of an event so utterly unexpected the barbarians ran, some to protect their tents, others to resist the assailants, and fought with them. Hannibal, now that everything had succeeded in accordance with his plan, straightway drew up those that had first got across, encouraged them, and engaged in battle with the barbarians. The Gauls, from their lack of order and the strangeness of all that had taken place, soon turned and betook themselves to headlong flight.

“The Carthaginian general having conquered both the passage and his enemies, immediately attended to the transport of those that still remained on the other shore....

“The transport of the elephants was effected in the following manner:—Having constructed a number of rafts, they strongly joined together two of these, so as to fit closely one with the other, and planted both firmly in the shore at the place of embarcation, the two together being about fifty feet wide. Then,joining other rafts together in the same way, they attached these to the former at the outer end, carrying the fabric of the bridge forward in the line of passage; and, that the whole structure might not be carried down the river, the side that was against the stream they secured by cables from the land, fastened to some trees which grew on the brink. When they had thrown out this bridge to the length of two plethra [sixty meters] altogether, they added at the end two rafts constructed more perfectly than the others and the largest of all. These were bound with great strength to each other; but to the rest in such a way that the fastenings could be easily severed. To these they fixed a number of towing-lines with which the barges were to prevent their being carried down the river, and hold them by force against the stream, to take over the elephants upon them and land them upon the other side.

“After this, they dug up and brought a quantity of earth to all the rafts, and spread it till it was level with, and looked just like, the road that led over the dry land to the crossing-place. The elephants were used always to obey the Indians as far as the edge of the water, but never as yet had ventured to go into the water. They brought them, therefore, along this bankof earth, putting two females first; and the beasts obeyed them. As soon as they had got them on to the farthest rafts, they cut away the fastenings by which these were fitted to the rest, and, pulling on the two lines with the barges, they soon carried away the beasts and the rafts which bore them from the earthy pier. At this the animals, quite confounded, turned about and rushed in every direction; but, surrounded on every side by the stream, they shrank from it, and were compelled to stay where they were; and, in this way, the two rafts being brought back repeatedly, most of the elephants were brought over upon them. But some, through fright, leaped into the river half-way across; and it happened that all the Indians belonging to these were lost, but the elephants were saved, for, with the power and size of their probosces, raising them out of the water and breathing through them and spouting up all that got into them, they held out, making their way for the most part erect below the water....”

Polybius goes on to tell how Hannibal, having got his forces across, marched up into the mountains by the valley of the Rhône and then began the ascent of the Alps. The Allobroges seized the heights. Polybius says:—

“The Carthaginian general, aware that the barbarians had preoccupied the posts of vantage, encamped his army in front of the heights and waited there; then he sent forward some of the Gauls who were acting as guides, in order that they might spy into the designs of the enemy and their whole plan.

“When these men had executed all that was arranged, the general, learning that the enemy steadily kept to their post and watched the passes through the day, but that they went to their repose at night in a neighboring town; acting conformably to that state of things, contrived this scheme:—he put his force in motion and led them forward openly and, when he had come near to the difficult places, he pitched his camp not far from the enemy; but, when night came on, he ordered fires to be kindled, and left the greater part of his troops, and, having lightly armed the most efficient men, he made his way through the defiles in the night and took possession of the positions previously held by the enemy; the barbarians having retired to the town as they were in the habit of doing.

“This had all been done before day came on, and, when the barbarians saw what had happened, they at first abstained from any attack;but later, when they observed the crowd of beasts of burden and the cavalry winding out from the defile with much difficulty and in a long-drawn column, they were encouraged to close in upon the line of march. As the barbarians made their attacks in many places, a great loss ensued to the Carthaginians, chiefly among the horses and beasts of burden, yet not so much from the enemy as from the nature of the ground; for, as the pass was not only narrow and rugged, but also precipitous, at every moment and at every shock numbers of the pack-animals fell with their loads over the cliffs. The shock was caused chiefly by the wounded horses, for some of them, in the panic made by their wounds, dashed against the baggage-animals, others with a rush forward knocked over everything that came in their way in this difficult passage, and completed the immense confusion.

“Hannibal, observing this, and reflecting that, even though the troops should escape, the loss of their baggage would certainly be attended with the ruin of the army, advanced to their aid with the detachment that had occupied the heights during the night. As he made his assault from higher ground, he destroyed many of the enemy; but not without sufferingequally in return, for the disorder of the march was much increased by the conflict and clamor of these fresh troops. But, when the greater part of the Allobroges had perished in the conflict, and the rest had been compelled to flee for shelter to their homes, then, only, did the remainder of the beasts of burden and the cavalry succeed with great toil and difficulty in emerging from the pass.”

Hannibal seized the town and procured a vast quantity of horses and beasts of burden and captives, as well as corn and cattle, sufficient to maintain his army for several days, and he inspired great fear in all the neighbouring tribes.

When the army began to advance again, the tribesmen came to meet him with green branches and wreaths, as a sign of amity, and they brought with them a plentiful supply of sheep and goats for food. Hannibal, though inclined to be suspicious, still took them for guides and followed them into a still more difficult region. He had good reason for his suspicions, for, as they were passing through a narrow defile where there was very bad footing and steep precipices, they made a sudden attack upon his troops. The pack-animals and the cavalry were in the van; heavy-armedtroops guarded the rear, and attack from that quarter was easily resisted; but the natives, as usual, climbed up the precipices above them and rolled down boulders and flung stones which made fearful havoc.

Hannibal was compelled by this action of the enemy to spend the night near what Polybius calls toleukópetron, The White Rock. Now, not far from Bourg-Saint-Maurice, where we had passed so recently, stands a high rock of gypsum, and it is called to this day La Roche Blanche. Here, in all probability, Hannibal kept guard while during the night the horses and pack-animals with enormous difficulty filed out of the valley. Polybius says:—

“On the following day, the enemy having retired, Hannibal joined forces with the cavalry and led forward to the summit of the Alpine pass, no longer meeting with any organized body of the barbarians, but here and there more or less harassed by them, losing a few pack-animals from the rear or from the van when the natives seized an opportunity to dash at them. The elephants rendered Hannibal the greatest service, for, in whatever part of the line they appeared, the enemy dared not approach, being astounded at the strange look of the beasts.”

By this time it was late in the season and the snow was deep on the mountains; and the soldiers, worn out by their terrible toils and the hardships to which they were subjected, were completely disheartened. Like Napoleon and all the great leaders of men, however, Hannibal knew how to play on their emotions and he cheered them by telling them that just below lay Italy and just beyond lay Rome, their ancient enemy.

But the descent was even more difficult than the way up. The snow had fallen and rendered the path over the névé extremely slippery; it was impossible to proceed. So they had to encamp on the mountain ridge, and, in order to widen the road, he engaged his whole force in building up the precipice.

“Thus,” says the historian, “in one day he completed a passage suitable for horses and baggage-animals, so that, carrying these through at once, and pitching his camp about parts which had as yet escaped the snow, he forwarded the army to the pastures. He brought out the Numidians in successive squads to help in building the road, and it took three days of great difficulty and suffering to get the elephants through. They had come to be in a wretched state by reason of hunger, forthe higher points of the Alps, and the parts which reach up to the heights, are utterly without trees and bare, because of the snow remaining constantly summer and winter; but, as the parts along the middle of the mountain-side produced both trees and bushes, they are quite habitable.”

“THE SNOW WAS DEEP ON THE MOUNTAINS.”

At last, however, after about two weeks in the mountains, they reached the plain of the Po. Livy tells us that Hannibal himself confessed to having lost, from the time he crossed the Rhône, thirty-six thousand men and innumerable horses and other cattle. How many he brought with him into Italy is not known. An exaggerated estimate makes it a hundred thousand infantry and twenty-five thousand cavalry; but it was, perhaps, a third of that number.

The Roman poet, Silius Italicus, who lived in Vergil’s house, but not in his immortality, died just a hundred years after Christ. His verse-history, “Punica,” has come down to us complete. He too gives a description of Hannibal’s wonderful journey:—

“Lone Winter dwells upon those summits drearAnd guards his mansion round the endless year.Mustering from far around his grisly formBlack rains and hailstone-showers and clouds of storm.Here in their wrathful kingdom whirlwinds roamAnd fierce blasts struggle in their Alpine home.The upward sight a swimming darkness shroudsAnd the high crags recede into the clouds....O’er jagged heights and icy fragments rudeThus climb they mid the mountain solitude;And from the rocky summits, haggard, showTheir half-wild visage, clotted thick with snow.Continual drizzlings of the drifting airScar their rough cheeks and stiffen in their hair.Now poured from craggy dens, a headlong force,The Alpine hordes hang threatening on their course;Track the known thickets, beat the mountain-snow,Bound o’er the steeps and, hovering, hem the foe.Here changed the scene; the snows were crimsoned o’er;The hard ice trickled to the tepid gore.With pawing hoof the courser delved the groundAnd rigid frost his clinging fetlock bound:Nor yet his slippery fall the peril ends;The fracturing ice the bony socket rends.Twelve times they measured the long light of dayAnd night’s bleak gloom and urged thro’ wounds their way;Till on the topmost ridge their camp was flungHigh o’er the steepy crags, in airy distance hung.”

“Lone Winter dwells upon those summits drear

And guards his mansion round the endless year.

Mustering from far around his grisly form

Black rains and hailstone-showers and clouds of storm.

Here in their wrathful kingdom whirlwinds roam

And fierce blasts struggle in their Alpine home.

The upward sight a swimming darkness shrouds

And the high crags recede into the clouds....

O’er jagged heights and icy fragments rude

Thus climb they mid the mountain solitude;

And from the rocky summits, haggard, show

Their half-wild visage, clotted thick with snow.

Continual drizzlings of the drifting air

Scar their rough cheeks and stiffen in their hair.

Now poured from craggy dens, a headlong force,

The Alpine hordes hang threatening on their course;

Track the known thickets, beat the mountain-snow,

Bound o’er the steeps and, hovering, hem the foe.

Here changed the scene; the snows were crimsoned o’er;

The hard ice trickled to the tepid gore.

With pawing hoof the courser delved the ground

And rigid frost his clinging fetlock bound:

Nor yet his slippery fall the peril ends;

The fracturing ice the bony socket rends.

Twelve times they measured the long light of day

And night’s bleak gloom and urged thro’ wounds their way;

Till on the topmost ridge their camp was flung

High o’er the steepy crags, in airy distance hung.”

“What do you think of that for poetry?” I asked Ruth, and she replied that she did not wonder it was not given to school-boys to study.

“Whose is the translation?” she asked.

“Sir Charles Abraham Elton. But is it fairto melt up a golden, or even a brazen wine-cup and then recast it in an entirely different form and call it a piece of Roman antiquity? That is what these stiff and formal so-called heroic pentameters do with the flowing hexameters of the original.”

“I should like to go to the Saint-Bernard,” I remarked.

“It can be easily arranged,” said my nephew and, as usual, in answer to my wishes came the realization. Instead of describing my own not especially eventful visit to the hospice,—though I could write a rhapsody about the noble dogs, one of whom had only a short time before made a notable rescue of a young American who had wandered off by himself, got lost and nearly perished,—I will give Rogers’s vivid poetic picture. The poet, in his deliberate blank verse, thus pays his respects to the monks:—

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