TALE UNIVEESITY LIBEAEY

FORMED BY
James Abraham Hillhouse, B.A. 1749
James Hillhouse, B.A. 1773
James Abraham Hillhouse, B.A. 1808
James Hillhouse, B.A. 1875
Removed 194:2 from the
Ma-nor Souse i-n Sachem's Wood
GIFT OF
GEOBGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR

ALPINE VILLAGE.

THE ALPS

SKETCHES

LIFE AND NATUEE IN THE MOUNTAINS

H. BERLEPSCH

TRANSLATED BY
THE EEV. LESLIE STEPHEN, M.A.
Fellow and Tutor of Trinity Hall, Carabviage

With 17 Plates from Eesigns by Emil Ribtmeyer

LONDON
LONGMAN, GEEEN, LONGMAN, AND EOBEETS
1861

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR

THE EXPLOEATIONS OF 1861

ni

Note hy the Translator on the Explorations 0/1861.

The season of 1861 has been remarkable in the Alps for
a long continuance of fine weather, and (as a natural con
sequence) equaUy remarkable for the number of successful
attempts upon mountains hitherto unascended. The fol
lowing is a list of the principal ascents that have come
within the knowledge of the Translator, and is given as a
supplement to the chapter on mountain tops : — The most
difficult exploit of the season was probably the ascent of
the Weisshom by Professor TyndaU. Besides this, the
Monte Viso was ascended for the first time by Messrs. W.
Mathews and Jacomb ; the Lyskamm by Messrs. Eamsay,
Eennison, Sibson, Pilkington, HaU, Hudson, Stephenson,
and Hardy; the Pelvoux by MJr. Whymper; the Nord-
end of Monte Eosa by Sir F. and Mr. E. Buxton and
Mr. CoweU, and the highest peak of the Schreckhorner
by the Translator. The old Weissthor was crossed for
the first time for many years (if not absolutely for the
first time) by Mr. Tuckett, who also crossed from Saas to
Zermatt by the Fee glaciers, (a route discovered last year
by the Translator) besides a new pass over the glaciers
of Chermontane to Prerayen in the ValpeUine, and one to
the south-west of Mont Blanc. Messrs. W. Mathews and

IV

Jacomb crossed the range of the Monte Eosa between
the Twins and the Lyskamm. Other new passes were
effected by Mr. S. Winkworth over the Argentiere and
Neewaz glaciers, and by Sir F. and Mr. E. Buxton and
Mr. CoweU over the Chermontane and Otemma glaciers
^rom the Vai de Bagne into the Eringer Thai.
An ascent of the Bernina (the first by an Enghshman,
though not the first on record) was made by Mr. Hardy
and Mr. Kennedy, and the route from St. Gervais to Mont
Blanc by the Aiguille and Dome de Goute and the Bosse
was for the first time actuaUy made (by Mr. Tuckett
and the Translator), although Mr. Hudson had previously
fuUy shown its practicability and in fact made the whole
route at different times.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

V ¦ .'¦¦¦•'

PAGE

L

The Fabric op the Alps . . . .1

n.

Granite

17
IIL
Erratic Blocks
24
IV.
" Karrenfields "
30
V.
Nagelfluh
36
VI.
The Landslip at Goldau
41
vn.
The Ban-Forests
58
VIII.
The "Wetteetanne
73
IX.
Prostrate Firs
80
X.
Alpine Eoses .
88
XI.
The Southern Valleys
95
xn.
The Chesnut-Woods .
100
xm.
A Tale of The Clouds
. 108
XIV.
Cloud Pictures
119
XV.
" Wetteeschiessen " .
123
XVL
Thunderstorms
. 127
XVIL
Waterfalls .
. 134
xvnL
Mountain Sno^htstoems
. 150
IV

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

PAGE

XIX.

Red Snow . . . . •

. 161

XX.

The "EtJFE" . . . .

. 166

XXI.

The Avalanche . . . •

. 177

XXII.

The Glacier

. 194

XXIIL

ALPENGLiJHENi

. 219

xxrv.

Alpine Summits

. 226

^ xxv.

Mountain Passes and Alpine Eoads

. 265

XXVL

The Hospices

. 291

xxvn.

Chalet Life in the Alps .

. 306

xxvni.

The Alp Horn

. 327

XXIX.

The Goat-boy

. 334

xxx.

The "Wildheuee

. 345

XXXI.

" Alpstubete," or Alpine Feast

. 356

XXXIL

Timber Fellers and Floaters

. 367

XXXIIL

"Auf der Jagd" .

. 378

XXXIV.

Village Life in the Mountains .

. 392

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Frontispiece.

1. Landslip .

. to face page

41

2. Ban-forest

»

58

3. Wk'itertanne

* J?

73

4. Prostrate Firs .

I)

80

5. Chesnuts

)>

100

6. Avalanche

I)

177

7. Glacier .

7>

194

8. Alpine Summit .

»

226

9. Alpine Eoad

I)

265

10. Forest Chapel .

I)

306

11. Goat-boy .

»

334

12. Wild-hay Cutter

J)

345

13. Alpine Feast

»

356

14. Woodmen .

))

367

15. Chamois Hunters

. • tl

378

16, A Bueial

11

392

THE ALPS.

CHAPTEE L
THE FABRIC OF THB ALPS.

The Alps are amongst the subhmest proofs of the majesty
of the creative power.
A thinking man must have already been astonished at
the wonderfiil manifestations of the powers of produc
tion, preservation, and dissolution in nature. Daily and
hourly before his eyes, she is forming what is new by her
universal laws of organisation, imparting hfe and motion
to that which already exists, and using up what has done its
work as the source of new materials or new modifications
in the vast cycle of creation, and thus giving him some
measure of the never-resting, aU-grasping, aU-embracing
activity of the great Spirit which penetrates the universe.
StiU he wiU stand in astonishment before that giant edifice
of the Alps, bmlt up by powers, whose origin and action
can indeed be described, and' whose relation to other
powers can be set forth according to the laws which the
natural sciences have won fi:om phenomena, but whose
whole extension and boundaries in the universe human
knowledge can only dimly suspect.
There are but few men who know the real and full
majesty of the fabric of the Alps. It unveUs itself least

^ THE ALPS.
of aU where the broad military roads stretch over passes
and mountain " saddles," or where the trivial employments
of daily life are swarming round the footstools of this
wonder of creation. You must penetrate into the secrets
of the hidden world of mountains, into the solitude of the
closed gorges and valleys, where man's power of cultivation
sinks powerless as he comprehends the weakness of his
efforts against the maj esty of Nature in the Alps. You must
climb above the ruins of a pruneval world, and press
through labyrinths of glacier and wastes of ice into the
temple sanctuary where it strikes up freely and boldly into
the sky before your wearied eyes. Then you wiU encounter
the indescribable splendour of the Alpine world in aU its
vastness, tUl you are ready to sink under the thought of
i1;s awfulness ; and when you have recovered from your
first impression, — when, in sight of the gigantic masses,
you have opened your heart and prepared it to receive still
nobler revelations, — then question boldly those mauso
leums of immemorial time : ask them what hand raised
them from the depths of eternal darkness into the king
dom of hght ; consult the rocky leaves of this stone chronicle
for the history of their creation and the end of their exis
tence. The vast dead masses wiU become ahve for you, and
a view will open for you into the endless cycle of eternity.
The Alps stretch in a vast semicircle through Southern
Europe, a hmb of that colossal skeleton of the earth
which, under the name of the Pyrenees, Apennine, Tschar
Dagh, and Hasmus, gives internal support to the Spanish,
Itahan, and Grecian peninsulas, as they stretch out into
the Mediterranean Sea. They are the results of the crystal-
hsations and deposits of many hundreds of thousands of
years in primeval oceans. Then, in different epochs,
followed elevations and depressions, Repeated floods and
new deposits, tiU at last the fiery products of the great

THE FABRIC OF THE ALPS. 6
melting furnaces of the earth's interior burst through
these manifold superimposed layers.
Who could have witnessed those convulsions and out
bursts, when in the central Alps, the very inmost kernel
of the gigantic mountain fabric, the granite, gneiss, and
crystaUine schists were forced up from the depths of the
earth's crust, pierced by the sharp masses of the horn
blende rocks, and spread out hke a fan ? How powerless
would be the wUdest natm-al convulsions that we know,
— how insignificant the earthquakes, storms, volcanoes,
and landsUps of the present time, by the side of that
catastrophe, when the Alps took their present shape !
Our understanding has absolutely no standing-point from
whence to form a conception even faintly answering to
those moments when a world was shattered. If we
multiphed a thousandfold the most frightful uproar of
the wildest thunderstorm that our fancy can paint, — if
we could think of all the artiUery which has ever been
avaUable for human warfare, as gathered into one place
and discharged at a single command, the disturbance
would be as nothing by the side of that moment when
mUhons upon mUhons of cubic fathoms of the sohd rock of
the central Alps were torn up crushed from their bed, and
sent up as high as heaven, or pitched over and over into
heaps. It is highly probable in itself that most of the processes
which formed the earth were developed vsdth exceeding
slowness. It may be granted indeed that during the great
periods of revolution the rock formations were far less
liard and con?olidated than now ; so that the two factors
which alwayi go furthest to determuie the shape of the
earth, the centrifugal or mechanical force of the earth's
rotation, and the expansive force of gases or the pressure
of water from within, might have operated more steadily
B 2

^ THE ALPS.
and effectively than now. But it is just as certain that
other physical laws, to which matter must always have
been subject, — the laws of gravity for example, — must
have induced moments in the history of the external
formation of the Alps, which belong to the most fearfol
that the human mind can conceive. A thousand marks
show this on a nearer observation of the mountain forms,
such as the picturesque, sharp-cornered lines and clefts of
the dolomite mountains, which neither get rounded off
nor break away in sphnters — the strange zigzag ornaments
and marveUous fantastic forms in the limestone Alps,
when not concealed by masses of snow, or by more modem
overlying rocks. The same truth is proved by the deep
gorges and rents of the valleys, such as those in the Via
Mala, the valley of Tamina, the defile of Trient, the gorge-
shaped openings of most of the southern lateral vaUeys in
the Valais and Engadine, both of which show in their rock-
waUs the traces (even to the minutest detaUs) of the broken
surfaces passing over each other. It is proved again by
those vertical walls of rock in which aU the successive
layers are shown in a transverse section, whUst the massive
counterpart in which they were once continued has sunk
into the abyss, e. g. the waUs of the Churfirst chain on the
WaUensee, the rocky front of the Frohn Alp Stock on the
Lake of Lucerne, &c.
If we go on to consider those majesticaUy aspiring
masses which rise free and bold into the clouds like
gigantic obehsk spikes, — as Jhe bare and inaccessible
Matterhorn (14,705 feet in height *), the dazzhng snow
pyramid of the Dent Blanche (14,322 feet), or the nine-
pointed diadem of the Monte Eosa (15,217 feet), which
never can have been protruded through the earth's crust in
their present shape, and can be nothing but isolated ruins
* The heiglits are given throughout this work in English feet

THE FABRIC OF THE ALPS. 5
of the primeval mountain fabric, — what fearful ages of
destruction must- there have been, to aUow the intervening
masses, now vanished, to be torn away, and to sink, pro
bably, into the depths whence they rose ? For a number of
proofs show that no influence of weather on these towers
of rock can ever have so modeUed and gnawed them down.
In no other mountains of Europe are proofs of elevation,
levelling, and reconstruction to be seen so close and in so
marked a degree as in the Alps. In sublimity of form,
and variety of the cleavage and splintering of their beds,
they are exceUed by none of our continent.
Moreover, no other mountains of this quarter of the
globe can show such richness in minerals, or such an
instructive scale of the processes of formation. Indeed,
the geologist may find perfectly insoluble riddles in the
inversions or perfectly abnormal interchange of strata, ia
the insertion of sedimentary beds amongst the crystaUine
rocks, and in opposing stratifications, which open the door
to the most hazardous conjectures.
To form an approximately right idea of the internal
construction of the materials, and of the series of forma
tions in the Alps, let us suppose that a primeval sea,
during long periods of creation, deposited layers of mud,
such as we may still see on a small scale on the banks
of rivers after floods. Each of these periods engulfed
whoUy or in part the plants and animals which had been
developed on the then existing islands or continents, and
buried them in the beds, deposited. Whole generations
of organisms, which no longer exist in our tune, perished
with them. These enclosed witnesses of the different
epochs of organic hfe (stUl found as fossUs or impressions
of plants in the mountain beds) became the marks by
which the science of geology arranges its history of
creation. Their sequence, where it has not been dis-
b3

6 THE ALPS.
turbt 1 by force, is the same over the whole surface of
the earth. Thus the oldest sedimentary -deposits must be
the lowest, and those which foUowed later must be above
them. Thus it is also throughout the Alpine land.
A joumey south from Germany brings us through the
geological formations of aU the chief epochs, and is weU
calculated to show their principal elements and mutual
connection. The great cultivated Bavarian plains between the Danube
and the Inn, the levels of Nuremburg, Ulm, Augsburg,
Munich, up to the neighbourhood of Passau, belong to the
most modern deposits, or alluvial formations. Wherever
a spade is struck into the earth through the upper soU, we
come upon gravel and deposits of mud or peat. Below
these the dUuvial formations appear in stratified or unstra
tified beds, hence called erratic strata. Stone quarries are
so rare that in the villages in many parts, wooden boundary-
stones are used. A step further south brings us to the
mountainous plateau, to the Bavarian highlands, to the
AUgau, to the Lake of Constance, and into the broadest and
largest vaUey of Europe, to the Swiss "Middle-Land"
(between the Jura and the Alps) where are placed Zurich,
Berne, Freiburg, and Lausanne. Meadow and forest al
ternate with agricultural districts ; the landscape takes
more distinct colours and shapes ; the rivers and streams
hurry at a swifter pace, and coUect into deep lake-basins
at the foot of the outlying mountauis. Gently swelling
forms of leaf fohage * stUl crown the heights and vaUeys.
Far away the hiU-sides are stUl marked with scattered
houses. VUlages and towns stUl swarm with a quickly-
beating, struggling, trade-loving, hfe. It is the "molasse"
formation, which shows itself by the sheUs enclosed in it to
be partly a saltwater and partly a freshwater deposit and
* Opposed to the " needle " foliage of the pine forest.

THE FABRIC OF THE ALPS. 7
consists principaUy of blue sandstones, beds of marl and
clay, freshwater hmestone, muschel-sandstein, and great
banks of conglomerate caUed' " nagelfluh." The mountains
of this region are in rounded hUl-hke forms ; in Switzerland
they rise m rather more decided hnes to a height of 6500
feet. Taking another step towards the mountains, we reach
Salzburg, Sonthofen, the Austrian Vorarlberg, the cantons
of AppenzeU, St. GaUen, Glarus, Schwyz, up to Sarnen in
Unterwalden, and the beautiful Lake of Thun. Agricul
ture disappears more and more, the landscape becomes
more Alpine, the leafy forest retires, and the " needle-
wood " (pine) forest appears in its stead ; the people are
principaUy engaged in tending cattle. The dazzhng
colours of the red-tUed roofs and whitewashed houses
disappear. Silver-grey upon green, the pale shingle roofs
on wooden houses in the midst of sweUing meadows, are
now the characteristic features. The "molasse" disap
pears ; another formation rises to the surface which is
older, and extends through the whole of Southern Europe,
far away towards Africa and Asia.
It is the eocene formation, which, under the division of
flysch and nummuhte, occurs sometimes as slate and sand
stone, sometimes as hmestone, in respectable mountain-
chains and steep fagades of rock. It is to be understood
that the whole mass of the mountain does not consist of
this formation, but that it constitutes either the principal
mass — as in the noble pyramid of the Mesen (7790 feet)
near Thun, where the beds of flysch attain a thickness of
near 5000 feet — or the uppermost portion where its rocks
are raised to a giddy height, as in the Schrattenfluh in the
Emmenthal, or in the sphntered EaUigstock (which has
visibly been depressed into itself), or in the Niederhorn in
the Justithal on the Lake of Thun, where nummuhtic
hmestone forms the highest crests. The weU-known
b4

THE ALPS.

FauUiorn also, the object of the summer excursions of
tourists, consists of rough red slates of the flysch period,
whose decaying (" verfaulende" ) stone has caused the
mountain's name. StiU further up, to heights of 10,000 or
11,000 feet, flysch or nummuhte sand has been raised to
the highest summits of the Clariden and Todi. There it
covers, as though with a housewife's cap, the very top ofthe
aged mountain, the mass of whose mighty body is formed
of crystaUine rocks (gneiss).
But acquaintance may be formed with these rocks
without ascending such heights. They are found in the
valleys also. The black, ever-moist waUs of rock of the
Tamina gorge in which hes the source of the medicinal
springs of Pfaffers, the crumbling rocks around the baths
of Fidris in the Pratigau, the immediate neighbourhood
of the baths of Stachelberg in the vaUey of Glarus, are aU
flysch. We stand here at the hmit of one of the great
epochs of the creation of the earth ; for with the eocene
period is concluded the great series of the tertiary for
mations. AU below them, — aU mountains which rise
towards the Alps before us are older, and belong to earher
times. They are classed as the secondary formations.
The whole region in which these rocks appear must have
already existed as firm land when the molasse was depo
sited, and have risen above the primeval ocean. This
continent was far greater than now appears. The
great group of the chalk formations which rests below it
has in many places broken through and cast aside its co
vering of flysch. This appears most strikingly in the
Vorarlberg Alps, especiaUy in the chain of Santis and the
Churfirst mountains, and again in the Alps of Schwyz,
where, for example, the Mythenstock strikes up hke teeth
through flesh, in the Mdwalden Alps, in the jagged PUa-
tus, in the Schaafmatt, the Sheibengutsch, the Brienzer

THE FABRIC OF THE ALPS. 9
Eotlihorn, and many other mountains of the Bernese Ober-
land. By the designation " chalk formations" we must
not understand white writing chalk ; it includes aU rocks
which contain the same fossils and organic remains as the
chalk, and therefore belong to the same periods of de
position. It is an exceedingly extensive formation, and,
for example, covers in North America an area of 120 by
300 miles (geographical).
The chffs and crests of this formation rise more roughly
and boldly, and with more strongly marked outhnes, than
those of the flysch. They often form picturesquely
pointed rock-fagades, with surprisingly beautiful detaUs.
All the subhme decorations of the shores of the WaUensee,
the Lakes of Lucerne and Brienz, with their pUlar-arcades
and buttresses, their niches and angle-columns, whose
grouping and arrangement is so marveUously beautiful,
belong to the chalk formation. There we see already grand
Alpine forms in grotesque masses, hke outposts of the im
posing army of summits, which has placed its camp behind
them. The chalk rocks seldom attain a height above the
snow boundary, i.e. of more than 7000 or 8000 feet. In this
formation science again distinguishes four different kinds
of rock. The lowest is that of the "Spatangenkalk " or Neo
comian chalk, so called from Neocomum or Neuch^tel, in
which neighbourhood it is best developed. Upon it hes
the Caprotino-kalk, of which more wUl be said in the
description of the " Karren" fields. Above this again is
the gault, a sandstone very rich in fossUs, and, finaUy,
above this the most modern deposit ofthe "Seewerkalk."
In a great district of the Bernese Alps, that, namely,
between the Ehone and Aar, the cretaceous formations
disappear, and a more ancient one, the Jura chalk, with
many fossUs, takes their place. Here we enter the high
Alps. We stand upon the lowest step in the ascending

10

THE ALPS.

Staircase of the great Alpine vaUeys. Through every gap
of the lofty masses the fields of neve and snow-covered
summits shine down. From them the waterfaUs, scattered
into foam-flakes, roar over the steep waUs of rock, which
sometimes, hke the Giessbach and Eeichenbach, dash
down to the valley hke broad full sheaves of water, or,
spreading out into sparkhng dust, stream down in waving
veUs hke the Oltschibach, Staubbach, and the others at
the head of the Valley of Lauterbrunnen. The popula
tion no longer lives in rich groups of villages spread
far and wide over mountain-slopes and heights. It
has taken refuge lower down in the valley, where' the
narrow path aUows of communication, and the dwellings
are sheltered from the chmate ; only during the summer
the inhabitants lead a nomadic hfe with their cattle in
the high pasturages. The powers that raise mountains
and shape Alps have here worked energeticaUy. It
becomes evident that we are approaeliing the central
craters of elevation. Like the ring of mountains with a
steep inclination inwards which runs round the hearth of
a volcano, one, two, or even three hmestone chains turn
their steep and lofty rock- walls, which sometimes rise above
the snow, towards the granitic mountains. The stratifi
cation of the hmestone Alps is always inclined outwards,
a proof that at the formation of the Alps these upper strata
were burst by the granite masses rising from the depths
of the earth, and lifted into an obhque position.
As the high Alps did not yet exist in their present wild
bold forms, when the hmestone rocks formed only flat
scattered islands rising from the ancient sea, a gigantic
vegetation must then have flourished on them, and grisly
monsters swarmed in the deep.
It is the former home of the ichthyosaurs and plesio-
saurs, those mongrel monsters, fifty feet in leno-th half

THE FABRIC OF THE ALPS. 11
crocodile, half fish. It is the place where the gigantic
petrifactions known as Ammonites and Nautili are
found. Many of the hmestone summits reach far above
the snow line, e.g. the Oldenhorn (10,290 feet), the Weiss-
horn (10,921 feet), the Urirothstock(9758 feet), the Altels
(11,960 feet), the WindgeUe (10,505 feet), and the Scher-
horn (10,857 feet).
In the Eastern Alps, where the table-land formation is
more common in the configuration of the mountains, the
stiU older trias-dolomite and keuper, and the rocks of
the has, occupy the place of the Jura hmestone.
We have reached the boundary hne of the Neptunian
deposits. We come to the region of the deposits which
probably belong to the oldest of the earth's crust, the
slaty Alps, which clothe the granitic kemel that has risen
from the earth's interior, or even passes into it. There
the Alpine traveUer who comes from the north is asto
nished by a striking phenomenon. TUl this point, he as
sumed that aU the rock-strata, whose profile he could
often plainly observe in the vaUey waUs, inchne gently
towards the low country — unmistakably so, as though
they had been raised by the Alps and brought into this ob
hque position. Now aU at once the opposite phenomenon
occurs. Amongst the monstrous hmestone rocks, whose
strata rise often to the clouds with a northern or north
westerly dip, suddenly there rise up buttresses which
appear to prop these up at right angles. We see this
when we enter the vaUey of the Ehone from the Lake of
Geneva, in the angular Hmestone mass of the Dent du
Midi at Evionaz, or when we are ascending from smihng
Brienz through the Hasle-thal to the Grimsel behind
the angle of the " Kirchet," in the picturesque vaUey-
bottom " Im Grund," where the Urbach and Muhlethal
open ; or stUl more in the St. Gothard Pass, behind

12

THE ALPS.

Altdorf at the " Klus," and further up towards Amsteg,
where the hmestone strata with their northerly dip lie
upon masses of gneiss sinking steeply towards the south.
Here also we find the first traces of that tremendous
lever which directly or indirectly elevated the whole
grand Alpine fabric. The covering of slate has through
enormous districts been burst, torn, overthrown, elevated,
doubled up, or resolved into its elements by the action of
heat. Only in Savoy in part of the valley of the Arve, in
Piedmont, in the valleys of the Upper Isere and the Dora-
Baltea, in the Southern Valais, in many parts of the
Grisons, especiaUy too in the Lower Engadine, the masses
known as grey, green, and belemnite slates have kept
their continuity, and form gigantic mountain chains. But
where the central crystaUine masses have broken through,
as granite, protogine, gneiss, and mica-schists, and thrown
on one side all the former strata, there they stand in ver
tical positions like the hmbs of colossal fans.
These form the far-seen heads of the stUl, lofty Alpine
Idngdom, which look in solemn majesty over the whole
of central Europe, from whose giant shoulders their royal
mantles sparkhng with snow stream down in glacier-
trains. These form the mighty head of the eternal Mont
Blanc (15,836 feet) ; of the Monte Eosa, with her nine-
pointed crown ; of the stiU inaccessible mountain-pyramid
of the Matterhorn (14,705 feet) ; of the wUd Mischabel-
horner ; of the Weisshorn, rising in its incomparable
splendour 14,804 feet ; of the,; bold rock-lance of the .
Finster Aarhorn (14,081 feet) ; of the steep Wetterhorner
(12,162 feet) ; of the sohtary Adula or Vogelberg (11,185
feet); of the glacier-clothed Piz Bernina (13,297 feet) ; of
the SUvretta (11,252 feet) ; the Ortler-spitz (12,960 feet) ;
and the Gross-Glockner (12,956 feet).
"AU magnitudes, as conceived by mere imagination

THE FABRIC OF THE ALPS. 13
must be smaU by the side of the Alps," says Bonstetten,
and in fact there can scarcely be on the continent of
Europe a more starthng and overwhelming sight than
that from one of the weU-known points in the Ber
nese chain (e. g. the height of the Gemmi, the Tor-
renthorn at Leuk, or the Wildhorn, by the Eawyl pass)
across to the southern Alps of the Valais. It is a pano
rama of almost indescribable subhmity, of almost ter
rifying splendour. The great rent lateral vaUeys of
the Valais look so terribly serious and threatening, — they
rise like dim traditional forms, coloured by pine forests
to half their height with hues so mysteriously blended, —
they contrast so awfuUy with the dazzhng snow lines
above, that many a determined mountaineer might fear to
tread them. And yet in their depths the most beautiful
of natural scenery hes hidden. The background of the
Zermatt vaUey and of the Einfischthal is excelled in
majesty by none in the Alps, not even by the celebrated
Chamomii. The granitic masses have again been so terribly spht
and transformed by later catastrophes and changed in their
whole configuration, that only the sagacity of a geologist
can guess at their former probable connection. Innumera
ble chemical metamorphoses of particular parts, especiaUy
in the slaty mountains, have taken place. The action of
heat, steam, the penetration of gases and acids, decay and
new formation by Combinations, 4iav6* changed square
mUes of the Alps into n&w kinds of rocks : to these, for
example, the verrucano formations belong. Huge veins
of gypsum as later chemical combinations traverse the
crystaUine masses ; horiAlende rocks rise in eruptive dikes
hke columns rising fi:om the world below, in the innermost
kernel of the central masses, coming to hght at their
highest points. This laboratory inside the earth, ever-

14

THE ALPS.

lastingly dissolvuig, and preparing new processes, whose
safety-valves are, according to Humboldt, the volcanoes,
is stiU working below the mass of the Alps. The many
jets of carbonic acid gas, the many mineral springs,
which, exhahng suffocating and poisonous vapours, form
dangerous " mofetten " in the Engadine, are proofs of it.
Throughout the whole Alpine waU, running from south
west to north-east, there is nowhere to be found the exact
series of formations, proceeding regularly from the most
modern to the most ancient, which we have described.
It is frequently interrupted or completely inverted. This
is the case in the mountain cauldron, now intersected by
the raUway, between Glarnisch, the Churfirst chain, and
Kalanda. There the older strata are placed upon the
more recent, so that here one of the greatest convulsions
must have occurred. Around the mountains mentioned,
the broken-off heads of strata confirm the occurrence of an
extensive catastrophe. The masses of verrucano here ap
pear as a beautiful red conglomerate close by the raUway.
Seen from the south the form of the Alps is quite dif
ferent. The inclinations are much steeper and less inter
rupted than on the north. The mountains are free from
snow to a much greater height, owing to their southern
aspect and their greater isolation, showing merely the
naked skeleton of rock. The varied middle ground is
wanting, as are also the brightly-colom-ed " Vorberge."
Above, the lines and colouring are more monotonous. The
geological change of strata, and the variety and picturesque
motion resulting from it, are wanting. Along the hmestone
Alps from the Jura even to Hungary is a girdle of blue
smihng lakes, while on the southern side there are only a
few crowded together in the region of the " See-Alpe'n."
The Graian, Cottian, and maritime Alps in the west, and the
Tyrolese, Carinthiau, and Noric Alps in the east, are entirely

THE FABRIC OF THE ALPS. 15
without this beautiful ornament except a few very small
basins of water. The cause of this remarkable difference
lies in the soU. The latest alluvial deposits of Sardinia
and Lombardy border immediately upon the crystalline
and slate formations of the western Alps.
The raising of the Alpine fabric, and of the Jura which
was raised by means of it, was a necessity for the civUisation
of Europe. Without those mountains the meteorological
conditions of our quarter of the earth, and aU other
circumstances depending on them, would now be different.
Without the Alps, destroying blasts of hot winds would
have swept over Germany and HoUand from the African
deserts. The "Fohn," a continuation of the southern
sirocco, which rages fearfully in the high Alpine vaUeys,
would rush in, unstopped, unbroken, and with unslacked
speed, over Germany, and reduce agriculture to very
different conditions. On the other hand the southem
vegetation which covers the rich plain of the Po under
the influence of gentle breezes, would be rendered
impossible by the winter north storm now held back by
the Alps. The mutual action of chmates by the relation
of their temperatures would be quite altered.
The activity again of the cloud formations, and with
them the sum of the atmospheric precipitations, would be
simultaneously changed. The Alpine region, in which
the greatest proportion of rain and snow in all Europe
faUs annuaUy, is the inexhaustible suppher of water to
the Ehine, Danube, Ehone, and Po. Without the rich
magazine of snow on the heights, these streams with their
thousand branching systems of springs would become un
important watercourses. All those natural roads which
the* rivers were forming for thousands of years before
the raUway crossed them, would have been of no histori
cal importance for busmess and commerce.

16 THE ALPS.
The Alpine fabric includes an inexhaustible wealth of
natural wonders. No other mountain-chain of Europe in
cludes, hke the Alps, the flora of three zones. The arctic
and the temperate join hands with the tropical, and we
find representatives of the vegetation of more than thirty
degrees of latitude in a short space. In no other moun
tains of our quarter of the earth does the power of the
atmosphere act with such fearful force and such tremendous
manifestations of strength, and in none are the contrasts
in the hfe of their inhabitants so striking as in the Alps.
The object of the foUowing pages is to give detached
pictures of these various points of interest.

17

CHAP. IL
GRANITE.
Granite is a symbolic substance — it, in common with
marble, is the historic stone. As amongst beasts the hon
ranlis as king, being the representative of noble quahties
and physical power, — as amongst plants the oak presents
a picture of firmness and endurance, of proud contempt
of storm and weather, — so granite represents aU that is
unconquerable and unchangeable in the kingdom of dead
inorganic matter : it is, in the narrow material sense, a
substance of eternal duration. Where monuments were
to be erected for the most distant human races, visible
pUlars for the annals of history, — ^where Egyptian dynasties
raised the colossal tombs of their kings in those pyramids
which are still wondered at, on the borders of the desert,
as the mightest works of human power, — there the bold
architect grasped the granite rock and thought that he
had saved a scrap from the destruction that awaits every
thing wrought by human hands. The earlier inquirers
into natural science constructed our earth's kernel of
granite, and saw in it the grandfather of the whole
mineral kingdom, and naively caUed it the " Urgestein,"
the primeval stone. And yet it only marks one punctua
tion in the history of the world's creation, an unimportant
second in the cipher of eternity, a thing of the past, which
wiU dissolve as it has arisen. c

18 THE ALPS.
In the language of enthusiastic Alpine tourists, granite
is a highly comprehensive word, a nomen collectivum
unconsciously used, embracing everything which seems
as if it ought to belong to the noble stone of monu
ments and triumphal arches. There are many inteUigent
people who, when they see black and white spotted
rocks in the Alps, set them down roundly as granite,
and yet but little in proportion of granite properly so
caUed occurs in the Alps ; but, it is true, a great deal of
granitic rock. Let us therefore see a httle more clearly
what granite (from granum) is, and learn to know a httle
more accurately its nature and composition. Granite and
gneiss are fundamentaUy of the same composition, — a
rock formed of three minerals, felspar, quartz, and mica.
If it is granular and massive, it is caUed granite ; if a cer
tain stratification may be distinguished in it, it is gneiss.
Granite is not a conglomerate, not the product of origi
naUy different minerals combined by mechanical means.
It is an original formation, which eliminated from each
other, by crystalhsation, the various kinds of minerals
brought together in a fluid state. An example, not quite
to the point, but stiU iUustrative, may be brought
from chemistry. Every one can try this little experi
ment: — common salt and saltpetre dissolved in water to
saturation, so that both salts appear to be thoroughly
mixed, crystaUise as the fluid is evaporated, each again
separating independently : the common salt in rectangular
cubes, the saltpetre in long hexagonal columns, so that
each of the salts shows again the same peculiar properties.
Felspar, generaUy mUkwhite or grey, and also reddish,
forms the principal mass, nearly half of the true granite,
between which white (or more rarely yeUow or greenish)
crystalline, glassy, transparent grains of quartz are inter
mixed, and in which thin bright mica flakes are imbedded.

GRANITE. 19
This normal composition, however, changes much in
different places. Any one who visits the baths at St.
Moriz in the Upper Engadine, may in every walk coUect
several varieties ; for the Bernina granite is green, includ
ing serpentnie, whilst that froiji the opposite Piz Languard
contains red felspar with milkwhite quartz. StUl more
striking is the variety of the granites in the Lago Maggiore.
That of Baveno, opposite the Borromean islands, is of a
beautiful peach colour, whilst the celebrated " miarolo
bianco," from the quarries of the neighbouring Monte
Orfano, is white, and in appearance quite a different stone.
This last-mentioned granite was the material of many of
the North Itahan churches ; for example, the noble piUars
at the entrance of Milan Cathedral are worked out of
this rock. If the characteristic shining mica is wanting
m the mass, and it is penetrated by black or dark green
hornblende, it loses the name of granite, and is caUed
syenite. This variety is spread over aU parts of the world,
and received its name from the town Syene in Upper
Egypt (where it occurs in large quantities), and is much
valued for its endurance as an exceUent and easily polished
buUding materiaL The pyramids and obehsks are chiefly
of syenite. In our Alps it abounds on the south side,
as in the Vai Pelhne (to which the Col de CoUon leads
from the Valaisan Vai d'Herins) at Migiandone on the
Simplon, in the neighbourhood of St. Moriz and Camfer
in the Upper Engadine, &c. But the normal granite
occurs with additions, which completely change its cha
racter. This is the case in Mont Blanc.
There the quartz is a glassy grey, the felspar white ;
the mica is dark green, ^rystalhsed in prisms, and does
not ghtter ; whUst bright green shining flakes of talc dis
tributed through the mass give its characteristic colouring.
c 2

20 THE ALPS.
De Saussure, one of the most intelhgent founders of Alpine
geology, beheved, on his first visits to and ascent of Mont
Blanc, that he was standing upon one of the oldest
mountains of the earth, and therefore caUed the rock
"protogene," i. e. the firstborn. The name has been con
tmued, though no longer appropriate, since his time.
Most of what is caUed granite in the Central Alps is
granitic gneiss, caUed in the people's language "Gaisber-
ger, " because the highest mountains chmbed by the goats
("gaisen") are formed of it. It is the substance from
which the atmospheric influences carve those strange
towers of rock and picturesque ornaments which in
Chamouny are significantly caUed AiguUles, from their
sharp points. From this so-called "primeval material" are
formed the wondrous spikes of stone which omament the
summits of different mountains, or strike up here and
there hke outposts through the far-stretching wastes of
neve. We should see many more of these slender rock
"needles," if many of them were not engulfed in the per
petual snow. Here the AchUles-heel of the apparently
indestructible "urgestein" betrays itself Gneiss is, as
already stated, of stratified, tabular structure. In the
elevation of the Alps, the strata of gneiss were raised and
often placed verticaUy on the edges of fracture as the im
mediate envelope of the granite. The mass must have been
of various hardness at different places. At any rate, whilst
particular parts have withstood the action of weather
without injury, others have been overthrown, gnawed into,
and destroyed by the atmosphere, to such an extent as
quite to have disappeared, and left only isolated points
behind. Examples on a large scale are the Aiguille Verte,
the Aiguille du Mome, the strangely shattered Aiguilles de
Charmoz, the Aiguilles Eouges, aU the mountains on both
sides of the valley of Chamouny, the Schreckhorner and

GRANITE. 21
Grindelwald Viescherhorner in the Bernese Alps, the whole
southern wall of the BergeU in the Grisons, &c. &c.
But a different kind of atmospheric action attracts our
attention in the Alps, and that in the most singular manner,
and in places where the explanation is not at once obvious.
This appears in the so-caUed " DevU's MiUs " or " seas of
rock " on the highest points of many isolated mountains.
The Sidelhorn close to the Grimsel is one of the most
visited points of view in the Bernese Alps. It is easUy
reached from the hospice in two or two and a half hours.
The nearer one approaches to the summit, the more do
the vast rock-ruins accumulate, piled wondrously over
each other, tiU at length the highest point is covered with
a perfect chaos of such loosely massed granitic blocks of
gneiss. At times a certain disturbed stratification may be
observed, something hke plates laid upon each other ; then
again, in other places, a tolerably regular steplike formation ;
but in general they lie vrithout recognisable order. This
phenomenon, which frequently occurs on summits, is the
result of a weathering of the granite, but of that kind
in which more or less the scaly structure was once pre
dominant. The brothers Schlagintweit represent in their
Atlas * such disorganised scales of gneiss. As the fanciful
Jean Paul employs the beautiful picture, " graves are the
mountain-tops of a far new world," here in reahty the
mountain-tops are graves of a past world.
The grandest and most imposing masses of granitic rock
are only to be found in the Central Alps. There they
often tower in such fearful subhmity, hke vertical waUs
of rock-palaces, above the deep vaUey-hoUows, that one is
startled at their greatness. He who has never seen the
* To the " Neuen Untersuchiuigen tiber die physicalische Geographie
und Geologic der Alpen." c 3

22 THE ALPS.
dusky pyramid of the Finster Aarhorn from the
"Abschwung" on the Aar glacier, as it rises in naked
subhmity from the snow-beds to the clouds — he who has
not journeyed round the south-east of Mont Blanc and
seen its central mass from the Cramont, or the giant
rocky brows of the grand Cornier, Dent Blanche, and
Weisshorn from the depths of the Einfischthal — wifl hardly
be able to construct for his imagination a right measure
of their colossal relations. And yet aU these granite giants
are far exceeded, as to the impression which they make
upon the eye, by that steep abyss into which the Monte
Eosa sinks at the head of the vaUey of Macugnaga. It is
the greatest vertical magnitude of the European continent.
The hmestone Alps, the Diablerets, Dolden and Gespalten-
horn, and the Bliimhs Alp, show mighty rock-fronts, but
they shrink in presence of these granite walls to masses of
the second order.
We called granite the historic stone of the earth. It is
so in the Alps in more than one respect. Its solemn rock-
waUs were often memorials of great deeds, which may be
compared to the subhmest moments of classical antiquity.
The undaunted Eussian Suwaroff, a modern Epaminondas,
who would rather have been buried in the clefts of the
rocks than give up his post, when his columns had repulsed
the French under Gaudin in the narrow vaUey of Tremola,
left the laconic words " Suwarow Victor " carved in the
granite waU for an everlasting remembrance. Next day
the chffs of gneiss were witnesses of equaUy heroic deeds
where the Devil's Bridge spans the stormy waters of the
Eeuss with its bold arch. Over the granitic deserts of the
St. Bernard, Bonaparte led his army to the victory of
Marengo, in May, 1800 ; and when the Simplon pass, the
first great Alpine road, had been pierced by his orders,
he had carved in an opening of the gallery of Gondo the

GRANITE. 23
words "Aere Italo, mdcccv. Nap. Imp." Andreas Hofer,
the host of Passeyr, was born in the granite country, and
between granite rocks he fought his glorious fights for the
freedom of Tyrol. Eetiring further back to ancient times,
we meet with deeds wrought upon it, as hard-grained and
firm almost as the granite itself. Benedict Fontana
breathed out his hero-soul upon the gneiss crystals of the
Malser-haide with the joyful words, " Go on stoutly, my
friends ; don't be disquieted by my loss — it is only one
man gone. To-day you may save your free Fatherland
and the free confederacy. If you are beaten, your
children are slaves for ever." Those are words of granite
and primeval rock ; it is as if the character of the rock
had passed into the people's blood. And then the mighty
December fight of 1478 in the Livinenthal, where a
handful of herdsmen destroyed ten times their number
of MUanese under Count BoreUi tiU the snows of
BeUinzona were red with their blood. Then the hero-
graves of the 3000 confederates at Arbeno who sank in a
despairing fight before 24,000 Lombards in 1422; — the
double blood-baptism of the Valaisans at Ulrichen and on
the Grimsel in 1422, and many other proofs of manly
courage and bold deeds : — are they not remembrances,
which have carved their memorial in letters of flame for
men's hearts on the rock-tablets of these granite colossi ?
But the duU stone teUs us of stiU more, of times lying
further back, of an epoch when the Alps stood as they
stand to-day, but when the human race was not. These
memorial-stones are the " erratic blocks."

c 4

-'^ THE ALPS.

CHAP. m.
ERRATIC BLOCKS.
Yes ! many towns of the Alpine land stand upon rums ;
on walls of blocks and rock fragments, which have come
from the central chains of the mountains. Certainly this
base of ruins does not everywhere he open to the day.
The workman who is laying the foundations of a new
house, or the miner who is digging for a new weU, comes
across it at the bottom of the highest layer of soU. But
not merely covered up in the earth, but in the open ah,
on the meadows and forests of the hUl-country, even high
up on the outhers of the Alps and on the Jura, blocks of
stone are to be found which, from the nature of then-
material, must have had thefr home far off in the central
Alps, twenty-eight geographical mUes away. They have
been caUed " foundlings " or wandering blocks. They
show partly rounded surfaces, hke roUed stones from river
beds ; partly fresh, sharp-angled hnes of fracture, as if they
had just been severed from thefr parent rocks. They are
of all sizes, from that of a skittle-baU up to bodies of
such cubical contents that from the substance of a single
one lying in a field at Hongg, near Zurich, caUed the " red
ackerstein " (field stone), a solid, respectable two-storied
house was buUt, which bears the foUowing inscription : 
" Ein grosser rother Ackerstein
In mancher Stuck zerbrochen klein,

ERRATIC BLOCKS. 25
Durch Menschenhand und Pulversg'walt
Macht jezund dieses Hauses G'stalt.
Vor Ungluck und Zerbrechlichkeit
Bewahr es Gottes Gutigkeit." *
It once belonged to the Count Benzel-Sternau. But
the block of which the house was buUt came from the
recesses of the mountains of Glarus, perhaps from the
Freiberg, or out of the Sernfthal.
Science has had httle trouble in answering the question
" Wlience ? " From the structure, colour, and mineral
composition of the granite, gneiss, mica, verrucano, and
slate erratics, and from the position of thefr site in regard
to the vaUey systems of the Alps, it could easUy be de
ciphered from which of the central masses they had
come. But the " How ? " of the transport caused many
disputes among the investigators of the last fifty years.
Some suspected that, at the last elevation of the Alps,
Nature had taken to throwing vast volcanic bombs, and
that these fragments had then been ejected and cast for
miles over hiU and vaUey. This bold fancy was soon put
down by the establishment of the facts, — first, of the regu
larity with which these blocks were deposited in a hne on
the mountain slopes ; secondly, of the relations of parti
cular areas of deposit to the mountains whence the blocks
were derived. Others supposed enormous deluges which
had roUed down these burdens, often weighing hundreds
of thousands of hundredweights, from the Alps, — an
* " From out a great red ' acre-stone '
To many little pieces blown
By hand of man and powder's blast,
Was made this house so firm and fast.
God in His mercy keep it sound ;
Let no ill-luck its walls confound."

26

THE ALPS.

hypothesis the physical impossibUity of which was speedily
demonstrated. At last, when the theory of the nature and
motion of glaciers, first treated of by the Valaisan engineer
Venetz, and worked out by Forbes and Agassiz, cleared
up a number of the strangest phenomena of the Alps, the
conclusion was arrived at, that the erratic blocks have
been carried to their present position hy former enormously
great glaciers, which must have reached right into the
Swiss " middle-land." As wUl be shown further on, the
glaciers move slowly from the heights to the vaUey, bear
ing on their backs the stones which have crumbled from
the rocks on thefr banks, down to the place where they
melt away in the warmer temperature and deposit their
burden. These waUs of stone which are heaped about
the end of a glacier are named frontal moraines.
The existence of such mounds heaped up in the shape
of horse-shoes in the Swiss middle-land, e.g. at Berne, Sursee,
Bremgarten, Zifrich, Eapperschwyl, &c., gave the first
proof of the transport of the erratic blocks. In Ziirich the
Promenade hiU, the heights on which the cathedral, the
chm-ch of Neumiinster, the Lindenhof, &c., stand, are re
mains of such extinct frontal moraines. A second proof
was drawn from the fact that the erratics, even when
formed of the hardest rock, present scratched lines and
furrows exactly simUar to those of rocks scored by existing
glaciers. By means of the vast pressure of the superin
cumbent ice, the smaU, intensely hard and sharp crystals
of quartz carve lines in the rock, which seem to have
been cut by a glazier's diamond. The roUed blocks which
have been carried down by the wild Alpine torrents do
not present these scratches. Thus the erratic blocks
carried as it were Nature's handwriting like the passport
of thefr previous wanderings, with the visa of every vaUey
through which they have passed.

ERRATIC BLOCKS. 27
The thfrd and most important argument for the transport
of these erratics by extinct glaciers is to be found in the
" Eundhockern " (roches moutonnees). In most Alpine
vaUeys whose waUs are formed of weather-beaten granitic
rocks, are to be seen in certain places (often 1000 feet
above the present level of the valley) rounded surfaces
regularly striped and smoothed, whicii have often received
so fine a pohsh as to glitter hke mfrrors in the sun. On
the descent from the Todtensee to the Grimsel hospice, and
thence to the HoUenplatte, on the field of ruins by the
St. Gothard hospice, and in hundreds of other Swiss places,
one may see and feel such " roches moutonnees," and, where
they are not overgrown by the sulphur-coloured hchen
{Lecidea geographica), may wonder at their pohsh. The
same phenomenon also appears close to the glaciers, by
those, for example, ofthe Gorner, Viesch, Aletsch, Findelen,
and Zinal vaUeys : we can foUow it from the glacier bank
under the ice tUl far down the vaUey walls ; we can foUow
it in horizontal hnes for hours down the vaUey, uninter
rupted by the change in the stratification or the nature
of the rocks. Such proofs increase the probabihty to a
certainty that these vaUeys, now partly overgrown with
ancient forests, were once the beds of gigantic glaciers.
There is finally one proof in the regularity of the deposi
tion of these erratics, which fuUy supports and completes
the others. By " regularity " is to be understood not the
uniformity of deposition afready mentioned along hnes of
equal elevation upon the lower outlying hUls of the Alps,
but the regular grouping of the blocks according to
colour and material of the stone. For example, on the
two sides of a broad vaUey which again branches out into
various side-valleys amongst the higher mountains, the
masses of granite, diorite, gneiss, or hmestone are not to
be found scattered up and down amongst each other, of aU

28

THE ALPS.

colours, green, red, white, and brown, of coarse and fine
grain, fibrous and laminated: they wiU be in separate
groups. Let us make this a httle clearer. Let us think
of the glacier as a main stream, arising from the confluence
of many mountain rivers, each of which again receives its
due supply of water from various sources. Suppose
again that each of these sources brings down fragments
from its rocky shores. They would probably mix up the
stones which they brought down, as the water is mixed
up in its course. But the glaciers as sohd bodies of ice
(if we keep to the image of a river system) do not mix,
when they come together in the broad valleys, hke the
flowing moving water, but continue their journey side
by side, even though apparently united. Thus the long
hnes of ruins (moraines) resting upon them show far off,
of how many side-glaciers the main glacier is composed.
Thus too the stones from different vaUeys remain separate,
and thus the former gigantic glaciers deposited thefr
blocks only on that side of the vaUey which corresponds
to the lateral valleys lying further up in the mountains.
The weU-known Swiss geologist, Escher von der Linth, has
pubhshed a map, founded upon the investigations of many
years, of the area of extension of all the blocks found
north of the Alps in Switzerland. Such erratic blocks
are also to be found south of the Alps. The Lombard
inland waters, the Lago Maggiore and the lakes of Como
and Garda, are closed in at their mouths by just such
waUs of blocks as those of the lakes of Zurich, Sempach,
and Baldegg in Switzerland. The same phenomenon
appears in other mountain chains. The Pyrenees, the
Scotch Highlands, the Swedish Kjolen, the Vosges, the
Cordillera of America have their erratics as weU as the
Alps. The phenomenon which thus occurs in both hemi
spheres leads therefore to the conclusion that a period of

ERRATIC BLOCKS. 29
universal cold must once have existed, which was certainly
the latest event in the history of our planet's formation ;
for where such blocks are to be found, they always
appear as the latest deposit, which came to its present
place only since the Alpine valleys and gorges, river-beds
and lake-basins, received thefr present shape.

30 THE ALPS.

CHAP. W.
" KARRENFIELDS."
The expression used to describe the appearance of the
earth on the first day of creation was transferred to the
boundless sandy plains of Africa and Asia, and these in
hospitable arid levels were caUed " wastes." The Alps,
too, have thefr "wastes," — their regions where Nature
seems utterly dead, where the regenerative power of the
everlasting mother is extinct ; but they present different
forms, different materials, ancl very different surrounding
circumstances from the Sahara. They are generally sought
for above the snow hne, in the inexhaustible reservoirs of
neve, and on the glacier slopes, where the piercing cold
threatens to nip in the bud all organic development. But,
as we shall presently see, death is by no means so triumph
ant there. On the contrary, the pulses of the earth's hfe
beat with regular strokes even in these deserts, fuhilhng
steadUy, though almost imperceptibly, its task in the eco
nomy of Nature's household, and assisting to preserve the
whole. Here, therefore, our analogy is not to be sought.
And, in fact, there are stUl more barren and death-hlce
regions in the mountains than the wastes of snow, —
broad extensive tracts in the untrodden wUdernesses,
which, bare of aU vegetation, he in rigid and everlasting
resignation. These are the "Schratten" or "Karren"
fields, caUed in the.Eomansch "Lapiaz." High up in the

" KARRENFIELDS." 81
mountains, by the side of the frequented passes and the
Hvely Alpine pasturages, at a height of from four to sis
thousand feet in the hmestone Alps, lie bare, naked plains
of stone, often extended almost at a dead level for hours,
which are so furrowed, and crossed by deeply cut chan
nels, that they look as if a swelhng sea had been suddenly
tumed to stone, and left behind an inextricable net of
crested waves. Below they are so terribly spht and
gnawed into by gutters, yards in depth, that it is impos
sible by any ineans, by jumping, clambering, or careful
balancing, to make way across them ; for the remains of
stone between these channels run across them like narrow
dams, as sharp as the edge of a knife, and then suddenly
break off, interrupted by cross-cuttings. They appear
again like combs whose different teeth are broken off at
aU kinds of heights, — a plain which has been as it were
hacked, hollowed out, sawn through, and carved by giant
instruments, — a stony sea sphntered and cracked, fuU
of the strangest forms, which often resemble glacier
" needles." Between them are deep ftmnel-shaped holes,
like the' craters of a volcano ; or they sink into canals
which disappear underground. Then again they open
into bowls, yards in breadth, and with bottoms riddled
through like a sieve. In other places a certain law of
erosion seems to have prevailed in this chaos, for the
masses bf ruin have nearly the appearance of cells in a
beehive, on which account the shepherds caU them sig
nificantly " Steinwaben," stone honeycombs. They are,
indeed, a miniature picture of the most fearful destruc
tion. AU this is indeed a result of weathering, of the im
perceptible but powerful operation of the waters from
glaciers, snows, and rains, of the withering buming heat
of the sun, and of the splitting, severing, and bursting

32

THE ALPS.

frost, of the most unchecked action of atmospheric influ
ences upon the stone. And because this weathering is
more apparent on the hmestone than elsewhere, and
because even the fossUs contained in it occur only hi
fraginents and decay, geologists caU it " Eudisten-kalk,"
or, from its organic remains [Caprotina ammonia and
gryphdides), " Caprotin-kalk." Besides this, it has the
popular name of " Schratten " limestone, because " Schrat
ten " means amongst the people of the Alps " mountain
sphts and rents," which perhaps is derived from the
German word "Scharte," in Enghsh "shard." Finally,
because in the bare naked rocks, especiaUy hi Unter
walden, the "Eudisten" occur frequently, and form
strange unusual figures on the surface of the stone, it
is also known as hieroglyphic hmestone.
It is evident that this hmestone has a very peculiar
tendency to dissolve, which has produced the chameUing..
As not the least particle of earth finds a place on these
decaying bones of rock, which in summer reflect an unen
durable heat, and as in spring the waters which cohect
after heavy rauis, or from the melting of the snow m the
subalpine region, hasten down through the hoUow gutters
and cavities into the trackless bowels of the mountain, to
appear agam in springs at its foot, it is erident that these
plains do not afford the necessary conditions for the
growth even of the hardiest plants. As far as the eye can
reach over the comfortless, pale, monotonous rocky levels,
it looks dreary and deathhke. Where no flower blooms
to open its cup of honey, there no insect hums, not a
butterfly flutters, not a beetle whirrs past. Where no
weed not a blade of grass, can flnd nom-ishment m the
clefts 'of the rock, where not even a moss can support its
hardy existence, there not the smallest marmot will
remain Where all means of passage is so destroyed as

" KARRENFIELDS." 33
in these Karrenfields there no chamois will wander. Even
the bfrds seem to avoid these wUdernesses. No mountain-
crow or raven, no partridge or ptarmigan, no falcon or
eagle is ever seen to alight on them. Hence the Schratten-
fields may weU be caUed the deserts of the Alps. Where,
however, these Karrenfields border on the meadows, so
that earth may be carried by the water into their depths,
the most luxurious vegetation which grows on the Alps
may be found amongst them. Such places often serve the
root-diggers as the best hunting grounds for thefr dan
gerous trade.
As universaUy, where anything dismal, inexphcable, and
extraordinary is to be found, popular superstition assumes
the action of supernatural power, so here it takes refuge
in calhng up infernal powers and evU spfrits. Dwarfs
and gnomes, caUed " Schratth " by the people, have bored
and crushed the rocks. It is nothing to them to pierce
through the solid earth hke moles. Another legend teUs
how the Schrattenfluh at Entlebuch was once one of the
best pasturages in the country, and belonged to two
brothers who ruled over it in common. One of them
having become blind, they resolved to divide their posses
sions, and the one who could stiU see was entrusted with
the division. He however took advantage of his bhnd
brother, put the boundary stones wrong, and took for
himself the largest and best part of the Alp. When the
bhnd man was told of this, he spoke to his brother about
it. The brother however forswore himself saying, " the
devU might take him and destroy his meadow, if he had
not shared it quite fairly." Then arose a fearful storm,
the hiUs shook, Satan appeared, and the oath was fulfilled.
The devU stripped off all the turf and useful soU from the
mountain, and that with such zeal and envy, that the
D

34 THE ALPS.
marks of his claws are stiU to be seen hi the slope of the
channels in the rock. Whilst the bhnd man's meadow
remained unhurt, his brother was carried off to heU.
If we except the machinery of the story, there is real
and deep sense at the bottom of this legend. The un
reasoning hand of man, which robbed the mountains of
thefr forests, so that the ground was left unprotected to
be destroyed by the weather, was the devil's fist which
laid waste the mountain.
It has been sought to represent the Karrenfields as the
result of erosion by former glaciers, inasmuch as they often
appear in company with other unmistakable traces of
glacier-action. More accurate investigations have suffi
ciently shown that this hypothesis is untenable. The shding
of the glaciers, of which we have already spoken in the
chapter on granite, has the special property of smoothly
and regularly rounding off the rocks, whereas the proper
Schrattenfield is irregularity and unevenness itself.
The most important and deeply marked Karrenfields
are in the Cantons of AppenzeU, St. GaUen, Glarus and
Schwyz ; the most celebrated and best worthy of a visit
is that of the Silberen. It is reached in two and a half or
three hours from the pastoral lake of the Klonthal (the
pilgrimage of all tourists since the opening of the raUway
to Glarus), by foUowing the path over the Pragel to the
top of the pass, ,a,nd then turning to the left. The lime
stone surface of the Karrenfield on the SUberen is so white
that, seen from a distance, it may be taken for a snowfield.
Other Schratten are on the northern slope of the Chur
first, on the Scherenberg near the Leistkam (which is ex
ceptionaUy almost covered in many places with Alpine
roses), then on the Messmer on the western side of the
Santis chain, along the Silberplatte, — on the Kerenzerberg,

" KARRENFIELDS." 35
easUy accessible by the raUway on the WaUensee, — on the
mountains ofthe Waggithal on the Fluhbrig, Frohnalpstock
on the Bauen (Lake of Lucerne), on the Sattelistock, on
the Briinigpass, on the Kaiserstock, on the Eawyl and
Sanetsch passes, Tour d'Ay, Tour de Mayen, and many
other places.

D 2

36

THE ALPS.

CHAP. V.
NAGELFLUH.
When you, my dear reader, on your Swiss summer's
journey, are traveUing from Germany over the Lake of
Constance towards the mountains, through the pleasant
land of Appenzell, or through the industrious country of
Joggenburg, or stiU farther west, through the Emmenthal
or Entlebuch ; or, when as you are making a stay, which
strengthens you in body, Jieart, and soul, in the charming
Hotel BeUevue, at Thun, with its park-hke neighbourhood,
its friendly landlord, Herr Knechtenberg, takes you past
the Enghsh Chapel to the PavUlon Saint Jacques, whence
you look down over a rich picture, over the proud
mediasval castle built by Herr von Eougemont at an
expense of a miUion and a half of francs, over the
Chartreuse and the Lake of Thun, across to the Niesen,
the chain of the Stockhorn, and the great cfrcle formed
by the snowy domes of the Jungfrau, Monch, Eiger, and
many others, — or, when you ascend the Eigi, or even
the Freudenberg above St. GaUen, in aU these cases
your eye falls upon walls of rock, which, to the practised
eye are not, properly speaking, rocks, for they look more
hke the fronts of enormous gravel pits. You should look
at this conglomerate a httle nearer, and spend a few
minutes in examining it. Your loss of time -vriU be richly
repaid, if you are a friend of natural sciences.
This strange formation is "Nagelfluh," a tertiary de-

NAGELFLUH. 37
posit, a kind of natural storehouse formed of flat and
roUed stones, belonging to the molasse period, and thus
one of the most recent deposits with which we are ac
quainted. Nagelfluh occurs in thick masses, and through
an area of leagues in breadth, only on the northem slopes
of the Alps ; and there forms the first outlying heights of
the mountains. In the Jura it only occurs in detached
masses as in Pruntrut, Delsperg, in the celebrated rock-
gate of the Pierre Pertuis, in the cool hermit's gorge of St.
Verena, at Solothurn, round Aarburg and Aarau, and in
the DevU's CeUar at Baden. Besides these places, the
nagelfluh is found only on the borders of India.
This conglomerate (allied to the so-caUed " pudding-
stones ") consists of enormous layers, often several thousand
feet thick, of deposited roUed sj^ones, which are connected
by means of a cement containing hme, and effervescing
under the action of acids. It is often so firm that both
stones and cement form a uniformly hard mass, and when
broken, spht into flat surfaces of fracture, passing equaUy
through stones and cement. This firmness is so remark
able, that the nagelfluh of some places, that, for example,
known, as Degersheim and Solothurn marble, has been
used by stone-masons for large fountain basins, and mo
numental work, and even for millstones. The size of the
included stones varies exceedingly. Some are found lying
close together of the size of grains of corn, so that the
deposit has the appearance of a fine-grained sandstone.
Others, again, are huge blocks, cubical yards in size.
AU this however would not make the nagelfluh a
speciaUy interesting natural production, were it not for
two cfrcumstances which have not hitherto been satisfac-
torUy explained. The nagelfluh consists, like aU gravel,
of fragments of stone of the most various shapes, spherical,
oblong, or with both round and flat surfaces. According
D 3

38 THE ALPS.
to its colour and quahty it has been divided into the two
chief groups of variegated and hmestone nagelfluh. To
the variegated nagelfluh belong those conglomerates
which as thefr name expresses are splendid with a rich
mosaic of colour. There we find fiery red spheres of
porphyry close to clear granite pebbles of a soft apple-
green, warm violet coloured cyhnders of spiht close to
deep green ovals of serpentine, yeUow ochre-coloured
rounded flints by flesh-coloured and veined spheroids of
felspar. The limestone nagelfluh is less brUhant ; grey,
blue, and blackish tones prevaU in it. There are how
ever specimens which vary from this, such as the nagelfluh
at the foot of the Speer, near Wesen, on the WaUensee,
which has almost the appearance of German sausage or
Gotha brawn. For fragments of Felspar are baked into
the dark red cement (which contains fron), looking hke
fat bits of bacon ; and other stones containing hme may
without much stretch of the imagination be taken for bits
of crackhng and forced meat. The curiosity-seeker may
find fragments of this plaything of nature close behind the
raUway station at Wesen.
One circumstance stUl unexplained is this, — that frag
ments of rock are found in it (even in great numbers)
which are either not found in the Alps at aU, or at any
rate only in the southern vaUeys (whose present river
systems flow towards the south, such as the Ehone, Ticino,
Inn), and that fragments of rock are entfrely wanting
which one woidd have expected to find in great numbers,
because they occur frequently in the Alps. No other
supposition is possible than to assume that the nagelfluh
is derived from mountains which have been completely
destroyed in some great convulsion of the earth, then
swept away and rounded by friction in the primeval sea,
and ultimately deposited in great masses, enveloped in a

NAGELFLUH. 39
mud cement, and afterwards raised again from the depths
when the Alps were elevated from the bottom of the sea.
A second stiU more interesting but stUl less exphcable
circumstance is that of the impressions. If we search only
for a short time the bare rocks of nagelfluh (those,
that is, whose binding cement is not so hard, but that the
pebbles can be easily extracted), we shaU find specimens
of these, which have received deeply moulded impressions
from thefr next neighbours, much as if one was to stamp
any hard object into fresh kneaded bread. The two
stones, however, are generaUy of equal hardness, and stone
No. 2, which made the impression in stone No. 1, has
again received on another side precisely similar crushings
or indentations from stone No. 3. As we must suppose
that the pebbles, before they were pohshed down, were
hard and brittle, it is difficult to explain how they could
have received such impressions from their hard neigh
bours. If we assume that these pebbles were stUl tolerably
soft when deposited, and therefore easily received impres
sions, a similar degree of softness must be assumed in
those stones which produced the impressions. Two equaUy
soft bodies may certainly flatten each other, but one can
hardly penetrate into the substance of the other. But
there occurs another phenomenon to prove that aU the
nagelfluh pebbles were already very hard when they were
enveloped in cement, — namely, the mfrror-like, striped,
and shining polish, which they display in many places.
Examples may be found, which, treated by the lapidary,
shine in the sun like bright panes of glass. Others show
sharply scratched and numerous hnes which make the
grained hmestone appear hke fibrous asbestos ; and others
again where nature's wonderful laboratory has made such
energetic incisions as if the stone had been carved by a
D 4

40

THE ALPS.

diamond chisel. Most of these pohshed surfaces show a
metaUic lustre. No doubt the whole phenomenon has its
origin in a gigantic lateral pressure produced by the Alps
on the elevation of the masses, in consequence of which, the
stones shde over each other with incalculable vehemence,
and as they were heated by the friction mutually pohshed
each other. Such a pohshed stone gives a beautifal ex
ample for microscopic examination. If it.be placed under
the instrument, and either the hght of a lamp, or stUl
better, of the sun, reflected from it at particular angles,
indescribably beautiful effects of colour are produced. A
kaleidoscope, in which the most brUhantly coloured pieces
of glass were inserted, could not produce such a ghstening,
whirhng and stragghng play of colour as the tiny polished
crystals of the modest grey hmestone pebble.
At one time the purest and most fiery prismatic colours
group themselves into a cfrclet of rosettes, or into stars
with rays of various colours, at another they resemble
the thousand-hued gfrandole of the fire- worker, or inter
laced diamond twigs, whose ends seem to run into the
very heart of the stone. Then again glimmering, frregu-
larly crossing glassy branchwork, or architectural facades
with string cornices, pUasters, and crossing ribs hke a fairy
palace made by spfrit hands for Oberon — in short, a world
in miniature fuU of strange phantasmagoria, reveals itself
to the astonished eye. And yet it is an invisible crumb
from the great ruin heaps of a past world, and reminds
one of Byron's " Manfred : " —
" Mountains have fallen,
Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock
Eocking their Alpine brethren, filling up
The ripe green valleys with destruction's splinters •
Damming the rivers with a sudden dash,
Which crushed the waters into mist, and made
Their fountains find another channel."

LANDSLIP.

41

CHAP. VI.
THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU.
The framework of the earth is in a state of uninterrupted
ruin and renovation. That great cycle of creation, which
we recognise best in the germination, growth, death, and
decay of plants, because they recur in a period within
the grasp of our perceptions, takes place equaUy in the
very fabric of our earth, although its epochs embrace
thousands of years. Here, however, there is a change
rather of form than of material.
If we contemplate the ground upon which we walk,
the garden and arable land which bears our corn and our
wood for burning and buUding, or the dust of the roads
which the wind whfrls and confounds high in the afr, if
we examine it aU carefuUy in the microscope, and divide
it into its simple elements, we should find amongst innu
merable particles of half or quite destroyed animal and
vegetable organisms, amongst scarcely recognisable infu
soria and snailsheUs, just as many and even more smaU
fragments of ancient mountains. A varied mixture of
glassy sphnters of quartz, and coloured flakes of schist,
ghstening crystals of mica, and angular grains of por
phyry, transparent stones of felspar, and dense particles
of hmestone would appear, which have been crushed to
atoms, and are going through a process of restoration.
This transforming energy and the continual change of

42 the alps.
our earth's crust which it produces can only be perceptibly
recognised where the moving powers are developed on the
largest scale in the service of nature, on the sea-shore and
in the mountains.
On the sea-shore or on that of inland lakes and even of
rivers we see new deposits of earth and stone which are
called httoral formations. New islands spring up from
the depths of the ocean to enlarge the region of firm land,
whUst in other places the uninterrupted working of the
waves and the surge is continuaUy washing away sohd
waUs of rock and submerging them in the depths.
This levelhng process shows itself far more strikingly
m the mountains. Every rapid melting of the high snows
in the spring, every thunderstorm with its vehement
showers of rain, every glacier as it shdes down, is sending
yearly innumerable ruins of rock down from the hills to
the vaUeys, to the Alpine meadows and lowlands, and to
the lake basins at thefr feet. K we could calculate
roughly their probable influence, we should find that in
some vast period of time the atmospheric influences would
lead to a complete leveUing of hUl and vaUey, were it not
that every now and then unforeseen catastrophes occur
which cause an interruption in our reckoning.
The dweUer in the Alps caUs such events and the dis
tricts that they lay waste, " Eiife," " Steinrieseten,"
" Gante," or " G'schiitten," and in aU the broader vaUeys
of Switzerland, Tyrol, and the Alpine countries shut in by
steep mountain-waUs, such deserts of ruin may be seen
bare of vegetation, resembhng streams turned to stone.
In violent storms they have in a few hours covered with
sand and with their detritus valuable cultivated or meadow-
land and destroyed its power of bearing for many years.
These are not to be confounded with the proper rock-
falls and landslips, which from thne to time visit the Alps,

THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU. 43
and belong to the most fearful of natural occurrences.
Almost aU are produced mediately or immediately by the
action of water. Either the water continuaUy and unceas
ingly pierces, gnaws away and bursts the narrow joints in
the very hardest kinds of rock, penetrating into them imper
ceptibly, freezing in the winter and tearing them open Hke
a wedge by the expansive power of the frost, tUl the masses
of stone, separated from thefr parent rocks, and completely
loosened from thefr natural base, at length, when the
summer comes and the penetrating ice melts, lose thefr
equilibrium and faU into the vaUey ;¦ — or else the super
position of different beds and the shght coherence of the
adjacent layers and the direction of thefr " dip " (as geo
logists caU it) are causes of the landshp. This last can
only happen in those Alps which are not formed of crys
taUine rock (granite, gneiss, mica-schist, porphyry, Syenite,
and generaUy the rocks containing felspar) hke the central
Alps, but only of sedimentary deposits, as was previously
explained. Here the action of water is dfrect, especiaUy
of the rain and snow water which penetrates in great
abundance into the earth between the layers of rock, and
dissolves thefr connection.
This is especiaUy the case in mountains whose lowest
mass consists of compact and impervious layers, into
which the water can sink but slightly. Wlien decajdng
and easily destructible material is placed upon those,
such as red marl, for example, and above this again
a considerable thickness of a different kind of rock
of less density, such as sandstone and nagelfluh, or stUl
more any rock through which the water easily per
colates, it foUows as a natural consequence that either the
water trickles throu.gh tUl it comes to the lowest and
densest rock and runs off in subterranean canals, according
to the dip of the strata, to appear again somewhere as a

44

THE ALPS.

spring through a thousand internal arteries and holes ;
or if it cannot find a sufficient outlet, it completely loosens
and dissolves the intermediate layers and changes them
into mere soft slime.
It now depends upon the course of the weather and the
nature of the locahty, what is to become of this half fluid
layer of earth. If very dry weather occurs after lasting
rains, it grows hard again, the water is graduaUy eva
porated, the mud dries up, and the threatened danger is
averted. But if the Fohn or west wind continuaUy drives
new masses of rain into the hiUs, and if no lasting dam
has been opposed by nature herself to the weakened layer,
the whole mass breaks away, and a " Schlamm-lauine "
(shme-avalanche) is the result. Wherever it dfrects its de
vastating but uncontroUable course, it overwhelms, fiUs up,
immures, and often covers for fathoms in depth whatever
stands hi its way, hke the lava of a volcano. Whatever
it reaches is frrevocably destroyed." By such a stream of
mud a great part of the charming viUage of Waggis, by
the Lake of Lucerne, was annihilated and overwhelmed in
July 1795. It was announced on the night of the 15th
of July by a singular monotonous roar, which to the fancy
of the people seemed to come from the ceUars. When
clay began, the inhabitants saw with horror a thick dark
red stream of mud, several fathoms high, and perhaps a
mUe broad, rolhng down towards the vUlage. Its motion
was so slow that aU the portable possessions of the vUlagers
could be carried away. It lasted a good fourteen days,
tUl the traveUing stream of mud reached the lake shore ;
but a number of houses and exceUent pieces of land were
a prey to the catastrophe.
Such mud avalanches, however, when they find no
outlet, are indirect causes of falls of rock. The layers
of rock, resting at great inchnations on the layer of mud,

THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU. 45
tear themselves loose by thefr own weight, and shde down
the sHppery earth to the vaUey.
A storm in the ocean, a mountain spitting fire, the
blaze of primeval forests in America, the simoom in the
desert, may aU chiU a man's blood in Ms veins ; but no
storm in the open sea, when the saUor sees destruction in
a thousand watery graves, no breaking forth of a volcano
towards heaven, no burning of the American forest, can
cause greater horror than that fearful moment when the
mountaineer calls to his wife, cluldren, and neighbours to
" run, for the mountain is coming ! "
There is only one phenomenon which can be compared
to a mountain faU, for appaUing danger, and that is the
earthquake. When a mountain comes down, all that hes
before its crushing power, is doomed to death, almost at
the same instant that it is warned of danger. Only think,
of those stable mountain masses, which, since the memory
of man, have been enthroned above men's heads in death
hke indifferent cahn, as it were a building raised by
Nature for time everlasting, suddenly deprived of thefr
supports by an invisible hand,' set in motion, wavering,
tearing theinselves loose, and storming down with the
speed of hghtning, into the peaceable vaUey below.
Such a fearful event destroyed the viUages of Goldau,
Eotten, Busingen, and Lowertz, in a few minutes, by the
descent of the Eossberg, lying north of these places.
The years 1804 and 1805 had been very rainy, and the
year which foUowed them continued to discharge unusual
quantities of rain upon the Alpine land. Midsummer was
quite remarkable for its continuous rain, which, towards
the end of August, and especially on the first of September,
threatened to take the form of absolute deluges.
The landscape of a plain country looks dismal enough
after four weeks of rain, in its saturated flooded state,

46 THE ALPS.
but it cannot be compared to a mountainous land after
the same period.
From every gorge and retired valley destruction peeps
forth, and is everywhere shaking and eating away what
resists. The earth-stained and swollen waters flowing
from every mountain-slope, foam and roar in channels
and runlets cut out by themselves. AU the hollow ways
are deep in water, and the variegated hieroglyphicaUy-
marbled pebbles (deprived of the cement in which they
were imbedded), which before were unnoticed in their
dull colours in the earth, shine out so transparently bright
(as though pohshed by the stonecutter) that they present
a natural dUuvial mosaic in thefr heightened colouring.
The bare root-network of the pines and larches, of the
sycamore [acer pse.udo-platanus), and the Alphie alder
(alnus viridis), and of the bristly juniper (juniperus sa-
hina), and other trees, standing by the wayside, hangs
down over it aU sodden. Wherever the searching action of
the water has borne the loose soil of the forest down to the
vaUeys, the proud stems, those patricians of the vegetable
world, sink down by thefr own weight, whUe their trunks,
felled by the weather, encumber the free passage through
the forest. The fissured scale-armour of the trees' bark,
fiUed out by the over abundance of rain, loses its warm,
healthy, brown-red ochre colour ; and trunk and boughs
stand up, aU dark in the black pillared aisles of the forest.
That legendary secret dimness of the woods is wanting,
which resolves aU objects in the view into faint indeter
minate shad.ows. The steaming rain has changed every
thing, and made it sharply and harshly defined and precise.
StiU more, torn, puUed down, exhausted, and spfritless,
are the bourgeoisie of the mountain vegetation, — aU those
companionable round tables of the forest fern, the bloom-
hig, burning red lights of the epUobium, the hieracias

THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU. 47
which seem to be peering so curiously forwards, and all
those forms " woven of vapour and hght," which revel in
a blooming summer life. It is as if a mischievous boy
had been waging war against the plants ; only the sappy
stalks of the orchidese grow fat in the overflow, and those
squires of the vegetable world, that warrior troop, armed
with arrow and lance against aU offence — the sharp-spiked
famUy of thistles — in spite of the beating storms of water,
set up thefr sharp angles and spikes in heroic resistance.
They are the same old champions, who, in the winter
storms, when the weak soft ceUular tissue of nearly all
the other phanerogams gives way to decay, stiU stand
up, although marrowless, hke sentinels frozen at their
post, and vrith the pale naked husks of their flowers stiU
look forth through the universal sleep of nature, tUl the
north wind, or the weight of the snow pUed upon them,
breaks them down too, and adds them to the crowd of
the slain. Their motto should 'be "True tiU death."
And now, at last, the proletariat of vegetation, the
common people of the creeping grasses, the aggregate of
which forms the rich pasturage, the broad shield-leaved
fescules, the airy copper-coloured bent, the plumy calema-
grostes, the fat-leaved mUlets with thefr lofty umbels,
the tender hairgrass and tough poacese, aU he com
pletely prostrate. Thefr elastic power of resistance,
the muscular power of thefr thin blades, is broken. As
if they had been smoothly combed down by the inces
sant rain, they chng slavishly to the ground. A universal
drunkenness seems to prevaU in the world of plants, and
the rain has shown that he is thefr master. For the
quantity of rain on the mountains is something quite
different from what it is on the level plains. WhUst the
high level plains of southern Germany have a yearly rain
faU of from twenty-four to twenty-five inches, and the

48

THE ALPS.

low level plams of the north some twenty-two inches
this amount rises in the deep Alpine vaUeys to fifty-four
inches, and on the St. Bernard, accordmg to an average
of seven years, to seventy-three inches.
But aU this is not enough by itself to mark the pecuhar
character of lasting wet weather in the mountains. Some
thing hke it may be seen after steady rains in the low
country. What gives a much more dismal character to
the whole phenomenon is the profound melancholy in
which the whole landscape is sunk. The high peaks are
invisible ; clouds have hung their grey mourning cloak
upon their shoulders. Although, even under a clear
smiling sky, only a much smaUer extent of horizon can
be visible in the mountain-vaUey than from the boundless
plains, during bad weather the mountains cut off the
admittance of even this particle of clear day. The rain-
clouds are perhaps not nearer to the earth than elsewhere;
but, as the neighbouring masses of rock give a measure
for estimating the height of the clouds, the whole atmo
sphere has the appearance of brooding hke an evU dream
over the landscape. It is not rare for strangers in such
weather to be attacked by anxiety and foreboding as if
some awful misfortune were impending over them.
The valley of Goldau was in this condition, when un
expectedly, in the forenoon of the 2nd of September, the
rain ceased, whUst the melancholy horizon remained
monotonously clouded. In the early moming the country
people on the Gnypenberg (the eastern part of the Eoss
berg) and on the Spitzenbiihl remarked fresh yawning
cliffs in the soU and on the waUs of rock. The sods of
turf were in many places pushed over each other ; and
in the neighbouring forests a dull sound hke that of file-
firing was .heard from time to time, as though the roots
were being forcibly torn asunder. At the same time a

THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU. 49
¦
shower of nagelfluh pebbles came down from the chffs
over the " Gemeinde-Marcht ; " but as such showers often
take place when the snow melts in spring and at aU
seasons after continuous rain, and the inhabitants of the
Eothenberg had long been accustomed to such noises and
faUings, Httle attention was paid this time to these warn
ings; and the worst that was anticipated was that in
some remote and afready desolate place a"Brache" or
landshp might take place. This faUing of fragments of
rock with the ascent of clouds of dust increased mean
while from hour to hour. The afr trembled with constant
osciUations, and the inhabitants of the Eossberg began to
feel the shaking of the ground over a wide area. People
who were busied in digging potatoes, hewing wood, or
tending cattle on the neighbouring heights, looked towards
the Eossberg with increasing alarm.
Late in the afternoon (it had struck a quarter to five
on the church clock at Arth), suddenly, a vast chasm
opened half way up the gentle slopes of the mountain in
the " Eiithe " meadow which grew visibly broader, deeper,
and longer. The surrounding turf turned over, so that it
showed the red soU as if it had been ploughed. At the
same time the pine forests on the same level became un-
naturaUy animated. At first the taU slender pine trunks
waved gently to and fro as if touched by an invisible
hand, much as in summer the wind produces waves in
the half ripe corn. This wave-hke motion increased, but in
opposing Hnes, so that the stems and tree-tops struck
against and through each other with an frregular and
vehement motion. With harsh cries, ravens, crows, jays,
and other bfrds that harboured in the woods, flew upwards,
and hastened in flying swarms in a south-westerly dfrection
to the forests on the slopes of the Eigi. Now the vibrating
and jerking motion, the wave-hke rising and faUing passed
E

50

THE ALPS.

on to the grass-covered land. It looked as if gigantic
moles were burrowing under it. At the same time a
gentle shding and shpping of the whole upper slopes com
menced, and became constantly plainer and more rapid.
The pine forests struggled to foUow the hurried motion,
and looked — according to the expression of people who
watched the whole terrible phenomenon from beginning
to end — something hke hafr stroked against the grain.
These alarming phenomena steadUy increased. In ever
larger cfrcles, and throughout a greater extent, meadows
and grasslands, orchards, houses and stables with men and
cattle were drawn along into the fearful descent. The
people who saw the ground on which they had been born
and grown up, give way under thefr feet, started up in
horror and fled froni their homes. Then was heard a
thundering roar, as if the old foundations of the earth's
crust had given way, a sharp crackhng as if a thousand-
pointed sheaf of hghtnings from the threatening clouds had
struck the supporting pUlars of the earth with one blow,
and burst and ruined the framework of the hiUs. The
Steinberg-cliff, . a rocky waU of several millions of cubic
fathoms with all the forest upon it, and the nagelfluh wall
of the "Gemeinde-Marcht" sinking hke a terrace more
than a hundred feet below, had given way. This was the
signal for universal destruction, for then began a tragedy
which can be compared^ to no other phenomenon for its
fearful subhmity. In the wildest confusion blocks of rock
and splinters of stone, mud and turf, fohage and trees,
sometimes whirled up. into the air, sometimes enveloped
in clouds of dust, chased each over the mountain shoulders
to the vaUey of Goldau. One huge fragment seemed to
be trying to overtake another ; it was a race of raw
materials. The chaotic fall of the vast masses, the speed
of thefr descent, the umversal conftision, increased every

THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU. 51
moment. Mountain-blocks as big as houses with pines
fixed to them, hurried, as if slung by a demon's fist, with
free bounds hke flying birds, high through the afr. Other
masses of rock ricochetted Hke shots from a giant can
nonade striking from time to time only to bound up again
into the afr. Others were crushed by thefr companions
on their path, and spluttered hke white-hot iron rods
shooting out sparks under the hammer. It was a scene
from the Titans' battle of Greek mythology.
In a few minutes hundreds of dweUing-houses, and as
many stables and sheds were destroyed. For the whole
slope of the Eossberg, almost up to-the Gnypenspitz, whose
highest point is adorned by a wooden cross, was at that
tune dotted over with detached houses ; and beneath in the
vaUey, between the lakes of Zug and Lowertz, lay the rich
viUages of Goldau, Busingen, and Lowertz. Under the ruins
four hundred and fifty-seven men found a common grave.
There were strange stories of' escape in this awful
catastrophe. In almost the highest house below the Spitz
enbiihl lived at that time Blassi Mettler with his young
wife Agatha, nineteen years old. At sight of this infernal
spectacle on the " Gemeinde-Marcht" the mountain peasant,
fully behoving in ghosts and witches, thought that evU
spfrits were at work. He fancied that the shrieks of the
wood-owls were the exulting yeUs of demons, that the
whistling and roaring in the rocK'-clefts were the mournful
cries of damned spirits intended to give him warning, and
that the thmidering descent of the mountain was the work
of Satan or the forerunner of the day of judgment.
Brought up as he was in superstitio'us behefs from his
youth, crammed full of legends of treasure-sphits, hob
goblins and dwarfs, hving in sohtude apart fi^om aU society,
his imagmation painted the strangest pictm-es. To save
himself, his wife and chUdren from the attacks of the
E 2

52

THE ALPS.

fiend, he ran at fuU speed to the house of the priest at
Arth, and begged him with tears and sobs to come and
bless his house, i. e. to exorcise the evU spirits. Whilst he
was stUl lamenting and teUing his story, the catastrophe
took place. Mettler out of his senses, drew off his shoes
and ran hke one possessed to his house, more than an
hour distant. The doubt whether his beloved wife and
his chUd, four weeks old, had become the victims of the
landshp, nearly upset his understanding. MeanwhUe, how
had things gone on above ? The poor young wife, in ter
rible anxiety at the awful and constantly increasing noise,
and the almost uninterrupted shattering of the hut, passed
hours of unspeakable anguish during her husband's absence.
The time came at which, according to the country-custom,
she used to boU porridge for her chUd. She had already
mixed the mUk and meal and hghted the fire on the hearth
to begin cooking, when the thunderhke roar and the
rocking of the foundation- waUs of the house startled her.
Undecided whether to go or stay, she ran into the room
determining to escape into the open air with her chUd if
it was awake, if not, to remain where she was. The child
was awake in its cradle and not crying. She hastily
snatched it up, took her husband's smaU property out of
the " Ganterh " (cupboard), and hastened over the
threshold, where the ground seemed to have become ahve
beneath her feet. St^ had scarcely reached the stable be
longing to the house and turned breathlessly round for a
moment, when the dweUing house which she had just left,
dashed in ruins down to the depths below and a raging
sea of desolation hurried past her stupefied sight. So
Blassi found her as he hurried up, streaming with sweat.
The poor man without thinking of the entire loss of all
his property, thanked God for saving his family.
Some five hundred feet below hved his brother Bastian,

THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU. 53
who at the time of the landshp was with his cattle on
the common meadow on the Eigi. His wife with two
smaU children was in the house when it was swept
away by the faU. When the catastrophe was past and
people crept shyly back to its theatre, the parents and
famUy of Mettler's wife hastened up, to see what had
happened to her and her chUdren Not a trace of the
house was to be seen. AU lay in the vast grave of ruins.
Only some distance from the place where the house had
stood, in the midst of the mass of mud, lay a mattress
stuffed with withered beech leaves, and sleeping on it, lay
the smaUest child in its shfrt. The uncle climbed down
at the risk of his hfe, through the yielding avalanche of
shme mixed with blocks of stone, and saved the httle
sleeper. A Httle mud had been splashed over his face,
but he was otherwise quite uninjured. What wonderful
accident had saved the chUd in the midst of a thousand
deaths, — how the ruins of the faUing house and the
heavy roof-beams could have faUen without touching the
chUd, while it was borne, as if by invfeible hands, upon
the mattress on which it was sleeping before the cata
strophe and laid upon the heaps of ruin, is perfectly
inexphcable. This chUd is now a man of fifty-eight,
Sebastian Meinrad Mettler, who hves below in Goldau.
The most wonderful of the numerous escapes occurred
in Busingen, near the Lake of Lowertz. There dwelt
Joseph Lienhard Wiget, a strong hearty man of thfrty-two,
with wife and five chUdren, in a handsome peasant's house
"zurn unteren Lindenmooss." He was a happy contented
man. When the landshp began, Wiget was employed
with his famUy picking up fruit hi his orchard which
had been beaten down by wind and rain. When he saw
the mountain coming down, with great presence of mind
he seized his two eldest children, and ran with them to
E 3

54 THE ALPS.
one of the heights opposite the Eossberg, whilst he caUed
hastily to his wife to foUow with the smaller chUdren.
The mother, who would not abandon a chUd eleven months
old then sleeping in the house, rushed back into the
dweUing. The maid Francisca with httle Mariaime, five
years old, followed through the other door. As they
entered the room aU became dark ; utter night enveloped
the shattered house, and the unfortunates were buried
ahve. Francisca felt herself swayed to and fro, thrown
down, and at last felt as if she was faihng into an endless
abyss ; she lost her senses. When she came to herself,
she could not move or stfr, and felt that she was immured
head downwards in cold wet mud. Only her face was
free, so that She could breathe. Then she thought the
end of the world was come, everything hring destroyed,
and she left alone in her grave in the middle of the terres
trial baU, the only being stUl alive. Thus, praying in
deadly anguish, "she heard a weeping voice, whose moum
ing constantly grew louder. She caUed out, and perceived
by the answer that itwas the Httle Marianne who was groan
ing. Spite bf her awful position, she stUl feels dehghted
that a Hving being and one that she loves is near her.
They begin to converse and compare thefr position.
Marianne teUs her that she is lying between beams and
straw, on her back, and cannot move, but that she can see
something green through a narrow strip of darkness. The
pious Francisca thinks it is a look into Paradise. A long
time passes amongst prayers, sighs, lamentations, and
weeping. ~ Then both hear the sound of a beU, It is
the pleasant evening sound of the " Betglocke " (curfew)
from the Steinberg, which sounds at eight. Now Francisca
is convinced that the world's end is not yet come, and a
shght hope of safety dawns upon her. Both cry for help,
they shriek, but in vain. Now the appaUing thought
" buried ahve " rises for the first time in Prancisca's mind.

THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU. 55
But she must fight against it and conceal it from the poor
chUd, not to increase her anguish. They hear the later
" night-beU " in Steinen, and again pray uninterruptedly
an hour long ; but no hope of safety appears. Now too
the child feels torturing pains in her body and the pangs
of gnawing hunger ; Francisca is fainting from the pain of
only being able to give her favourite words of comfort
instead of real food and help. She cheers her up by all
sorts of anticipations (in which she does not herself
beHeve) to make her content, and tries in every way to
soothe the poor sufferer. The chUd's complaints become
steadUy more weak, broken, inarticulate — at last they
quite cease. " Thank God, it is over I " sighed the faithful
maiden, and prepared for her own death ; for the hours
of suffering began to be unbearable, and a deadly chUl,
with feverish changes, passed through bone and marrow.
After terribly tfresome, long efforts, she succeeds at last
in freeing her feet partly from the sohd mud surrounding
them, so that she could move them and produce some
circulation of the blood. AU the xest of her body re
mained immured as before. Words cannot describe the
terrible torture of such a position.
At last the whole long night was passed in this death
like waiting. The morning bell sounds on the Steinberg
and then also at Steinen. It rings back hope into her
almost broken heart. Again, prayers rise from her com
pressed Hps, and Hke a ray of the rising sun, the confident
conviction arises in her that she wiU be saved. Then,
wonderful to say, the voice of the chUd she had thought
dead sounds again. A swoon-Hke sleep had shortened
the night for her. She complained again of hunger, and
violent pain, and caUed to Francisca to help her.
At break of day, the comfortless father and husband
had hastened to the scene of horror with his two boys,
E 4

56 THE ALPS.
where he had afready worked the evening before, to find,
if possible, the corpses of his beloved famUy. The past
night had been the most painful of his Hfe. A beggar
without a roof, the poor man who just before had been
weU off, had to beg the compassion of other men on him
self and his two chUdren. So at daybreak he began his
search anew, with his friends. After an hour's work he
at last sees a foot, then clothes. It is his wife ! With
hasty care, he works on, straming his great strength to
the utmost, throwing aside huge masses, and at last clears
the whole body from the earth. There his dead wife hes
crushed, a victim to maternal love and faith, her two
chUdren pressed to her heart. He throws himself down
with a loud cry on this beloved corpse and fills the afr
with his lamentations. But, by a marveUous accident,
this cry of grief penetrates into the graves of those who
were buried alive. Both caU for help, and those standing
above hear it. Marianne is found first, after a long
search, freed, and drawn out. The child's ankle-bone
was broken. Afterwards they found the maid. Both
recovered. They had been buried ahve fuU fourteen
hours in suffering and despafr.
Most of those entombed must have died a sudden
death, and been crushed at once. But how many may,
Hke the rescued Francisca, have waited on for days, below
the masses of "mud Jmd shme, with broken Hmbs, and
hoped for an escape, to die, at last, the painful death of
hunger. The number of those who were saved dfrectly by help,
or indirectly by flight, or absence from home, was about
half (220) of those who were killed.
Terrible and reaUy tragic was the fate of a party of
traveUers who were about to ascend the Eigi, in hopes of
an improvement in the weather. It consisted of members
of old, noble famUies, — Herr von Diesbach and his wife,

THE LANDSLIP AT GOLDAU. 57
Frl. von Diesbach, Colonel V. von Steiger, the brothers May,
Jenner von Prestenberg, some boys and thefr tutor, a Herr
Jahn of Gotha. Late in the afternoon they had left Arth,
and were going on foot to Schwyz, having given up the
ascent of the Eigi. Herr von Diesbach, the brothers May,
and the tutor, were some hundred paces behind the rest of
the party, and saw them enter Goldau laughing and chat
ting. The others were just about to foUow them into the
doomed viUage, when the thunder of the fall startled
them. They looked up, saw the masses in wUd motion,
rushing to the vaUey, and hurried back along the road,
in confidence that their friends would do the same. Close
to the spot where they stopped in exhaustion, a haU storm
of stones and rock-fragments rattled down. When the
uproar was stUled, they hastened on to the buried viUage.
As far as they could see there was nothing but desola
tion, — waUs of mud, and a waste chaos : without sign, or
the sHghtest indication of the only too certain fate of thefr
friends and companions. The pain of the survivors and
thefr lamentations at their loss are said to have been
heartrending. The ruined field of Goldau is stUl visited
by aU traveUers on the Eigi and Lake of Lucerne.
For several decades of years the whole country in which
Goldau formerly lay looked desolate, in strange ruin, like
a place blasted by a curse. Fragments of rock remhided
traveUers at every step of the 2nd September 1806. Time
has softened, and the beautifying hand of vegetation has
somewhat wiped out those mournful memorials. Those
rocky ruins are clothed with moss and saxifrages ; violet
coloured campanulas grow merrily and fragrant, white
clover grows out from the debris, between the meadow
grasses and thistles. Thickets of bushes and groves of fir
overshadow the blocks of stone; and when coming ge
nerations begin a new century, only vague outlines will
indicate the vast grave.

58

THE ALPS.

CHAP. VIL
THE BAN-FORESTS.
Nothing can be in fuUer harmony with the quiet sublimity
of the central Alps than the primeval mountahi-forest.
The idea of sensitive dreamy plant-Hfe finds there its
fuUest expression. There too we can meet the fidl free
operation of nature in deep strongly marked features.
The garden-tree of the lowlands, weU cared for, and
regularly nursed and educated, looks feeble as opposed to
the patriarchal dignity and reverend solemnity of the
Alpine " Ban "- forest. Thefr relation is that of the .
practical moderit .time to the rough, strong, romantic
middle-age. For, in fact, the primeval forest of the Alps ;
comes down to our days as a fragment of past times ; and
many of the trees, centuries old, were once witnesses of -
great deeds ennobled in legend.
The name " primeval forest" has been so associated with
descriptions i^i foreign books of travel, that our fancy.in-
voluntarUy springs, in thought, across the ocean in search
ofit. The only comparison with the primeval forests of
America Hes in this, that it points to the maiden state of
the Alpine forests stUl untouched by the cultivating hand*
of man. In aU other relations the names apply to the
most different objects.
The primeval forest of the tropics shows an hnmeasu^
rable wealth of vegetable forms in the most fiery and

'.^H' ?» '^

f«5rt*

<>

THE "BAN" FOREST,
BAN-FORESTS. 59
splendid colours ; such an inexhaustible number of indi
vidual plants that a very small area offers to natural
philosophers materials for discovery, employment, and
study for a long period. The Alpine forest, on the con
trary, is monotonous and unpretentious. Few types of
plants in proportion form the elements of which it is com
posed ; and these again in their normal shapes offer no
thing strange or starthng. StiU less is the Alpine forest
clothed with attractive splendour of colour. A dark sober
hue is spread aU over it, and only broken melancholy
tints intrude shyly into its depths. If we compare again
their quantity of Hfe, the American forest presents a com
plete picture of the most wanton, indestructible, victori
ous hfe, an ennobling of the vegetable power of reproduc
tion. It is an uninterrupted jubilee of resurrection — the
everlasting Easter in the kingdom of plants — everywhere
the process of dissolution is concealed under the rich
luxurious fohage of the young shining aftergrowth, and
the happmess of eternal youth seems to prevaU. The
Alpine forest is a quiet field of the dead ; one of those
melancholy dark places of natural corruption, where life
and destruction come into immediate contact and reci
procal action. In dull melancholy, the rough dark green
pines and slender larches stand round the mouldering
corpses of thefr forefathers. The luxuriant fungus parasi-
ticaUy sucks and drinks Hfe and nourishment from the
skeleton of its dead stem. And finaUy, if we oppose the
animal-Hfe — the screaming, flickering, crying, roaring,
animal-hfe — ofthe American forests to the monstrous waste
and dismal stUlness of the Alpine mountain-wood, how
sharp is the contrast ? There is heard the tumultuous noise
of quarrelHng parrots, accompanied by the strange shriU
screams of roaming mischievous monkeys, the mingled
harmony of the cicadae, who carry on a mighty concert in

60

THE ALPS.

the BrazUian forests ; and between these, a fluttermg hfe of
numberless dragonflies, and insects, shining like raetals,
who are humming through the afr hke ghttering jewels,
the rusthng of crawhng snakes and vipers, and the fearful
howhng tones of a crowd of unseen beasts from the interior
of the monstrous labyrinth of plants ; whUst the high
Alpine forest, resounds at most to the hoUow hammering
taps of the woodpecker, or from the upper afr the sUence
is broken by the long-drawn piping cry of eagle or vul
ture. Dead nature only wakes at times, and joins the
harmony with a tone of thunder, when the elements are
in strife ; the forest brooks rush out foaming, and lash
waves over rock-fragments ; or the avalanches thunder
down the slopes, and the storm whistles through the tree
tops. Dark and poor, hmited and rough as the Alpine forest
appears, when opposed to his foster brother across the sea,
his depths conceal wondrous secret properties and strange
wUd charms.
Every ban-forest is not a primeval forest. There
are, properly speaking, but few of them left. They are
only to be found in the rarely populated and densely
wooded cantons of the Valais and the Grisons ; and even
there only in the territory of those communes which have
had a superabundance of wood, or whose forests he hi part
so deeply sunk in inaccessible mountains, that the expense
of transporting the wood when cut down would eat up
the profit derivable from its actual market value. This
is the case, for example, in the ancient forest lands of the
Lower Engadine, in the Vai Sampuofr, in the Schergenthal,
under Piz Mondin, in the Lischana Tobel, on the Piz St.
Ton, in several parts of the Scarl-thal, in the Vai Zeznina,
in the forests in the Unina Thai, and remarkably in the
great Dubenwald of the Turtman-thal.

BAN-FORESTS. 61
Every mountain vUlage, however, has ban-forests, if
it is shut in by steep vaUey walls, and therefore exposed
to avalanches, faUs of stones, or landsHps. These ban-
forests are kept up from motives of prudence, not from
neglect of the forests on account of superabundance of
wood. There are communes which from bad management
of thefr forests are deficient in firewood, and have to buy
it and bring it long distances from other common forests,
whUe at the same time they have great bann-woods
immediately over them, which they do not aUow to be
cut down. An example of this is Andermatt, in the
Urserenthal, with the St. Annawald above it.
The office of the ban-forest is to hinder by its mass of
strong upright stems, the breaking loose and shding down
of the vast heaps of snow that accumidate in the winter,
and thus to prevent the formation of " ground avalanches,"
not, as is commonly supposed, to hold up avalanches
afready started, Hke a dam. Such a forest would only be
a protection against these last for a few years ; in every
spring the upper borders of the forest would be severely
injured by the abrupt descent of the avalanches (which
as has been said, have regular outlets, or avalanche-runs),
and the foremost ranks of trees would be cut down Hke
stalks of straw. In a few decades of years a desolate
heap of fragments of trees and rocks would appear, instead
of the protecting forest. The inhabitants of the Alps
saw this necessity centuries ago, and therefore spared
particular forests, placing them under the " ban," i. e. de
claring it unlawful to touch them. And as in earher
times the transgression of a law was clothed with strange,
mystic wonders, closely connected with the popular su
perstition, which were supposed to be impending over
the criminal from the unseen powers, the trees of the
ban-forests were considered sacred. SchUler has brought

62

THE ALPS.

this mto WUhelm TeU (Act iu. sc. 3.). The boy Walther
asks —
Walther. — Vater, ist's wahr, dass auf dem Berge dort
Die Baume bluten, wenn man einen Streich
D'rauf fuhrte mit der Axt ? —
TeU. — "Wer sagt das, Knabe ?
Walther. — Der Meister Hirt erzahlt's — die Baume seien
Gebannt, sagt er, und wer sie schadigt
Dem wachse seine Hand heraus zum Grabe.
TeU. — ^Die Baume sind gebannt — das ist die Wahi-heit,
— Siehst Du die Fimen dort — die weissen Homer,
Die hoch bis in den Himmel sich verlieren ?
Walther. — Das sind die Gletscher, die des Nachts so donnem,
Und ims die Schlag-lawinen niedersenden.
Tell. — So ist's, und die Lawinen hatten langst
Den Flecken Altdorf unter ihrer Last
Verschiittei; wenn der Wald dort oben nicht
Als eine Landwehr sich dagegen stellte.*
The behef in the existence of bleeding trees was spread
widely in the middle ages. The " blood-Hnden," on Burg
Freienstein, near Wiesbaden, is said to have derived its
name from this ; the holy oak at Eomove bled when the
Prussian knights feUed it. So too bled the weU-known
* Walther. — Father, is it true that up on the mountains there, the
trees bleed if they are struck by an axe ?
TeU. — Who says so, boy ?
Walther. — The master herdsman says so. The trees, he says, are
cursed, and if any one hurts them his hand will grow out in his grave
[t. e. his hand will grow out to be gnawed by dogs, a proverbial judg
ment on impiety].
Tell. — The trees are banned — that is true. Do you see the snows,
the lofty white horns, which lose themselves high up in heaven ?
Walther. — Those are the glaciers which thunder so at night and
send us down the avalanches.
TeU. — True; and avalanches would have long ago overwhelmed
Altdorf, if the forest up there did not hold them back like a guard.

BAN-FORESTS. 63
pear-tree in the forest near Lupfig (canton Aargau), and
many such stories are to be found in northem legends.
The science of cultivating the forests, which may almost
be said to have had no existence in the cantons of the
High Alps, could not produce a rational treatment of
the ban-forests. These were, and, in part, are stUl,
specimens of the most senseless injurious conservation.
From the intention that no trees should be felled, trees
centuries in age were aUowed to become tottering ; these
feU over, and not only injured in their fall the young strong
trees near them, but destroyed them indirectly by tearing
up thefr roots in a mass from the earth, and with them the
generaUy thin layer of soU from the rocks. Or where
the wind had blown down part of the forest, those
who belonged to the commune took away what they
wanted at the moment, leaving th.e remainder lying, by
which it is clear that the young powerful aftergrowth was
much hindered. Thus many ban-forests, especiaUy in
the original cantons and in Tessin, the Valais, and the
Grisons, look awfuUy wild and ruined. A j ourney through
such a forest wUl make us more nearly acquainted with
its characteristic properties.
AU ban-forests consist almost entfrely of "needle"
wood, especiaUy of pines or " Ziebel Kiefem " {pinus
cemhra) and larches (pinus larix),- which predominate
in the Eastem Alps, and rise in close masses to a
height of 6000 feet above the sea — and of red "roth-
tannen," or firs {pinus abies), and " Kiefern " {pinus
sylvestris) caUed also " Dahle," which form a larger part
of the western forests, and whose boundary is at 5500
feet above the sea. The wood of the Alpine trees, which
has grown much more slowly under the hindering chmatic
influence of long winters, is far tougher, harder, and
firmer, showing narrower yearly rings than that of the

64 THE ALPS.
quick-growing forests of the hUl country or lowlands,
with their roots in richer soU. Therefore not only does
the tree of the Alpine forest have a far rougher appearance
at an age when, in the lowlands, it is looked upon as
already grown up ready for feUing, but its growth is also
more repressed, more self-willed and stubborn, although,
when it has arrived at its growth of many centuries, it is
not shorter on that account than the pines and larches of
the lowlands. Very Httle of the " leafwood " occurs ui
the high forest-lands. The only trees which are extended
to some degree here and there are the mountain sycamore
(Acer pseudo plantanus) and the white-stemmed bfrch
{Betula alba), which grow up to 5000 feet. Farther up
above these Hmits, the forest ceases ; the trees stand no
longer hi continuous ranks ; they are in scattered groups,
and at length pass into dwarf forms, or the so-caUed
" knee-timber." The Hfe of the smaUest and lowest vegetable organisms
of the " leaf " and " liver " mosses, and of the Hchens, is
most strongly developed in these woods. Eich fields of
discovery are open to the lovers of mosses on the granite
backbone and watersheds of the Alpine chain. People have
scarcely a right conception of the luxuriant fullness of the
cushion, often swelling a foot in height, which the mosses
form on the ground over considerable tracts. They clothe,
creep, and spin thefr webs over everything, with their
charming and endlessly varied forms. They are the
soothing, harmonismg, reconciling element of the vege
table world in these gloomy tree-labyrinths, under whose
soft embrace the ruins are withdrawn from the eye and
submerged. What the hot steaming layer of leaves con
cealing snakes and dangerous vermin is for the tropical
woods, these mossy piUows are for the Alpine forest.
Although the viper's brood, so threatening to the investi-

BAN-FORESTS. 65
gating traveUer, does not nestle in them, they are not less
dangerous for him who wUl clamber through an ancient
ban-forest ; because no safe step can be found in thefr
strangely elastic mass, and the foot treading between
hidden stones may easUy be twisted, and sprains be
incurred. The largest space is occupied by the feather mosses, or
Hypnaceae, amongst which Hypnum triquetrum and
splendens, which are also common in the German forests,
are the best known. Besides these two kinds the Alpine
forests are full of H. molluscu7'n, the bright green shining
H. denticulatum and sylvaticum, the brown-yeUow 17.
tamariscinum, the juicy, damp, long trading H. purum,
and the strangely beautiful H. striatum, with its tender
green feelers, and its comhke seed-capsules peering curi
ously forth in their thin stalks from its velvet surface.
The mosses are almost as common, especially the rich
stalked " gobelzahn " {Dicranum scoparium), a bright
sap-green, with a lustre-hke satin forming soft pillows,
and the wave-shaped D. undulatum with far more ex
tensive ramifications. Between these are a crowd of
Hchens, amongst which the Cetraria islandica, or Iceland
moss, and C. cucullata, stretch forth thefr coral-Hke arms
most conspicuously.
Besides these thick beds of moss the knotty grey splin
tered pines, the resinous, sharp-needled, slender larches,
and red ochre firs look out, as it were, from warm winter
furs. In the Hghter places and open forest glades the
grey-green bUberry bushes {Vaccinium Myrtillus), "Herr-
gotts siippH," or wood sorrel {Oxalis acetosella), the com
mon spurge laurel (Daphne mezereum), the bullet-headed
burdock (Carduus personata), the creeping snakeHke
earth-moss (Lyeopodium annotinum), the boldly rising
circles of fern, the Aspidium lonchitis, lohatum, Cystopteris
F

66 THE ALPS.
montana, and Polypodium alpestre, the white Veratrum
album, and, in stiU more open places, the low creepmg
juniper (Juniperus Rana), the Hypericum montanum,
the meadow rose (EpUobium alpestre and Gesneri), with
its carmine-coloured coronals, the charming heathlike
Azalea procumhens with its leathery leaves, and many
other Alpine plants, have chmbed up and predominate
over the mosses.
We do not, however, leave the ban-forest for a long time
yet. We press first into its stiU secret recesses. The way
upwards, with the moss constantly more entangling to the
feet and reaching to one's knees, becomes more difficult.
Presently an uprooted mouldering stem stops aU progress.
It must be surmounted. A second and a thfrd foUow ; and
higher up there is a whole mass forming a natural barri
cade. Like broken matches, the spht grey-mouldering
dead bones of the forest He round.
" In stiller Nacht, wenn Mond und Stern nicht glanzen,
tJmquillt phosphorisch Licht den morschen Baimi,
Wann ihn umwaUt von seinen todten Herzen
Ein leuchtender und schoner Grabestraum."* A. Oriin.
It is the battle-field of an avalanche which the spring
sends down as a thundering kiss to his chUdren. Close
by is the path which it foUowed. The old pale rotfing
stems which its embrace killed, mark the way down which
the train of its snowy garment shd. What a picture of
destruction ! What strange grotesque groups of sphntered
trees, rocky fragments heaped over each other, walls of
debris pUed up, heaps of earth entangled with fascines
of bushes ! And how busUy Hchens, fimgi, and mosses
chmb over the faUen trees, and eagerly suck out theh la^t
* " In the dark night, when moon and stars do not shine, phosphoric
light spreads round the mouldering tree ; a dream of his dead .springs
plays round him, a fair and brightening dream in the grave."

BAN-FORESTS. 67
drops of life ! Orthotricum speciosum, that lively yeUow-
green moss, which does not even spare the old fruit trees
of the plains, creeps, in common with a mass of pale grey
lichens, over the dead pine boughs. The Georgia mnenio-
synum with its wounded tendrUs crawls over the stems. In
the clefts and crannies bright green feather-mosses (Hyp
num pulchellum and serpens) have nestled, bearing their ten
der purple-red seed stalks. In many places thread-mosses
like Bryum longicollum and capillare, spreading themselves
out in closely pressed tufts, surround broad yeUow ghsten
ing levels. These are only a few of the parasites of beauti
ful forms and hues which charm the eye by the delicacy of
thefr construction and thefr briUiancy. Between them
crowd legions of ugly hchens, Hke the grey-green Biatora
icmadophila, with its flesh-coloured capsules, the rare
clear-brown Sticta pulmonacea, the dfrty cinnabar-coloured
Lepra cinnabarina, and the dusty Lepra sulphurea.
In these microscopic settlements of the vegetable world,
Hves and moves an insect population of spiders and ants,
centipedes and mites, beetles, flies, and worms, in con
tinual warfare, digging out holes in the corkhke texture
of the rotting wood, spinning nests between the branches
of moss, intrenching themselves behind the lichens, lying
in ambush for the spring, or caring with busy industry
for the household wants of their tiny economy. What
an infinitely rich world in miniature is enclosed here in
the midst of the vast and deathhke sohtude bf the forest !
How wide a field for the investigations of the natural in-
qufrer is hidden in one mouldering tree-trunk with its
visible and invisible inhabitants ! A whole age of men
would not be enough thoroughly to search out the mys
tery of the Hfe of every one of these minute invisible
animals, its origin and decay, the organisation of its body,
and the functions of its members, its sleeping and waking,
r 2

68 THE ALPS.
its enjoyment and suffering, its wants, desfres, and battles,
its length of Hfe, and its dependence on the universal laws
of creation ; and again the reciprocal action of each upon
all the others. The limits of our investigations are nar
row. " Man is not bom to solve the problem of the world,
but to seek out whither the problem tends, and then to
keep himself within the Hmits of the comprehensible."*
To press on through this plant-fortification of Nature is
aU but impossible. The uprooted, spht, and broken stems
lie round in hundreds, cast over and through each other,
and ward off aU approach by their naked outstretched
boughs and thefr roots turned up to the clouds. Between
them, however, springs up a strong young plantation of
pines. Even out of the stumps of the prostrate forest-
giant new Hfe streams up, and strives to grow green and
regenerate it. A few hundred paces off on one side there
sinks a " tobel ;" we can hear the duU roar of its glacier
brook : there we shaU get on a Httle better.
" Tobel," in the Swiss Alps, signifies one of those unin
habited Httle lateral vaUeys or gorges, shut in between
high wooded or rocky mountains, whose bottom is occu
pied by a river-bed, so that the soU cannot be tumed to
account. Its walls are generaUy very steep, and the whole
ends in wild untrodden woodland, or in a steeply rising
" riife," i. e. guUy, rising bare of all vegetation, and co
vered with ruins of rock towards the crest of the moun
tain. It is an ancient German word that is found in
Notker's psalms. In Berne they are called " krachen,"
in the French mountains "gorge." In these desolate,
strange gorges, the popular behef places the abode of eril
spfrits and spectral monsters. The dweUers of the neigh
bourhood of Belhnzona suppose the souls of misers, unjust
guardians, and usurers to suffer in the Sementina tobel.
At Leuk they ascribe the torrents of mud and desolatioa
* Goethe.

BAN-FORESTS. 69
which burst out of the lUhornschlucht to accursed spirits
banished thither. The people of Chur have many legends
to tell of noisy demons, " heerdmandli" and " mooswybh,"
in the Skalara tobeL The so-caUed EnzUoch below the
beautiful point of view in the Enthbuch is known to be
exclusively the home of rich departed blood-suckers and
oppressors of the poor. They are generaUy only caUed
the " Thal-herren " — vaUey-masters ; and when at night
a storm is howhng through the gorge, so that the pines
creak, and blocks of rock rattle down into the depths, the
people say, " a new vaUey-master is coming home." ALL
the great Alpine vaUeys are rich in such " tobels," but
especiaUy the Grisons valleys, Pratigau, Davos, Schanfigg,
the Lower Engadine, and the Vorder-Eheinthal, the Valais
and Ticino. The footpath through them, when there is one,
generaUy runs halfway up, in great curves, foUowing the
disposition of the ground, passing round secondary tobel-
Hke openings, and only sinks in a steep rugged path, cut
through by roots to the bottom of the gorge, where it is
necessary to cut across the tobel.
Here too sohtude has taken up its abode, though in
very different guise. It is a thoroughly romantic
wilderness, dreadful and yet pleasing, a theatre of the
destruction that is always gnawing at the mass of the
mountain, but of quite another kind from the rest.
Varied groups, in aU kinds of strange forms, of rolled
granite blocks, poHshed tables of limestone, and smaller
deposits of stones, are buUt up in the bed of the stream,
— an ornamental fancy-work of nature, over which the
crystal or clear green mountain-water splashes down
in Httle cascades.
The pigmies of the plant world, mosses, lichens, and
saxifrage, have here too nestled in the rocks. With
hafr-hke roots they chng firmly to the pores of the
F 3

70 THE ALPS.
Stone, and, boring deeper, squeeze industriously into it,
surrounding every Httle elevation so tightly that it is hard
to loosen these Httle self-wUled things from thefr hold.
The Hchens stick in stiU more closely ; they appear hke
a mineral growth out of the rock itseE They, however,
aU differ in kind from those that occur on mouldering
trees. At one time it is the far-extended Androea
rupestris and the Alpine stone-moss (A. alpina) that
clothes the rock with its bronzed and dirty-green
covering; then the star-moss (Mnium sterratum) with
its purple-red borders, and the twisted 'peaxl-moss (Weisia
curvirostris.) The tough vitahty of these rock-plants
is extraordinary. In hot summers, when the power of
the sun strikes down most vehemently into these deeply
sunk " tobels," the stone-mosses get not a drop of water
for weeks. They can only draw new power of hfe from
the nightly coolness. 'Where the brook-water sprinkles
the waUs of rock and keeps them constantly moist, the pale
thread-moss (Bryum pallens) and the Angstrcemia virens,
Bertramia ithyphylla and ^deri occur in masses, covering
the shady rocks as high as houses ; and where the rocks
are actuaUy dripping with the water that runs down, the
copper-brown club-moss (Hypnum rufescens) spreads its
thick tough layers.
The shady path ascends along the tObel ; we try a
second excursion into the forest and penetrate into its
piUared haUs. This time it is no mossy ground upon
which we are chmbing up. The layers of centuries of
pine needles are woven into an elastic carpet. The
roof of thick boughs is so close that only a few rays
of Hght from above penetrate into the deep night of
the forest; and thus the moss cannot grow. But a
new and strange phenomenon startles us. The grey-
green bearded Hchens (Usnea barbata) hang down in

BAN-FORESTS. 71
Long rough tufts from the withered boughs ; not a
thread of these lazy streamers moves in the calm mid
day heat, but if only a light breath of wind stirs in
the forest, it swings and waves strangely through the
deep twUight. AU determined outHnes disappear. The
whole view passes into flickering motion, and " the ancients
of the mountain" seem to gain Hfe. In the Engadine
pine forests a variety (Usnea longissima) occurs, which
spins long streamers several yards in length. On the
larches, on the contrary, grow especiaUy the ochre-yeUow
riband lichens (Evernia divaricata), and mixed with them
the mane-hke moss-beard (Bryopogon jubatus), caUed
also black bearded Hchens (Alectoria jubata) because
their extremely fine hafrs, more than a yard long, have
a deep brown colour. --^
The way upwards becomes difficult, for it is constantly
steeper and more sHppery on the needles. Blocks of
stone which have been roUed down show themselves
here and there Hke Druid altars. Thefr number in
creases, the forest grows Hghter, the higher we ascend ;
and we soon stand on a picturesque chaos of ruins, half
forest, half landshp, covered by a thickly folded mossy
carpet. We now see the second use of the ban-forest,
to be a defence against showers of stones. Upon the
grey, weather-worn mountain-ridges of a stratified for
mation, are gathered broken flakes of rock, the same
material that forms moraines on the glaciers and covers
the mountain-shoulders. Part of these slide or roU far
down the vaUey, and these constitute the " stone-faUs."
Many a frequented path on the mountains would be only
passable at the risk of one's hfe, many a place be un
inhabitable, if it were not protected by a ban-forest
against this driving shower of stones. Thus the rocks
are heaped up on the borders of the forest, and there
F 4

72

THE ALPS.

in time they themselves build up a protective dam, A
solemn forest of this kind, with rocky ruins pierced
through by innumerable roots, and adnurable in a
botanical and picturesque point of riew, is the Wasen
forest on the St. Gothard.
FinaUy, a third use of ban-forests is to keep off land
sHps. The deeply penetrating roots which generally
pierce through the thin layer of soU into the crannies
of the rocks, prevent the saturated earth from shding
after long-continued rains. The giring way of the
rootwork in such places leaving the rock bare, has
before now produced the most melancholy disasters.
The vUlage of Tschappina on the Heinzenberg in the
vaUey of Domlesch, is at the present moment enveloped m
such a shde. Every year the position and size of the plots
of ground varies, so that the possessions of the villagers
can no more be marked out in spite of measurements
and boundary-stones. Whether a violent catastrophe wiU
ever occur cannot be predicted. The people quietly in
habit the old piece of ground, and graduaUy slide with it
to the vaUey. The same thmg happened to the partly de
stroyed viUage of Buserein above Schiers in the Pratigau.
There the land began to move, hi consequence of the
decay of a great forest ; the turf turned over in folds,
trees disappeared without a trace, and on the 18th of
March, 1805, it ended in the faUing hi of half the village.
AU Alpme vaUeys have had more or less to suffer
from landsHps, especiaUy the Swiss vaUeys, because the
sovereign authority of the people in the free states
thought that personal liberty was infringed by an official
superintendence of the forests, and, therefore, in many
cantons the beneflt of a forest law came too late.
Such is an Alpine ban-forest. Let us now pass be
yond them.

WETTERTANNE.

73

CHAP. vm.
THE WETTERTANNE.
Light and afr ! we are coming into open space. The
higher boundary of the forest Hes behind us. It reaches
to 5000 or 5500 feet above the sea. Higher up the
mountains are only fresh green Alpine pasturages, with
short close turf, interrupted occasionaUy by scattered belts
of wood and single pines and larches. These stretch Hke
a hne of skirmishers before the snow region, as though
to defend the rights of the plant world against the enemy
of aU Hfe. To these bold outposts of the forest belongs
especiaUy the " Wettertanne," or weather pine.
People talk of the characteristic trees, which give the
landscape thefr pecuhar expression and physiognomy.
Such a tree is the Wettertanne : it is a character too
amongst trees, and seems to have a certain personal im
portance, an individuahty prominent amongst the others.
As a single burgher, in his narrow cfrcle, only forms a part
of the great whole — the state — and disappears in the
population, just so the single tree disappears in the
forest : it only counts as a single stem, and disappears at
a short distance in the vast green leafy vault, in the in
tertwined and inarched system of boughs.
Very different is the sohtary Wettertanne as it towers
above the forest, Hke the heroes who by thefr spirit
and power, by bold works and free deeds, strike up above

74 the alps.
the crowd of their companions ; and what the poet sings
of the really great princes, —
" Volker verrauschen ;
Namen verklingen ;
Finstere Vergessenheit
Breitet die dunkel nachtenden Schwingen
Ueber ganze Geschlechter aus.
Aber der Fiirsten einsamer Haupter
Glanzen erhellet,
Und Aurora berilhrt sie
Mit den ewigen Strahlen,
Als die ragenden Gipfel der Welt," * —
may also be in part apphed to the Wettertanne.
There are few other trees which bear such free fresh
courage in thefr appearance, and stand up in such proud
stern obstinacy, in such calm self-confidence, as those
weather-beaten highland pines. If the oak reminds one
of those fron northern knights of whom the Niebelungen
and the singers of the middle age teU us wondrous stories,
the stiff courageous attitude ofthe " Schirmtanne" (shelter-
pines) may recall the battles of Morgarten and Sempach.
It is a mountain tree from the lowest fibre of its roots to
the highest crowning sprout. Many a clever botanist, who
has wandered over the wavehke hUls of the noble state-
forests, has, on his first visit to the Alps, stood in as
tonishment for the first moment, and not known how to
catalogue this strange tree. For the proper type of pine
has frequently quite disappeared in it, when it rises, can-
delabrum-Hke, with branches bent upwards, as though it
were a hybrid between a fir and an American agave.
And yet no drop of such tropical sap cfrculates in its
* Nations vanish ; names cease to sound ; dark oblivion spreads its
broad pinions of night over whole races. But the lonely heads of
princes shine in splendour, and Aurora touches them with eternal rays
as the towering summits of the world.

THB WETTERTANNE.

75

veins, but pure, unaduLterated, hearty pine-blood, sound,
nourished by eternal snow. This " Schermtaxe" (as they
are caUed in the Austrian Alps) is nothmg more or less
than a plahi genuine pine, such as those of wlfrch miUions
are yearly feUed below by the woodmen, and brought to
market for fuel and buUding materials. But the Wetter
tanne has had to go through a different school of Hfe
from those educated weakhngs, the slender maiden-like
trees of the lowland forests : it has had to fight its way
up, inch by inch; and hence its frequently abnormal
growth, and scars in bark and timber.
The Wettertanne, which rises in isolated positions on
the Alpine meadows at heights of 6000, and in the
Grisons of 7000 feet, is not a surviving remnant of
former tree-armies in this highest zone of tree-growth —
it is a hermit grown up by itself. Centuries ago there
were great forests up there. Huge stumps of roots and
sunken stems indicate their former existence ; such tree-
spectres of a past generation are to be met nearly every
where in the high mountains, teUing of the time when
there were stiU noble high forests, before sovereign
stupidity and mercantUe speculation undertook thefr
barbarous struggle in the Alpine world. These storm-
broken sUver-grey memorials are the exclusive possession
of the high mountains, and indeed of the free mountains,
into which the hand of the forester (necessary in the
vaUey forest) with his censor's axe, and aU the regulations
of the modern state, have not yet penetrated. Eational
management would not endure such relics in a weU-
ordered forest household — they would be contrary to
orders. Below, in the land of principles, Nature must
produce by order and article, by rule and measure, for
time and need, as the material wants of men requfre.
Up here in the mountains, the unrestrained, fuU, free out
pouring of the inexhaustible power of creation stUl rules.

76

THE ALPS.

and to this the boundary posts of the Wettertanne owe
thefr existence.
A Wettertanne (caUed "pins" or "sapins" in the
Eomansch, " gogant " in the Pays de Vaud) is therefore a
sohtary tree on an Alpine pasturage, which, as imphed by
its name, has a thoroughly weathered appearance. It is
generally a pine, whose heavy and far-extended branches
begin a few feet above the ground, and in the normal
shape ; the form is repeated by the young branches up to
the top, forming a thickly wooded and sheltering roof
Often, however, it is a form which sets at defiance aU
common laws of growth. Our picture shows the abnormal
ramification of such a tree. ¦ Whilst the lowland tree shoots
out its horizontal boughs almost architecturaUy in pyra
midal symmetry round its slender column, and each of
them again in its elastic hne, and in its dehcately bent
flat arc, may be caUed a model of elegant growth, the
Wettertanne shows in its summit and in its arrangement
of boughs an entfrely new shape. It does not look hke
one tree : it seems to be six or eight trees round one
maternal stem — a whole family of pines. Here the
straight coquettish shaft has been metamorphosed into a
rough knotted cyhnder of compressed and deeply marked
growth. Its noble striving after its law of vertical
growth may stUl be traced, but its unfavourable outward
circumstances, storms, avalanches, and thunder-storms,
have so knocked it about, broken it off short, and ampu
tated its Hmbs, that it is covered over and over with
rents and deeply scarred wounds, full of knots and mal
formations. The Wettertanne might be caUed a martyr
of trees, if it had more of the passive element in it. But
this tree is a cross-grained feUow ; there is none hke him :
he shoves his head viciously through every hindrance
and chicanery, and though wounded a hundred times
in his innermost Hfe-nerves, stricken almost to death,

THE WETTERTANNE. 77
StiU he fights his way up with irresistible power of
vitahty, — a noble fellow, fuU to the brim of energy,
manly and inflexible, a character in whom every honour
able man must take pleasure.
And then the boughs, they have the same active
nature, the same push at all hazards as the stem. Every
little twig stands up for his independent rights, and wUl
be a bit of a tree on his own account. It is an iUustration
of the proverb, " Wie die alten suiigen, so zwitschern
die jungen" — as the old ones sung, stUl twitter the young.
Quite unhke the horizontal boughs of the lowland pine,
these boughs after a short level shoot outwards, turn hke
a swan's neck upwards, and grow vertically hke a Httle
pine, with its roots in the air. But the boughs do not
stand equaUy aU round the stem, but on one side where
the lightning has scored and crashed, or the storm cut
out the Hmbs, they are wanting, whUst on the opposite
side boughs and leaves grow more intensely and more
closely packed. Here and there withered dead stumps
of boughs strike out, and help, with the long beardhke
Hchens, to give a wUder expression to the whole picture.
The cause of these strange branchings is to be sought for
in many cfrcumstances. Perhaps the so-caUed " trock-
ness " (dryness) has struck them, a disease of trees which
withers the actual poiftts of the boughs, so that the power
of propulsion goes into the lateral branches, and one of
¦them is so developed as to overtake the others, and,
being hindered by his neighbours, strikes straight up Hke
a torch ; or the goats, in thefr passionate eagerness for
gnawing, bite off the outside shoots, as far as they can
reach up the young tree, and the bough, cut off in its
natural dfrection of growth, takes another way upwards ;
or snow and storm twist the ends of the branches, or the
hghtning strikes them off; — anyhow, robbery and break
age are the causes not only of the abnormaUy shaped

78 THE ALPS.
branches, but of the thick bushy fohage. Below, in
sheltered forests, such misshapen weather-beaten pines
are not to be found.
A colossal specimen, three-pointed, hke a hand raised
for an oath, stands in the Valzeiner Alps (at the entrance
of the Pratigau, Grisons), whose stem, four feet and a half
from the ground, is seven feet in diameter.
The age of most is hard to decide, because the real
veterans are often rotten at the core, and thus the yearly
rings cannot be counted. Besides this, Wettertannen are
very seldom felled, as they are useful in the Alpine
economy, and an exceUent protection against the for
mation of avalanches. Considering how slowly trees
grow on the mountain heights, even in sheltered positions,
it may safely be assumed that there are many Wetter
tannen 300 years old.
The question has often been asked, whether seedlings
from carefuUy guarded Lowland forests would form such
tough-Hved pines up here in the neighbourhood of ever
lasting winter, and be generally able to acchmatise them
selves in these storm-beaten heights. The Alpine fores
ters doubt it ; they think that the seeds from the lowlands
are too much enervated. Plants are hke men. The
Spartan nature must have been in the people's flesh and
blood, and been steeled by the self-help of generations —
if it is not to be a mere parody. The seed of the moun
tain pine is, on the contrary, much esteemed for forests in
the low country, as also the kinds of wheat which have
grown in elevated places are used by preference for seed-
corn in lower levels.
Bristly and grim as such a tree looks, as if it hved in
hate and feud with aU other forest trees, and had there
fore withdrawn into sohtude, though it looks the Hvely
portrait of an old marked and scarred warrior, who has
been a hundred times at the point of death, but always

THE WETTERTANNE. 79
fought himself through, it is yet a benevolent, hospitable
tree. Just as one finds the most jovial and hearty com
pany amongst old swash-bucklers and fire-eaters, so it
is amongst these tree invalids grown grey in a thousand
dangers and needs. It is a hospice erected by Nature,
with shelter and asylum, to whose protection the cattle
fly when sudden black storms are brewing, rain-clouds
discharging thefr burdens, or hailstorms rattling down in
thick masses. Certainly the fafrest heads of an Alpine
herd have often faUen victims to the thunderstorm in
such places, when the lightning has struck them. But
also in the sultry height of summer, when the sun is near
the zenith, and over the whole broad Alpine meadow no
shady spot is to be found, the cattle instinctively seek the
Wettertanne, and couch comfortably in its cool, refresh
ing shadows. To this double service, in good and bad
weather, it probably owes its name, as much as to its
appearance. If now such a veteran stands at the top of a pass, or
at the central point of an Alpine pasture, or where paths
cross, as a far-seen beacon, then it is already a second
Noah's ark. Panting traveUers vrith huge Alpenstocks,
sweating porters, enthusiastic lady tourists with broad
straw hats and loose hafr, packed sumpter horses and
their leaders, aU rest, neglectful of their difference in
rank, and in the midst of the cows who are holding thefr
siesta. When aU round a burning sun-yeUow stretches
over the broad noble landscape, and the mountains shine
through blue ghmmering veUs of mist, — when insects,
beetles, bees, and aU that flies, hum round, drunk with
pleasure, and vexatiously penetrating into every corner,
and not a breath stfrs the air as it trembles for heat, —
then is a paradisaical refuge found imder the shelter of
the hospitable pine.
God preserve the dear noble Wettertannen !

80

THE ALPS.

CHAP IX.
PROSTRATE FIRS.
Evert plant has its region of growth, its horizontal and
vertical Hmits of existence, within which it may hve,
thrive, and be propagated. Beyond these boundaries the
conditions of its existence are wanting ; it grows feeble
and sick, becomes a crippled form, or dies out altogether.
This phenomenon appears in a thousand ways ; it is the
foundation of vegetable geography. The palms, cacti,
sycamores, dragon and india-rubber trees, the cotton and
coffee plants, and other tropical productions, only get a
short lease of life with us as cabinet pieces, by careful
nurture in artificial hothouses ; and, on the other hand,,
our forest growths of the fresh, cool northern tempe
rature, our noble oaks and beeches, our fruit-bearing apple
and pear trees, cannot hear the hot, dry chmate of the
sandy tropics. We have nothing to do with these con
ditions of horizontal diffusion ; we have to consider the
capacity of plants for extension in a vertical dfrection.
It is known that vines in Central Europe do not bring
thefr grapes to perfection at a height of more than 2300
feet in sunny aspects ; that the walnut may rise to 8000,
the cherry-trees to about 3500 ; and that the garden plants
and corn of the lowlands wiU not ripen in the rough Alps
higher than from 8000 to 4000 feet. Some small
experiments, which through local circumstances have

.J

PROSTRATE PIRS.

PROSTRATE FIRS. 81
been successful, need not here be taken into account.
This cessation at certain boundaries of height appears
also in forest trees. Pine trees rise, as we have afready
stated, in united masses in the Alps to heights of about
5500 feet above the sea. But the vertical Hmit becomes
far less as we approach the north. Thus the Pinus
sylvestris, between the 46th and 47th degrees of north
latitude (in the Alps) reaches in its normal form to 6000
feet above the sea, whilst in the Scandinarian Dovre-
fjeld, at 62° of north latitude, it rises only to 2800 feet,
and in Jemtsland (Norway), under the 63rd degree, to only
1500 feet. At these boundaries it loses its appearance
as a tree, and assumes a dwarfed form, becoming almost a
bush, and is caUed in the Ehastian Alps Krumm or Knie-
holy (bent or knee timber), in the Tyrol Sprutfohre or
Reischten, in the Italian Tyrol Mughi (from the botanical
name Pinus mughus, or vice versd), in the Salzburg
mountains Ldtschen, in Austria Lagken, in the Eomansch
Zuondra or Zundern, and in German Switzerland, most
significantly, " Legfohre," i. e. creeping fir. From the
variety of this nomenclature, it is seSn at once that this
dwarf phie is extended through the whole Alps. With
the "Alpenerle" or "Droosle" (Betula alnus viridis), a
similarly dwarfed form of the " erle" (alder), it deter
mines the highest hmits of growth in the mountains.
Wliether it is to be considered a different species, or a
mere variety dwarfed by cfrcumstances, is a matter of
dispute. The general impression made by the " Legfohre," as
weU as its whole appearance, is singularly original, so
thoroughly do its vegetable attributes answer to the
character of the high mountains. The wood and the
boughs bend and creep, giving rise to the strangest
shapes. Although the ramification of other trees may
G

op THE ALPS.
here and there present wonderfid figures, stUl we may
trace m them more or less distmctly the marks of a
desigmng architecture, and the sway of determmed laws
impressed upon individuals and their relationship, though
often with various appHcations in trunk, boughs, and
shoots. AU this disappears in the Legfohre. It every
where bears the impress of an unsymmetrical exist
ence, confined, hemmed in, and oppressed. It wmds
slavishly along the earth, hke a worm or some strange
snake, groaning, but stUl it appears to sneak through
hfe with endless toughness. It is amongst conifers
the most complete opposite to the rictorious and tri
umphant Wettertanne, repeUing aU attacks. The resist
ance of the dwarf pine is only quiet and passive, which
only contrives to carry out and estabhsh its rights by
the curhng upwards of the ends of its boughs. In spite
of this suffering appearance, the generaUy smooth brown
stems have something fat and massive about them,
whUst the bark of the common fir is generaUy rough,
thin, rent, and dry. The colours of the leaves are very
permanent. According as the stem is more in a straight
hne, with a high and stiffly rising crest of foliage, or
creeps along the ground as if wounded, fuU of knots, and
with short, tLuckly clustered tufts, the Legfohre is
dirided into the more slender Pinus pumilio, which
generaUy occurs in lower situations, and into the very
dwarfed Pimis mughus, which rises ahnost to the snow
hne, and prefers the Hmestone to the granite rocks. As
the original branch formation of the pine is in tufts, the
boughs and twigs of the Legfohre cross, creep, and inter
weave themselves in thefr narrow space so inextricably,
that they can scarcely be paralleled amongst creeping
plants. To unravel such an entangled mass of boughs
might be counted amongst the Herculean labours. This

PROSTRATE FIRS. 83
depressed horizontal growth is caused by the six or eight
months' reign of winter, who here places his foot
tyrannicaUy on the neck of the plant, crushing it with
enormous burdens of snow, and only aUowing it to
breathe for the short pause of summer. The extra
ordinary phabUity and elasticity of the slender stems, at
most two or three inches in diameter, adapts them to
this enormous pressure. The steepness of the slopes in
which the Legfohre most deHghts increases this power.
The steeper it is the more closely these dwarf trees He
pressed together. Where the ground is more level, the
stems rise more easUy, and sometimes reach a vertical
height of fifteen feet.
The stems take the strangest shapes where they hang
over projecting faces of rock. There they make use of
their acqufred sovereignty in the most singular shapes,
form aU kinds of arabesques in the afr with thefr spfral
windings, and hang with thefr long arms like waring trees
over grisly abysses.
Foolhardy goat-boys, when they are pasturing thefr
herds above such rocky chffs, often sinking many hundred
feet, retfre, in contempt of danger, merely to pass the time,
on to these fearful natural swings, and there, without giddi
ness, perform all kinds of acrobatic feats with hearty
shouts. Such a rash herdboy, on being rebuked by the
parson with the waming, " Your holy guardian-angel held
you by the arm that time, or you would have faUen over
and been kUled," answered impudently, " "Mr. Parson, I
shaU go over there, if my guardian angel won't."
The needles of the Legfohre are arranged hke those of
the Scotch pine, two or three hi one sheath, and are
grouped in tufts, which give the bough the appearance
of a thick bristly pencU. The Legfohre has a very feeble
G 2

^¦1 THB ALPS.
power of reproduction. As it cannot be propagated by
cuttfrigs, its plantmg is brought about entfrely by seeds.
Even m the fruit of the Legfohre the strangeness which
answers to the mountam character appears. WhUst the
ordinary pme casts its long conical fruit yearly, the Leg-
f ;hre keeps them through the wmter on its boughs, after
they have become ripe in September, with the enclosed
seeds, and drops them late in the spring, when the ground
h free from snow. Even after this, the opened and now
sjjhericaUy diverging scales of the cone remain some years
longer sitting on thefr tuft, tUl they at last faU off grown
grey by weather, in venerable antiquity. So it comes to
pass that at the beginning of July there are to be found,
on one and the same bush, male and female, orange-yehow,
carmine-spotted flower-cases, and the dead withered seed-
holders ofthe thfrd year, close to each other, — a pheno
menon which seldom occurs in the vegetable world.
The Legfohre is one of the most modest of plants.
Where no other kind of wood, or, at the outside, only
mosses and saxifrage, could exist, it clothes the huge, pale,
dry Hmestone cliffs with its thick, deep green colonies
of bushes, forming, especiaUy on the southern slopes, at a
height of from 5000 to 6000 feet, thickly woven coverings
often so compactly mtertwined that it is possible, in the
most Hteral sense, to walk upon branches and fohage.
This, however, is a risky undertakmg, on account of the
extraorcHnary elasticity of the mass, and leads much more
easUy down than up hiU, although the bending boughs
stretch out their hands, so to speak, to the chmber. For
this reason the mountaineer generaUy avoids them, and
prefers making a dStour over ice or loose stones to crossing
these foot-entanghng traps. This dwarfed wood is also
found on mica schist, in damp muddy hollows ; and isolated
examples have been met with at heights of only 2500 feet

PROSTRATE FIRS. 85
¦above the sea. Floods, avalanches, or the wind may have
transported the seed. It has even been found in the
extensive moors between Augsburg and Munich, and on
the " Hasspelmoor," at a height of 1600 feet, where it is
called " Sumpf-f ohre," or swamp-ffr (Pinus uliginosa).
Other plants seldom grow amongst the tliick bushes of
the mountain Legfohre. Nay, not even any parasites are
ever to be found on its smooth stems ; at the utmost, the
gold-yeUow Cetraria juniperina, a mountain lichen related
to the Iceland moss, occurs here and there.
As man flies from this impenetrable thicket, it is all
the more welcome to the Alpine game, as a refuge where
it can hide from the pursuit of the sportsman. Bears
especiaUy dehght in it when they are pursued, and after
they have reached this asylum they are tolerably safe from
attack. Hence the bushes of Legfohren are caUed in
Davos (Grisons) " Baren Erys." Mountain foxes crouch
there for a time (their proper home being generaUy under
rocks) to he in wait for booty ; the marten hunts there, and
the white hare (Lepus variabilis) takes refuge in it. Late
in the autumn it is the favourite haunt of the blackcock
(Tetrao tetrix), and on the border of the snow-fields the
" Weisshuhn," or Alpine ptarmigan (Tetrao lagopus) nestles
under the protection of its smaU thin bushes of dwarf
timber. Its constant inhabitant is the ring-ouzel, which
buUds in this cover twice a year — not to speak of such
passing risitants as the mountain finch and crossbiU.
Much as this fir cover pleases the sportsman, because
he generally finds game in it, it makes a duU, almost
mournful impression upon the admirer of nature. Inde
scribable monotony, in spite of its strange varieties of
boughs, — mournftd, dreamy melancholy hangs over these
dark slopes. A feeling of isolation creeps over the
traveller whose path leads through the bushes of Leg-
g3

86 THE ALPS.
fohren. It seems as if Nature had gone to sleep, and one
is involuntarily reminded of Grimm's tale of the " Dornen-
roschen." The knee-timber is on the mountains what the
heath is on the plains. Smugglers on the frontier use it
for places of rest, and to deposit their burdens, and many
a fight has come off in such places between them and the
customs' officers. The Legfohre is most massively developed
at Wolfgang, near Davos (Grisons), and on the Ofiierberg,
in the Lower Engadine, down to the Alp Stabl-dschod ;
it occurs also over large districts on the slopes of the Scarl-
thal. Smaller examples may be found everywhere in the
hmestone Alps at heights of 5000 feet and upwards.
The Legfohre, finaUy, is no bad wood, nor worthless in
the forest economy. It is a very useful conservative
plant of defence, a stubborn dam against the devastating
influences of the Alps. It is a provision of Nature
equivalent to man's devices of ban-forests, &c. Without
the Legfohre many vigorous Alpine meadows, with their
luxuriant pasturage, would no longer exist. EoUing
stones and debris from the mountains have afready de
stroyed many an Alp. Its rough interwoven boughs
receive the first masses of snow that faU in the autumn,
and by this means bind down aU the later snow hi an
inclined plane. It thus positively hinders the discharge
of ground avalanches and the desolation that accompanies
them. In the same way it energeticaUy restrains the fall
of stones, and, Hke a natural work of fascines, catches aU
the rocky fragments that come down. Moreover, it lets
the wUdest torrents of rain pass as through a filter, and
is thus of great assistance to the increase of good perma
nent springs, and the mamtenance of the lower slopes oi
tm-f ; finaUy, it favours the formation of soU under safe
protection, by the deposit of its leaves.
TiU very lately, they have been oiUy valued for this

PROSTRATE FIRS. 87
indirect serrice ; at the utmost the mountaineer drew
from them some fuel for his chfi,lets. But lately a dearth
of wood, and a more rational management of the forests,
have increased the value of the timber, and they are now
cared for Hke the regrdar forests. As fuel it is almost
equal to the beech, and the charcoal derived from it is
highly valued.

g4

88

THE ALPS.

CHAP. X.
ALPINE ROSES.
Behind Oberhausen, on the Lake of Thun, rises a steep
jagged waU of rock, so inaccessible that even chamois
avoid it. No hay-cutter ascends it, to mow the grass
which grows there, at the risk of his Hfe. No root-digger
pursues his toUsome trade on its waUs, and yet the rarest
and most lovely Alpine plants grow there, such as are not
to be found for a long way in such brUhant and deeply
toned colours, especially the purple, almost deep red
" Fluh-bluemh " (Primula veris elatior), an ornament of
the straw hats worn by the Oberland maidens in summer
feast-days. In the dim old days there Hved a very rich peasant at
Oberhausen, with an only daughter ; she was the fafrest
maiden aU round the lake. Though she had many suitors,
none seemed good enough for her hand. One, however,
was devoted to her with his whole honest heart ; but Eisi
(Ehzabeth) rejected him Hke the others, and sent him off
about his business. Once on the evening of an Alpine
Sunday, as the lad was treating the maiden to wine, she
seemed to listen to his protestations, and said she would
be his vrife if he would fetch her " fluh-bluemh " (i. e. chff-
flowrets) from the weU-known rocky point. Instead of
being startled, John agreed to the proposal, for he was a
desperate climber. At the first grey of morning he

ALPINE ROSES. 89
hastened past the Geribach to the wild chff ; Hke a squirrel
he chmbed round the sHppery waUs : the narrowest clefts,
the most trifling ledges, helped him on as he clung
tight with toes and fingers. His hard task was aU but
done, he saw the point close to his head ; he had grasped
one, two, three flowers, when a stone crumbled, he lost
his balance, and in the next minute, after a fearful fall, he
lay dead at the foot of the chff. A few hours later
Eisi went merrUy surging past the rocks — one look, and
she sank fainting by the side of the man whom her pride
had kUled. The faithful lad stiU grasped the flowers in
his hand. Eeinorse broke Eisi's heart.
" U — n — a der Fluh, wo Hans isch g'lege,
Wachst us sym Bluet e Blueme — n — uf ;
D'Alprose, wie 're die Lut jetz sage —
Ihr Meitleni get Achtig druf !
Die Bluemi da sy roth wie Bluet,
U stah im dunkle Laub gar guet." *
So says the popular legend of the origin of the Alpine
r(jse. None of the mountain flowers has been so celebrated
by poets as the Alpine rose; no flower has been so poeticaUy
interwoven with the mountaineer's Hfe ; and none caUs up
to the mind of persons, unacquainted with the mountains,
so incorrect an image. If, keeping to the name of " rose,"
he transfers it to an Alpine relation of the queen of
flowers, the mountains would not give him the He. On
the contrary, the Alps have given a new poetic beauty to
the rose ; for it is amongst them that the rose blooms
without a thorn, and that the proverb loses its truth.
That is the real " rose of the Alps," the charming Rosa
* " On the cliff where Hans was laid, a flower grows out of his blood,
— the Alp rose, as folk call it now. Beware of it, ye maidens ! The
flowers there are red as blood, and stand right well in the dark leaf."

90 the ALPS.
alpina, which frequently occurs in the high orest-glades
of the subalpine region, and descends to the borders of the
vineyards. It forms bushes, and flowers in June and July.
StiU, when people speak of the Alpine rose, they do not
mean this flower any more than the Alpine riolet (Cyclamen
europceum) refers to a tme violet. The poetical sense of
the people calls that plant Alpine rose, which is known bo-
tanicaUy as Ehododendron, and in German "Eosenbaum."
This designation, however, does not give a proper repre
sentation of the reahty. On the contrary, it introduces a
new ambiguity ; for originaUy this poetical name was
given to the oleander, and it was Linn^us who arbitrarily
transferred it from the southern plant to our Alpine
wreath. The name of Alpine rose is not often heard
properly from the people ; almost every vaUey has its own
name for it. In the Bernese Oberland it is caUed " Baren-
blust," in Entlebuch and Unterwalden " Huhnerblume,"
(because the Berghuhn or ptarmigan is found in it), hi Uri
" Juupe," in Glarus " Eafauslen," in Aargau "Herznageh,"
inthe Zillerthal, in Tyrol, " Zundern," in Ticino " Dros," &c.
The family belongs to the heaths, or to the stUl more
nearly allied bUberries. There is no plant with which the
Alpine rose can be better compared than the whortle
berry (Vaccinium uliginosum) or the V. Vitis Idma,
which sometimes grow in the Alps at heights of 7000
feet. With their low thickly-branched bushes,, the Alpine
roses caU to one's mind also the box-tree, especially in theh
fohage ; but they have nothing at all in common with it
They form a small family of thefr own, which have been
caUed Rhodoracece, ancl embrace the three species : (1) the
Ledum, which grows in the northern hoUows and peat-
vaUeys ; (2) the Azalece, which occur in the Alps from
heights of 5000 to 7500 feet, only as a tender evergreen
creeping plant (A. procumhens), with rose-coloured

ALPINE ROSES. 91
blossoms ; and (3) the Rhododendra. All three have the
pecuharity in common, that their leaf and flower-blossoms
are enveloped in great husks, for whicii reason they come
in tufts out of the branches. We cannot generaUy observe
the moment of development, because it almost always
takes place beneath the snow. As the spring rises step
by step to heights of from 4000 to 6500 feet, and its soft
breath puffs away the covering of snow, the Hght-brown
hornhke armour of buds is already there, and leaves and
flower-buds are curiously stretching out their young fresh
green to see the splendour of their mother, the lofty Alpine
world. The traveUer does not see all these phases ; he
does not enter the rich garden of the Alps tiU July and
August, when the rhododendron is already blazing in rosy
flames, and has shut the ruby-like beU of its calyx. " With
" what pleasure does the tfred wanderer greet the first
" wreath of Alphie roses, and hasten, in spite of his exhaus-
" tion, up to the rocks, from which the rose nods a smiling
" welcome to the Alps. How often they accompany him
" with their constant grace, through long labyrinths of rock,
" and speak to him of Hfe and enjoyment in a desolate world
" of grim rock-ruins ! Everywhere the Alpine rose deco-
" rates in a thousand ways the thousand changes of its home,
" glowing in a single rosy flame over the foaming glacier-
" brook, or drawing over the whole hiU-side its purple
" garment reflected in the Alpine lake, or scattering its
" blossoms companionably through the many coloured
" flowers of the Alps." — (Tschudi.)
In the Alps there are only two varieties of one
species. The most extensively distributed, which rises
to heights of 6500 feet, is the rust-coloured (R. fer-
rugineum, in Eomansch Flur beUa), so called because
its lancet-shaped, dark-green, tough, leathery leaves are
thickly covered on thefr lower surface with smaU, scarcely

92

THE ALPS.

visible rust-coloured spots, which give to it a deep red
ochre, or almost a coffee-coloured hue. It is the old
leaves, which have passed through the winter, that
are so embrowned on the reverse side ; the young ten
der leaves smUe at the points of the boughs in the
HveHest spring-green, and, tiU the autumn, form a
striking contrast by thefr fresh colour to the solemn
Look of the old leaves. Not tUl late in the year does
their youthful appearance vanish and a shght golden
tinge pass over thefr backs. The other form, the " Ge-
franzte Alpenbalsam" (R. hirsutum) has fringed leaves
of a more oval form, set round with long white hahs.
The leaves are generaUy equaUy green above and below,
but sometimes have clear brown spots scattered thinly
over the reverse side. It generaUy occurs in the deeper
and shadowy rocky mountains, especially in the Eastern
Alps, and while it never rises above 6000 feet, it is
occasionaUy found as low as 2000 feet. Its burning
red umbel of flowers rises from the background of
leaves in June and July, composed of from six to ten
bright flowers of flve petals. Its tenderly formed trans
parent beU shines in the midst, as soft as velvet, almost
hke a cameUia ; but on the exterior surface it is sprinkled
with very distinct spots of a sidphur colour, which
give it an obstinate, hard, and robust appearance. The
Alpine roses vary much in brightness of colour, from
the most tender rose to a glowing carmine. The depth
and glow of the colour generaUy increases with the
height of the locahty. The hairy Alpine rose is generally
the paler and clearer, sometimes passing ahnost into a
faint violet tinge. A great rarity is the white-blossomed
Alpine rose, whicii is said sometimes to occur in the
Maderaner Thai (near Amsteg on the St. Gothard), m
some of the Valaisan lateral vaUeys, on the Hundwyler

ALPINE ROSES. 93
heights (AppenzeU), in the Paynaun, in Tyrol, and in
the Pinzgau.
Where large spaces are covered with blooming Alpine
roses, as on the Itrammen Alp (on the way from Grin
delwald to the Wengern Alp), or on the eastern slope
of the Alpsiegel (near Weissbad hi AppenzeU), or in the
thin forests on the ascent from Zermatt to the Eiffel,
or in the Fex-thal of the Upper Engadine, there shines
a bright ruby-coloured flame, visible from a great distance,
which for its extent may be compared to the flood
of blossom on an orchard in May. As on the orchard,
there is a spring-burst of budding, and crowding and
nesthng together, a whole coUege of bloom, an exulta
tion in their common youth, — one might almost say a
milhonfold concert of colours. And the Alpine blossom
has another resemblance to the tree. When the carmine
flower has enjoyed its Hfe and the hour of departure
is near, it does not wither, dying by degrees on its
stalk, or losing its lovely glow of colour, and miserably
shriveUing up Hke many of the most beautiful flowers :
it looks joyfuUy round once more at the white moun
tain-tops and at its beloved companions, and jumps at one
spring into the forest brook that rustles by, or the
foaming mountain-stream, and disappears from human
sight. The Alpine rose is an obstinate plant. It does not
easUy aUow itself to be transplanted to lowland gardens
and lordly parks, slavishly to adorn the beds according
to the wUl and pleasure of the connoisseur with all the
servUe crew of plants ; it is not a venal flower to do
any one's bidding. A free child of the free hiUs, it wUl
only blossom in its own home, wiiere it is nearer to heaven
than to men, and can breathe fuU draughts of the pure
afr of heaven. It is the most charming symbol of

94 THE ALPS.
maidenly purity and innocence; there is scarcely any
plant which when broken so soon loses its beauty and
the fire of its colouring, and sickens to death. Weather
and storm, heat and frost, rain and snow, aU the attacks
of nature, it can bear with good cheer and courage, only
too happy when it gets a friendly ray of sunhght. Only
at the touch of man's hand it trembles and loses its
colour, for that brings its death. With surprising
speed it changes its clear transparent purple-gold hito
a bluish tinge, and no one has seen Alpine roses in theh
fuU splendour who has not seen them blooming on the
slopes of rock.

95

CHAP. XI.
THE SOUTHERN VALLEYS.
Italy is the favourite land for youthful dreams of a fair
ideal. Every scholar who dweUs dehghted on his VirgU,
Horace, Orid, or TibuUus, travels in thought to the
classic land of the Eomans, and longs for the time when
he wUl be able to foUow his favourite poets step by step.
If in later years his wish is frdfiUed, — if he hastens over
the Alps down to the Lombard plains on his pUgrimage
to Eome, sees the Sabine heaven grow blue above him, — •
if he repeats thoughtfuUy, in the grottoes and cascades
of TivoH, the ever recurring " lUe terrarum mihi prseter
omnes angulus ridet," — it wiU certainly come to pass
that he wUl return rather cooler than he went.
What is the cause of this common result of an Itahan
journey — of this unexpected disappointment ?
There is one cfrcumstance which exceeds many ex
pectations and at the same time perceptibly weakens
later effects, viz. the introduction to the Italian journey —
the first day beyond the Alps. The increase of beauty
in the landscape is so striking, so absorbing to eyes
and sense, when one descends from the St. Gothard or
Bernhardin, that after such an overture one naturaUy
expects a more lively crescendo, a further increase of
nobUity in the landscape. But when one has once left
the paradise of the Lombard lakes, this does not happen

96 the alps.
to the degree expected, but on the contrary there is a
faUing off in the interest.
Incontestably the descent from the Alpme heights to
the southern valleys, so often larishly adorned by Nature,
is one of the most striking incidents that happen in travel.
Afready on this side of the mountains a deep impression
is made upon one's spirit. Before the St. Gothard yawns
the wild, lifeless, ruin-covered gorge of SchijUenen,
which does not cease tUl the cliffs of gneiss meet
near the Devil's Bridge. For a few moments a free
breathing time and a peaceful rest are gained in the
idyUic Urseren-thal. Equally terrible gates close the
two eastern commercial roads to Italy over the Bern
hardin and Spliigen in the Via Mala and Eoffla gorge,
or the pass of the Great St. Bernard in the defile of
Marengo. In aU these passes it is there that the first real
ascent begins, to the treeless, half-dead heights ; in duU
monotonous zigzags galleries and houses of refuge lead
us constantly upwards where in the bad season death
is lying in wait for the traveUer to clutch its prey
with the spring of a Hon, in the form of an avalanche
or in the fearful whfrlwind of a snowstorm.
By this time our dehght in the bright, blooming
nature has sunk to freezing point ; we have almost left
the world of organic Hfe ; we have reached the barren
pass of 6500 feet high, when there suddenly opens upon
us, narrow at first, but graduaUy extending, a glance
into a new Hfe. The first hour shows but Httle ; but
here and there the charming cushions of areti^ with
bright white eyes of forget-me-nots, the red pinldike
silenes, and the modest androsaceas, greet us, as they
gather into companies. Further down we meet ane
mones and veronicas, plants with woody stalks, and
along the rocky waUs above us creep the lazzaroni of

the southern valleys. 97
the mountains, the Legfohren, heralds of the tree-region.
How joyfully we greet the first pines or larches ; we
take off our hats to them as to dear old acquaintances.
Now it increases at each turn of the road. The single
trees gather into groups, and pass into smaU forests,
which chmb up the lateral slopes of the vaUey. Eound
domes of foliage are intermingled, and the white-stemmed
birches shine to us from the cHstance. The whole world
of plants grows richer, and hicreases in power, height, and
Hfe. Eound one more corner of the road, and suddenly
the view opens far into the chief valley at our feet. The
mountain shoulders run down from each side, sinking
into a faint blue in the distance. ViUages, hamlets,
slender church-towers appear, and the long narrow line
of the road shines Hke a thread. There it stretches,
far away into the land of our dreams. Soon we reach
the first habitations. The thick stone waUs and narrow
window openhigs show that here winter stiU rules long
and sternly, though it looks so summer-hke, so warm and
fuU of life after the barren heights. The people beneath
the Spliigen, on the south side, have named a district of
this kind Campo Dolcino, though to people who are
leaving Italy it afready looks unfriendly and "indolcino"
enough. But what is it compared to the next district ?
Vegetation sweUs and bursts, Hfe is strong in every plant,
all seems massivie, sohd, and abundant. The increase of
natural Hfe is in more than a regular proportion, smihng
clearly from every bough and group of trees. It is as if
our eyes had been half starved higher up ; now they are
ready to exult at the most modest nourishment. We
feel hke a poor man who has been brought up in care
and want, and suddenly thinks himself a Croesus, when
he has first got a gold piece of his own in his hand.
H

98 THE ALPS.
But patience, we shaU soon be sitting at the rich man's
table. When we have once passed the rarine of La Cluse on
the Great St. Bernard, of Dozio Grande on the St.
Gothard, or the bar of rums of Misox, under the Bern
hardin, and the valley terrace of Stozzo on the Spliigen
(the natural boundaries of the vegetation pressing up
towards the mountains from the warm lands of the
south), new pictures open unexpectedly before us. They
are stUl the same valleys, bounded by high rocky
mountains ; but the wild beauty, the proud look of
challenge is tamed down. The grand severe outhne, the
ftiU broad shading, the firm, decided drawing, so unmis
takably characteristic, have disappeared. As though in
play, nature has lavishly covered and decorated the
country with every kind of ornament from her inex
haustible treasures. There is certainly something femi
nine and coquettish in it as compared with the quiet
manly magnitude and the stoical earnestness of the
valleys on the northern side. Thorough enjoyment of
Hfe breathes through the whole country, and a thousand
enchanting little groups enchain one's sight.
New forms of plants claim attention ; or, where they
are old acquaintances and friends, they take a more
elegant shape. Ffrst come the fuU juiced stalks of maize,
as high as a man's head, with their bi-oad, pendulous,
shielcl-Hke leaves, types of luxuriant fullness of hfe,
covering the fields in the valleys far and near. The
Indian corn (zea, melgone in Ticino Italian) must here
produce half of aU the cornstuffs ; wheat and rye are
here afready golden and ripe for cutting (Biava), whilst
in Germany they are stiU a dead pale grey-green. The
pines have left the vaUey to take refuge on the hiH
sides; below grow only the round fohaged trees. The

THE SOUTHERN VALLEYS. 99
walnut-tree, and the dark elm-tree appear in masses.
The last, however, cannot crush the cheerful careless
ness of the landscape by its melancholy. A courageous
parasite surrounds it with its leafy net, and creeps
humorously up to the dismal old grumbler. This is
the merry rine, which winds up in careless fun, and
swings its breezy garlands from tree to tree. The rines
have a genial laissez aller, a graceful wilfulness, when
contrasted with the guarded grapes of our vineyards
anxiously held from the winter with bit and bridle.
Here it shows its true nature, the fiery spfrit Hves and
stfrs in it, which it imparts to its grapes as a springing
weU of Hfe ; and even when it has been fastened down,
when practical utUity has tried to set bounds to its wUd
growth, it stiU retains liberty enough to embrace the
companions of its youth in low bowers of leaves.
Further on we meet the mulberry, whose leaves are
destined for the silkworm ; the ugly fig-tree, with its thin
fohage, and another tree which pleases us by its imposing
growth, by its shiny crowd of leaves, and generaUy by
its marked pre-eminence above its neighbours. This is
the chesnut, the greatest ornament of the southern
vaUeys. Every isolated tree, with the mossy block of
stone, or cottage below it, and close behind it the
impetuous, unchainable, clear green mountain stream,
and the pale, misty riolet of the background of moun
tains — every such group is a study by itself.

H 2

100 THE ALPS.

CHAP. XIL
THE CHESNUT-WOODS.
The chesnut rises Hke a picture of southern vegetation
fuLL of Hfe, grace, and richness, with its strongly marked
forms, above the bushes of the little side rarines, which
are carved in the southern slopes of the Alps. Its lofty
foliage strongly caUs to our minds the splendid beech
forests of Germany and Denmark, but, under the powerful
influences of the warmer cHmate and the magic colouring
of the southern Hght, it excels them in luxuriance and
brightness of colour. It is an Epos, an Odyssee of the
world of trees, bold and absorbing as a harmony of
Palestrina, rising jubUantly like the HaUelujah in Handel's
Messiah. Above, on the other side of the Alps, strange
feehngs creep over the traveUer in the black melancholy
ban-forest with its dreams of bygone days. Melancholy
broods over its sohtudes, and the spirit of the Alps moves
over it in cold sublimity.
Here, in the chesnut - forest, the enjoyment of the
present is everywhere, fresh abounding life. It Hes cer
tainly in a far deeper zone of vegetation than the other.
For wliUst the high pine-forests of the Alps occupy as a
rule the region between 3000 and 5500 feet, the chesnut-
wood reaches its mean boundary at 2700 feet, and occurs
quite exceptionaUy at Sagho in the BergeU, at a height of
3500 feet. The most beautiful woods of this Idnd on the

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"B:

rt/'

1*

a^^H-v .
CHESNUTS.
THE CHESNUT-WOODS. 101
Alps are found m Piedmont and the Itahan Tyrol. Besides
these, the chesnut is distributed through the whole of
Southern Europe, covers vast plains in Northern Greece,
and rises in MidcUe Greece to great heights on the moun
tains. In Spain and Portugal it covers the higher moun
tains in great masses, or draws an enclosing girdle below
the colder summits, and shows itself as a large forest tree
hi the Cevennes and the Limousin. In Germany it is
found only as an isolated omament of the parks.
The Spanish chesnut (Fagus castanea or castanea vesca,)
is a genuine mountain tree of the south, not to be con
fused with the wUd or horse-chesnut (udEsculus Hippocas-
tanum), whicii is often used as an ornament for avenues
on account of the fan-shaped disposition of its leaves, and
consequent thickness of fohage. Growth and timber,
flowers, leaves, and fruit are quite different. But the
Spanish chesnut also varies according to the locahty in
the physiognomy of its stem and boughs, so much, that a
man would scarcely recognise them in isolated trees, who
had only known them in the forest masses.
Here (in the forest) the cylindrical stems grow straight
up towards the clouds with manly freshness and boldness.
Power and muscular strength appear in every fibre. It
stands in an intermediate relation lo the straight close-
grained stem of the smooth-barked beech, and the ner
vous roughly-sphntered oak. On every side it has the
appearance of being come of a good race, and is of an
independent bearing. As long as it is young, the stem is
clothed in a juicy, firmly chnging bark, whose ohve green
tissue of ceUs shines through it ; it is spotted over with
white lenticular points which give it a young cheerful
appearance. After the first twelve years of its youth,
when it is about twenty feet in height, it gains a varie
gated overgrowth. The ground tone of its dress of bark
H 3

102 THE ALPS.
is a greenish - grey, reheved by clear sUvery spots, de
ceptively Hke the German beech. In both this change of
colour is derived from hchens (Verrucaria epidermidis
and analepta), wMch cover the stem in broad sheets.
After another twelve years, the tree reaches the age of
manhood. Its bark dries, and the colour changes again
as the subjacent layers of sap die out. The wood then
extends in height and breadth ; the circumference of the
stem increases considerably ; the bark tears, and sphts
traverse the now dark brown armour of the stem.
The development of boughs and shoots begins tolerably
high up in the forest chesnut, and strikes out to a great
distance in strong closed lines, so that the neighbouring
trees, with thefr rich fohage, form a thick vaulted roof of
leaves. As in the compact pine-forests, the chesnut-
woods preserve a tolerably cool place of refuge in their
dim shade through the hot summer months. Such places
are wanted in the Httle southern valleys. Their floor is
often surprisingly narrow ; there is just room for the
rugged road, creeping slavishly round aU the curves, and
the crystal rippHng mountain brook, side by side, and
then on both sides the ground rises in tolerably steep
slopes towards the heights.
The fuU burden of the sun's rays Hes on these deep
gorge-shaped cuttings, and heats the rockwaUs often to a
high degree. No vUlage, hamlet, or house Hes down in
the valley. They are aU high upon the beautiful green
mountain slopes. On the south of the Monte Eosa group
every place is composed of numerous Httle scattered com
munes (carboni), consisting of sohd respectable stone
houses in the Itahan style, and each of them with a
chapel. But many of them are hardly risible, because
they are nestled in the waring chesnut-woods. A char
ming idyUic picture of this kind is formed by the vUlage

THE CHESNUT-WOODS. 103
Eossa, where perhaps the noblest chesnut-forest in aU the
Southern Alps is to be seen. TLus high situation of the
vUlages gives to the Monte Eosa vaUeys in Piedmont an
appearance very different from that of the northern val
leys. From the ornament conferred upon them by the
diamond-clear brooks, with their play of light-green colour,
and the crystal basins of water which they form, these
vaUeys would be the most beautiftil in the whole Alps,
if only the mountain heights were richer in colour and
form. But they frequently pass into a reaUy dismal
monotony, which is especiaUy predominant in the Graian
Alps. The trees are not everywhere so thick. Formerly a
thick chesnut - forest covered the Monte Cenere, over
which leads the much frequented road from Belhnzona to
Lugano, but as it gave shelter to many robbers and high
waymen, it was considerably thinned. The trees gained
by this in light and space, and now display uncommonly
fine branches.
There is a great difference in the free isolated tree.
At first sight it is as Hke the German winter-oak as its
own reflection, both in the courageous independent form
of the chief boughs, in the . broadly-marked knotty for
mation of the short four-sided stem, in the pimply dis
coloured bark, and in fact in the whole style of its woody
architecture. As in the oak, there are many stems of
great diameter, and a cfrcumference of from twenty to
thfrty feet is not rare. In the Vai Misoi?co there is one
which measures thfrty-two feet at three feet from the
ground. The most celebrated tree is that on Etna, caUed
" Castagno di cento cavalli," whose circumference is 180
feet. But as its height is by no means in proportion to
its mighty breadth, it appears a Httle way off like a
gigantic bush. In fact it does not display one massive
H 4

104

THE ALPS.

stem, but a group of five colossal branches, which rise
from a foundation now hidden under the ground.
The chesnut is extraordinary for its capacity of trans
plantation and reproduction ; it is one of the toughest-
Hved of trees. Stems as hoUow as an old spectral willow,
in which several men might find room as in a tent —
improvised houses of refrige — some even in which the
goatherd (caprajo) is accustomed to Hght his fire to cook
his scanty meal of polenta, and whose inside surfaces
are blackened charcoal, have green hvely crowns of
foliage. A strip of bark a few feet broad, which rises
against the nearly bare stem, brings sufficient nomishment
to the leaves.
In proportion to the noble manly bearing of the stem,
its proud leaf cupola, and its vast spread of branches, is
the characteristic form of the leaves. The long lancet-
shaped leaves stand up with obstinate expression of being
thefr own masters. They would remind one strildngly of
the ancient reward of the minstrel, the nobly shaped laurel
leaf, if they belonged to the harmless peaceful form of
leaves. But a knightly blood flows in .thefr veins, as
children of thefr proud upright father. Sharp shghtiy
bent points stand round thefr rim, as ends of the leaf
skeleton, arming each leaf and giving it a thoroughly
energetic character. Their whole tough tissue is firm
and lasting, strong and solid, and the fresh deep green
surface of each leaf is smooth and shining. As the whole
tree may be put on a level with the emblem of strength
and courage — the German oak — in its heroic architec
ture, the leaves may be no less compared with it for their
free natural growth.
Finally the fruit and its husk is not less distinct and sin
gular in its form than the stem and leaves. None of
our European trees envelop thefr seeds in such thick husks.

THE CHESNUT-WOODS. 105
weU armed with long sharp pointed needles. The fruit
of the horse-chesnut has a simUar sheU, set about with
sharp prickles ; but its thorns are short, standing far apart,
and remind one chiefly of the middle-age weapon — the
morning star. The shell of the edible chesnut (which
ripens in October) is an armed " noh me tangere " against
all attack, — an impregnable baU of needles, — a perfect
miniature portrait of a roUed-up hedgehog or African
porcupine. If it did not of itself spht into three parts on
growing ripe, Hke the husk of the beechnut, it would be
hard to extract the chesnut from its firm armour of thorns.
It is weU known to form one of the principal materials for
the food of the lower classes in the South of Europe dur
ing the winter months, where it has to supply the place
of bread. The value of the chesnut, however, has ap
parently fallen off, in consequence ofthe steadily increasing
growtli of potatoes. In Italy, " chatigna," a broth pre
pared from the chesnut-meal with salt water, is a daUy
food on the table in many parts. In Tessin the fruit is
eaten both boUed, " farud," and roasted on the gridiron,
" brasch." Xhey may be kept a whole year if skilfuUy
dried. A strongly bearing tree wUl produce five hundred
weight of fruit in favourable years. The harvest in Cor
sica alone is valued at 100,000 crowns yearly. In the
BergeU, where whole forests stand on the mass of debris
from the landshp which buried the riUage of Pleurs in
1618, near Soglio, and farther down, there is a proverb,
" Quantas moscas, tantas castanies," which means to say,
" As many flies as a summer produces, so many chesnuts
there are in the same year's harvest."
The above-mentioned locahty near Sogho is especiaUy
interesting, because there the pinus cemhra, which is
proper to the cold snowy cHmate of the proper Alpine
region, ripens its cones with their sweet edible kernels

106 THE ALPS.
in the immediate neighbourhood of the chesnut, and both
trees form the complex forests caUed " Branten."
But even after its death, after it has ceased to adorn
the landscape as the fafrest fohage tree of the South, and
to give nourishment by its fruit, the chesnut stUl shows
itself a nobly ditsinguished tree by the value of its timber.
For this is close to the oak for firmness, durabihty, and
sohdity, and would even in its physical properties be quite
equal to oak wood, as its yearly rings are widely separated
by broad waUs of growth, if it was not entirely wanting
in the characteristic broad rays of pith. Venice, the sea
ruling town of the Doges, rich smUing Genoa, the mighty
docks of England, built their giant three-masted vessels,
their great ships of war and commerce, of chesnut-wood,
because it is not Hable to the attacks of worms and the
destructive boring pholads. The mighty framework of
beams at Westminster HaU in London, buUt by the extra
vagant Eichard the Second of England towards the end of
the fourteenth century, the roof beams of many of the
noblest Gothic cathedrals of France and Spain, axe made
from the timber of our noble tree, and are stUl as strong
and uninjured as they were five hundred years ago. It
is maintained that even the living tree is hable neither to
the attacks of insects nor to any other disease, except that
of becoming hoUow in its old age. But a dreaded animal
loves to burrow under its roots, namely, the common
scorpion. The Itahans who stUl sometimes travel about
the country with the so-caUed " scorpion oU," supposed to
be good for the stings of poisonous flies, wasps, and bees,
catch the scorpions, necessary for the preparation of the
oil, by digging under the chesnut roots. Very lasting
tight hoops for casks are made of the young boughs ; and
casks whose staves are spht from chesnut wood, are said

THE CHESNUT-WOODS. 107
to be almost indestructible, and to be exceUent preservers
of wine. On the other hand, chesnut wood is of Httle
value as fuel — the logs shine, but give out Httle heat.
Such is the growth and ornament, the use and the
decay, of the noblest fohage tree of the Southern Alpine
land.

108 THE ALPS.

CHAP. XHI.
A TALE OF THE CLOUDS.
Two paths cross the mountains from the lovely corner of
the Lake of Geneva, near Montreux, into the Canton
Berne and the Saane-thaL One of them. La Tiniere, is
stony, a bad road, and Httle frequented, whUst the path
over the Jaman is pleasant, "hvely, and easy to find.
These, meanwhUe, are not, properly speaking, passes, hke
those in the high cantons of Glarus, Uri, the Grisons, and
Valais, or such as lead over the weU-known cols from
Chamouni. Thefr height is nowhere 4700 feet above
the sea, and the path over the Jaman passes some human
habitation every half hour.
In clear weather this moimtain path offers incomparably
beautiful views over the lake behind, and the rich pic
turesque scenery of its banks ; but if cloud and night
surprise the traveUer on these heights, then progress
becomes as difficult as it does everywhere in the hOls,
and woe to him who has no guide, or leaves the right way.
On the 15th of September 1852, I had left Vevey in
oppressive noonday heat, and lounged imdecidedly down
the road by the lake. The sohtary point of rock of the
Dent de Jaman had often seemed to inrite me to a
friendly visit ; but often as I had passed it on the steamer,
it had always been out of my way. This time the Dent
was quite an opportune answer to my doubts, and tm^ning

A TALE OP THE CLOUDS. 109
left from Clarence, the Hohe Naye before me, I ascended
between ChaUley and Chernex. The vast panorama opens
out more widely and grandly as we ascend. It is a picture
which has no equal in the whole broad Alpine land for
majesty and idyUic simplicity, in splendour of colour, ancl
in the fuU harmony of its contrasts. The heavens had
taken an iU-omened colour, a monotonous leaden-grey
spread over the glorious landscape, and the sun seemed a
faint sleepy yeUow. A German professor coming with his
pupUs over the Col de Jaman, recommended to me the inn,
"En avant," of M. Dufour; and his guide, packed Hke
a mule with knapsacks, carpet-bags, guide-books, and
botanical books, was of opinion that that would be " my
best place for waiting through the rain."
I looked in annoyed astonishment after the guide as he
plodded on half smihng ; and a look up towards the sun,
which stood glassy and rayless behind the watery vapours
of the heavy atmosphere, and a strange dirty-grey cloud
round the Dent de Jaman, seemed to me unfortunately to
conffrm the unexpected truth of the weather-prophet. I
never liked turning back, even in cases where my sense
of locahty told me I was on the wrong road. Conse
quently, I put my best leg foremost. Sooner than I had
hoped I came to the friendly colony of huts. The
peasants of Montreux, to whom the surrounding fat
meadows belong, were up here gathering thefr cehmd
(second crop of hay). It is consequently more Hvely
than usual at M. Dufour's, especially in the evening.
I had scarcely rested half an hour by a bottle of ex
ceUent wine, when one of the mountain peasants came in
with the cheerfrd report " y pHau " (il pleut) ; so the
guide was right. The " phau " got rapidly closer, and as
the twihght rapidly approached, the sluices of aU the
brooks of heaven appeared to be open. Supper — good

110 THB ALPS.
night — to bed — was the only cure for my discouragement.
It may be better to-morrow. Towards mornmg, as I awoke
— alas ! the same weather contmues. The rusthng of the
rivulet of water over the saturated shining roof tUes into
the soujiding gutter, and the plashing trickhng of the drops
on to the pavement, has a magnetic soporffic power, hke
any other monotonous sound. I gave way to its influence.
After nine I awoke agam. A look through the wmdow—
mist and thick rain — only the fields close by were risible.
Below, near the lake, the charming riew was veUed by
low grey clouds. The order of the day, " stay here and
wait patiently," was dictated of itseff. I was, however, a
thousand per cent, better off than if such a misfortune had
overtaken me in a sohtary Alpine chalet, cut off from aU
the world ; for M. Dufour's dwelhng was an orderly httle
house, which afforded comfortable protection against the
weather, and the bed in my white furnished room, although
hard, was, at any rate, better than a damp Alpine couch
of hay.
Wherever people are mutually inteUiglble, by means of
speech, the traveller in search of amusement may find,
even with the most one-sided and driest of companions,
some back door through which to escape from the en
trenchment of yes and no into the open field of com
munication of thoughts, and something may then be
learnt of every one, even the duUest peasant. But this
becomes impossible when there is no means of intercourse.
This was my case. In my schoolboy days the hours of
French instruction were always the most wearisome, and
I should, in consequence, have been quite without con
solation now had it not been that in later years necessity
had compeUed me to pick up what I had neglected in my
youth. I now certainly spoke French grammaticaUy, and
my hostess and some of the peasants present understood

A TALE OP THE CLOUDS. Ill
me weU ; but I could only make out her Eomaisch-French
patois disconnectedly and conjecturally. This hindrance
had to be overcome. I began to acquire a vocabulary by
a perfect flood of " comment s'appeUe cela ? " and " qu'est
cela ? " This produced a reaUy comic scene. To the
merriment of the coUected guests, who were as much
bored by the weather as I was, I started a school, but in
inverse proportions, inasmuch as I was the single scholar,
and had eight or ten drinkhig and smoldng teachers round
me, to whom I directed my questions, and from whom I
received instruction, as from one mouth. We had a
hearty laugh ; a bottle or two of Yvorne wine, which is
here dirt cheap, supported my investigations, and I filled
page after page of my journal. This amusement passed
away a few hours, and gradually lost its interest, and out
side the rain was stUl faUing as before. The clay ended
as it began and the second night too. The third morning
broke amidst streams of mist and rain. It began to get
tfresome. Mid-day was past. As I was looking out, drumming
with my fingers upon the window, on the general wash
ing of nature, two strong young feUows came up to the
inn, one especiaUy stronger ancl broader-shouldered than
the other, so wet to the skin that they could not well
be wetter. I knew all the riUagers, my friends and
teachers of yesterday, these were new faces, reason
enough to heighten my interest in their appearance
and persons. I asked myself, with curiosity, where are
they going ? whence had they come ? would they stop
or go on.P were they strangers or at home? An ar
rival under such cfrcumstances was an event of itself,
and must have some weighty cause, considering the
drenching rain. The biggest went straight up to the
trough before the inn, up to its ever running spout.

112 THE ALPS.
and laying down his stick and umbreUa began evidently
to make preparations for something new. What ! more
washing stUl ? in this thorough soaking, when his whole
body must have been exposed to an involuntary bath for
hours ? I thought that was too luxurious. However, he
drew off his thick, heavy, neat-leather boots, held them
under the rushing water, and shook them two or three
times as one rinses a dfrty glass, — he had got sand and
pebbles into them. The remedy seemed to me rather
too radical, it was one only fit for man in his natural
state who is hand and glove with wind and storm.
When they had both come in, I heard to my no smaU
surprise, that they meant to cross the Plan de Jaman.
"In this weather?" I asked. "Why not?" was the
answer. " WeU," whispered my self-esteem, " what you
can do, must be possible for me — so you are ready going
over the Plan de Jaman ? " " Ja, Herr, to Montbovon,"
was the German answer of the big one, a Bernese Ober-
lander from the Simmenthal, who had been told by
the hostess that I came from German Switzerland. " WUl
you be my guide ?" " With pleasure, sir," was his
friendly reply, whUst his big honest eyes increased my
confidence in him. " Give me your knapsack, I will
carry it; I have often been on the mountauis with
strange gentlemen." Done ! my bUl was settled, every-
tlihig packed tightly into my sealskin-knapsack,— portfoho,
passport, and papers ; the alpenstock m my hand, fare
weU to the host and hostess, and out into the mist and
streaming rain.
In the first ten minutes I was on a level with my
guides, in pohit of wetness. We mounted through forest..
In the gutters and hollow ways, and wherever there was
any depression in the mountahi's slope, the water came
shooting down in overwhelming haste-. Every two hun-

A TALE OF THE CLOUDS. 113
dred paces we had to wade these improvised brooks, and
sometimes walk above our shoes in them. In a short
time I might have used M. Dufour's trough, to clean my
shoes of sand which the rushing water carried into them.
AU that had surprised me hi the dry sheltered room
at the inn, I was now doing with resignation, or, even
more than resignation, with thorough goodwiU. After
about three-quarters of an hour's ascent we were on the
top of the Col ; on our right the splintered rock-tooth of
the Jaman looked down upon us from its heavy mantle
of mist, fron-grey and spfrit-Hke. Here, where, in clear
weather, that lovely prospect appears, said to be the
lovehest round the whole Lake of Geneva, we stood
in the cold draught, hi the streaming rain, enveloped
in a sea of dull wretched vapour, whUst in other places
the clouds, torn by the winds, were driven past in strange
fantastic shapes, Hke foUowers of the wild huntsman.
The short Alpine turf had grown strangely smooth and
shppery in the rain, so that it was hard to get firm
and safe footing where the path was on a slope. One
¦ could not indeed properly speak of a " path," as is
generally the case on Alpine meadows ; hundreds of
apparent paths, i. e. long Hnes cutting through the grass
and plants, and showing either the naked rock or the
water-roUed debris of pebbles, — hundreds of such paths
run side by side, cross, break off, and form, especiaUy
in mist, a labyrinth not easy to be foUowed by one
not thoroughly acquainted with the country.
My Simmenthal guide uttered a long series of clear
rejoicing jodels, spite of the wetness of our clothes and
the miserable weather. That is the genuine custom of
the Sennen (i. e. hihabitants of the sennhiiter or chalets).
His jodels were answered from several sides, but by whom
we could not see ; the answers came from the mist.

114 THE ALPS.
We went quickly downhUl, sometimes with a quick
balancing step, sometimes half shding, so that the al
penstock served ahnost the same purpose as in a ghssade
on a snow slope. In a short time we came to a large clean
chalet. We were in the canton of Freiburg. Here our
third man left us, and this gave us an opportunity to turn
into the chalet for a Httle rest. The half hour we wasted
by the warm, brightly shuHng fire was the cause of an
adventure, which always frightens me even in the re
coUection. When we left the chalet, the rain had become so much
denser that we HteraUy could not recognise each other, if
we were not close shoulder to shoulder ; at two paces off
we could hardly distinguish the outHne of a human form.
This circumstance obHged us to pay the closest attention
to foUowing the path ; and our anxiety about the way, and
the unusual exertion of strength to prevent shpping, put
us into such a perspfration in spite of the bitingly cold
and rain-deluged afr, that we were sweating as much
as one generaUy does when ascending a mountain under
a July sun on a hot day. It appeared several tunes
that we had not quite kept the right dfrection, when
we had to cross hedges and dividing fences such
as generaUy occur in the lower hay-fields of the Alps.
A dozen or two paces to the right or left, and we always
recovered the right path, which passed through a gate, or,
as is more frequent, was marked by large flat stones, laid
like steps, which enable one to cross the Hght fence-work.
So we went on for some time. We had not entered the
inn "En aUieres" in consequence of the rapid approach
of night, for it was afready decidedly darker. We now
had again to cross a tolerably high hedge, and according
to the process by which we had hitherto succeeded, we
went along it to discover the point of crossing. On our
right it sloped gently down, on our left it rose. We

A TALE OF THE CLOUDS. 115
sought, but in vain ; we did not want so much to find
a convenient passage over the hedge as to assure our
selves of the right way by finding the usual passage, for
we could not possibly go wrong when we had got about
ten minutes further. By repeatedly passing up and down
the hedge we had lost the point at which we had first
struck it, and night was coming on more decidedly as
we wasted time in searching. Another good cast up-
hUl — not a trace of what we sought ; downhUl again
through the dark grey Tnist, and at a quick pace, but with
just as Httle result. It began to grow very steep ; — stiU
nothing. My guide, who was growing impatient, sent
up some signals for help in the form of clear long-drawn
jodels ; but no answer. He repeated his cries in another
tone, with all his Hvely power of voice as Alphie as if he
had been in the most cheerful frame of mind, but as
uselessly as before. In spite of the fact that our position
began to be rather anxious, I could scarcely help laugh
ing at this forced cheerfulness produced by perplexity and
anxiety. What next?
" We must go downhiU, mustn't we ? " " Certainly,
sfr. By my reckoning it is a short quarter of an hour to
the Hongrinbach, over which the first bridge leads, and
then there is a broad path through the forest." " WeU,
do not let us wait any longer ; we'U break through the
hedge. Keep downhUl, not too much to the left or right,
and when we come to the Hongrmbach, foUow it tUl
it brings us to the bridge. Don't you think so too?"
After some delay my guide agreed to my proposal, as
behig the only plan, under the cfrcumstances, for gainhig
our object. So said, so done. The ground got steeper,
the mist and night a darker grey, our situation in our damp
cHngmg clothes more and more uncomfortable, and rain
flowed mcessantly and abundantly. I 2

116 THE ALPS.
We might perhaps have been stumbhng, clambering,
progressing somehow for a quarter of an hour or more,
when a rushing sound seemed to warn us that we had
reached the Hongrinbach ; but there it went down as
steep as a church-roof Several attempts showed that, we
had better keep to the right ; so on we went again in this
dfrection : the cloud had Hfted a Httle, so that, as far as
the night would permit, we could distinguish objects close
round us. A dozen more paces, and the white foam of the
rushing water shone up to us. Now we had to chmb
along by the mountain brook tUl we should come to the
bridge. With unusual exertions, through wUd. bushes
and thorny boughs, whicii scratched our skin crueUy, and
tore our clothes, we laboured slowly along. The slope
was often so steep that we feared at every step that we
should fall into the stream or break our necks ; my guide
kept on proring vrith his stick how far we could trust, for
we could hardly see where we trod. After passing a good
many such difficulties, our further passage was suddenly
cut off, for on our left foamed down a stream some six or
eight paces broad, which flowed into the Hongrinbach.
If we could not chmb up the slopes which we had de
scended with unspeakable trouble, without being a hair's-
breadth better off there than here, there was only one
thing left to us, to wade through the shooting water ; we
agreed to do so. I took my guide by the arm, we propped
ourselves with our sticks against the water, and so began
our wandering. The water came up to our knees, the
big pebbles roUed under us, so that we had to plant our
feet carefully at every step. On our right there must have
been a waterfall, or something like it, for it was resound
ing with a deafening roar : we could not see the cause.
Heaven knows what uiUucky idea suddenly induced
my guide to let go my arm (h e was on my right). Enough !

A TALE OF THE CLOUDS. 117
— a movement, a stumble, a cry, and he disappeared. How
I got over I can't say. Whether fear and horror gave me
unusual strength, and safety of tread, whether it was luck,
or that the place through which I stUl had to wade was
actuaUy less dangerous, I do not know ; I only know that
I scrambled out of the water on to the other bank by
chnging to the naked roots, boughs, and bushes, and
chmbed painfuUy along the bank, calhng out, and feeHng
with my long alpenstock in the water. Things had gone
as I expected : it was a waterfaU six or eight feet high
over which my guide had faUen. My position was reaUy
terrible — tfred, wet-through, hungry, a long pitch-dark
night with streaming rain, an utterly unknown country
before me, and a man's life either lost or in the greatest
danger. Besides this the unfortimate guide had my knap
sack on his back, in which, as weU as Hnen, &c., were my
papers and money. I called out, cried amidst the noise,
struck into the wUd foaming flood with my alpenstock,
and, in short, ehd everything which despafr suggested to
me, but in vain.
Exhausted and hoarse, I was about to give up my at
tempts of rescue, when suddenly I felt my stick grasped ;
it went through me Hke an electric shock. I caUed out
anew, PuU ! and behold, a human form came up from the
deep — my guide, who had been senseless, and almost
drowned. He had, as it seems, been stopped by some
block of rock in the bed of the stream, and had lain there
for several minutes (whether with his head above or below
the water, he did not know), and been awaked to con
sciousness by my crying out and pushing. Two dear
brothers who have met after years of separation do not
embrace each other more heartUy than my guide and I.
He was bleeding at the back of his head, and could
not weU stand up from having badly sprained his foot.
I -3

118 THE ALPS.
After we had sat down to rest, and taken counsel what was
to be done (it could not be later than seven in the even
ing), we stumbled and Hmped, with tom clothes, tired, and
as hungry as wolves, with the firm resolve to seize the
first hut we came to for our night's resting-placcj with or
without the consent of the inhabitants.
Fate was favourable to us. Before long the gable of
a house loomed through the darkness, and tuming the
corner two bright windows shone out to us. Hurrah!
land ! light I men !
Such adventures may mist cause to the mountaui-
wanderer.

119

CHAP. XLV.
CLOUD PICTURES.
Mischievous and spiteful as the mist is in the hUls, where
he has afready guided many a sure-footed mountaineer
on the road to death, or with Ul-natured pleasure has so
veUed the lofty points just toUsomely reached by tra
veUers searching for a riew, that they have had to return
without gaining thefr object, stUl, when he is in good
humour, or when he leaves the heights to give a turn to
the vaUeys, he can play frohcsome and jovial comedies
enough. In the last case, he lays himself down far and
wide over field and forest, markets and lanes, and only
the mountaineer can escape from his choking miasma-
breathing vapours. Then the lover of nature may stand
high on the free hiU-top in the golden srmshine, and look
down on a waving milkwhite sea, from wluch the neigh
bouring heights rise up Hke islands ; or, as sometimes
happens, when the masses have sunk very deep, the golden
cross of a church tower in the vaUey shines out, sohtary,
symbolical, and victorious. But far down in the veUed
invisible vaUeys the hum of men murmurs and sounds
louder than usual ; for mist is an excellent conductor of
sound upwards, though just the contrary downwards.
This phenomenon, however, may be seen in every moun
tainous country ; it is not a distinctive attribute of the
Alps. I 4

120

the ALPS.

More starthng and unusual, a genuine phenomenon of
the decidedly raised hUl country, is that magic appearance
which is known in Germany as the spectre of the Brocken,
and which not unfrequently shows itself on many high
points in the Alps. It is formed by the shadowy reflec
tion of objects and persons on the surface of a cloud rismg
freely from below, when the rest of the horizon is clear.
This phantasmagoria is most frequently to be met with on
heights surrounded by inland lakes or marshy hoUows,
which, under suitable atmospheric concHtions, generate
hght vapours, which rise in the form of clouds. Such
points are the Eigi, the PUatus (which has lately been so
often ascended on account of the convenient road and the
building of an elegant inn), the Brienzer Eothhorn, &c.
The cantonal forest-inspector, Herr Coaz of Chur, lately
observed such a phenomenon under unusual cfrcumstances
from the summit of the Piz CurvSr (between the Schamser
and Oberhalbsteiner vaUeys in the Grisons). There had
been sudden and violent snowstorms at the end of June,
1843 ; winter had made a saUy against laughing summer,
and for some days spread its white tents far and wide
over the summit of the Ehastian Alps.
Herr Coaz and the engineers and guides with him had
ascended the peak (9158 feet above the sea) under very
difficult cfrcumstances, but in a complete calm and in a
clear atmosphere, and had soon finished the observations
intended for the trigonometrical survey. A wUd valley
sinking from the foot of Piz Curv^r towards the Ober-
halbstein especiaUy attracted thefr attention. Here there
was almost uninterrupted roaring and thundering. One
avalanche awoke another, and plunged from the steep
rocky side waUs into the depths of the vaUey, where fre
quently several united, and slowly came to rest in a broad
mighty stream of sUver. " I never yet had the fortune,"

CLOUD PICTURES. 121
says Herr Coaz, " on any of my mountain journeys to see
this subhme spectacle, so animated and briUiant, with
such repeated discharges. I was still foUowing with my
eyes one of the last avalanches, which were graduaUy
faUing at longer intervals, when I saw a Hght cloud
form above it. Streams of mist too rose from the rocks,
against which the vapour-laden atmosphere cooled itself,
and, creeping out to each other, soon formed a broad
roUing sea of cloud, which concealed the depths of the
vaUey. Nourished by inrisible sources, this sea rose
constantly higher, swelhng up to my feet, and at last
rose as a long veU of mist. Among these mixing clouds
the colours of thip rainbow appeared, at first faintly and
passing, but graduaUy becoming more distinct. They
at length united into a brUHant cfrcular band. A second,
with somewhat fainter hues, surrounded the first, and
was soon concentricaUy surrounded by another stiU
fainter. The innermost ring appeared to have a dia
meter of about three feet at a distance of from thirty to
forty feet. Charmed at this appearance, I sprang up
and stood as though suddenly turned to stone, for be
hold, in the midst of the rainbow there rose with equal
haste a dark figure, which stood stiU just as stiffly. I
waved my hat, made deep bows, and the spectre showed
itself equaUy pleased and courteous. The phenomenon
lasted some minutes, and then disappeared with the
rainbow into grey mist, which soon dispersed, borne off
by a Hght breath of wind. It was four in the after
noon." It may be added in explanation that the vaUey from
which the mist rose opened out towards the east. As the
sun sank behind the western horizon it sank graduaUy
into shadow, which caused a rapid faU of temperature,
and the watery vapour generated by the frequent faUs of

122 THE ALPS.
avalanches and the high temperature during the day was
condensed into mist, which, on rising into the higher
strata of air stUl warmed by the sunHght again dispersed.
Herr Kuhn of Dresden speaks (in the stranger's book of
Weissbad, in AppenzeU) of a similar cloud-picture, exactly
corresponding in the principal facts, which he observed
on the Ebenalp on the 24th September 1855, after heavy
rain. The shadow of his head with his hat fioated sharply
distinct in the cloudy picture of the shadow, rather
above Hfe-size, surrounded by white light. Eound it was
a dark ring, then a wreath of the brightest prismatic
colours, some four eUs in diameter. The upper part of
the body with his alpenstock was also clearly mfrrored,
standing upright amongst the colours, but drawn out
rather long below. By the side of this silhouette stood
the dark shadow of his grude. If the last moved a few
paces sideways, each could see iiis picture alone without
that of his neighbour. If they shook thefr heads the
whole rainbow circle shook too. The phenomenon lasted
a good quarter of an hour.

123

CHAP. XV.

At the head of the Lauterbrunn VaUey, where it bend
romid to take the name " Amertenthal," there lies high up
at the foot of the Jungfrau, and between it and the Ebne-
fluh, a strange wild snow-covered vaUey, an hour * in
length, the Eoththal. From below it is quite invisible,
and it seems scarcely crecHble that there should be an
extensive vaUey where one can scarcely distinguish a
ledge on the gigantic mass of the Jungfrau.- It is in fact
one of the most fearful recesses, not only in the A^s, but
hi the whole European continent. The waUs of granite
and limestone which surround the hollow are so torn
by the descending glaciers, and eaten out into a gorge so
flUed with ruins, that the weathered and overhanging
masses fiU the adventurous traveUer with fear and horror.
Difficult of access as it appears when seen from below,
it is tolerably easy for practised mountaineers to reach it
by ascending the stephke formation of the rocky strata.
On the entrance to the vaUey, some 9300 feet above the
sea (or 5000 above the bottom of the Amertenthal), the
glacier, which fills the whole gorge, is scarcely 1000 feet
* The distances in the Alps are generally expressed in time — a
method which has obvious conveniences in places where a mile may
occupy hours of hard work. In ordinarily level country an " hour "
may be taken at from two to three miles.

124

THE ALPS.

wide. Steeply rising pale banks of granite shut it in hke
sluices, over which it presses from its quiet bed and pre
cipitates its masses a good 2000 feet, partly in hanghig
curves, partly hi torn, crushed faUs of ice, down to the
Stufstein Alp. The falling masses of ice are often com
pared to waterfaUs ; this otherwise rather lame paraUel
completely faUs here. The chaos of broken lumps of ice,
thrown over and wedged into each other, the labyrmth
of yawning glaciers which open in every dfrection amongst
them, and the overhanging waUs of rock, are so strange
that few places of equal wUdness can be found in the
Alps. If we must stick to the comparison, the Eoththal
may be compared to an ocean shut in by lofty chffs,
which has been suddenly stiffened in a storm, and whose
masses have been pushed over its banks, and pUed up in
towers of sphntered fragments, tiU they have lost thefr
balance, and huge masses break loose which fiow hke
streams to the valley, crashing as they faU. As not a
weed, not even the thinnest stalk of grass, grows here,
even the chamois rarely approach it ; and as these beasts
are not to be found, it happens that chamois-hunters
seldom ascend it. The place is consequently only chmbed
from time to time for thefr amusement by sheep-boys of
the Stufstein Alp.
According to the universal legend in the Bernese
Oberland, hobgobhns and eril demons, who haunted
human dweUings, were banished during the middle ages,
and even after the Eeformation, by witch-masters, travel-
Hug scholars, and exorcisers, shut up in casks, and trans
ported into this remote vaUey. Thus the Eoththal, which
no honourable Christian foot ever trod, came into repute,
and was considered as a hold of evU spfrits. The old
vaUey-lords of Lauterbrunn in particular were cursed into
this place, and pass their existence here.

" WBTTERSCHIESSEN." 125
This legend is in relation to a very remarkable natural
phenomenon. It frequently happens in the Swiss middle
land, in the cantons of Freiburg, Berne, Solothurn, and
Aargau, about midsummer or harvest-time, that a duU
sound, Hke a cannonade, a strange knocking or toUing, is
heard by day, or also in the evening or night under a
perfectly cloudless sky. According to the popular behef,
this proceeds from a spfritual apparition — " the wUd
hunt," with which the accursed lords of the Eoththal
hurry high up through the air. In the behef of the
Westem Solothurn peasants, they are the spirits of the
Burgundians slain at Morat, who make thefr airy passage
with mUitary calls and alarms. In the Bernese Eothen-
bach, the people say, " The Eoththaler are at thefr
exercise, the weather wiU change." The inteUigent un
prejudiced inhabitant ascribes this strange phenomenon to
natural causes, and beheves that they are to be sought
for in actual miHtary exercises at a distance, or in re
markable faUs of avalanches or thunderstorms, whose
sound in particular sets of the wind may be borne to the
ear of the hearer. Many and extended investigations
have however now shown that throughout a great circuit
no mUitary fire or cannonade nor discharge of thunder has
taken place. The roar of avalanches, again, loud as it
may be in the mountains, can scarcely be heard eighteen
leagues off. Assuming that the thunder of an avalanche
could be perceived so far in a favourable dfrection of the
wind and in a very pure air, so many avalanches do not
faU in succession that thefr sound could be heard for
hours together with few interruptions. Moreover, the
phenomenon occurs less frequently near to the Alps, and
often takes place with a north-west wind. The meteoro
logist Hugi, in Solothurn, who has paid much attention
to the question and often. observed it, says that the sound

126 THE ALPS.
has no appearance of proceeding from the Alps, but
rather from the west or the Jura, where of course there
are no glaciers nor summer avalanches.
It is a fact that after this phenomenon, caUed " Wet-
terschiessen" (weather-shooting) by the people, a soft
steady rain often begins, accompanied by electrical phe
nomena, and the barometer is unsteady.
Its exact cause has not yet been determined. Strangely
enough, no natural phUosopher except Professor Hugi has
inqufred into it. He considers that this duU wetter-
schiessen is proximately an effect of the passage of atmo
spheric forms into denser, more watery and vaporous
forms, or the effect of a disturbance of the afr ; and hence,
as in aU disturbance, noise. According to this, it would
be the inverse of the so-caUed Wetterleuchten (summer
lightning), in which the saturated vapours of the atmo
sphere pass into thinner, purer forms by the loss of
electricity. It is striking that the phenomenon only
occurs in the district mentioned, never close to the Alps.

127

CHAP. XVL

THUNDERSTORMS.

A THUNDERSTORM, wherever it occurs, whether on the
extensive levels of the wheat-lands, or the barren heath,
on the open sea, or the splintered mountains, is every
where a fearful spectacle. Everywhere there is the same
uproar of the elements to excite our horror, the same
thrilhng giant's voice of the thunder that makes our souls
tremble. The natural scenery and the forms of the
landscape in which the thunderstorm is discharged,
give it very different characteristic forms, and vary its
immediate impression. This is the case especiaUy with
thunderstorms in the mountains.
Although hUl and forest are notoriously favourable to
the formation of clouds, they rarely appear in tlie Alps
as those seas of vapour, laden with electricity, and cover
ing many square mUes at once, which every summer
hang over the low countries. The lofty mountain-ridges
form barriers which cut up the thunderstorms into
many smaU clouds, and thus cause them to be generaUy
of short duration, and also of less intensity than in the
lowlands or on the open sea. The rapid cooling of
certain strata of the atmosphere under rapid changes of
temperature, and their efforts to find thefr level by the
draughts of wind, which may be regarded as the natural
ventilators of the valleys, generally bear the thunder-

128

THE ALPS.

laden clouds pretty quicldy through one mountain-
district, so that the sum of the electric discharges in the
mountams, which last only a very short time, is at least
three times as great as that of the storms which work
themselves out steadUy, and at thefr ease. This is tbe
normal state of things, which does not, however, exclude
the existence of particular colossal storms, which extend
their destructive cloudy curtain over whole regions of
the Alpine lands at once. The most striking case lately
is the celebrated storm of the 24th of June 1859,
which interrupted the battle of Solferino, and at the
same time raged with unexampled fury in all the districts
of the Swiss and Savoy Alps. Not less memorable is
the older one of the 27th of August 1837, which,
cfrawing up from the south-west, ravaged the whole
canton of Grisons and many neighbouring districts, a
surface, at the least, of several hundred square miles.
On the other hand, mountain thunderstorms, considered
as indiridual meteoric phenomena, are far more subhme
and imposing, one might almost say more theatrical and
more strildng in their effects of sound and power, than in
the lowlands. The introduction to one of them is far
more dramatic and exciting to the expectations than in
the plains. There (in the plains) the thunderstorm is
often preparing for hours with solemn and awfiU repose,
and leaves plenty of time to the observer of nature to
watch on the broad horizon the gradual formation and
conglomeration of the various conthigents of clouds
which at lengtii form one massive black wall. There it
is a majestic beginning, full of awful subhmity. Here,
in the mountains, where the view towards the vaUey is
generaUy cut off by an ummportant outlier, the mysterious
guest generaUy enters, formed and ready, from the plains,
and presses on with stormy steps. Now the landscape

THUNDERSTORMS. 129
begms to receive strange and splendid ornaments. The
pine-forests sink into black night, no single point stands
out uidependently by itseh". The groups of roclis lose
thefr decisive contours, and melt into spectral-grey
shapeless masses, over which the waterfaU hastens down
with a strange hurry, hke the bewUdered leaps of a
madman's thoughts. The lake lies dead, without a
ghtter, Hke a duU, frozen level. The illumination which
disappears there, accumulates dazzhngly, almost bhnding
the eyes elsewhere. The meadows in the foreground
sweU into a burning green, as though they would aU at
once pour forth thefr innermost power of life ; the paths
and roads of the vaUey stand out in unusual sharpness of
a pale yeUow ; and above aU the snows shine down a
bright white, fearful contrasts to the duU, dismaUy hued
picture. AU harmony of colour has left the landscape ;
it looks Hke a painting formed by a morbid, heated
fancy, scorning aU natural connection. The feverish
excitement whicii comes upon men and beasts is in
ominous contrast to this terrible scenery. The hay lying
on the meadow is hastUy gathered ; the herdsman drives
his cattle together with loud cries ; jodels grow dumb ;
hurried employment is the characteristic expression of
hfe. The mountain crows high up swarm screaming
round thefr rocky nests ; swifts and martins have
vanished ; the song of the forest bfrds is stiU, only the
finch cries unceasingly for the rain.
Now the herald of the thunder, the wind, sounds its
first notes, whfrls the rustling dust, and shakes the forest
with its strong hand ; the lake awakes ; a shivering
shudder runs over its countenance ; thick caps of cloud
envelope the high points and glacier-covered giant heads
of the mountains ; the masses of cloud sink lower, and
drive hke a wUd hunt, with increashig haste through

130 THE ALPS.
the vaUey ; the country gets darker and darker ; the
dazzHng colours grow dim — aU becomes black. Then
the first blue fiash leaps through the night ; the actirity
of the atmosphere becomes steadily greater.
The forests creak under the storm ; torn leaves flutter
through the afr, and a universal heavy murmur sounds
aU round. Now too the deep roar of the thunder
chimes in. But this prelude does not last long. Ener
getic as the Alpine world is in aU its phenomena and
signs of Hfe, this development proceeds in a starthng
progress. In a few minutes the storm has broken forth
in its whole fearfuUy vrild force.
Zigzag Hghtnings, far more than are seen in the low
lands, lasting certainly less than the thousandth part
of a second, fflcker round the mountahi's loins, often
gathered together, and shooting out in every dfrection
from one centre, Hke the bundle of hghtnings from the
hand of Jupiter ; the rolling of the thunder, which finds
room enough for its sound in the chambers of the clouds,
roars besides, as reflected in a hundred voiced echoes
from the rock clefts and vaUeys, and forms a grand tone
in its unceasing permanence, on which the new accen
tuated solo strokes are reheved Hke the progressive
melody of the imposing storm symphony. It is an act
of nature's sovereignty, whose impression is overwhelm
ing upon aU who witness it. If it then strikes a wetter
tanne or sohtary chalet, the vaUey cracks as if the rocks
aU round were about to burst into a thousand shivers.
Such is a weak sketch of a high thunderstorm. They
rise in the Alps to above 15,000 feet ; for De Saussure saw
them on the Dome de Gout^ below Mont Blanc, and the
inhabitants " of Zermatt observe them discharging above
the top of the Matterhorn. In the west of Mexico, Alex.
von Humboldt saw traces of Hghtning on the highest

THUNDERSTORMS. 131
point of the ToLuca, at 15,750 feet. In the Peruvian Cor-
dUlera a thunderstorm surprised the traveUers Bouguer
and La Condamine on the Pichincha, at a height of
16,500 feet, and many credible accoimts say that in the
Pyrenees they rage at 10,000 feet and upwards.
Most thunderstorms, however, descend lower in the
mountains ; thefr serial region Hes from two to three thou
sand feet above the floor of the vaUey. A thousand
stories in the Alps show that they sometimes sink much
deeper. It is an estabhshed fact that in the storm which,
on the 26th of August 1826, kiUed two priests during
vespers in the monastery of Admont, in Austria, the cross
of the tower, which is 114 feet high, rose above the
clouds, and the storm itself was only some 90 feet
above the ground. Such deep lying storms give occasion
in another way for a majestic spectacle, the sight of which
makes one reflect on the limits of earthly frailness and
human weakness, that is, the discharge of a thunderstorm
in a vaUey when one is in the Alpine region far above it.
The traveUer stands Hke a Jupiter Tonans on the heights
of Olympus ; below him is couched a dark grey monster,
the threatening sea of cloud; laden with electricity, it
creeps Hke a gigantic serpent round the mountains. No
house or chalet can be distinguished below ; aU that
reminds one of the dweUings of the Hving is smik in
grisly night. But far up the great features of the moun
tains stand out in fuU rehef; the thunder builds, as it
were, a bridge from one to the other. There is a move
ment at our feet, the pale rose-coloured fiery serpents of
the Hghtning shine in crooked intersecting paths through
the awful veU which hangs above the landscape. Now
there is a crash from below, powerful though dulled, and
with a hundredfold echo, the growls from the vaUeys
repeat it, tiU the tones of horror die faintly away. The
K 2

132 THE ALPS.
terribly beautiful sight is incessantly repeated, the hght
ning Hcks and fires the vaUey with its fiery tongues, and
the thousand-voiced anger of the thunder is constantly
sounding. The wanderer stands on the heights, " looking
over wasted lands." Peace and lovely stiUness surround
him. The great edifice of heaven is vaulted in trans
parent clearness above his head, and the sun radiates hght
triumphant over darkness, imparting Hfe and warmth in
everlasting purity. StiU nobler is the spectacle by night.
The strangerswho passed the night of the27th of Junel860
on PUatus, can find no words to describe the unspeakabie
splendour of the fearful thunderstorm which, from two
tUl three in the morning, made a perfect sea of fireworks
beneath thefr feet ; whUst, above thefr heads, the starry
tent of the mighty heavens rose pure and lofty in its quiet
subhmity. AU inhabitants of the mountains agree that
the Hghtning frequently strikes upwards from below.
The pecuhar glazing of many rocks is ascribed to these
electric meteors, as, for example, on the D6me de Goute,
the Kaerpfstock (Glarus), the Ortler Spitz, the Venediger
Spitz, and the Ankogl (Corinthia). Such Hghtning scars
may also be seen on the Pic du Midi and the Mont Perdu
(in the Pyrenees). An accident in Styria shows that such
strokes of lightning may kUl men. The church of St.
Ursula stands on a lofty hiU. On the 1st of May 1700
this house of God lay in fuU sunHght, whilst a dense
thunderstorm was raging half way up the hUl. Seven of
the persons praying in the church were struck by the
side of the narrator. Dr. Werloschnigg.
PreciseLy wLiere the danger would appear to be greatest
— in the thunderstorm itself, — it seems to be least, or, at
any rate, not greater than elsewhere. Engineers and tra
veUers, who have been accidentaUy enveloped in thunder
clouds, before they had time to escape from the awful

THUNDERSTORMS. 133
Hghtning-armed mystery, have always escaped without
injury. Thus the French captains Peytier and Hossard,
who were thirteen times, during the years 1816 and
1825-27, delayed for hours in the very focus of fearful
storms in the mountains of Troumouse, Pic d'Anie, Pic
Lestibete, and Pic de Baletouse, were never in the least
injured, though they had been given up for lost in the
vaUeys. They say that thefr hafr and the tassels on their
caps stood on end. Abbe Eichard, who, in order to
study the effect, intentionaUy penetrated into the midst of a
stormy thunder-cloud, could no longer hear the fearful peals
of thunder, but only a noise hke an incessant ratthng of
nuts. On the contrary, the geologist. Professor Theobald,
of Chur, who was in the Solferino storm, between the
Tschiertscher and Urden Alp, in the electric clouds, says
that the peals were short, Hke cannon sLiots, but of a
clearer, more cracking tone, and that the rolhng of the
thunder was only heard further on. We shaU speak of
the general consequences of thunderstorms in the Alps in
the description of the " Eufenen."

134 THE ALPS.

CHAP. xvn.
WATERFALLS.
The FaU of the Staubbach, in the Lauterbrunnen VaUey,
which has been a hundred times described and drawn,
besung and bepraised, and mentioned in every handbook of
geography, so that every schoolboy knows its name ; is
the noblest representative of that extensive tribe of water
faUs, which owing to thefr extraordinary height of theh
faU seem quite to evaporate, tUl they reach the new stream-
bed in the vaUey. Owing to this cfrcumstance it under
goes more Proteus-hke changes than most others, and
displays such wonderful metamorphoses at different times
of the day and year, that it continuaUy seems to be
changing into something different, and therefore has to
submit to the most various and contradictory criticisms.
It is also subject more than any other waterfall to
those natural processes which enlarge the volume of water,
and thus increase the weight of the fall, or, on the con
trary, diminish it so much that the spectacle of the rush
of water over a cliff of 800 feet becomes almost insig
nificant. After long continuous rain, riolent thunder
storms, or in the early summer, when the snow is learing
the Alps, the Staubbach and its many companions which
resemble it in form in different parts of the Alps present
imposing, nay, almost fearful phenomena, which cannot
fail to make a deep impression on the spectator. On the

WATERFALLS. 135
other hand, in the summer, after weeks of drought, it
frequently happens that instead of the celebrated Staub
bach faU, nothing but the lofty damp waU of rock is to
be seen, over which, at other times, the watery veU shoots
down ; not a trace of the true waterfaU can be discovered.
Besides these cfrcumstances, which affect the existence of
the waterfall in general, others must be taken into account,
even when there is plenty of water. The time of day at
wluch the faU is seen is not unimportant. In the shadow
of the afternoon it is far from appearing so fuU and rich,
as in the moming when the sun's rays shine through every
drop of water, and cause the thousands of sparkhng
particles in the watery dust to glance with a brUHancy
and splendour, which are extraordinary in thefr way.
The pale feeble moonhght works another, though similar
charm, upon the waring veU as it swings from the rocky
waU. Much again depends upon the state of mind and the
expectations with which the traveUer comes to the Staub
bach. He who has lately seen the thundering cataract of
the Ehine at Schaffhausen, of the Aar at the Handeck, of
the Buffalora in the Vai Misocco and other mountain
streams which foam down hi vast compressed volume
through narrow channels, and is stiU shuddering at their
power, if he enters the Lauterbrunnen vaUey and ex
pects somethmg similar wUl certainly be disappointed.
The Staubbach, except at a few moments, is a pheno
menon of a tender elegiac nature, which should produce
rather emotion than astonishment and wonder.
Two branches of a stream leap out at a height of near
900 feet, over the vertical cHffs, and unite to form a mov-
mg pUlar of water, only a smaU part of which strikes
agahist a ledge; aU the rest dissolves in free air into
K 4

136 THE ALPS.
millions of pearls, and at last thins out into a shining rain-
Hke dust which partly wets the meadows for a consider
able distance round with an everlasting dew: partly col
lects again into a deep basin, in which shining rainbows
are interwoven with each other. The Staubbach is not
made great by an frrestrainable wild stream, winch foams
over picturesquely fissured masses of rock, and is broken
into manifold forms, or which shakes the afr by the
thunder of its faU and compels exclamation of astonish
ment. It derives its nobUity from its height of faU, from
the masses of water which press the cliff in unceasing pro
cession as white and soft as milk ; from its continual melt
ing into mist, and the play of its rainbows ; but especiaUy
from its gentle tender murmur harmonising so marveUously
with the softness of the whole scene, and not arising from
one place, but playing aU round the spectator Hke spfritual
voices. Hence arise the objections which artists make to
this natural beauty. The faU by itself gives them too little
opportunity for picturesque interruptions. The. gentle
successive motion of the masses becomes rigid stUlness on
the canvas, and neither the gleam of the water nor the
magic play of the rainbow can be so rendered in a picture
as to appear artisticaUy beautiful and transparent.
The first condition to a ftdl enjoyment of its beauty is
sunHght : on the longest summer days this lasts from seven
in the morning tUl noon, when it is withdrawn from the
stream by the same mountain over whose lower terraces
it faUs. Not only the rainbow over the basin in which
the fallen water coUects, but also the flying watery flakes
in the air have need of sunshine. Every grain of dust
becomes risible in it, and the contents of the cloudy
column appear twice as great when the favour of the
king of day is poured straight upon it. The shadow of
the faU on the cliff is at the same time dehghtful ; it looks

WATERFALLS. 137
like a second stream, of Stygian blackness, hurrying down
with emulative speed.
People generaUy go to the place where the brook faUs
in rain to the earth, as though they wished to feel it
before they looked quietly at it. It is a basin where
the sightseers love to stand. The people chmb the hUl of
debris, which the stream has formed for itself on its left
bank, and look down into a wide hoUow that quivers
unceasingly in the thousand-fold spray. On the opposite
side too He heaps of fragments, which have been cast
down from above, and between these two bulwarks the
whole stream rushes in its free passage. It is plain that
the depth of the basin and this opening towards the
Liitschine are owing to the masses of water which, after
thunderstorms and during the melting of the snow, have
here made room in the centre of the faU, without diminish
ing the hUl on the right or left, for these have been built
up of aU kinds of stones, to dam up the commencement
of the bed of the stream with aU thefr might.
It is easy to descend into the basin on the right hand.
We are immediately surrounded by a double rainbow,
which, Hke a saint's nimbus, stays close by us, and moves
backwards and forwards step for step as long as we stay
in the sunshine and the cloud of spray. The drops of
water hang to our clothes, and shine separately vrith in
comparable splendour. But the dampness prevents us
from long enjoying this fairy-like dress ; a frosty sensation
drives us soon up to the bank, all the sooner because it is
just possible that some stone shot clown may accidentaUy
wound us, and infHct even fatal injuries.
We may then he down on the meadow grass in safety,
and enjoy at our ease what had previously escaped us.
We raise our eyes in unwearied astonishment towards the
lofty dark-grey cornice, sharply reheved against the blue

138 THE ALPS.
sky, from whicii the Naiad hangs her two-fold flying gar
ment in the air. One half of the brook, almost imper
ceptibly divided from the other, hangs almost verticaUy
downwards, and would slide insignificantly down the rock
waU, were it not that the chffs retreat from the brow tiU
about half way down, so as to give the pUlar of water
free space in the afr. The lower half again of the moun
tain waU projects decidedly, and now crushes the mass
into that steam and spray which wavers down in such
aerial and vaporous forms, reminding one of the'faU in
the Salzburg Alps, to which the people have given the
significant name of " SchleierfaU " (VeU-faU). The interior
part of the Staubbach faUs half way down, as if it were
trying to stop against a projecting rocky ledge, and from
thence gushes downwards in thousands of bright foam-
flakes, entirely on the dark rocks into the basin, whUst
the exterior part, pressing the afr beneath it by its swift
ness and weight, expands in millions of bubbles, and
sprinkles an everlasting dew far round on the earth.
It is interesting to foUow the water from its streaming
out over the lofty rock ledge to its crash at the foot of
the chffs. It bursts forth so furiously that one inight be
frightened at its fearful faU ; but after scarcely one hundred
feet, it spreads out richly. The compressed column expands
into sohtary snow-white cloudlets, which might be caUed
water rockets, as, Hke those flaming heads of fire, they
leave a taU behind, which marks thefr path for half a
second, untU they are completely scattered into water-
sparks, and lost to sight. The varying play of the wind
is lovely on the Staubbach. The water, by the weight of
its faU produces a considerable draught of afr ; but this
motion only scatters abroad the fine bubbles, and does not
affect the whole mass. Whenever a gust of wind attacks
the rush of water, strange and starthng phenomena are

WATERFALLS. 139
produced. It often happens, when the Fohn* presses
vehemently against the outlet of the stream, that the
water is completely repressed, and sometimes not a drop
faUs over the cliff for two minutes together. At other
times the draught of afr tears whole troops of transparent
cloudlets from the wavering mist of vapour, and produces
charming effects. But the most curious sight is when
a riolent storm seizes the whole brook, and so completely
bends it on one side during its airy leap, either up or
down the vaUey, that the water-course below is quite
emptied — the Httle stock in the basin empties itself into
the Liitschine, and the quantities of frightened Httle fishes,
surprised in thefr sport, can only find the moisture ne
cessary for thefr existence in a few Httle hoUows in the
bed of the stream. Troops of merry chUdren hasten up
the stream at such times, and busUy catch the helpless
trout, from the holes where they are splashing about,
with tubs and paUs. In the midst of thefr plunder the
wind ceases above, the brook regains its ancient bed,
and the frightened fish spring Hke arrows from the hands
of the chUdren, whUst the courageous fishers, wet up to
thefr knees, spring hastUy on shore to wait for a repeti
tion of the ebb.
Such are the metamorphoses of the Staubbach in sum
mer and good weather. The vrinter, the spring, and
seasons of riolent rain can show others equaUy worth
seeing. In winter, when the snow falls, the flakes hang on to
the lower side of the Staubbach waU, freeze in the in
creasing cold as they are saturated by the water above
them, and form curiously shaped icicles of aU sizes. A
briUiant gleam, quite blinding in sunshine, fiUs the eye,
* The warm southerly wind.

140 THE ALPS.
and the mountain seems as if it had been glazed with
clear blue transparent glass. If mUder weather comes on,
or the warm Fohn dissolves the winter bands of ice, great
pieces of these shapeless icicles faU with a crash to the
bottom. The mass of ruins accumulates in the basui,
towers up into a hUl of sphnters, and forms a miniature
glacier with its whole configuration, by the cold drops of
water which spurt over it, and are quickly frozen in the
cliiUy nights. The drops, indeed, are frequently frozen
as they faU when it is bitterly cold, and coming to the
earth show experimentaUy before our eyes the formation
of haU. Close to the cliff, at the point where the dirided
brook falls, there generaUy grow two huge pUlars of ice,
according to the laws of architecture prevaUing in fairy
land, where pUlars and castles are constructed in the ah.
If they suddenly give way, either from their own weight
or being undermined by the warm south wind, they crash
with such vehemence on the glacier in the basin, that
everything round trembles as though from an earthquake.
It is most striking when both pUlars faU at once, and it is
curious to observe thefr new formation as soon as new
frosts occur. But as the warm afr gains power in the
spring, especiaUy towards May, the heap of ice in the basin
melts risibly, and dissolves in the first place, as in the
glaciers, close to the rock, so that a huge chasm yawns
between the ice and the stone, often near seventy feet
deep. Eemains of the winter frosts often maintain theh
position half through June. A beautiful azure portaL is
often formed, through wLiich the melting water flows,
just as in glaciers ; or the faUing water, owing to its
greater warmth, bores a vertical shaft, which pierces
through the ice. Here again the sun's rays form magic
effects of colour, incomparable in their way.
This peaceftd and harmless aspect of the brook is in

WATERFALLS. 141
striking contrast to its fury when storms are breaking
over the heights of the Pletschberg.
Eoaring, swoUen, and stained black with mud, the
stream shoots down in two thick branches, as though out
of monstrous fountain-spouts, from the edge of the lofty
waU which now rises straight into the growhng thunder
clouds. The unchained stream bears with it a burden of
stones, some of them weighing over a hundred-weight,
and slings them down iuto the vaUey Hke a gigantic black
haU. Jumping from the ledges of the cliff, they repeat
their bounds, tUl at length they crash into the basin of
debris. The reciprocal friction, the electric shock of the
stones, heats them so that a sulphurous odour is diffused
round them. Then down come stems of trees, uprooted
pines, in the swoUen waters. According to thefr weight
or size, some of them are caught by eddies of the wind,
and, whfrhng round Hke the shingles off an unroofed
house, sink slowly to the ground. Others are shot out
hke gigantic arrows, and pierce deep into the ground.
The usuaUy gentle, wavering sheet of water, looks Hke an
inverted dark-brown column of smoke, whose volumes
and waves extend the more the nearer it gets to the
ground. It is often carried away by a gust of wind, and
struck far out of its vertical path to faU higher up or
down the vaUey ; or it scatters itself right over the whole
breadth of the vaUey towards the opposing cliffs of the
lofty SchUtwaldfluh. It even happens at times that the
thick mud stream is driven back Hke whfrhng smoke, and
after haring been beaten backwards towards its source,
begins its foaming faU anew, whUst for a second the bare
rock appears, with the continuous haU of stones, as an in
dependent and terrible phenomenon. The black, heavy
overhanging curtain of clouds, which conceals the narrow
strip of sky that looks down between the lofty rock walls.

142 THE ALPS.
the yeUow fire of the Hghtning that searches along the
floor of the vaUey or the heights of the chffs, and the fear
ful roUing of the ratthng shattering thunder, are an awful
but noble accompaniment to the raging torrent. A scene
from the closing drama of the last judgment appears to be
reahsed when such a storm breaks over the vaUey, and it
needs the stoic calmness which the mountaineer gains in
his daUy battle with the elements not to lose one's pre
sence of mind, and to be overwhelmed in contemplating
the attack which seems to be threatening the vaUey with
inundation. Let us finish this description of an Alpine waterfall,
which offers inexhaustable materials, with a picture of its
quiet gentle appearance in the pale light of the moon.
When the sun is lost behind the mountains, long strips of
dark shadow are produced by the various sharp points
along the rock wall, which seem to cut the column of
water into separate portions, and make the part of it
which is in shadow invisible. When the clear sunlight
has quite disappeared from the air, a deathlike paleness
spreads along the chffs : the abundance of water seems to
dry up, and a mere insignificant stream to be trickling
over the cliffs. As night comes on, the sohtude of the ma
jestic faU and its motion disappear more and more. Only
a white giant figure, a ghastly pale misty form, leaning in
its long folded, stiffly-hanghig mantle against the chffs,
stUl rises above the sUent houses couched in the darkness.
But this strange transition period does not last long ; hfe
soon returns to the form. Above the everlasting snow-
peak of the Jungfrau, rises " the pale friend of need and
night, the magic scene-painter of the future world, for which
we burn and weep " — the moon — and pours its mysteri
ous Hght over the Alps. Then not only the piUar of foam
shines in its pure sUvery Hght, but the watery rays on the

WATERFALLS. 143
lowest slope of tLie chff change to a rain of brilliants,
which, in its pale play of colours, strives to imitate the
enchanting magic of the day ; the diamond sparks waver
hke spirits round the dreamer who betakes himself there
by night.
The full mountain stream, with mighty waters, when
interrupted in his course by a stafrcase of rock, or a lofty
ahnost vertical fault in the strata, and compeUed to a des
perate leap into the abyss, offers quite a different picture.
This is the proper waterfaU in the more narrow and pre
cise sense. What is an embodied idyl in the gently sink
ing " dust"-faUs, easUy wavering and borne aside by the
wind, which murmurs its spiritual whisper Hke a tender
adagio, becomes an energetic expression of strength in the
huge fuU-bodied waterfaU, a powerftd tragic catastrophe
in thundering furioso. The first are of tender feminine
appearance, which sink with powerless yielding before that
which is unavoidable ; the last show the rigorous actions
of manly impulse, which may be compared to the fiery
courage of a people driven to show its independence and
coherence by its last desperate efforts of self-defence.
From thefr hardy, stubborn bearing, they naturaUy pro
duce landscape effects of more Hvely . and picturesque
character, with more varied forms, according to the ar
chitecture of the rocks over which the water is hurled.
Much depends upon the capacity of the rock for weather
ing, and its characteristic forms of fracture. Where granite,
or, generaUy, crystaUine rocks are the basis of the cliffs,
and the consistency and endurance is therefore consider
able, the waterfaU is a sublime and massive spectacle. But
even here there are great varieties. The Buffalora in the
Vai Misocco (Grisons), which comes down over an almost
vertical waU, shoots out above in a close compact column,
hke a crystaUine cannon-shot, over the rim of the cliffs.

144 THE ALPS.
and arrives at the bottom in a round consistent body,
without touching the gneiss chff over which it faUs. In
the circumstances of its faU it is much hke the Staubbach,
only that, in consequence of the greater volume of water
and the inferior height of the faU, it does not scatter so
far in its leap, but comes down in nearly the same thmen-
sions as at its origin. It is the bold masculine pendant to
the feminine Staubbach.
The ricochetting faUs belong to the same category.
The Piumegna, at Faido, comes over the Alpine terraces
of Plan del Lago (which form the western waU of the
Ticino vaUey of Leventina) iu little cascades, as a lively
weU-nourished mountain stream, and suddenlj'' finds that
it has no bed left, but has to take a jump into indefinite
space over the vertical waU of mica, trusting to its luck.
It leaps, strikes the bottom, but instead of faUing into a
basin to coUect its foaming waves, faUs on to a platform of
rock, so as to spurt up again in picturesque confusion, hke
a fountain of fans, and makes a bound into the free afr,
which resembles a plume of marabout feathers. It is the
same in the Cascade des Peierins*, which leaps 150 feet,
as the outlet of the glacier of the same name in the
vaUey of Chamouni, ancl rising up again with elastic
power seeks a way out.
Those again have a very different appearance which do
not properly leave the bed of the stream, but have to leap
down steps in it of more or less height. The most im
posing of this tribe is the celebrated faU of the Tosa, in
the Vai Formazza in Piedmont. As being (after the
Ehine faUs at Schaffhausen) the fuUest of water, it produces
the wUdest spectacle in its granite bed. The Tosa faUs in a
* See the account of the partial destruction of this fall in Mr.
Ruskin's " Modem Painters."

WATERFALLS. 145
breadth of more than 80 feet, over an aggregate
height of 400, spreading out below, in three leaps, and
dissolves its masses of water into boihng waves of foam,
from which a dense watery steam is constantly rising.
By its side, as stiU wilder in the surrounding scenery,
though not of such abundance of water, we may place the
Handeck faUs of the Aar in the HasH-thal. It faUs in a
granite cleft more than 200 feet deep, and througii the
first half of the cataract in a united, smooth, ghstening
mass ; but it is afterwards crushed against projecting
points of rock, which appear indestructible, so fearfiUly
that it dissolves throughout into snow-white bursting
hemispheres, and in this state boUs down from step to step.
StiU more sublime, as far as depends upon the sur
rounding decorations of rock, are the Berard or Payaz
faUs near Valorsine on the Tete Noire. The approach to
them prepares one of itself for something extraordinary. A
wooden bridge, about thfrty feet long, spans the entrance
of a rocky gorge, from the depths of which there re
sounds an undefined murmur. Leaning against the lofty
waUs of rock, are scattered colossal blocks of gramte
heaped "\rilcUy over each other, and forming a natural
tunnel by thefr closely piled masses. The path then goes
up and down over a well-made stone staircase, through
two successive caves, then over a rather level piece of
ground, grown over with fir trees, where Alpine roses
stUl please the eye ; then through a third stiU longer and
quite dark granite passage perhaps fifty paces deep, and
finaUy over a sohd wooden bridge to the dayhght. Then
the traveUer stands suddenly beneath the noble water
faU, most of which leaps over a mighty slab of smooth
granite, some fifty feet above the spectator, into an awful
depth of about 250 feet, with a fearful crash. A little
ann of water winds round to the right of the granite, and
L

146 THE ALPS.
unites itself a httle further down with the principal mass,
so that the view has some resemblance to that of the
Handeck, where the Aerlenbach plunges into the foaming
Aar. The special pecuHarity of this waterfaU is its
absolute isolation, and the grand framework of dark
.Stygian masses of rock, whose ends have been as sharply
hollowed out, pointed, and modelled by the tooth of time,
as if the cleverest stonemasons had been elaborating theh
masterpiece to adom some Gothic building. This fall
might well be called, from its framing, " the Gothic fall,"
as the hundreds of rising piUars have quite the character
and design of a noble middle-ag e cathedral. Neither the
Glommen and BrammenfaUs in Norway, nor those on the
Styrian border in Tyrol and Switzerland, can produce a
side-piece to this faU, which in its way is umque.
From this faU downwards, we might make a complete
scale of the Alpine waterfalls in the region of granite
rocks. We wUl only mention two as special represen
tatives of the various formations. One is the faU of the
Hinterrhein in the Eoffla (between the Via Mala and
Spliigen in the Grisons), the foundation rocks of which
sink in the form of a steep stafrcase, and thus offer
perhaps the most characteristic example of the steep
cascade in the river-bed ; the other is the faU of the
Eeuss under the DevU's Bridge in the St. Gothard, which
represents the more graduaUy incHned form of cascade.
The Fressinone, at the opening of the Gondo gaUery on
the Simplon, may be taken as the model of a uniform
step-formed cascade.
In the midst of these are to be placed the ornamental
waterfaUs. The best of these is the Pissevache in the
lower vaUey of the Eh6ne. The angular terrace-shaped
structure of the mass of rock over which the SaUenche
stretches its arch, with its woolly rounded masses, and

WATERFALLS. 147
the accompanying faUs which surround the chief mass,
splashing, hopping or rushing dovra in wUd haste in
countless arrows, form such a many-sided moring picture,
that, if the Pissevache had the rich accompaniments of
the Giessbach on the Lake of Brienz, it would be the
most varied faU in the Alps. The faUs of the Schmacfri-
bach at the bottom of the Amertenthal belong to the
same group according to our arrangement, and are yet
extremely different from those above described. The
central glacier stream comes down fuU and foaming in
the centre, forming a real waterfaU over the black spht
masses of rock, pale and barren, with the mighty ice
pyramids of the Grosshorn, Breithorn, and Tschingel-horn
immediately above. A number of smaU threads of water
splash and hop round this chief stream down the granite
stafrcase, some in long trailing forms, some crushed
against corners, so that one becomes quite bewUdered by
the crowded confusion, from whose bosom the rushing
roaring melee shoots out diverging mUkwhite fiakes of
foam, to unite them again the next instant. At the foot,
as at the centre of an opened fan, the scattered shoots of
water gather into a ftdl stream, and, as soon as they are
united, dash down the rocks in an overwheLimng hurry
between the steep rock-gates, again to give the reins to
their overflowing youthful spirits in the smaUer faUs below.
The system of cascades is repeated at a great interval
by the waterfaUs of the Hmestone Alps. There the change
of strata, and the variously incHned elevation of deposits
and the steps at the end of layers, produce a natural
staircase in the river-beds of the outlying mountains,
wLuch is most strikingly displayed in the celebrated
Giessbach on the Lake of Brienz. It happens to faU in a
remarkably convenient situation. A comfortable imi has
been buUt close to one of the faUs, and during the
1 2

148 THE ALPS.
summer Bengal Hghts are placed behind the water
several times every week, which turn the faU into a
transparent stream of fire, and is thus a mark for aU
tourists. StUl grander are the Eeichenbach faUs between
Meyringen and Eosenlaui ; they unite models of aU the
forms hitherto described, though of course without thefr
overwhelming subhmity.
We must caU to mind still one other kind of waterfaU
which, to a great extent, is less frequent in the hUls than at
thefr foot — the rapids. Thefr name imphes. that they are
not so much real faUs, as swift steep volumes of water faU
ing over the gigantic weirs built by nature. The most cele
brated rapid is the Ehine faU at Schafihausen, which has
been painted and described often enough to make a
description from us unnecessary. Something hke it may
be found in other Alpine rivers, as at the fall of the Lm,
where it leaves the Lake of St. Maurice in the Upper
Engadine. Eapids in the more special sense, in which
the stream receives an impulse from the steeper inclina
tion of its bed, and hastens over a flat plateau, are to be
found in every mountain-stream, so soon as it leaves the
region of secHmentary formations. Such rapids are the
causes of many streams not being navigable.
At Laufenburg, on the frontiers of Switzerland and
Bavaria, firm Alpine gneiss crosses the bed of the Ehine
Hke a dam, and compels it to hurry down between huge
blocks over steeply inclined beds of the crystaUine rock.
As the masses, notwithstanding thefr roar and thefr foam,
have quite lost the true character of the waterfall, as the
surface of the stream remains tolerably smooth, though
with considerable waves, foolhardy people, playhig at
hazard with thefr Hves, have often ventured to cross
with small boats fitted for the purpose. Some have
succeeded in their mad undertaking, others have pe-

WATERFALLS. 149
rished. A young Lord Montague was one of the last,
who, strangely enough, lost his hfe in this way on the
same day on which his ancestral castle was bumt in
England. The boatman with him saved himself. Ex
perienced boatmen can cross without danger. A rapid
is formed stiU more definitely at the so-caUed " Kleines
Laufern" near CobLenz, a few hours above Laufenburg.

I. 3

150 the alps.

CHAP. XVHI.
mountain snowstorms.
Snowstorms are some of the wUdest and most fearftfl
phenomena of the high Alps. No one can form a hvely
picture of the vehemence, power, and density of the
snowstorms, — ^which make it possible for a road quite
visible a few minutes before to be completely buried
and covered a foot deep in snow, — ^who has not already
witnessed the wild manifestations of the strength of
the elements in the high Alps. The snowstosm in the
Alps is the opposite pole to another equaUy terrible
atmospheric phenomenon, the simoom of the desert. As
the buming blast of the desert wind raises incalculable
mUHons of hot glowing grains of sand, and bears them
hurrying through the afr, scooping deep hoUows in one
place to deposit new hUls as high as houses in another ; so
the snowstorm fills the afr for great distances with thick
clouds of smaU snow-crystals, darkening everything, pene
trating everywhere, seeming to form one melting mass with
the atmosphere. The relationship of the mechanical ac
tivity of these two natural phenomena is remarkable, and
shows a paraUel up to the smaUest detaUs, although under
conditions of the greatest contrasts in temperature.
The snow of the high Alps is, both m figure and
contents, and in the density and specific gravity of its
particles, generaUy very different from snow in the low-

MOUNTAIN SNOWSTORMS. 151
lands. Although it may arise under similar conditions,
stUl the process of formation is very probably simpler ;
it is a question whether it may not consist of those
elementary bodies by the conglomeration of which, ac
cording to certain laws, the snow-flake, as generaUy
known in the vaUeys, is constructed. For natural science
has not as yet penetrated far into the secrets of snow-
crystaUisation : it can only offer suspicions and grounds of
probabUity as to the questions in what region and under
what meteorological influence the first formation of snow
begins ; and it is stiU an undecided question whether the
symmetrical snow-star, whicii always presents itself in the
triangular hexagonal or six-edged form, arises from the
addition of smaU, indefinitely fine, but stUl perfect needles
of ice, or whether it constructs its invariable form, be
ginning from its centre, by the adhesion and consequent
freezing of the bubbles of water hanging in the form
of vapour in the atmosphere. The two kinds of snow,
high snow and the flaky snow, have about the same
relation to each other as that which the chemical contents
and specific gravity of the heavy lowland afr, saturated
with many particles of matter, present to the fine, thin,
Hght, and pure inountain air, which becomes more
volatUised the higher one rises.
The great, broad, fat fiake of the lowlands is a union
of many more or less completely formed stars of ice
crystalhsed in surfaces, which, — as the weight of the
particles of water contained in them has for the space
occupied no proportion to the air displaced, — flutters
slowly downwards Hke a parachute moved by the wind ;
and receives a greater velocity when it sinks to strata
of temperature which, by thefr greater warmth, partly
dissolve the frost-bound atoms of water and saturate the
mass. I, 4

152 THE ALPS.
The high snow is qmte different. At the first glance,
we can see its entirely different formation. It is far finer,
more Hke meal or sand, dryer and therefore more capable
of independent motion. Under the microscope it shows
in parts merely prism-shaped needles, or indefinitely fine,
but compact and wedge-shaped hexagonal pyramids ; in
other parts it presents itself under an approximately
spherical shape, showing a t)uUet-shaped central body,
round which Httle points shoot out in aU directions, hke the
weapon of the middle ages known as the " morning star."
It is clear that such a body of smaU circumference, and
most Hkely of comparatively denser and therefore heavier
composition, will cut through ¦ the air with far greater
velocity, and thus be more capable of motion when the
wind drives it, than the net-Hke, broad, and capacious
snowflake. In consequence of its fineness, the high snow defines
objects upon whicii it faUs with more accuracy, draws
their contours with more detaU, and conforms itself
to the smaUest shapes with remarkable pliabUity,
as it were only covering objects with dust, when the
fat, downy lowland flake covers them with great heavy
Hnes. These subtle sprinkhngs are oiUy to be observed
in autumn, on weeds, withered husks, and the smaU tender
cryptogamous Alpine plants, when the atmosphere makes
its first attempts at dusting them over with instantaneously.
frozen snow. This light snow is not to be confounded
with the allied phenomenon, which occurs equaUy in the
hUl ancl plain countries, of the hoarfrost, which covers
stones, plants, and other objects with crystals, when a
mist is covering a landscape and the temperature is below
freezing. It is not to be maintained, however, that the flaky snow
is under all circumstances impossible in the high Alps.

MOUNTAIN SNOWSTORMS. 153
The weU-known Swiss mountain-cHmber, Herr Weilen-
mann, assures us that on his ascent of the Grand Combin
on the 10th of August, 1858, at a height of about 12,000
feet above the sea, and at a temperature of 6° (==43°
Fahrenheit), he was surrounded by a dense snowstorm of
the thickest, heaviest flakes.
Next to the remarkable fineness of the inchvidual
particles of the high snow, we must observe the great
dryness which distinguishes them. This is the conse
quence of the almost umnterrupted low temperature
which prevaUs during the whole year in the higher
regions. In its normal state the high snow is so hard,
so decidedly formed, that it cannot be " caked" without a
powerful apphcation of warmth, any more than a handful
of dry sand.
With this material the wind plays its fantastic game on
the heights and ridges of the mountains, which rise above
5000 feet. It suddenly clutches several hundred thousand
cubic yards of this fine ice-dust, whfrls it high up into
the air in its play, and there leaves it to the prevaUing
course of the wind, to be shot down where it pleases
in the form of a dense faU of snow, or scattered in
glittering needles of ice. The people say in Chamouny
" le Montblanc fume sa pipe," when the snow rises
like smoke through the clear dark blue sky from the
snowy cupola of the highest of European mountains,
and is puffed Hghtly away. Or the wind, as it stfrs the
wastes of neve with its fan, raises a load of the dry
mountain snow that does not seem to it to be lying
in its proper place, and sHngs it carelessly into the deep
hollows and depressions of the ridges, buUding in a
few minutes dams and fortifications of snow, or leveUing
the carefuUy excavated hoUow ways, at whicii a company
of artisans might have worked for days. Hence, fre-

154

THE ALPS.

quently no clear line can be drawn between these spitefuL
juggleries of the wind and the faU of the proper dust
avalanches, because the effects of one are almost identicaL
vrith those of the other.
AU these strange aerial movements are not, however,
the true snowstorm. The character of this fearftfl
phenomenon is far wilder, more angry and hostUe. Woe
to the poor wayfarer or muleteer who is caught by a
vehement " tormenta," as they are caUed in the Tesshi,
and doubly woe to him if he is not a man long hardened
to the attacks of the weather, — ^if he is a stranger from
milder chmates who cannot oppose determination, fron
courage, pluck, and endurance, to the rough assaults and
incessantly piercing wrath of the elements. If a mfracle
does not save him, he is doomed to death. Thousands
have afready faUen victims to the monster, who have
been ignorant of the warning symptoms of the storm, or
have continued their road in defiance of weU-meant
warnings. For experience shows that the " Guxen" rage
most furiously in those Alpine gaps through which
inountain roads and passes lead, and, singularly enough,
during north winds on the southern slope, and south
Avinds on the northern. The Great St. Bernard, the
St. Gothard, the Bernhardin, and the Panixer passes are
especiaUy celebrated in this respect. A great part of
the Eussian army under Suwarov was destroyed by
snowstorms on tins last during his retreat in October,
1799. According to the oral testimony of the Bern
hardin monks, not a single man has lost his Hfe for the
last ten years during snowstorms on the Great St.
Bernard. The mountaineer weU knows the signs which herald
the eril guest. The pale, greyish white tinge of the
horizon, from whicii the snowy covering of the moun-

MOUNTAIN SNOWSTORMS. 155
tains scarcely .detaches itself in colour, becomes denser,
more saturated : it seems as though it contained more
matter. The features of the distant mountains, whose
naked skeletons of rock were easily to be recognised
from each other, are covered by a veil, at first Hght, then
thicker and duUer, tUl at length they disappear. The
afr is quiet, very cold, but yet without that bracing,
sharp coldness of winter, whicii so rerives one's senses on
a January morning in the plains, when they have been
duUed by sitting indoors. A dry, frosty, hard breeze
fiUs the air. Then aU round an indescribable stiUness
hes over the deathhke wUderness. The springhig cha
mois, who enliven the heights in summer, dweU now in
deep-lying forests. The whisthng marmot Hes dormant
in his winter's sleep under the rock. Even the mountain
daw, which through the winter circles screaming round
the sphntered and inaccessible granite points, has retfred
to its nest in the clefts. No withered leaf rustles on the
boughs, for at these heights the growth of trees has
ceased, and the melancholy creeping fir and Alpine rose
bush are slumbering deep beneath the snow. Not a
breath of wind puffs the grains of snow over the steep
chffs. Everywhere there reigns that mournful stiUness
which precedes the breaking of a violent thunderstorm
on a sultry summer day. The only sounds that come to
the traveUer are his own deep breathing, the snorting of
his horse (if he is crossing the mountains on a sledge),
and the crackhng of the snow under foot.
As the catastrophe cfraws near, massive grey clouds
envelope even the neighbouring heights, and press thickly
and heavily upon them, as if they were taking up their
posts for ever. Now is the time to reach the protecting
cantoniera, (refuge-house) or the friendly hospice, if not
too far off ; but the twihght is growing deeper, — evening

156 THE ALPS.
seems to have surprised midday. Suddenly a sharp,
riolent gust of wind startles the hastening, but often
hah- wearied traveUer, and dashes a handful of whirled-up
snow against him ; then it is quiet again, and sUent all
round as before. These intermittent precursors repeat
thefr warnings occasionaUy, generaUy at graduaUy shorter
intervals. They are the last summons to flight. For
now a strange mysterious moaning begins in the chambers
and clefts of the rock, flrst gentle and sighing, with a
faint answer from the other side of the vaUey, then
nearer and stronger, and soon ringing further and further
down the other faces of the mountain. It is as if distant
despafring voices were crying for help. These lamen
tations in the air rise now from a thfrd and fourth comer,
drawn out in hollow, monotonous tones, quite different
from those in the lowland, where the wind is howhng
its mournftd equinoctial melodies down chimneys and
through doors. The horse before the sledge is striking
deeper with his hoofs into the insecure sHppery path, and
snorts frequently and discontentedly ; his instinct tells
him of the approaching danger. Of his own accord he
strains his strength more energeticaUy to get on faster,
and his driver foUows him panting. A deeper ground-
tone joins to the whispering monotone. The intervening
voices increase, the discords become fuller, and with
them the tumult sweUs louder and more powerfuUy, and
howls through the air. A few moments more, and the
snow-clouds discharge their burden, and send down a
haU of sharp-pointed icy arrows so rigorously that every
uncovered part of the body is painfuUy stung by them.
The exhausted traveUer turns from the side on which
the masses are coming down most sharply ; but what use
is it ? The hurrying floods of icy needles strike upon him
Hke the surging waves of the sea ; and as the waves

MOUNTAIN SNOWSTORMS. 157
beaten to foam give themselves up to the hurricane,
so the clouds of dusthke snow that clash against his
shoulders change their course, and attack him in front
in cfrcling whfrlwinds. He can see nothing, and covers
with hand, and arm, and handkerchief, his eyes, his
cheeks, and his whole face, which is beginning to sweU
up from the cold and the burnuig blows. He cannot
breathe ; for the afr, thickened with ice, passes through
the organs of respiration to his lungs Hke a corrosive
poison, and penetrates at every breath as it were with a
thousand points. The fearful Alpine snowstorm has
broken out in its full horror and awful wUdness, and
rages round all that lies in its kingdom. There is a
lashing and scourging in the air that rages, and screams,
and whistles, and roars round the stiff points of rock, as
though the atmosphere had gone mad, and the last
judgment was beginning. And, in the midst of this
uproar, man, the lord of creation, who rules over matter
with fron and steam, and boasts that he has subdued
the elements to his wiU, stands a wretched, powerless,
deserted creature, in the awful wastes of snow, a certain
victim when his senses leave him and his last strength is
exhausted. If a short pause intervenes in the awful uproar, if the
surprised traveUer can open his eyes a little, he sees no
trace of the way to be followed. As deep as he is stand
ing, often up to his knees in the snow that is freshly
faUen or blown together from the mountains, so deep it is
lying aU round. Hence the foresight of the inhabitants, on
both sides of much frequented passes, has since ancient
times hit upon the plan of placing " snow-poles " 20 or
30 feet high, before the beginning of winter, in firm
rocks, along the whole road, as a dfrection to the path.
In some winters it has happened that in many places these

158 THE ALPS.
poles have themselves disappeared under the snow heaped
up on every side. For in the higher Alpine region, i, e,
from 5000 to 7000 feet above the sea, andin the sub*-nival
or lower snow region, from 7000 to 8500 feet, the snow faUs
in quantities quite unknown on the plains, where not only
the whole amount of the snow that faUs is much less than
in the mountains, but the constant change of temperature
also roUs away the whole snowy covering more than once
in the same winter.
Weariness, sleepiness, sinking from exhaustion, gradu
ally increasing insensibihty, and finally stiffenhig from cold,
are the progressive symptoms of death. Every year de
mands its rictims. The memory of mournful events of
this kind hves in many and lively tracHtions in the mouth
of the people that Hve in such passes. We can here
only find room for two out of many examples.
Ll the year 1817 five Hanoverians had brought some
horses into Lombardy, ancl were on their way home ; all
were strong healthy men, who, at home, had gone through
and easily overcome many attacks of bad weather. In
the viUage of BernarcHno, an hour and a quarter south of
the pass of the same name in the Grisons (on the hne
from Chur to Belhnzona), they were pressingly warned
not to proceed, as a snowstorm was coming up, and the
pass AVOuld be dangerous. Encouraged, however, by
powerful Velthner wine, and conscious of unexhausted
physical power, they refused to attend to the warning,
ancl started on their journey. At that time the present
road was not made, ancl the strong stone-built house of
refuge above the Victor Emmanuel bridge on the httle
Moesola lake cHd not exist. It was an uninterrupted
journey of three hours and a half from Bernardino to
Hinterrhein in the Eheinwaldthal, for which, however,
owing to the increased cHfficulty by the new-fallen snow,

MOUNTAIN SNOWSTORMS. 159
at least five hours would be necessary. A countryman
of the vUlage of Hinterrhein, who was present, was pro
voked by the carelessness ofthe strangers, and, though he
had not dared by himself to set off homewards, joined the
foolhardy men, when all dissuasion was useless, to help
them at least as guide. The storm broke out in fuU
fury just as they had reached the top of the pass. The
men fought on against their overpowering enemy at first
with light-hearted jokes, then with their whole energy,
finally in despafr ; but in vain. Much as the bold Eliehi-
waldler strove to help them, one sank into the arms of
death, utterly exhausted, and giving up in complete con
sciousness. The devoted mountain peasant strove a long
time to save the last ; but even here he perceived only too
soon that he would himself perish if he did not give up
his purpose, and apply the smaU remains of strength left
to him to save himself. He reached his native place
alive, but with hands and feet completely frozen ; his
fingers and toes had to be amputated. He became a
cripple owing to his humanity.
Another tragical event took place on the St. Gothard
on the night of the 9th of AprU, 1848. The Italian post,
which was to cross the mountain in the afternoon from
Andermatt to Afrolo, had been delayed considerably later
by huge masses of snow. It was impossible to cross with
horses and sledges, andthe "conducteur" Sim en determined
to have the postbags, with letters and packages, carried by
porters over the St. Gothard. One of these porters was
John Joseph Eegli, a stonecutter by trade. When the
caravan left Urseren, the storm was coming down wildly,
and heavy masses of snow were faUing ; but the courage
ous mountaineers thought they might despise the weather,
and pressed boldly forwards. When they had gone about
two-thfrds of the way, a snowstorm came down so vehe-

160 THE ALPS.
mently over the Lucendro Alp, and so concealed the road,
that they aU lost their dfrection completely. AU round it
was black night. The storm scourged the devoted men
given up to its fury, as it were with scorpion-whips. StiU
they kept their ranks and sought in 'spite of aU difficulty
to reach thefr object. At length, when they had got to
near the top of the pass near St. Carlo, at the so-caUed
" waterhole" (Valeggia), Eegh could get no further. His
comrades, though heavUy laden, sought to drag on the
companion of thefr fate through the soft snow more than
a yard in depth, but thefr strength gradually left them too,
and they recognised thefr awful position, that death would
certainly overtake them if they cHd not abandon and leave
behind thefr exhausted companion. They wrapped him up
thickly in cloaks and wooUen coverings, brought him under
a protecting rock, and left aU the postbags and bm-dens by
him, in order to reach the hospice as quickly as possible, and
to bring help from thence. It was scarcely ten muiutes
distant, and yet it took them an hour and a half to reach
the protecting asylum. The director of this Samaritan
house, Herr Lombardi, instantly started with assistants and
lanterns to save the unfortunate man. He came too late.
Eegh, quite covered with snow, so that they could hardly
find him, was frozen.

RED SNOW. 161

CHAP. XLS.
RED SNOW.
In travels in the high Alps extensive regions of snow are
often met vrith, which attract attention even at a distance
by thefr unmistakably red or orange colouring, and when
close, look as if an enormous quantity of red wine ^had
been sprinkled over the snow. The popular beHef, whose
fancy imports something mysterious and spiritual into
every curious phenomenon not immediately decipherable
by the vulgar understanding, has seen in this strange
product of nature the bodUy revelation of strange myste
rious powers. They were footsteps of an avenging
Nemesis, -risible signs of retribution, of divine punishment
for bygone unjust deeds, and the mountaineer registered
the red snow in the archives of his world of legends.
Dishonest carriers, who brought fiery Itahan wines, such
as the dark red Pulshifrmer, from the VeltHn, across the
Alps, had, as it was beheved, overcome by thfrst, opened
thefr casks, and sinfuUy caroused over the goods trusted
to thefr faith and honour. Therefore their thfrsty dis
honest souls were condemned, bound to the snow, and
for waming to the after world, were to groan here hi ice
and cold tUl some compassionate soul should release them.
The form of release is highly good natured, reminding
one of the ancient ovation. Every drop of the Hvely,
exhUarating Velthner vrine is a treasure of unspeakable
M

162 THE ALPS.
value in the desert of the high Alps when the strength
is failing ; the prudent mountaineer grudges every drop
from his flask Hke a miser, and carefuUy spares it for Liis
last and utmost need. The popular behef appeals to this
jewel. He who freely shares his last invaluable draught
with the poor souls, and pours some drops on the red
snow, conciliates avenging justice, and releases the damned
spirits from their " cold purgatory."
This sacrifice, heavy under the cfrcumstances, is, thanks
to natural phUosophy, no longer demanded from the
Alpine traveUer of our days. The banished spirits are
effectuaUy released by the hell constraining power of the
microscope ; and the fiery drops need no longer make a
misalhance with the dead cold snow.
A very different life from the duU sighing and the
martyred pangs of spectral drunkards rises from these
layers of apparently inorganic frost. A world of incon
ceivably small things grows and Hves and is reproduced
here. Horace Benedict de Saussure was the first to in
vestigate the red snow, on his journey to Chamouni in
1760, and to find red particles in the melted water which
contained the colouring principle. As they appeared to
be lifeless, he, and many natural phUosophers after hhn,
held them to be vegetable productions, the dust of
plants, gelatinous algas, shmy mosses, and they were
caUed Protococcus nivalis. The Canon Lamon, of the
Great St. Bernard, investigated the phenomenon further,
and, at the meeting of Swiss naturahsts at Lausanne
in 1828, first gave utterance to the suspicion that the
red particles might be animals — infusoria. The good
Bernardino monk had to bear enough hostUe attacks
and ridicule, for his hypothesis found Httle acceptance;
and Hugi, in Ins Alpine journey, repelled these modern
discoveries " with the utmost repugnance," and again de-

RED SNOW. 163
scribed the whole vegetable construction of these apparent
plants rooted in the ice, with thefr boughs, twigs, and
vein-hke fibres. Yet the monk was right. There Hves a
many formed and wonderfully organised fauna of infusoria
in the crystal palaces of the snow, between 7000 and
9000 feet above the sea, which there bustles about and
developes a busy activity when, ovring to the warmth of
the sun, part of the watery particles bound to the ice
melt and thoroughly moisten the neve. They never ap
pear on the glacier, and never on the freshly faUen, dry
dust-Hke snow, but always on the nev^, and especiaUy on
those sunny slopes where fresh snow is rapidly converted
into neve (or granulated icy snow). A generation may
perhaps live some months in fuU actirity, during which it
penetrates the neve some two inches vrith a burning red,
something between carmine and cinnabar, although by
the prevailing whiteness of the snow the effect of its
colouring is dUuted to a rosy red. After completing its
life and its unknown tasks it changes to a brown, and
finaUy black moulder, which graduaUy sinks or branches
out in stripes through the neve.
The Enghshman Shuttleworth, armed with an appar
atus sufficiently constructed for scientific investigations,
undertook a voyage of discovery into the realm of these
glacial animalculse, and produced striking results. The
Swiss naturahsts, Desor and Karl Vogt, continued the
inqufry, with comparative investigations into aUied infu
soria on the Lake of Neufchatel, and thus at length, by
knowledge of the exact sciences, the charm of spfrits of
the Alps and damned souls of carriers has been broken.
The principal mass of red snow is formed by a kind of
infusoria (Discercea nivalis), distinguished by a round or
oval sUicious sheU, which only projects a Httle from the
animal, but is clear and transparent. It fits so closely,
m2

164 THE ALPS.
however, that its presence is not always to be detected,
especially when the animal is moving. At the sharpest
end of this minute animalcule two orange-coloured lips
may be distinguished, with a sufficient magnifyhig power,
from which proceed two long thread-hke fibres, about
double the lengtii of the body. When the creature moves
they are in constant motion, and seem to be its means of
steering itself, since it has no ciHary organs round its
mouth, Hke most other infusoria. If it stops in its walk,
the two threads are drawn in with an intermittent motion,
and when it is quite at rest they cannot be perceived.
The full grown beasts are generaUy not at aU transparent.
Marvellous as is the bodily organisation and way of life
of this infinitely smaU creature, which is capable of exis
tence only in a temperature of at least zero (i. e. freezing
point), its method of increase is equaUy strange. This takes
place according to unknown laws and conditions, partly by
subdivision, so that the beast sphts into two, three, four,
six, or eight parts, each of which becomes an mdependent
individual, grows up, and when there is no more room for
it and its brotherhood in the house of its parents, the
common slieU is burst, in order that it may hve " on its
own hook," and swim about in the Httle world which to
our eyes is almost nothing ; or they transplant themselves
by shoots, which come out as watery bubbles, Hke minute
drops of sweat, on the original sheU, grow, and loosen
themselves, become first yellow, then red, tUl they are hke
the parent animal. Inqufrers admit stiU a thfrd way of
growth, namely, by eggs, but aUow that the observations
pointing in this direction are too unsatisfactory to found
a theory upon them with any confidence. The fact is
that Httle red particles are to be found in aU red snow,
which often appear only as points under the highest mag
nifying power, and in which aU the steps of increasing

RED SNOW. 165
growth up to that of the complete Discercece may be ob
served, as also the passage from the round to the oval
shape. Besides these infusoria a second 'product is found in all
kinds of red snow, consisting of a dark-red baU passing
into blue or brown, round which are arranged a nuinber
of clear, transparent, conical or pyramidal-pointed bodies,
which give to the phenomenon the appearance of a stone
cut in rosettes, or of a ruby set "round with smaU dia
monds. The relation of the internal red baU to the parti
cles set round it, often shining Hke crystals, is various ;
and as these enigmatical bodies do not move, the observer
does not know whether they are to be reckoned amongst
the vegetable world as kinds of protococcus, or to be con
sidered animals.
The thfrd, stiU less frequently observed object, which
is never wanting in investigations into red snow, but ap
pears to be equaUy Hfeless, is a brovra-yeUow or green
appearance, never red, which looks like long bubbles.
Of this too naturahsts cannot say with certainty whether
it is an alga or an animal
So works the infinite Divine spirit of nature, in an ele
ment whose very existence is generally synonymous with
death, and a perspective opens out into a new unsuspected
world, fuU of liring creatures whose existence and origin
is aU but inconceivable to us.

M 3

166 THE ALPS.

CHAP. XX.
THE "RUFE."
All large Alpine vaUeys which lie within the slate, hme
stone and " Flysch " formations, and are enclosed by steep
side waUs, show in certain districts two phenomena which
must strike even the most superficial observer. These
may especially be remarked in the romantic EheinthaL
On the much and rightly-praised raUway — perhaps the
most beautiful in Europe— which leads from the shores of
the Lake of Constance to Chur, in the Grisons, looking from
the stations of Haag, Werdenberg, and Sevelen towards
the opposite bank of the Ehine in the principahty of
Lichtenstein, under the lofty rock front of the " Three
Sisters " (some 5000 feet high), we may observe long
slopes, generaUy at an inclination of about twenty degrees,
rising towards the mountains, covered partly with wood
and meadow, partly with rineyards, which are intersected
by broad grey lines of rocky debris, Hke the dry bed of
large rivers. These smooth slopes appear more markedly
and extensively farther up the vaUey, near Eagatz, between
the stations of Meyenfeld and Landquart, at the foot of
the picturesque, boldly marked Falkniss (8500 feet high),
and most strikingly after passing the Landquart up to
Chur, always on the same eastern side, under the original
pyramidal horns of the Hochwang and Montahne chauis.
They are aU results of the gradual weathering of the

THE "RUFE." 167
mountain, and of the crumbhng of the rock in continuous
floods, and are certamly the result of thousands of years,
for many places in the Grisons, which had names in the
middle ages, are placed on such heaps of ruin and dUuvial
deposit. These broad smooth slopes of constant incHna-
tion, enclosed by neighbouring rocks, are, as afready said,
cut through by broad deposits of debris, which, as though
they had been passed through a funnel, are narrow, high up
on the slope, and spread out broadly in the vaUey towards
the Ehine. These are the terrible " Eiifen," dreaded by
the inhabitants, the waste-pipes of the storms of thunder
and haU which discharge themselves in the mountain, of
the sudden heavy rains, and of the melting snow ; they
he dry and carelessly indifferent during most of the year,
but when they have something to do, and are roused to
activity, excite aU the more terror. A walk in one of these
strange scenes of activity, wUl make us better acquainted
with the arrangement of its detaUs and the pecuhar im
pressions made by it. Let us choose for this purpose the
" Eiife," which descends from the Httle known or visited
Skalara Tobel (between Chur and Trimmis), never to be
trodden by any one who beheves in ghosts, caUed, par
excellence, the Great Eiife, and let us ascend it from its
foot in the broad sandy EheinthaL
The rising slopes a,re covered below with thin common
meadows, overgrown with short crisp grass, withered,
sickly, and burnt up in the hot summer. They have a
certain pleasing and velvety appearance in the spring
and after fresh showers. These humble weeds, these
modest dwarf grasses, which form the ground tone of the
meadow, — the carex alba, with its slender stalks and the
green seeds grouped round it, the carex pulicaris, whose
low spikes, scarcely a finger's length, with thefr coal-
black seed husks, peer forth so curiously into the world,
M 4

168 THE ALPS.
give the same invitingly soft appearance to the undulating
ground, as the short compressed weeds to the Alpine
pasturage. Indeed, many other plants remind us of the
swelling cushions of our natural sofa in the Alp, where
we can rest in such Diogenes-Hke comfort, and muse over
the blue deep-lying human land so far below us. Still
one of these common meadows before or between the
Eiifen is something quite different from an ordinary Alp
meadow. Short stumpy pine bushes, with closely-pressed
needles, with something of the creeping fir in them, aheady
dwarfed by the mountains, and scattered firs vrith im
bedded blocks of stone beneath them, occur at intervals.
GraduaUy the turf passes mto ashy-grey sandy wastes,
covered vrith pebbles and aUurium. Here the botanical
character becomes aU at once quite changed. Bushes
of a man's height gain a short space of existence
under alternate infiuence of the moisture and burning
drought ; there are only tough Hved trees ; the common
sand-thorn (Hippophoe rhamnoides), the barberry (Ber-
beris vulgaris), with its riolet-spotted, red, shinmg clus
ters of berries, and its sharp neecUe-hke leathery leaves,
the rosy German tamarisk (Tamarix Germanica),-- many
kinds of vriUows, such as the rosemary wUlow and the
smaU-leaved tribe of Salix purpurea, remarkable for the
beauty and elegance of its finely-shaped leaves. Here
and tLiere on the ground is the white clover (Trifo-
lium officinale), smeUing strongLy of bitter-almonds, and
starthng strangers whom we are not accustomed to see
in the vaUey because thefr home Hes some thousand feet
higher ; they are Alpine plants carried down by storms,
emigrants who have settled dovm here and seem to be
reaUy grovring acchmatised. There grows the pale-blue
Alpine harebeU (Campanula pusilla), and close to it the
Phaca astragalina, tenderly fringed with wlute blue-

THE " RtJFE." 169
tipped flowerets ; then the oxitropis montana, and then,
somewhat out of its bearings, the Saxifraga aizoides, that
greeted us so friendly on the hULs with its saffron-coloured
five-Leaved flowers and corpulent bunches of seed, creeps
along uncomfortably in the sand. We are compeUed to
Leave this unlovely nosegay, wluch is made stUl more
dismal by broad topped firs, reminding one a Httle of the
pines of the south.
The clear grey flakes of rock, with thefr sUvery gleam,
and the white crumbhng felspar abundantly intermixed,
become more numerous, the path more desolate and rent,
the ground burns vrith the reflected glow of the sun, it is
quite bare of vegetation ; we stand on the bank of the
Eiife, where it has been comfortably and unrestrainably
stretching itself out for centuries, and laying waste aU the
country round with its waste barren sand formed of the
ruins of the mountain. The raUway has had to guard
against the accidents arising from this old ingrained per
versity; it has banished the buUy, placed on him a
straight jacket in the shape of a deep hollow canal made
from the materials of his own stones, and the dfrty dark
grey w^ter that hurries down every Eiife must now take
this way to the Ehine, at least tUl the wUd spfrit of the
Alps takes the mischievous idea into his head to show
people that aU thefr vrisdom and prudence is no use,
when he is resolved to use the right of the stronger. For
when a storm breaks, no one can say for certain where a
Eiife vriU be discharged. For when in spring, a strong
Fohn wind has long been blowing over the heights, and
quickly melting the high snow, or when a thunderstorm
bursts forth, the dwellers near these canals which have
become the plague of the country, have to keep watch
day and night, and to take care that where the stream
Loaded vrith mud rushes out of the chasms, its normal bed

170 THE ALPS.
may not be stopped up ; if this is neglected, the roaring
stream rages into new paths, breaks over the land, and
destroys all that Hes in its way. Henee it happens that
vineyards, which were formerly threatened, can now ripen
thefr costly grapes in perfect safety, when the Eiife has
chosen another course. Often not a drop of rain is faUing
in Trimmis, whUst there is a thunderstorm not a quarter
of an hour off in the Maschanzen and Skalara Tobel, that
discharges a deluge of streams, and fires off uninterrupted
salvoes of Hghtning like the Malakoff. Sometimes one,
sometimes the other Eiife is discharging in the storm,
whilst the other is dry, and yet they are scarcely separ
ated 4000 feet in a horizontal direction by a wedge of the
mountain. It is never known therefore on which side
the misfortune is going to break out.
Let us leave the Eiifen canal for a Httle to ascend a
pleasanter route to its higher, wilder parts. The path
leads through rich cultivated meadows, splendid with the
most enchanting flowers, amongst which, besides the com
mon meadow plants, are the clear blooming scabious
(Scabiosa columbaria) the Medicago falcata, and the
bright blue meadow salria (Salvia pratensis), as character
istic plants in June and July. Such a footpath, in one of
these paradisaical corners of the Alps, under the golden
sunlight, when the waving sea of flowers strives to spread
itself over the barren wastes of destruction, where the
broad-armed walnut-trees form thefr peaceful leafy vaults,
and the fragrant elder, inseparable from the romance of
the middle age castle, spreads its heavy umbels of flowers
in masses hardly ever seen before — where the distant
view reveals a panorama of mountains and vaUeys, at
sight of which the soul might pour itself out for joy —
such a footpath, not to be found everywhere, is a treasure

THE "RiJFE." 171
for aiiy one whose senses are open, and who takes hearty
pleasure in God's great noble Alpine world.
Let us go on. We see here how the peasants of the
Grisons turn things to account, and combine useful things
together. Where others put up wooden fences on the
boundaries of thefr fields, which have every year to be
corrected and mended, the inhabitants of the district of
the five riUages, (the name of the country between Chur
and the Landquart), gathers up the stones which are
brought down into his good land by the floods, and forms
breast-high waUs with them. This is to be met with
in the other vaUeys. The white-flowered Sedum album
(caUed " Steinweizen " or stonewheat, from its thick wheat
like leaves), grows on these waUs and in their crannies,
and close to it grows its companion, the bright yeUow-
flowered Sedum acre, a rich exuberant rock-plant of
tropical appearance ; underneath are tlie more soberly
coloured Asplenium ruta muraria, almost Hke parsley,
and one of the prettiest of ferns, the Asplenium tricho-
manes, with Httle narrow branches, both of which carry
thefr seeds on the reverse of the leaves.
The cultivation of the rine is carried on with much
energy on these terraces of debris, as at Jenins and
Malans. A fiery, dark red, very heavy wine is produced
here, which, according to chemical investigations, is said
to derive its remarkable fulness of body from the felspar
which is mixed with the soU. It ghstens and ghmmers
everywhere, a dazzHng white, smooth and appetising, Hke
marchpane made of bits of felspar. Our way rises stiU
into the forest ; a crowd of young pines between thorny
heaps of stone receives us. The path is sandy, but a
wUderness of forest plants surround us.
We pass imperceptibly upwards into the thick dark
ening forest. Then it grows Hghter ; a few more steps.

172 THE ALPS.
and we stand on the bank of the wild Eiife. That is not
the bed of a forest brook, not the course of a dried
mountain stream ; it is a Hving glacier of stony frag
ments, wluch has broken a path of considerable breadth
through the midst of the proud forest. The grey dismal
chaos winds down Hke a monstrous snake — we cannot
see its end. There is nothing but sharp cornered frag
ments and flakes of rock madly mixed together, blocks of
aU sizes, some as big as a man's fist, some as a loaded
harvest waggon. Between them stretch broken stumps
of trees, sphntered into fibres, huge roots which raise
their knotty arms into the air, and other remnants of the
forest which stiU wait for some escape, though hemmed
in by the ruins, tUl the next raging fiood brings new
masses from the mountains, and pushing on the heaps
before it sets them again in motion. On both sides, the
careful hand of man has erected huge side dams of ir
regular stones, which have some analogy with glacier
moraines. There are many scenes of awful desolation in
the mountains ; the Eiifen are amongst the most awful.
The higher we go up, the more even becomes the
bed : it is fiUed vrith smaUer stones, often with mere
grey finely-sifted sand. A shaUow rividet of lukewarm,
grey inountain water murmurs gently down it. This
murmur and the monotonous whispering of the wind in
the tops of the pines are the only natural sounds in the
waste, sohtary region. Straight up, in the rising per
spective of the Eiife, hes the proper Skalara TobeL It
is not one of the beautiful, forest-shrouded, mysterious
guUies, with phosphorescent moss on the damp soU, and
the winding picturesque path over the clear, sparkhng
mountain-brook ; it is an open, treeless ravine, down
which the sun shines uninfpeded, shut in by pale, worn,
crumblmg waUs of rock, some thousand feet high, in

THE "RtJFE." 173
which we may study the bent, undulatfrig, ribbon-Hke
stratification of the granulated, grey sandstone layers.
The rocky profiles are ranged behind each other in true
pyramidal forms (not paraboHc) running up into sharp
points, the further always projecting beyond the nearer,
and on thefr ridges the slender pines are practising the
goose step up to thefr tops. The chasm is closed in the
background in the central mass of the Montahne by a wall
of debris, shot out in crumbhng shoots over a steep slope.
By day time, therefore, it has nothing very terrible in
itself What is it, then, which gives us such uncomfort
able sensations at the sight of this romantic wUdemess ?
It is the consciousness that we are resting on a place of
destruction, where inrisible, and, as it were, demoniac
powers, have thefr dwelling, and are by degrees breaking
away fragments from the foundations of the mountain,
to mock at the industry and cultivation of mortals ; it is
the mysterious agency which rules here Hke a spirit, and
produces aU kinds of fantastic appearances ; it is the
feehng of the popular faith in ghosts, which supposes the
souls of the accursed (as in Plato's " Ph^do ") to wander
round thefr graves, and has placed their dwelling here.
Here, says the legend, is the entrance to the kingdom of
shadows ; here the heUish Proteus loves to walk in aU his
forms, and frighten the curious. In truth, for Macbeth's
vritches' sabbath, or Faust's conjuration of Mephisto
pheles, no better locality could be found than the accursed
Skalara Tobel. It would be pleasant though, if out of
that elder bush there started a shape Hke that of the
Cacodsemon hi " Manfred," a Samuel-hke figure in a green
hunting dress, with Spanish hat, hooked eagle nose, and
shining black eyes ! Should we be frightened ? Hark !
There comes a yelling, satanic "hUiihihihi" out of the
thick forest fohage close behind us. What is it? No

174 THE ALPS.
one can have heard our thoughts, and vrished mockingly
to trump our provoking vrish. Or was the rosicrucian
phUosophy right, which spoke of aU kinds of jugglery,
and the stretching into ours of a mystic world of spirits ?
A second yeU " hihUiUiihi," comes dowm from above. A
stone thrown at the pinetop dislodges a magpie, which
flies away laughing ! WeU, if exorcism is such quick
work, it is an easy task.
For him who has not had some experience in mountain
climbing, it is unadrisable to chmb up the depths of the
Skalara Tobel vrithout a guide. In the summer of 1859,
a German apothecary, botanising in this wUderness,
chmbed on tUl he could get neither backwards nor
forwards, and had to stay the whole night long on a
narrow ruin of turf on the steep cliff, tiU he was found
next morning, and brought back exhausted to Chur.
And now for the breaking out of a Eiife itself, ie.
the sudden discharge of a thunder-storm or rain-cloud,
and, as a consequence, the vrild waters breaking forth
from the background of such a Tobel, running together
from all the slopes, from aU the mountain channels, dovm
the bed of the Eiife.
It is a display of the unchained powers of nature,
which is Hke the awful avalanche for subhmity and
destructive power. It has not the wUd, foaming appear
ance of a swoUen mountain-stream, breaking down in a
thousand cascades ; it is a thick, black, shiny soup, which
moves vrith ponderous speed, vrith rough, rumbhng
haste. It is wanting in the graceful motion of water,
even at its wUdest ; the Hghtness of the bounding, racing,
surging waves striking, bursting, and scattering foam.
Here all is bestial, bmtal, demonic. The swoUen
mountain stream is like a frightened, spfrited horse,
gaUoping ventre a terre, but stUl m his unbridled speed

175
keeping the road in riew along which he is rushing.
The roaring Eiife is Hke a mad bull, who sees no road
in his bhnd wrath, dashes on vrith his head sunk to the
ground, would take up the world on his horns, and
plunges into the abyss, where he perishes.
The Eiife does not begin by forerunners of small
rivulets, or any kind of introductive symptoms. At
most it is heard roaring in the distance, often (when
the storm which produced it has lasted a long time)
confused with the awful roar of the vrind, so that one
caimot teU what is the echo of the thunder from the
rocky clefts, and what of the faU of stones brought dovra.
down by the Eiife. It breaks forth suddenly, a roaring
monster, a stormy sea of stones, the product of the wUdest
powers. As afready said, it does not properly flow or
stream, but the watery river of shme overwhelms and
pushes before it heaps of debris, stories in height, con
stantly tumbhng over, and as constantly rebuUt, a travel
ling hring wall of rocky ruins. Some Eiifen do not move
so quickly. Clear sky is again smihng over the vaUey,
and the sun shining warmly, when the awful monster
breaks from its layer. This is the case vrith the Skalara
Tobel, which brings dovra. the greatest masses. There is
an indescribable hoUow roar overwhelming everything,
which may be compared to the most vehement cannonade
of a storm, when aU the sounds are coUected to one huge,
round, roaring, crashing volume of sound, which may be
heard an hour off.
Now, is it possible to stop the course of the monster
altogether ? If it has buUt up a cross dam of its colossal
stones of many hundredweights, behind which the descend
ing mass forms in heaps ; if the screaming inhabitants
who are working on the bank vrith huge hooks and poles,
cannot open a breach in it anywhere, it breaks through

176 THE ALPS.
its bank somewhere else, forms a new bed, tears down
trees, whole lines of forest, and the gates are open for the
destruction of valuable low lying lands.
Lately much has been done to weaken the power of
these monsters. On the threshold of destruction, where
the masses of debris begin to roU together in the vaUey,
great dykes have been buUt. This has been done in the
Summa-Prada stream in Domleschg, in the Medelser
VaUey, in Eheinwald, and Putchlav. The finest, next to
that at MoUis, in Glarus (certainly one of the best), is that
in the Miinsterthal, in the Grisons.

AN AVALANCHE.

THE AVALANCHE. 177

CHAP. XXL
THE AVALANCHE.
The massive crushing faU of heaped-up snow to the
ground is caUed in different Local dialects in the Alps
" Lane," " Lauwe," " Lauine ;" in Tyrol " Lahne," in the
Eomansch moimtains " Lavigna." The name, as ordi
narUy written in civUised German, " Lavrine," is hardly to
be heard from the people. PhUologists have afready
disputed about the origin and meaning of this word,
and started strange game in the dark forest of conjec
tures : some bring in Latin, and declare that it can
only come from the word, "labor, lapsus sum, labi," whilst
others resort to metaphors and say that the Honess
.(Ibvrin) has stood as godmother to the word, because
the faU of snow dashes over the rocky waU into the
vaUey vrith the rage and power of a vrild beast. If
we keep to the simple expression of the people, we
shaU find " Lau" to be the root of the word ; the
mountaineers, sparing of speech, shortly describe the
whole phenomenon as "Lau" or "Lauine" because it
takes place vrith the advent of the warm (Lau) winds
in the spring.
The avalanche is the foster-sister of the Eiife, a
monster breaking down from the heights in summer
as roughly as its likeness does in winter. As the other,
it is a process of shootmg off a superfluity wLuch the
N

178 THE ALPS.
heights cannot retain ; like it, the avalanche excites terror
by its threatening wildness, thundering and echoing far
into the valley ; like it, it has its paths of ruin covered
with stones, over which it roars down fearfuUy ; Hke
it, it every year does much damage in the cultivated
country, and is the dreaded guest of every Alpine vaUey.
But it is far more various than the Eiife, because
it occurs much oftener and at almost every part of the
high mountains. There is scarcely a single prominent
hiU which has not its regular yearly avalanche faUs.
Here it depends inteUigibly upon the configuration of
the mountains and chffs, on their greater or less snow
fall, the accumulation of snow in particular positions,
how great and violent the avalanche is to be ; and
the mountaineer distinguishes several kinds, according to
their earher or later occurrence, the density of thefr
material, the cause of their formation and thefr effects.
It is a stereotyped opinion out of the mountains,
that any unimportant cause, such as the snowbaU started
by a bfrd's wing as it flies past, the motion of the afr
arisuig from noise, from cracking a whip, from the
ringing of a packhorse's bell, or even from whispering
and speaking, is sufficient or even necessary to bring
about an avalanche. Little as it can be denied that
such causes may under certain cfrcumstances bring about
faUs of snow, stUl they are just as httle necessary con
ditions of such a fall ; on the co^frary, the most massive,
fearftfl, dangerous, and regular avalanches are produced
after quite a different way.
They may be roughly dirided into vrinter and summer
avalanches. The fearful, dreaded, and irregularly oc
curring " dust-avalanches" belong to the flrst. They are
in certain respects the strongest form of snowstorms.
Either a storm raging round the summits heaps up

THE AVALANCHE. 179
incalculable burdens of fine, sandhke, fresh-faUen snow,
raises it, and lets it faU Hke an impenetrable cloud of
dust, wherever the bearing power of the vrind is
suddenly interrupted ; or it is fresli snow, lying on a
smooth substratum of old frozen neve, set in motion
by a gust of wind, increasing, as the mass increases,
in weight, pressure, and velocity, and thus hurled over
a chff. The effect produced is twofold. On one hand,
the faUing ocean of snow envelopes, in a second, countries,
houses, men, and cattle, so completely that in many cases
they He deeply buried, and can only be saved by the most
speedy help ; on the other hand, the compression ofthe afr
by the rapid fall is so violent that by the mere pressure
of afr, like an explosion of powder, blocks of stone,
houses, cattle-staUs, objects of every kind, whicii the
avalanche did not cover vrith its sheet of snow, are
pushed aside, set in motion, carried by the afr over
precipices, and dislocated in the most capricious way. As
the wind is the proximate cause of this, they are called also
wind-avalanches. Other levers are, however, set in action
to produce motion by these flying clouds of snow. When
this dustlike snow is lying on a smooth inclined plane,
any impulse is sufficient to set many acres of snowfields
in motion ; and this is the origin of the metaphorical
saying, which has become proverbial, of an " increase
hke an avalanche."
The most memorable misfortunes of the Alps have been
caused by such " dust-avalanches." On the 14th of Ja
nuary, 1719, the whole vUlage of Leukerbad, with the
exception of a few huts, was destroyed by one, which
overwhelmed the houses with such an incredible burden
of snow, that only a few of those buried ahve in their
dwelhngs could work thefr way up to dayhght. A boy^
Stephen Eoth, was shut up a whole week in the corner of
N 2

180 THE ALPS.
a ceUar, and could not break his icy prison with his feeble
powers. He sang loud psalms and hymns to the praise
of God, and was consequently heard by some energetic
diggers, freed, and drawn up from the darkness. Not
withstanding every care he died the next week. The
monster had destroyed fifty-five human Hves. The follow
ing year, in consequence of heavy faUs of snow, many
accidents were caused by avalanches. During February,
one hundred and twenty houses and stables, vrith eighty-
four men and above four hundred head of cattle, were
kiUed by an avalanche at Obergestelen, in the Valais, and
another in the same year kiUed sixty-one men at Fethau,
in the Lower Engadine. Near Brieg, forty men perished,
besides many single accidents on the Great St. Bernard,
in the Viescherthal, ancl elsewhere. In 1749 almost the
whole village of Euaras, in Tavetsch (Grisons), was over
whelmed by such an avalanche, which rushed down from
the Crispalt two hours off, and buried over a hundred
men. As the avalanche came down in the night when
everybody in the unlucky vUlage was asleep, many
whose houses were not ruined, or were only softly pushed
aside all standing, knew nothing at aU of the awful acci
dent, and only wondered on waking that the night lasted
so long, tUl they convinced themselves that they were
immured in a Bastille of snow. Some sixty men were
saved by thefr own exertions and that of others. The
most remarkable accident in modern times is that which
in 1827 struck the Valaisan vUlage Biel and kUled forty
men. MeanwhUe many examples of extraorcHnary, even
comic, escapes are known. Thus, in December, 1836, a
house in the Avenserthal (Grisons), in which twelve playing
children were coUected, was seized by an avalanche, shoved
on horizontaUy, and so covered with snow that not even
its roof-ridge was risible. The parents of the children.

THE AVALANCHE. 181
paralysed by fear, hastened with shovels and spades to the
place where they supposed the house to be ; but even
before they had seriously set to work, the chUdren came
creeping out of the snow, all right, one after the other.
StUl more singular is the accident related by Bihbaldus
Pfrckheimerus, in his "Bellum HeLvetium Maximihani I."
At the time of tlie Suabian war, 1498, four hundred
imperial soldiers were carried off by an avalanche and
thrown over a cliff; but, strange to say, the whole heap of
snow became as fuU of Hfe as an ant-hUl, and amidst roars
of laughter from the soldiers who had not been touched,
aU the others, without exception, crept out, some certainly
hurt, but none fataUy injured.
One can scarcely form a right conception of the power of
the draught of afr generated, without examples. In the
vaUey of St. Antony, in the Grisons (from which a pass
leads out of the Pratigau over the Ehatikon chain to the
Gargellen and Montaftma vaUeys), a man saw an avalanche
starting high up on the mountain waU (perhaps an hour
and a half distant), and hastened to reach a stable which
was in a tolerably safe position. Though it was only
fourteen paces off he could not reach it, but was seized by
the forerunning gale of wind, thrown over the Dalfazzer
tobel, and there buried by the avalanche which foUowed
with the quickness of Hghtning. In the year 1754 a
dust-avalanche descended from Piz Murauii over the
St. Placis vaUey, fiUing the whole vaUey from the road to
Caprau, carried off a drinking trough of hewn granite from
Falcaridas to Brulf, a quarter of an hour further up, and the
mere side-wind of this avalanche overthrew the cupola of
the eastern tower of the monastery at Dissentis, although
it was half an hour distant from its proper path. For an
avalanche completely to uproot forests of some thousand
stems by the blast of air, or crack them Hke matches and
n3

182 THE ALPS.
strew them around, is by no means rare ; every high
Alpine vaUey produces yearly more examples than we
could wish.
It is ordinarUy the case that an avalanche that has
faUen becomes the cause of other secondary avalanches
by its energetic gusts of vrind, and the thundering roar,
which produces other blasts, ancl hence we may explain
what is said in the Lauterbrunnen vaUey, that in the last
century the Stuffen avalanche was faUing for twenty-four
hours. A very modern case shows something simUar.
In 1854 there was such a long-continued faU of avalanches
on the shady side of the Eealp vaUey, that for more than an
hour one snow mass after another was being set in motion
by the gusts of wmd and shaking. Eoads and streets were
covered vrith firm compact snow to depths of twenty-five
or thfrty feet, so that to open a communication tunnels
had to be driven through the improvised rocks of snow.
Avalanches had come down in places where none had
faUen within the memory of man.
" Greif' an mit Gott ! dem Nachsten muss man lielfen,
Es tann uns alien Gleiches ja begegnen." *
This speech of SchiUer's WUham TeU is a great truth
drawn from tlie Hfe of the mountain folk. It is nowhere
true in so high a degree as in the Alps. Carelessness or
a certain comfortable "happy-go-lucky" feehng is an
undeniable characteristic of aU pastoral people ; theh
contemplative out-of-doors character, thefr slowly pro
gressive reflection, stops every hasty decision and incon
siderate action ; but stiU their wiUingness to help, theh
self-sacrificing spirit, their almost herculean endurance
in misfortunes brought about by natural causes, are reaUy
* " Lay hold, in God's name ! One must help one's neighbour :
The like may happen to us all."

THE AVALANCHE. 183
noble, and show thefr humane characters in the clearest
hght. " The brave man thinks of himself last." There
are hours of feverish industry, in most painful suspense,
to save the Hfe- of their acquaintance, friends, feUow-
riUagers, or of men completely strangers to them. Where
are the right places, where the buried, near to death by
the starvation of frost, are strugghng vrith the merciless
foe of aU hfe ? Every spade-stroke, every shovelful of
snow cast aside, may be only heaping higher the grave-
mound of the man they seek. For, strangely enough,
those working above can generaUy hear nothing of the
caUs for help ancl cries of anguish of those overwhelmed,
whUst, on the contrary, those who have been saved always
relate unanimously that they have heard every word of
those who were looking for them, and could even dis
tinguish the voices of thefr friends.
Let us only place ourselves in the agonising position of
these victims of the avalanche, dreadftd enough by the
surrounding cold, and add to it the consciousness that help
from a friend's hand is labouring to exhaustion in the wrong
cHrection a few paces on. When human wisdom is at an end,
the finer instinct of animals begins ; and as the dog foUows
the steps of his master or of the lost chUd for hours, and
at length finds what he seeks, here it is the faithful com
panion of the mountaineer whose fine scent discovers the
burial-place and leads on the right track. The value of
the dogs of the hospices of the Great St. Bernard, Simplon,
and St. Gothard, is too proverbial, and has been too com
prehensively and faithfuUy described in Tschudi's "Animal
Life in the Alps," to be spoken of at greater length here.
The " Schloss," " Schlag," or " ground" avalanches are
remarkably different in their origin, cause, and effect, from
these dust-avalanches, which consist of a Hghtly coherent
snow, and generaUy fall in winter. These are a pheno-
N 4

184 THE ALPS.
menon ofthe spring, when Nature celebrates the feast ofher
resurrection, and the high Alps are shaking their vrinter
dreams from thefr memory. Here it is quite different
substance, not that sandhke, dry, fine snow, which is scat
tered by the winds, as a plaything of the afr, without end
or ahn ; here it is old settled snow, which has lain on the
slopes through the vrinter, grown dense, become nev^, and
received a much more compact and firm formation.
Neither the wind whirling the snow up in thick clouds,
nor the trifling causes which start unimportant fragments,
nor mere oscUlations of afr, are able to bring about
" ground " avalanches ; the warm Lau winds and the ap
proach of warmth cause thefr awful faU. These pene
trate the narrow hoUow crerices in the boundless snow
slopes, dissolve the snow which Hes next to the turf or
rocks into flowing water, which makes the ground shp
pery and destroys the connection. Thus slowly prepared,
robbed of their natural substratum, the cohesion of single
particles of snow is incapable of restraining the whole
massive undermined snowfield ; the law of gravity draggiag
it down asserts its rights ; the mass loosens and slides down
wards, according to the greater or less inchnation of the
mountain, increasing in speed every second. AU that hes
in its way is enveloped in the threatening masses and car
ried to the valley. In the Bernese Oberland they are
caUed " Schmelz-lauiner" (melt-avalanches). The ban-
forests are intended as a protection against the attack of
these ground avalanches. But even smaller bodies of
plants can do much in chaining the snow to the earth, by
becoming intertvrined in it and hindering its faU, namely,
the grasses and weeds that grow upon the steep shoulders
and slopes of the hiUs, the material from which the poor
wild-hayman provides his cows or goats with winter fodder.
Wiiere it is mown in summer, these shding avalanches

THE AVALANCHE. 185
almost always show themselves in the spring, whUst the
standing stalks of grass that withered in the autumn form
a tender means of connection between the earth and the
snow. Most ground avalanches have thefr regular passages,
thefr acknowledged channels, recognisable at a distance,
caUed Lauinen-ziige (avalanche draughts), througii which
they rage down every spring. They have some relation to
the beds of Eiifen, but are less fiUed vrith ruin, and show
smooth chiseUed channels of rock, 100 feet in diameter,
in which some of the mountain debris always remains.
The inhabitants of the Tavetsch every autumn cut down
the bushes of Alpine alder on the less inclined slopes, hi
the higher regions where the regular growth of trees has
almost ceased, make fascines of them, and lay them in
these avalanche channels, in order to weaken the destruc
tive power of the faihng masses of snow. The moun
taineer does not need to carry such bundles down, or to
set them on sledges when they have been brought down
by the avalanche to the vaUey. He collects them, when
the faUen snow has melted in the summer, as fuel out of
the waste heaps of ruin, and thus makes the hostile power
ofhis enemy useful to him. It would be a useless endeavour
to prescribe the path of an avalanche by human hands.
As the passages of desolation are thus known (they
are generaUy at right angles to the floor of the valley),
as the mountaineer can judge by the form and direction
of the clouds, by the transparency of the atmosphere, by
the crumbling of the small snowy fringe from the cornices
of rock, what is the probable temperature on the heights,
he does not find it hard, from former experience, to calcu
late the time within which the ground avalanches must
break loose ; and hence he can take measures of precau
tion. For many avalanche channels cross frequented

186

THE, ALPS.

roads in the valley, and make passage in the sprmg very
dangerous ; thus it is, for example, in the inhabited lateral
vaUeys of the Valais and Uri, aU the places on the great
Alpine roads, where gaUeries are used, and also in special
places in vaUeys through which post-roads lead, as in
Oberhalbstein in the Grisons, in the Engadine, in many
vaUeys in Savoy, &c. A district in Davos (in Grisons),
between Glarus and Wiesen, has a particularly eril name
in this respect, and this pecuharity has given rise to its
name " In der Ziiga." Where houses and stables have had
to be built in such terrible places, the foresight of thefr
inhabitants has always placed them on the projections of
the mountain slopes over which avalanches could not pro
bably break. AU permanent avalanche paths have gained
special names, as the Golper, Schiitz, Mader, and Loch-
Laui in the Hashthal ; and, on the Mettenberg, above
Grindelwald, the Breit, Schmal, Doldis, Brunnhorn, and
Hochthurm Lauine. Sometimes a mountain seems as if
it disagreed vrith itself, and would dissolve only in a num
ber of smaU avalanches, and then no names are sufficient
to describe fully the number of snowfalls.
The picture which fancy has built of the appearance of
an avalanche during its faU is as erroneous as the notions
as to its various causes. It is not a round baU, as people
fancy, which in its place of formation is the size of a
cauHflower, and increases by roUing over and by the
adherence of particles of snow, tiU at length it forms a
baU of colossal diameter, which is not crushed tUl it
bursts in the vaUey hke a bomb : such a progressive
spherical form, as one sees made by boys in the lowlands
at the beginning of winter, when they want to build a
snow man, would at least require a uniformly inchned
mountain slope, interrupted by no rocks or chffs, and thus
of hiU-hke formation. The faU of an avalanche, of any

THE AVALANCHE. 187
kind, is in- form almost exactly Hke a waterfaU completely
broken into foam. The faU is generaUy heard sooner
than seen. Startled by the thundering fall, a stranger
not acquainted with the awful phenomenon generaUy
looks upwards, and seeks in the atmosphere for the
thunder-clouds. which produce these sounds of thunder;
but peace is in the deep blue ether — not a cloud is
svrimming in the aerial ocean. Now the roar roUs through
the vaUeys, and renews in stronger sweUs the waves of
sound, whUe the eye, shiking lower, perceives on the
sUver mantle of the mountain a smoking, dustlike cloud
moved by the breeze, and close below it a shding motion
in the slopes of neve which just before were hanging in
the stiUness of death. With apparent slowness, at mea
sured intervals, the snow cascade sinks over the rocky
waUs hke broad ribands of satin, plunges more deeply
over the chffs, bursts into round woolly foam-bows ancl
fluttering curls of cloud, Hke the intervals of a cataract,
or loses itself for seconds in concealed gulfs, and sinks
down, repeating the spectacle from step to step, tiU it
comes to rest on level Alp meadows or in deep basins.
On the cHsappearance of the apparent stream, tiie roUing
thimders which accompany the fall cease also, and the
traveUer becomes convinced that the two agencies have
a mutual relation to each other. But where the seeming
stream of dust rolled down, there is now a dirty pale Ime
in the midst of the dazzHng snow, showing that some
thing more than snow, that earth and fragments of rock,
must have come down to leave such traces.
Such is the picture of a summer " ground avalanche,"
painted from a distant and secure point of view. If one
Gould approach nearer to the faihng avalanche, with a
telescope of greater magnifying and defining power, it
would show quite different forms, and, like the unsus-

188

THE ALPS.

pected ceUular tissue of organisms under the microscope,
would suddenly display boundless snowfields, in whose
embrace cyclopean fragments of rock, massive blocks of
ice, and tom-up sheets of turf, would fly down shrieking
and howling. What appears to the naked eye hke
harmless descending masses of foam, becomes a madly
ragmg fury when seen from near ; for, as is usual in the
Alps, we have no sufficient measure of distance by which
to judge the heights over whose mibroken surface the
avalanche is breaking. If we subtracted the approximate
height of the place where the avalanche buried itself
from the height of the point from which it fell, and
divided the resulting difference by the sum of the seconds
during which it lasted, we should gain a quotient of speed
for the enormous rapidity of faU, which would at the
same time explain the thunder of its descent.
A ground avalanche in spring, seen as near as possible,
is terrible, almost indescribable ; aU words and descrip
tions are insufficient to paint this chaos, this complete
dissolution, this universal, instantaneously developed phe
nomenon of hurricane, earthquake, landshp and thunder
storm, uproar, flight, destruction, annUiUation, accompanied
by the crashing of the snow pressed together, the over
whelming roar of sphntered trees, the hissing flight of
rocks, and thefr sharp blows against the chffs, — in short,
an undefinable deafening tumult, whose echo, repeated a
hundredfold from the corner of every vaUey, is coL
lected into the roar. Such is the general impression of an
avalanche close to one. Its material is denser, thicker,
and heavier than the afry dust-avalanche ; hence it lodges
itself firmly with iron tenacity wherever it faUs. People
ancl beasts overwhelmed by the avalanche are, in general,
hopelessly lost ; it breaks their necks or spines, or her
metically covers thefr bodies so that they must die of

THE AVALANCHE. 189
suffocation. The snow of these avalanches is so compact
that men or beasts, when sunk up to their neck in it, cannot
work their way out without the help of others. Hence it
happens that in vaUeys with a rapid stream, vaulted snow
bridges are to be found, even in the midst of summer,
which have their origin in the faU of an avalanche. They
are often so compact and lasting that they might be
crossed vrith horses and carriages. Thefr origin is caused
by the mountain stream having been dammed up by an
avalanche, and, ovring to its greater warmth, eating its
way through, and graduaUy increasing the arch. When the
stream is not up to this, when the dam of snow is so
great and powerful as to hold back the water, great
misfortunes may happen to places lying deeper in the
vaUey. For it happens not unfrequently that an ava
lanche not only fills the valley from one side to another,
but is even pushed up the opposite slopes. When the
warmth of the sun is melting and gnavring away the clam
of snow in the valley, the water of the stream, turned into
a lake, breaks out with its fearful power, tears down
the neighbouring lands, uproots trees and weeds, covers
paths, bridges, mills, houses and stables, carries away
firewood, big stones, men and cattle, and lays waste the
whole country round.
Between the two described forms of avalanche Hes a
thfrd, which occurs in part independently as the fall of
an avalanche, but is more frequently produced by one of
these kinds of fall ; these faUs are produced by the so-
caUed " Wind-schirme," " Schnee-schilde," or " Schnee-
britte." The principle of the formation of these several
accumulations in the mountains, and thefr form in minia
ture, are known to every lowlander by experience. They
are those coverings of snow and vertical shapes whicii
arise when the wind throws large fat flakes upon build-

190 THE ALPS.
ings, waUs, fences, and other objects, under a proportion
ately mild temperature, and vrith a heavy faU of snow.
If the snow then ceases, the masses increase, bend over,
and, at last, under the action of the sun's rays and re
peated frosts, assume the complete appearance of hanging
cornices of snow. What thus appears on a smaU scale
is formed on a large one by thick snowfaUs in the rocky
Alps, whose almost vertical waUs are interrupted by aU
kinds of splits, vaults, and corniced facades, and this in
such colossal shapes that overhanging roofs of snow, com
pletely loosed from th« rocky waU, rise upon narrow sup
ports, and seem every instant to be coming' down. These
swords of Damocles hang fast, tUl they break off by the
weight of thefr own snow, or are torn off by the warm
air, " dew weather" or Fohn, or a change in the direction
of the wind. It is to these that the packman or posthion,
and every mountahieer, who is traveUing in winter, raises
an anxious gaze ; these are the avalanches which may
be robbed of their tottering equUibrium, of their cohesion,
and of thefr narrow hold to the rock, by the most trifling
causes, by a sound or a motion of the afr. These are the
reasons why the postUion does not crack his whip, — why,
in former days, when there were no protective gaUeries,
the packman took the beU coUar off his beasts when he
passed the narrow defile of the SchoUenen on the St.
Gothard, of the CardineU on the Spliigen, and other such
gorges ; and it is these to which SchiUer refers in his
mountain song, —
" Und willst du die schlafende Lowin nicht wecken
So wandle still durch die Strasse der Schrecken."*

• And, if thou wilt not rouse the sleeping lioness,
Pass gently through the road of horror."

THE AVALANCHE. 191
Many accidents have before now been caused by such
" windshields." In March, 1824, the post sleigh vrith thir
teen persons, traveUers, pioneers, guard, and postihon,
was struck by such a faU and carried over a steep chff,
from which eleven men were saved. One of the pioneers,
however, and the landammann of Eoveredo in the Vai
Misocco, were kiUed by the mere pressure against the
roadway. On the Skaletta pass, between the Engadine
and Davos, a whole caravan of fifty-two sleighs, with men
and cattle, was carried off by the faU of a " vrindshield "
some thfrty or forty years ago ; the preceding blast of
wind hurled some of them far through the afr. No one,
however, was killed, because it was soft sandy snow. In
the CardineU, a pass at that time of the worst repute on
account of " vrindshields," the pressure of the afr pro
duced by the faU of one carried off a drummer during
the passage of the French army under Macdonald, in the
winter of 1800, where he appears to have faUen without
injury, for he was heard for several hours cfrumming in
the depths. As, however, it was impossible to send
assistance to him, he feU a rictim to cold and hunger.
Martin Meuh, of Nufenen, entered the CardineU late in an
evening of 1807 with his comrade. Christian Menu, and
some packhorses. Suddenly an avalanche rushed down,
carrying off Christian, vrith his horse, into the gulf
Meuh remained uninjured, shut in on both sides by high
waUs of avalanche snow, and spent the cold winter night
under a projecting rock ; he saved his hfe by roUing
himself up in a packet of cloth which he was carrying on
his horse.
Such falls often cover the roads, Hke ground avalanches,
vrith snow dykes as high as houses, so that the pioneers
cannot make a path by mere shoveUing, but have to
break tunnels through. Tins was especiaUy the case

182 THE ALPS.
in the high Grison passes during the snowy winter of
1859-60. The dweUers on such passes teU wonderful stories of
the instinctive prescience of many beasts, who forebode
or, one might almost say, prophesy the faU of avalanches.
It is notorious that on those slopes which are in any way
affected by the regular faU of avalanches, the tracks of
chamois are seldom or never to be found in the snow.
The inhabitants of inountain inns and hospices declare
that the mountain daws come down from the heights
shortly before the occurrence of dust-avalanches or the
faU of windshields, flying, as it were, to human dwelhngs,
and screaming as they cfrcle round them. It is said that
the dogs kept to look out for distressed traveUers show
a perceptible restlessness shortly before avalanches or
whirlwinds, and there have been some on the Simplon
who howled loudly and tried to get out to search accord
ing to thefr business. Horses, however, show the most
decided feeHng of bad weather. We have mentioned, in
the description of a snowstorm, that the horse exerts his
utmost strength before the brealdng out of a storm to get
on quicker, and, if possible, to reach the protecting house.
A horse is said to have been used for many years as a
packhorse over the Scaletta pass, who regularly showed the
approach of avalanches by becoming excited and restive,
though at other times he was the most patient and quiet
beast in the world. The drivers, who set a high value
upon it on this account, depended almost entfrely upon
this horse in bad weather. It once had to draw some
passengers on a sleigh during winter, and haring come to
a point near the top of the pass, refused to move from
the place. The travellers, fooHshly enough, and the
driver, giving way to their impatience, did all they coifld
to drive the beast on. At last, after showing its disgust

THE AVALANCHE. 193
at human unreason by loud neighings, it applied all its
strength anew, and sought, by an almost desperate hurry,
to escape from the threatened danger. A few seconds
further, a sudden crash and faU! The avalanche had
buried the traveUers and the clever faithful horse.
The mountaineers can teU by trying the snow vrith
their hand, and by its appearance, how far it is ripe for an
avalanche, and thus arrange thefr mountain journeys.
These are usuaUy undertaken in company when they
lead over long and wild passes, but always in sections, so
that each sleigh is at some distance from the others ; if a
fall of snow happens they are then not aU carried off at
once, and those who escape can come to the help of thefr
overwhelmed companions.
Avalanches are only phenomena of the lower region,
especially of that on the borders of woody vegetation ;
they scarcely occur at a height of over 10,000 feet. Even
at the greatest heights snowshps take place, which move
downwards, and, under a warm south wind, the icy cor
nices occasionaUy faU from the steep ridges ; but such
very trifling and partial fractures have too little of the
character of avalanches to be included in this description.
Spite of thefr devastating fury they are a beneficial phe
nomenon for the lower regions, for they free whole
districts of Alp meadow land at one blow from an incal
culable weight of snow, to remove which the warmth of
sun and wind would have to labour tiU far into the height
of summer.

194 THE ALPS.

CHAP. XXII.
THE GLACIER.
What the avalanche does in a few moments in the vrild
storm of irrestrainable passion, the glacier carries out in
long thoughtful steps. Both have the same task — to free
the high mountain from the threatening burden of snow,
and to prevent a gradual freezing of the whole framework
of the Alps and of the country round ; both are leveUing
powers, canals for drawing off superfluity; both tend
to the same end but by different paths. The avalanche
is a youthful thoughtless phenomenon, which loses aU
foothold, throws itself as a rictim into the arms of death
at one bold spring, and conceals the stUl unconnected and
half formed bodies of snow in any corner of the vaUey hke
a self-murderer. The glacier is an old thoughtful econo
mist in the mountain household, who, in apparent lazi
ness and quiet, but reaUy in uninterrupted actirity, is
gathering together, with quiet practical tact, the superfluity
of the soft snow of the high mountains, condensing it to
firm sohd ice, and carrying it slowly down to the vaUey.
It is one of many thousand wonderful proofs of the
dirine order which regulates everything in the vast or
ganisation of natural Hfe, which gives everything its mea
sure and object, and wards off absolute death throughout
the vast cycle of nature.
Everything that shines down whitely into the vaUeys

thb glacier.

195

and Alpine villages during summer from the heights ofthe
snow region, and the mountain channels, is summarUy
named by the Swiss peasant " Gletscher," hy ihe Tyrolese
"Ferner," by the Eomansch " Yadret," andby the Valaisan
and Savoyard " Glacier." He makes no physical distinc
tion between ice and snow, they are aU the same to him.
Science, on the other hand, distinguishes according to the
material, density, and elevation, the soft mountain snow
above 10,000 feet from the lower, granulated, older
" Fern" snow (whose name is derived from the idiomatic
meaning of Fern, viz. " of former years"), and this agahi
from the compact transparent glacier ice. The last is
produced out of the first by a series of unmarked gradual
changes of these crystalline watery forms. The fine high
snow in the loftiest regions may thus be compared to the
period of chUdhood. By its own weight and the pressure
of the masses behind, it sHdes slowly downwards, and by
the effect of warmth becomes graduaUy more closely aUied
to the granular conglomerates as it passes iuto the age of
youth. As it is pushed deeper into the rocky lanes and
graduaUy travels into warmer regions, it undergoes new
phases of formation : it absorbs the faihng rain, binds it
to its crystals by its internal cold, and finally condenses
into porous ice : it enters the age of man and becomes the
glacier substance. Now, as in the Hfe of a man, it has
great oppressions to endure. Pressed into the deep
mountain gorges, the glacier has to follow the windings
and falls of its river-bed, as the given conditions compel it.
We say, intentionaUy, river-bed, for not only is it Hke a
stream turned to ice, on account of its descent between
chains of rocks and mountains, but the glacier flows and
moves hke the river down to the vaUey, certainly with
less speed, in consequence ofwhich its motion leaves the
dates of its joumey upon huge waU-timepieces. It has to
o 2

196 THE ALPS.
bear down burdens of faUen stones on its back, ftirrows
tear its surface tUl it reaches the end of its hfe in the val
ley, and dissolved into water hastens to the sea.
It is hard to make an approximately accurate concep
tion of the real nature and appearance of a glacier. The
best representations, even faithful photographs, give only
dry, superficial, one might almost say wooden pictures.
The space too of the largest painted or drawn landscape
in the high mountains is always too small to show even
approximately the gigantic size of a glacier in its awful
masses ; its proportions always become trifling and worth
less. The stereoscope at best, when very weU chosen
pieces have been inserted in it, may give some partial idea
of the subhmity of the phenomenon. Even at some dis
tance, when observed from a neighbouring overhanging
mountain, the mightiest glaciers vanish, under the contrast
of the imposmg framework of rocks, into subordinate
dirty white stripes. These, the mountain giants of the
granitic and hmestone ranges, with their cones, ridges, and
cornices, rise freely and boldly into the afr, show the size
of their bodies in strong rough Hnes, and give points of
riew from which thefr height can be measured ovring to
thefr many-sided profUe : the glacier hides the amount of
its incalculable contents in the mountain guUies, wluch it
fiUs ; it is a buried body of which only the superflcial area
is exposed. Hence, in this case, nothing but a joumey on
the back of this icy serpent, a look into its chasms, preci
pices and secret deeps, and the entrance through the gla
cier gates, can really make it known to us.
Completely formed glaciers, bearing aU the character
istic marks, can only be found in the central chains of the
Alps, where the elevation of the mountains has been
most direct and energetic. The most vast and capacious
glacier districts are the central masses of Mont Blanc, of

THE GLACIER. 197
the Valaisan and Bernese Alps, of the Bernina in the Gri
sons, and of the Oetzthal group in Tyrol ; those, that is,
which enclose the most extensive magazines of snow in
thefr hollows. Besides these, the Graian Alps of Savoy,
the Todi group in Uri, Glarus, and the Grisons, the cen
tral masses of the Adula or Eheinwaldhom, the Selvretta
group in the Lower Engadine, the Ortler group, and the
Tauern (ridges) of the Salzburg ancl Carinthiau Alps en
close considerable glaciers. Half formed and second-rate
glaciers occur in all parts of the Alps, which attain a
height of 8000 feet, and enclose a few plateaus on this
high level, which are sufficient to collect the provision of
snow. It would be in vain to seek for glaciers on moun
tains which do not rise above the snow line (7000 or 8000
feet) in thefr mean elevation. We easily ascend through
meadows and pinewoods. Thick groups of trees stUl shut
out every prospect. Now it grows clear, and leaving the
depth of shadow, we enter naked rocky ground, which
appears to have been strangely carved and chiselled, as it
were, by stonehewers, into every kind of hoUow basin and
undulating swell. Brightly blooming Alpine roses, in rich
abundance, shine out from the heaps of ruin, or from the
rocky clefts which have been choked with earth, an en
livening ornament of the barren wUderness. Tuming one
more mountain bar, the riew expands — we stand in face
of the glacier. Walls as high as church towers rise up
and prevent us from penetrating further. Is that a white,
snow-covered, primeval dirty-grey rock, which overhangs
as a fantastic ornament ? The transparent glassy clefts
in its waUs, which arrange themselves along it Hke deep
folds, seem to argue against this. We clamber over
strangely piled waUs of blocks with sharp-cornered frag
ments of rock, roughly made barricades of considerable
height, and press, with our curiosity excited, nearer to
o 3

198 THE ALPS.
this enigmatic waU. Now we discover a broad vaulted
canal at its, foot, which shines with most fairyhke colours
tiU it disappears hi the depths of indefinite night. Now
we suspect that we are in the presence of a gigantic wall
of ice. The grey mass, which at first riew seemed to be
an independent body of rock, is nothing but incorporated
stones with whicii the faU of the glacier is sown over.
The first guess of the tremendous massiveness of a glacier
occurs to us at length ; the suspicion for the ifrst time
presses itself upon us that the huge dyke of ruins which
we just crossed consists of flakes of stone which have
fallen from the glacier. A superficial view, even if we
had never before attended to mineralogy, teUs us, as we
compare the material, grain, and colour of the blocks be
fore us with the poHshed stone, that it is of quite different
origin. These artificial heaps are caUed frontal moraines,
" Stirn-gandecken," or " Ffrn-stosse." They are results of
the gradual disintegration of the rocks, a coUection of
samples of the kinds of rocks which surround the glacier.
The glacier has slowly carried them on its back from
mountain slopes two or three hours off, and we gain from
them the first proof of the traveUhig actirity of the ap
parently stUl mass of ice. The opening which appears on
the icy waU below is the glacier gate, from which a broad
rapid brook of melted icy water is streaming.
The water is milky-white, or a clear cloudy-grey, sel
dom transparently clear. Whence is its colouring ? The
glacier, shding slowly vrith its burden of millions of tons
over the granite or Hmestone rocks of its bed, graduaUy
chisels off particles of rock, and colours the glacier water
with them. The hoUowed surfaces, over which we came
just now, are also results of this poHshing actirity. We
find on the Eiffel, along the Gorner glacier from Monte
Eosa, and again near Zermatt, on the Viescher glacier, and

THE GLACIER. 199
agam on the banks of many others, these strangely poHshed
hummocks of gneiss and granite, which give information
that the glacier formerly, when it was higher, broader,
and larger, passed over these places and thus rounded
them off.
Many glaciers have no glacier gate at aU, but run,
spreading themselves out as smoothly as a mussel-sheU,
with a gentle inchnation towards the floor of the vaUey.
Such is the noble Ehone glacier, the Eosegg glacier in the
Bernina group, &c. Many others have lofty imposing
glacier gates, Hke the portals of a Gothic cathedral. The
largest and most beautiful are those on the Glacier des
Bois, in the vaUey of Chamouni, from which the Arvefron
streams forth, in many years more than 100 feet high.
On the Morteratsch glacier, in the Bernina group, which
sends dovra the Flatz-bach to the Inn, and the MarceU
glacier, enticing as it is to penetrate into these azure-blue
or glass-green haUs of ice, it is dangerous on account of
faffing stones, which He upon the back of the glacier at its
end, and of fragments of the ice itself, which are continu
aUy loosening themselves and coming down.
The proper colour of the glacier ice is blue, as it is ge
neraUy of aU pure water. Various other cfrcumstances,
however, must affect its more or less intense hue, as some
are especiaUy distinguished by thefr beautifuUy deep co
lour. Such are the AroUa glacier in the Vai d'Erin, the
Eossboden glacier on the Simplon, the frequently risited
Eosenlaui glacier near Meyringen, in the Bernese Ober
land, and the Upper Grindelwald glacier. People who
enter the clefts of such a strangely Hghted building of
ice, are magicaUy tinged by a blue Hght, which kUls or
weakens aU other colours, and gives to the red healthy
countenance the pale hue of a corpse. It is a reaUy spfrit-
o 4

200 THE ALPS.
like blue, one might almost say a bewitched phenomenon
of colour ; for the same piece of ice which radiates in the
glacier grotto with an indigo flame loses its whole noble
colouring when brought to the Hght of day, and appears
of colourless transparency, lU?:e a piece of river or lake
ice. In order to get on to the top of our glacier, we must
clamber through entangled weeds, and over spht frag
ments fi-om inundations to its lateral waUs.
The first impression which the surface of the front part
of a glacier makes upon the observer, is in general by no
means one of surprising grace. Most of them have a dfrty
appearance, strewed over with sand and mountain debris,
something like that which occurs when a sudden thaw
succeeds a violent faU of snow in a tovsm. There are
glaciers so covered with pebbles and knotty fragments
that for a great distance no ice is to be seen in them.
This dirty rubbish proceeds from the medial moraines,
with which we shaU soon make nearer acquaintance.
The farther we penetrate, the more torn does the
surface become, but at the same time the ice appears
in greater purity. The next thing to attract our at
tention is singularly formed, splintered, pyramidal frag
ments of ice which, resting on fractured surfaces,
sometimes overhanging, sometimes stiff and firm on a
broad base, display the strongest crossing and various
shapes. Chmbhig a few paces more on the glacier's brink,
we reach an open point of riew. Heavens I what de
struction, what a sea of cliffs and chasms, whafe a
vrildemess of confused forms. What is the field of
ruins of a landshp beside this more than fantastic
chaos, which seems to He quite beyond the range of aU
that we have hitherto seen? Here is no longer the
rough, rocky, utterly inorganic mass of fragments from

THE GLACIER. 201
the chffs, as we have seen elsewhere, — here there ap
pears an unmistakable formative infiuence, a law of
forms quite strange to us, in which v^e cannot quicldy
enough discover the leading thought. Our eyes sweep
round anxiously and curiously, and constantly discover
a kind of ground-plan, without being able to find the
desired point of rest. Has a Titanic architect ventured
upon the attempt of raising an afry castle of ice-blocks
to the spfrit king of the Alps, and given the most fr
regular shapes to them in his ornamental fancies, but
left his .work of buUcHng unfinished ? Such is the im
pression made upon us, when we look for the first
time over that part of a large glacier, whicii is covered
with so-called " ice-neecUes." Whence comes this strange
accumulation of spikes over its whole breadth ? If we
try to explain it by a comparison, we say it is the
waterfaU of the icy river. As the stream, when its bed
is interrupted and faUs, because there is a step in the
vaUey, rages down in a dust of foam and spray, to
start anew on its way in a lower bed, so has the
slowly moving glacier here too lost the ground below
it, the rough masses of ice could not hold themselves
up, they spht, tore themselves away by thefr own weight
and feU over. But blocks upon blocks piled themselves
up so that the difference of level has cHsappeared fi-om
the eye, and we oiUy see the surface of the icy ruins
streaming downwards at a steep inchnation. There
would be panes of ice Hke those which we see formed
on a small scale in winter when the confectioner refiUs
his ice-house ; but here invisible hands model the faUeii
fragments of ice, hoUow them out, and pohsh off then-
corners, and these concealed artists, who are always
giving them new forms, are the sun, the warm breezes,
the rain, and the returning frost. These modeUers touch

202 THE ALPS.
up and wash now this place, now on that, along the
crystalline edges of fracture, and make such strange
forms, flat fron^ their unresting actirity, that dis
ordered and yet combined effect appears, which struck
us so much. But as aU these agents work from above,
the tops of the ice fragments are first seized, and hence
arise the obehsk or tower-hke forms significantly caUed
ice-needles, because their tops strike up so sharply to
wards the zenith. Examples from thfrty to fifty feet high
may be seen on the Gorner glacier above Zermatt, on
the Glacier des Bois, below the Chapeau, and. on the
Montanvert, as also further back in the Glacier du
Talefre, and on the Pasterze glacier on the Gross-
glockner. The Ehone and Grindelwald glaciers also
abound in them. They frequently cover spaces a quarter
of an hour across.
But as the clouds of foam of the waterfaU leave the
imprisoned air-bubbles below, and again unite into a
smooth homogeneous river surface, just so the icy ruins
not far below the Hne of the cataract soon unite again
into one body by means of compression, saturation, and
regulation of the melting water which is filtered through
them in drops, and form at its end the compact glacier
fi-ont. Let us go on ! Now at last we can get on to the
glacier. It is near mid-day, and the sun is hot. How
very different from what we expected is the tolerably
level glacier surface. It is furrowed by thousands and
thousands of little channels, which have formed crossing
and meandering paths. The Httle watery veins of the
icy water, of diamond clearness, scarcely one degree
above freezing, hasten down to the greater brook-hke
ftirrows, whose bed always consists of transparent glacier
ice. These brooks, after a short course, faU vrith a

THE GLACIER. 203
roar into deep funnel-shaped holes, called "mulden" or
" mouhns," into which they disappear without leaving a
trace. There are secret canals which reach in all kinds
of vrindings and branchings down to the rocky ground of
the glacier, and supply the stream which pours forth from
the glacier gate. The gently vaulted surface of the
glacier ghstens and shines with the reflection of the sun's
rays from the smooth, flooded ice. An infinite feverish
trembhng is spread over the whole bulk of the ice, so
that a ghmmering arises as of myriads of particles. It
is quite easy to walk vrith a firm foot and safe tread
over the shining, perspiring glacier ; but if you do not
tread firmly and take some care not to sHp, you cannot
be certain of not sitting down in the wet every two or
tliree .minutes. This strange vivacity, this humming,
singing, rustling in the network of channels that spreads
over the glaci-er's surface, lasts as long as the sun sends
dovra its frost-dissolring rays. As soon as these sink
behind the mountains, the Httle Hfe grows dumb, the
frozen death-like breeze moves over the icy desert and
binds the trickhng drops again into crystals, and before
it is night, the noiseless sUence of the grave is lying over
this corner of the Alps.
There would be no difficulty hi proceechng further
were it not for a new splitting of the glacier, but this
time not into fragments standing verticaUy upwards, but
underneath. They are the celebrated " Querspalten," or
crevasses, which cross the glacier up to a considerable
height. Many of the Alphie "ice-seas" are so crossed
and torn by these rents that traveUing over them is next
to impossible, or, at least, leads mto a labyrhith from
which fr is a hard task to find the way out. There are
examples enough, in which traveUers with guides, in clear
weather, in broad day, on glaciers scarcely half an hour

204 THE ALPS.
vride, both of whose banks were thus in the closest
proximity, have so lost thefr- way aihongst the crevasses
that they have spent many hours in finding the way out.
Examples of accidents shaU be mentioned in a foUovring
chapter " On Alpine Summits." The crevasses have gene
rally at the upper surface a very long-drawn eUiptical
shape, whose two ends run out to sharp points. Thefr
breadth and length vary strangely, accordhig to the size-
and slope of the glacier; there are some which, at thefr
first origin, can easUy be leaped across, and others which
are twelve feet broad and more. The breadth is generaUy
in some proportion to the length, and some may be seen
which run across the whole glacier from one bank to the
other, and thus, in effect, cHvide it into two parts. Most
of them thin out as they sink. A look into them gene
raUy reveals the same beautiful display of colour as in the
ice-needles preriously mentioned ; in particular, the
veined structure of glacier ice can be easily observed on
thefr waUs. The crevasses arise from causes simUar to
those which produce the glacier cataract ; they produce a
strong tension of the ice. The philosophers Hugi and
Agassiz, who had huts built on the ice for the sake of
special investigations, ancl stayed there for weeks, accu
rately observed the formation of crevasses. It was an
nounced by a loud crack inside the ice, which trembled
as though ^n an earthquake. Soon afterwards the rent
appeared at the surface, Hke the crack in a vrindow-pane,
whose motion and extension could be foUowed by the
eye. It was often, however, the case that immediately
after its origin, the walls of the crevasse were separated by
several centimetres. Their distance then steadUy in
creased. It has been, on the contrary, observed that
afready formed broad and deep crevasses have closed and
become homogeneous in colour, owing to the configuration

THE GLACIER. 205
of the glacier bed. GeneraUy, only a few are to be seen
fiUed with water, because, on the one hand, many of them
are connected vrith subterranean tunnels and canals, by
means, of which the glacier water is drawn off and sent to
the principal stream ; and, on the other hand, the struc
ture of the glacier ice, differently from the common lake
or river ice, permits an uninterrupted infiltration of the
•water. It is far more porous than the ice which is pro
duced by strong frost from flowing water. The glacier
ice, which, as we have afready said, is formed by a series
of transformations from the crystallised high snow, con
tains smaU lenticular flattened air-bubbles, and is crossed
in every dfrection by an infinite number of capUlaries,
which receive and absorb immediately aU the water from
the surface of the ice. Professor Agassiz made experi
ments vrith dissolved colouring matter, and saw it quickly
penetrate the whole mass of ice, as though it were an ab
sorbing mud ; vrithin a short time it was coloured to a
depth of fifteen feet.
By means of these cavities, pecuhar to the glacier ice,
the greatest and most variously dfrected activity is
developed in it. The present forest inspector of the
Canton of the Grisons, Herr Coaz (the first ascender of
the Bernina, whom we shaU have to quote again), had
pitched a tent with a riew to topographical measurements
in the Vai Morteratsch, near the bank of the glacier, and
undertook excursions from it. The borders of the glacier
are of very various formation ; sometimes they are quiet,
and on a level vrith the fioor of the vaUey ; sometimes
they rise in vertical broken walls of ice ; sometimes they
overhang their banks, so that it is possible to penetrate
for a considerable distance under the glacier. In many
places the moraines are heaped up to form side waUs ; in
others the soft Alpine meadow is in immediate contact

206 THE ALPS.
with the ice. He was once visiting a glacier cave to
wards noon on a cloudy misty day, which sank towards
the floor of the vaUey from the edge of the Morteratsch
glacier. He descended into a vault five or sis feet high,
and was observing the glacier ice hanging above him with
its round or eUiptical afr-bubbles ; water was trickhng
through some of them vrith a regular pulsation. At the
same time he remarked in the ice little whirlpools of
water some half an inch in diameter, which moved with
great rapidity. As he had not previously remarked them,
they must have arisen during his observations, probably
owing to the warmth of Ins body. It might be safely as
sumed that the depression in which the whfrlpool was
turning was a bubble carity opened by melting. To
discover the channel which conducted the water into the
whfr-lpool through the ice over the heads of the observers,
he apphed a lens, but could discover nothing. At lengtii a
smaU black particle of dust helped him to solve his doubts,
by shooting out on to the surface of the overhanging vault
of ice, and confirmed his assumption of a suspected smaU
channel. It ran down steeply into the Httle hollow and
produced the whirlpool. Shortly after he observed two
whfrlpools close together, which turned in opposite direc
tions. As they penetrated further hito the cave the ice
became more free from bubbles, of a purer and darker
colour. The walls of ice were quite damp ; in places
water was trickling from the vault ; the glacier was in its
state of greatest activity. Here a strange phenomenon
especiaUy attracted the attention of the observer ; it was a
smaU brook, scarcely a foot in breadth, which flowed over
the head of the visitor, held firmly to the inchned and
highly porous covering of ice. Such a phenomenon is
uncommonly striking, as the water only half foUows the
law of grarity, and almost seems to despise it. He signi-

THE GLACIER. 207
ficantly named it a " hanging brook." Further down a
crevasse opened, through which a fuU stream of Hght
penetrated from above, and produced the purest, gentlest,
hghtest blue in the crystal clear ice, such as it only pre
serves in the depth of the hidden glacier world. This
opens to the inqufring spirit, as for the receptive under
standing, far more than the first cursory view of a glacier
would lead us to suspect.
To penetrate to the bank of a glacier is not less danger
ous and difficult than the crossing the deep crevasses
spanned by snow bridges. An incident related by Pro
fessor Forbes of EcHnburgh may prove this by its example,
and show at the same time how very dangerous is a soh
tary journey over glaciers. More vriU be said about snow
bridges in the chapter on Alphie summits.
In the middle of September 1842, Forbes was visiting,
from Chamouni, the lonely rock of Trelaporte, a promon
tory below the AiguiUe de Charmoz. As it does not He
on the road by anywhere it is very seldom visited by the
shepherds, who come up from time to time to bring salt to
the sheep left to find pasture during the summer without
protection. Forbes, busied in sketching the bold outlines
of the AiguiUes du Dru and du Moine, sent his guide
Auguste Balmat to fetch water to drink, which is hard to
find, as the rocks of Trelaporte consist of masses of
granite. After the guide had not retm-ned for half an
hour, and it might be feared he had lost his way amongst
the wUd rocks, the naturaUst himself got up to look for
him. In a short time he saw him coming with two boys
from Chamouni, who had been on their way to the JarcHn.
They were leading a man who seemed to be completely
exhausted and bewildered, and whose clothes were hang
ing down in rags. The guide Auguste was also very tired,
for he had exposed himself to the greatest dangers to save

208 THE ALPS.
the stranger. The stranger, an American, who in the
morning of the previous day had started alone for a waUc
on the Mer de Glace, had lost himself in chmbing up the
sohtary slopes of Trelaporte, and spent the whole night on
an almost inaccessible cliff. According to his story he
had shpped in the prerious aftemoon, faUen over a rock,
and would probably have been crushed at the bottom,
had not his clothes stuck to some bushes in faihng and
thus interrupted his faU. He had thus reached a platform
of rock, winch, being surrounded by the most dangerous
precipices, had become a hopeless prison for him. The
night was not too cold for him to keep alive in terrible
anguish, and when it became day, he had seen the two
young men a long way off and caUed to them. The bold
mountaineers had managed to chmb so near to him by
a long cfrcuit that they were just above him ; but thefr
common efforts would have been insufficient, if Professor
Forbes had not, as though by the dfrection of Proridence,
come to this rarely risited neighbourhood and sent his
guide for water. The guide, whUst searching for it, had
seen the efforts of the two lads and had come up to them
unsmnmoned. It was due to his courage, to his endurance
and audacity, as weU as to his rare physical power, that
he freed the wretched man from a position in which even
chamois would have been lost. Balmat related that, as he
was chnging to an almost smooth wall of rock, he had felt
his foot sHp, as he bore the whole weight of the stranger,
and had given them both up for lost, when he succeeded in
catching a hold and stopping himself After Forbes had
strengthened them both with a Httle wine, he sent the
stranger, whose brain appeared to be affected, down to
Chamouni in company vrith the two lads, whilst he visited
the scene of the accident in company with Balmat. His

THE GLACIER. 209
elaborate description of it, shows that it was a platform
of rock, overgrown vrith turf and bushes of juniper, a
foot in breadth and a few feet long, which was shut in at
the back by an overhanging waU of gramte, and sank
verticaUy in front for several hundred feet. It might
almost appear a mfracle that the unlucky man could have
reached this place by shpping or faUing ; had it not been
for the bushes which mterrupted his faU, and in which
rags of his torn blouse were stUl hanging, he would have
faUen down over the platform of rock vrithout touching
it. He had to spend the whole dark night on this plat
form where there was scarcely room for a man, standing
upright, vrithout moving a foot, vrith an awful death by
starvation or faUing always before his eyes, vrithout ex
pectation or hope of safety.
The crumbhng of the banks produces the moraines.
Let us examine the picture of a glacier in our book (the
motive of which is the middle part of the Gorner glacier
with the Eiffelhorn, and Monte Eosa in the background,
with the addition of the glacier gate foreshortened to give
an instructive view) ; we shaU see behind the region of
glacier needles, long drawn Hnes of stone, which stretch
far away in the perspective. These are the moraines or
"Gandecker," caUed also " Gufferlinien." Whatever is
spht off, displaced, and cmmbled from the mountain waUs
by heat and frost, rahi and storm, faUs on to the fields of
n^ve (when it is in the higher regions) or on to the edge
of the glacier, and moves onwards vrith its mass. The
neve, like the glacier, has, so to speak, a repulsive power
they suffer no foreign subtances to mis hi thefr body
what has lain buried for years in the crevasses of the neve
is brought to the surface of the ice by the melthig of the
surface, and the graduaUy elevatfrig force of the motion.
p

210

THE ALPS.

Thus the blocks are raised. If it now happens that two
glacier vaUeys unite into one bed, Hke the confluence of
two rivers, so that the ice descending from two separate
homes pursues one common path downwards, the two
interior lateral moraines form one medial moraine, and
show only one Hne drawn along the axis of the glacier ;
there wUl be as many moraines as there are lateral or
secondary glaciers which pour themselves into the princi
pal glacier. Our picture shows three central moraines,
but the Gorner glacier has in fact eight moraines, which
are remarkable for sharpness and paraUehsm. The mass
of the mountain debris here accumulated is so remarkable
that one would fancy oneself standing upon a shoulder
of the mountain itself. The central moraine at the
Abschwung, formed at the junction of the Finster and
Lauter Aar glaciers, on which the naturahsts Hugi and
Agassiz erected their hut for observations and measure
ments of several weeks' duration, is a waU of debris nearly
400 feet broad, and in places 30 feet above the level of
the glacier. These moraines are, however, frequently only
smaU rows of single stones, occurring Hke a thread of
pearls, with smaU intervals, and running down the whole
length of the glacier. These stones keep to thefr direction
with remarkable precision, ancl often do not quite disap
pear when a glacier faU stretches across thefr Hne with
its needles and colossal masses of ice.
Besides the proper moraines we meet vrith separate
blocks of stone on the vaulted back of the glacier, hke
wanderers or hermits, which, as they have no simUar
material round them, give special opportunity to the action
of atmospheric influences, in the formation of shapes of
ice aUied to the glacier needles ; these are the so-called
" glacier-tables." In the continual melting of the surface
during the warm season, that part of the ice on which

THE GLACIER. 211
Hes a rough block of stone, a thick mass of gneiss or
schist, is protected from the immediate dissolving influences
of the sun's rays and warm vrind ; thus naturaUy, whUst
the glacier melts aU round, and the part of the ice covered
by the rock is preserved, it stands up, as it were spared
from destruction. The ice-bearer or post grows out Hke
the foot of a round table, entirely above the level of the
glacier, is constantly touched on aU sides by the afr of
a shghtly higher temperature, and takes a slenderer
form, whUst the stone, resting on its pUlar of ice, protects
it from the energetic rays of the sun and its rapid power
of melting. These glacier-tables, looking like gigantic
toadstools, are not to be found on aU glaciers, but stUl on
most of the large ones. The finest are on the Unter- Aar
glacier, where Agassiz measured some 8 feet high. On the
Theodule glacier are stones 20 feet long and 6 broad,
resting on a foot-stalk of ice so narrow that one would
expect to be able to embrace it. There are many on the
Liapey or Durand glacier, in Vai H^r^mence, with stones
incHned at an angle of 30°, and on the Pasterze glacier in
the Tyrol. On the Glacier de Lechaud, Professor Forbes
found a glacier-table formed of a splendid flat slab of
granite 23 feet long, 17 broad, and 3 deep, and its
beautifuUy veined dehcate pedestal of ice reached a height
of 13 feet at the end of August. When the prop becomes
too weak, the stone slab loses its balance, it faUs, and the
process of melting begins all round it anew, whUst the icy
stump of the destroyed table is completely dissolved by
the atmospheric action.
In striking contrast to these huge fragments of rock
raised above the glacier-level, and the afready mentioned
repulsive power of the glacier, is the sinkhig of smaUer
objects into the ice. We find vrithered leaves, blown up
r 2

212 THE ALPS.
by the wind, dead butterflies and beetles, or Httle stones
on the glacier, which have sunk an inch or an inch and a
half into the ice. That they are not brought dovra enveloped
in nev^ from the heights, is shown by the sharp outHnes
of the hole, open above, which exactly correspond to the
outHnes of the object in question. Much as this fact
contradicts the other phenomena, it may be explained.
Bodies, in fact, can absorb a greater or less quantity of
heat according to the greater or less depth of their
colouring, black bodies absorbing most. It is thus in-
teUigible that the radiation of the sun affects such black ob
jects more powerfuUy than the white ice, which reflects the
sun's rays, and these bodies, in consequence of the greater
quantity of warmth received, radiate heat into the ice
below and around them, thus causing it to melt. Precisely
on account of their smaUness they are completely pene
trated by the sun's warmth ; large slabs of rock, as in
moraines and glacier-tables, are only heated at the surface,
vrithout being able to propagate the heat so far into thefr
interior as to produce by it a melting of the subjacent ice.
A thfrd phenomenon, aUied to that of moraines and
glacier-tables, accompanies them, which surprises us on a
visit to one of the " mers de glace," — the cones of debris
and sandhUls. They are simply caused by the inundation of
stones, grit, and niud, owing to the rapid melting of the
glacier's surface, so as to form Httle aUurial deposits.
These, by thefr thickness, protect the subjacent ice from
the sun's rays, whUst the glacier, exposed aU round them
to the free afr, melts away ; thus mounds Hke molehUls
are formed, which grow to a height of 12 feet, and
have generaUy a cfrcumference of more than treble thefr
height. AU these strange rocky burdens borne on the glacier's
back are transported by it to the vaUey, and of themselves

THE GLACIER. 213
are one of the most strUdng proofs of the motion of the icy
stream. The mass of rums thus borne from the heights to
the vaUey is very various, and can only be reckoned by the
frontal morahies which have been deposited at the end of
the glacier hi the course of thousands of years. The most
gigantic frontal waUs are at the foot of the Glacier des Bois,
in the vaUey of Chamouni, amongst which the latest of the
great deposits arose in the year 1820. A grisly wUderness
of stones of every size and kind has repressed aU meadow
cultivation, and a new forest-covered hUl of moraine 6000
feet in length, caUed Les Tiges, shows what a single
glacier may brmg to the vaUey. The viHage Lavanchi
lies on the eastern slope of the most ancient colossal waU
of stones. One of the rocks brought down is so vast that
it has a proper name, as an independent indiridual —
" Pierre de Lisboh."
The fact that the glacier moves and every year makes
a determinable progress forwards or dovrawards is a
modern discovery of science, known to the hUl-folk
centuries ago. Strange as the phenomenon may appear
to the lowlander of a sohd moving mass of ice con
stantly progressing over the hard ground, a level of ice
remaining motionless in sohtary banishment would be
equaUy puzzhng to mountaineers. The rate of motion of
glaciers is determined by the slope and relations of its
bed, and therefore very various. The glacier universaUy
moves quicker towards its centre than at the sides, and
at the top than at the bottom. According to the measure
ments of Agassiz and his companions, on the Aar glacier,
the daUy average motion was about eight inches from the
month of July to September in different years. Pro
fessor Forbes found a stiU greater motion in some of the
Mont Blanc glaciers. But no normal rale can be given,
p 3

214 THE ALPS.
because the influence of the mean temperature of the year
is shown by experience to have a great effect. According to
the observations of Ziegler on the Grindelwald glacier, vrith
regard to its winter motion, this was feeblest in January,
more marked in December, much more Hvely in February,
and increasing stUl more in March and April In general
every glacier seems to be ahnost stationary during vrinter,
and, on the waking of nature in spring, to resume its
activity. But the motion of a glacier varies not only at
its surface, but also according to the vertical depth, so that
the greatest motion takes place on the surface, a less
motion in the centre, and the least in the part in contact
vrith the soU.
The theory of glaciers has caused very different ophuons
and deductions as to the nature of glacier motion. The
oldest investigators, especiaUy De Saussure, to whom the
natural and physical history of the Alps owes so much,
assumed a bodUy shding of the ice over the inclined
ground ; others, and amongst them the stUl older Scheuch-
zer, ascribed the principal progressive impulse to the
expansion of the crystalhsed watery substances under the
influence of freezing, and developed the expansion or
dUatation theory. Professor Hugi, who had made ac
quaintance with the capiUary tubes described above,
assumed a process of universal saturation, as though the
glacier sucked up watery particles Hke a sponge, and by
thefr freezing a dovraward motion was produced. Others
again would demonstrate an actual roUing over of the
masses of ice. According to aU investigations up to the
present time, the downward pressure of the weight of the
enormous masses of snow lying behind the glacier seems
to proride the chief and increasing power of impulsion
which keeps the stiff icy stream in motion. The yielding
of the mass to the undulations of its faU, and on its front.

TIIE GLACIER. 215
may give further cause for sHghter motions. FinaUy, too,
the greater tendency of the ice to yield, owing to the
capiUaries, may contribute to the whole phenomenon.*
Where these glaciers move in canals incHned uniformly
to thefr ends, the mountaineer who travels over them has
not much to dread. It is different with those glaciers which
are formed high up, and, after keeping for a time on thefr
way, suddenly lose thefr bed, because the rocks upon
which they rest sink steeply downwards. These, which
are caUed "hanging glaciers," break off in ruins at the
faU, and are precipitated in glacier avalanches to its foot.
Cultivation and human industry have naturally never set
tled at the foot of these unwearied discharges of ice, and
the broken masses are cast harmlessly into waste ground.
There are, however, cases enough in which such glacier
faUs have been the indfrect causes of injury in inhabited
places, and to those who dwelt there. The most remark
able case of this kind is the accident caused by the Gietroz
glacier, or rather by the accumulated masses which feU
from it in the Vai de Bagne and the Lower Valais, on the
16th of June, 1818. This vaUey presents a very narrow
gorge, five hours above Sembranchier, commanded to the
south by a steep buttress of the Mauvoishi, and to the
north by the Mont Pleureur, 11,400 feet high, whose foot
forms a cliff 500 feet in height. Over this hangs the
Gietroz glacier descending from the high snow regions.
At aU times of the year and ahnost every day, shapeless
masses of ice fall from it into the vaUey, and accumulate
into gigantic hUlocks of ice under the cliffs, below which
runs the vrild stream of the Dranse. Between the years
1816 and 1818 the fragments of ice had increased to a
* This account of the glacier theory is of course extremely imper
fect. It is scarcely necessary to refer to Professor Tyndal's ad
mirable work on glaciers for a full account ofthe subject. — Trans.
p4

216 THE ALPS.
degree never before known, and in the vrinter of the
last-mentioned year the narrow vaulthke outlet was so
choked that at last it froze in one mass across, and left no
space at all for the Dranse. The icy dam reached straight
across the valley, resting on both sides on the mountain
walls, and had attained a height of over 200 feet. The
water of the river, of course, rose higher and higher, and
at length formed a lake half an hour long and 700 feet
vride. The inhabitants of Lourtier, Champsec, Chables,
down to Martigny, watched anxiously its continuous in
crease of volume. Its pressure became constantly greater
and more riolent, and it might be calculated that as the
warm season approached the dam would not have sufficient
strength of resistance to oppose a complete outburst. The
inhabitants of many places made a . formal emigration,
flying at the beginning of the mUder season vrith goods
and chattels to the Alps. Engineers, especiaUy Venetz,
visited the place, and adrised that a great channel shoidd
be hewn in the ice above the point to which the water had
reached, so that if the lake stiU rose it might find a suf
ficient outlet through it ; at the same time it was beheved
that the flovring water would melt the opening deeper
and enlarge it, and that thus graduaUy the whole lake
might be discharged vrithout damage. Unfortunately, con
sultations and adrice lasted too long. A tunnel 700 feet
long had indeed been driven into the ice under Venetz's
orders, which at first fuMUed its required purpose, and let
off a considerable part of the lake without damage. But
the hot June sun and the warmth of the water so penetrated
and gnawed into the icy dam, that on the aftemoon of
the 16th of June it could no longer support the pressure,
and gave way; a volume of five hundred and thirty
mUHons of cubic feet of water rushed down the vaUey at
once, vrith furious speed Everything that lay hi the way

THE GLACIER. 217
of the hurrying unchained waves became their prey ;
the tearing flood overwhelmed whole vUlages, and more
than five hundred houses in aU ; pines, slender and shaft-
Hke as the cedars of Lebanon, struggled in the waves
with blocks of ice as big as houses, and cannoned vrith a
duU roar of thunder against the dislodged blocks of stone.
Debris, pebbles, and mud covered the whole Vai de Bagne
and the Valais, down to the Lake of Geneva. Although aU
the inhabitants were hastily warned by signals of the avriiU
event, thirty-four persons lost thefr Hves. The damage
was valued at a mUlion of old Svriss francs. The evU,
however, did not cease vrith this terrible accident : the
very next year the dam had grown to an almost equal
height, and threatened a repetition of the catastrophe.
The engineer Venetz then led spring water, by means of
long wooden troughs, on to the dam of ice, and divided
one part of the ice after another by this warm water,
which cut Hke a saw, so that the danger was averted
vrithout damage. Since that time the operation has to
be regularly repeated every year.
A side-piece to the Gietroz glacier is the Bies glacier in
the much frequented valley of St. Nicolas (Valais). It
hangs at an inchnation of 45° to the eastern slope of the
colossal Weisshorn, and would come down vrith its whole
mass if the frost did not fix it to the ground. The awful
glacier falls of the years 1636, 1736, 1786, and especiaUy
that of the 19th of December, 1819, have shown that the
weight occasionaUy overbalances this means of connection.
The last faU destroyed, merely by the blast of air, the vU
lage of Eanda, on the other side of the vaUey, on the
slopes of the Grabenhorn. Houses and stables were
thrown far away overturned, mUlstones were found a
cannon-shot from thefr former position, roof-beams were
thrown a quarter of an hour higher up mto the forests,

218 THE ALPS.
the point of the church tower stuck inverted in a meadow
like a wedge driven into the ground, cattle lay crushed
after being carried several hundred yards through the afr,
and near a hundred houses were injured. Strangely
enough, only few persons lost thefr Hves in the cata
strophe. The glacier has again so increased in mass since
this last faU, that a simUar event may be dreaded perhaps
after no very long interval.

219

CHAP. xxm.
ALPENGLUHEN.
We have reached the lofty goal of our joumey — near
8900 feet high. We are standing on the top of the Faul
hom ; a golden July evening, saturated vrith sunHght, Hes
on the mountains round, and aU nature seems to be draw
ing deep breaths of dehcious recovery from the oppressive
weight of the sultry heat. How grandly and t)oldly the
giant snowtops of the Bernese Oberland rise up, ranging
with indescribable clearness up to " the Hght-penetrated
heaven's blue, which surrounds the whole world vrith its
gentle arms ; " — the broad rocky furrowed pyramid of the
Wetterhorn, vrith its smooth breast of snow, the steep
Schreckhorner behind, and thefr proud domineering neigh
bour, the sohtary Finsteraarhom, against which leans the
whole chain of the Viescherhorner ; then right in front
the mighty rock-face of the Eiger, and, looking over his
shoulders, the snowy hood of the Monk ; and then, in her
shining dress of sUver, the majestic Jungfrau, vrith her
troop of sateUites, and, far away to the right, the whole
endless labyrinth of points and chffs of the boundary Alps
towards the Valais. Every group stands out from the rest,
defined by sharply drawn Hnes. We have a broad riew
over the mustered veterans of the Bernese Alps. Warm
Hfe is stUl poured over the majestic panorama. Below,
where the chMets of Grindelwald He imbedded in thefr

220 THE ALPS.
home in the hoUow, evening has drawn in, and cast its
blue peaceful veU over the vaUey of Liitschinen.
One more look to the west. The effect of Hght is
growing weaker — the pure blue ether is losing its intense
colour, which marks off the contours of the snowy points
with such distinct lines ; it graduaUy passes into an indefi
nite afry ocean varying between blue (or perfect trans
parency) and yellow misty patches of rays. This again is
reflected over the Alps lying beneath this part of the
horizon, the Alps of the WUdhorn and Oldenhorn groups,
and on the mountains of the Engsthgen and Kienthal, so
that the interest of this part of the riew is much dimi
nished. Further again to the right, the eye sinks to the
shining levels of the Lake of Thun, behind which rise the
Alps of the vaUey of Frutigen and the Simmenthal, vrith
the straightened corner buttress of the Niesen. The
masses graduaUy melt more and more into each other ; a
warm evening haze, the yellow ochre-coloured sun mists,
envelope the lofty points, so that the outhnes lying in
front of each other are hardly to be distinguished. The
further our riew reaches, the more vague become all the
forms of the landscape ; a glistening golden ocean of mist
has swallowed everything, and the undulating " midcUe-
land " and the distant Jura are bathed in its faint waves.
What contrasts in the colour that is spread so lavishly
over hiU and vaUey ! And yet we have scarcely passed
over half the great majestic panorama. For the hght is
accumulating to the same degree over the place where the
sun is about to set, and spreads away towards the north
ern horizon. Comfortable Brienz, vrith its coffee-coloured
houses, lies below in the quiet vaUey ; flat shadows have
stretched far across the basin of the lake, and are begin
ning gently and softly to climb up the mountam shoulder
towards us. The bright " forehead of the evening's sky "

ALPENGLtJHBN. 221
has for more than an hour passed from the dweUers in the
vaUey. Solemn evening peace rests over the houses, grey
mists creep up from the pinewoods, and embrace the
twilight mountain slopes Hke soft songs of slumber.
Suddenly weU-known sounds rise up from the depths,
but distant and faint, sounding with such spfritual ten
derness, as the harmony of the spheres. It is the blower
of the Alp horn on the Giessbach below, who is perform
ing his sohtary evening tune for late guests. The echo
comes across to us from the Brienzer Eothhorn ; we hsten
long to the melancholy tones, which touch our souls with
longing. The warning of our guide interrupts the melancholy
sUence that held us aU. We turn and are astonished at
the change which has come over the giant ecHfice of the
high mountains during our short look round. The softly
rising shoulder of the Wergisthal Alp, where, on our
ascent yesterday from the Scheideck, we passed through
a flowery sea of fiery bright Alpine roses, which a few
minutes ago was stiU Hghted up by the sun, rests now in
blue shadow ; but the Eiger, the Jungfrau, and the whole
mountain chain, have a rosy tinge on thefr beds of snow
and glacier slopes, whUst thefr rocks are every second
taking a deeper colour. It is the beginning of that sub
hme spectacle, the " Alpengliihen." The sun, a rayless
scarlet baU of fire, is resting on the back of the Chasseral,
and colours aU objects stUl vrithin the power of his rays
vrith a deep purple tint. Our clothes, Hnen, even our
faces, appear of a burning orange, and the grey blouse of
our guide is a violet carmine. The dark mountain sha
dows climb the Alps with giant steps, and paralyse aU the
colours and forms which, a few moments ago, made aU the
rocky forms stand out so clearly ; but the intensity of the
Alpine glow increases equaUy. Its fire bm-ns brighter

222 THE ALPS.
every moment. Now the sun, which seems to have ex
panded to a gigantic, hitherto unknown size, disappears
}jk.e a gleaming coal in the west. Now it is a hemisphere,
resting its broad base on the Jura ; now a flat segment, a
long rounded arc, looks over the mountain chain twenty
leagues away ; now a narrow Hne — a star — a shining
point. FareweU ! great herald of blessings to the world I
It has left us ; but high up on the icy points of the
loftiest Alps it has kindled its beacons, which glow Hke
red melted metal. It is a dithyramb of flame, which na
ture sends up joyously througii the approaching night to
the friend of its Hfe.
This is not a phenomenon of every day's occurrence.
There are years in which the fuU real Alpine glow is a
rarity. What causes this deep, burning, glowing colour,
which gives its distinctive name to this grand spectacle
of nature ? Other objects may reflect the rays of the
dark red setting sun, even vrith a heightened warmer
Hght, according to their original tone of colour ; but they
never reach that intense, transparently hot carnation
which tinges the snowy points of the high Alps, under
the combined action of different cfrcumstances, on a
favourable evening. It may be the three foUovring
causes which produce the Alpine glow, — the nature and
density of the bodies which absorb and again radiate the
sun's rays, the height and position of the different sum
mits, and the striking contrast in colour between the
twihght below and the sharp Ulumination of the high
points. The neve is a mass transparent at the surface, formed
by countless legions of smaU independent crystal particles,
whose minute surfaces of reflection, scarcely visible to the
naked eye, receive the rays of the sun, and reflect them
agahi according to the dfrections of thefr faces. This

ALPENGLtJHEN. 223
power of reflection is so great that many of the Httle
crystals, which are overshadowed by a smaU projecthig
grain of snow, and thus not immediately subject to the
action of the sun's rays, receive thefr splendour at second
hand, by the rays proceeding from other neighbouring
reflecting particles. Thus the evemng glow penetrates
the half-transparent surface of the nev^, and coUects an
accumulation of rays, a developed mass of Hght, such
as is concentrated in no other objects except transparent
water and vapour gathered into clouds. We may see how
extraordinary is the power of reflection of the smaU
crystals of which snow consists, when the wind raises the
hght snow-dust, and it wanders sparkhng hke diamonds
in the breeze.
The second special cfrcumstance which produces the
Alpine glow is to be sought in the high position of the
snow relatively to the depression of the sun. That me
teorological process which causes the evening red in the
atmosphere gives thefr glow also to the neve. When we
stand on a high mountain, we see the sun sink as a red
rayless baU, whilst it disappears only as a deep yeUow
from the inhabitants of the plain, though in its fidl glory
of rays. The cause of this risible change of colour
depends upon the vapours in the lower strata of the
atmosphere being rapidly condensed in the cool of the
evening, which, Hke aU watery vapours, aUow principaUy
the red end of the spectrum to pass through them. Now,
the longer the Hne which the sun's rays have to de
scribe through the atmosphere fiUed with dense watery
vapour, the more intense appears the red colour : thus,
the higher the point Hes which is Uluminated by the
setting sun, the more powerful and fiery is its iUuminatiou
under a cloudless sky. But these causes would not be
able to produce the intensity of the Alpine glow, were it

224 THE ALPS.
not for a thfrd co-operative cause depending upon an
ocular deception, namely, the contrast in'colour between
the dark blue of the earth's shadow, in the profound
depths of the vaUeys, and the glowing colour of the
neve. The most brUHant plays of colour result precisely
from contrasts between sharp Ulumination and want of
Hght. A firework burnt by day is dead a.nd duU, because
Hght can be as Httle reheved against Hght as white upon
white, or black upon black ; it is the dark background of
night which gives thefr sparkhng splendour to rockets.
The glow which spread round the Alpine summits has
cHsappeared, a cold livid paUor spreads over the whole
broad snow mountain. It is a strange frosty view. The
passage from the fuU splencHd ornamentation of fiery
iUuminatiou and sharp form to this icy, barren blue grey
indefiniteness, is too sharp and sudden, a likeness of
death. But it is not long before Hght returns to the co
louring. Look towards the place of the sunset. A
boundless field of the most fiery evening red flames up
and pours a warm gentle tone over glaciers and snowy
wastes. Once more a Hght rosy hue touches them, but
it is faint, — faint as the last smUe of a dying friend.
Smik in deep peace, the vast majestic realm of Alps
surrenders itself to the soothing dream 6f the day's
charms. AU the humming, buzzing life in the afr is
dead : the impudent beetles that bounce against you, the
light-vringed tribe of butterflies, the legions of shameless
penetrating stinging gnats, aU that is cracUed in summer
in the warm afr of day, — all have sought thefr quiet stUl
sleeping places beneath flower-beUs, leaves, or in the clefts
of bark and of sphntered rocks. The moths awake from
thefr day-dreams, and count the seconds vrith their feathery
feelers tUl their heavy flight is to begin ; owls and bats
make thefr airy rounds ; and where animal Hfe seems to

ALPENGLUHEN. 225
have ceased in the night, the plant Hfe rises in more luxu
riance. But a cold cutting wind breathes over our mountahi-
top. We take refuge in Peter Bohren's hospitable inn,
at the warm stove, the steaming soup, for outside it is
deep night, and the starry vault shines over the whole
universe — a hymn of praise to the Almighty Creator.

226 THE ALPS.

CHAP. XXIV.
ALPINE SUMMITS.
The ascent of lofty, difficult, and rarely reached Alphie
summits is something quite different in nature from the
journeys to the Eigi and FauUiorn undertaken to satisfy
a noble curiosity.* These ascents belong to the elite of
the travelUng world. Only thfrst for knowledge and bold
inquiring spirit — that " holy impulse to trace out, in the
serrice of science, the framework and hfe of the earth,
the secret connection of aU created things," which en
couraged such men as Forster, Alexander von Humboldt,
and Bonpland ; as Clapperton, Barth, Vogel, and Living
stone ; as FrankHn, Eoss, Johann von Tschudi, Burne, the
brothers Schlagintweit, and other heroes of polar and
equatorial expeditions, — and which drove the bold De
Saussure, Hegetschwyler, Hugi, Forbes, Agassiz, Desor,
to the mountain summits stiff with ice, and aU but bare
of organic life — or, finaUy, the free manly pleasure in the
overpowering charm offered by the strange and wildly
subhme — can excite to such dangerous undertakings.
They are deeds for which courageous decision and firm
vrill, great bodily strength and endurance are requfred, —
* The difficulty and danger of high mountain ascents, and conse
quently the impropriety of undertaking them " without some scien
tific object," are considerably exaggerated in this chapter. If the
truth were known, I suspect that many of the so-called scientific
ascents have had pleasure and excitement for their object much
more than science. — Trans,

ALPINE SUMMIT.

ALPINE SUMMITS. . 227
which cannot be carried out vrithout deprivation and
willing abnegation of accustomed comforts. They are
also actions which require as weU inteUectual as material
preparation. Without a conscious purpose, without study,
and scientific support, such expeditions become idle,
worthless, and resultless risks, which can only produce the
empty boast of " having been up there." What K. MiiUer
says so strikingly in his views of the German Alps about
traveUing in general ; that knowledge of nature and of
the secrets she reveals to us can' alone give fuU genuine
enjoyment in travel ; that thousands yearly return from
the Alps vrithout having leamt to know, because they
were deficient in the internal rision ; is true a hundred
fold of those who spend time and money, trouble and
risk to life, to be able to boast of an ascent of Mont
Blanc. And, finaUy, a mountain ascent of this kind which
seeks a point above 10,000 feet high, ought to be un
dertaken vrith great care and weU grounded knowledge.
In those dead dreary fields of ice, bare of aU vegetation,
where for mUes no human help or protective shelter is
to be found, where no hospitable welcome greets the
weary traveller, in those awful deserts aU that belongs
to the most pressing wants of Hfe, meat and drink, ftiel
and covering, must be carried up. To cross abysses,
chmb precipices, hew steps in smooth waUs of ice, and
wander with as Httle danger as possible over sHppery
fields of snow, there is need of ladders and ropes,
axe and crampons, the carriage of which together with
compass and telescope, thermometers and barometers,
maps, drawing and cookmg apparatus, is an apprecia
ble hindrance to progress. If a single traveUer ascends
Mont Blanc, for which three days are necessary, he has
need of a complete regiment of four gmdes, each of
Q 2

228 THE ALPS.
whom has 120 francs and a Napoleon " trinkgeld " when
the journey is over, and to provide for the needs of five
persons, five additional porters are necessary, each of
whom has 50 or 60 francs for the journey, so that the
cost amounts to between 900 and 1000 francs.*
There are as many guides in the Alps as sands on the
seashore, but very few who possess the necessary stuff
for central expeditions. Not only bodUy strength and
local knowledge are requfred, courage, prudence, a quick
eye, and above aU, presence of mind must accompany
the other necessary quahties of a guide. Woe to him
who, ignorant of the mountains, is in charge of men
who have no mountain craft ; he is as good as lost. But
there are guides, chamois hunters and wUd hay cutters
by trade, who have so sharpened their sense of locahty
by long practice, that in places untouched by an alpen
stock, where their foot has never trod before, they stUl can
at a glance see the way, through labyrinths of rock and
icy wastes, which leads to their object. A guide gifted
vrith such sure talents for locahty was Maduz of Matt in
the Kleinthal of Glarus (a Suabian by birth), who, vrith a
warm sense of natural beauty, was especiaUy careful of
Ihs cHents and thoroughly skilful. When Herr Studer of
Berne and M. Ufrich of Ziirich ffrst ascended the Monte
Leone in the Valais, and Professor 0. Heer of Ziirich (a
weU known botanist and entomologist) first ascended Piz
Linard in the Lower Engadine, they took Maduz, who
had never been there before, and yet he guided them
safely and comfortably up. Another guide, who ac
companied Hugi and Agassiz for many years, and made
pUgrimages vrith them to the Finsteraarhom, Jungfrau,
* Two (not three) days at most are spent on the ascent. The charges
for guides, porters, &c., represent not what is really in the least useful
or necessary, but what the system at Chamouni formerly contrived
(and perhaps still contrives) to extort from unwary travellers. — Trans,

ALPINE SUMMITS. 229
Schreckhorner, and other points of the first rank, and
always led the whole expedition, was the courageous
Jacob Leuthold of Im Boden, Hashthal. We shaU hear
of them both again in the foUowing pages.
The highest point hi Europe, Mont Blanc, was
ascended amongst the first by D. Paccard of Geneva,
accompanied by Jacques Bahnat of Chamouni, in the year
1786. De Saussure, vrith eighteen guides and porters,
foUowed him on the 1st and 2nd of August in the
next year. Since that time it has been often and without
any results ascended by brave men, and now hardly a
summer passes, in which it is not attacked by many
strangers, especiaUy EngUshmen. The ifrst attempts at
ascending the higher summits of the German Alps were
much later ; the first was the Ortler Spitz, by orders of
the Archduke John of Austria, by the mountain officer
Gebhard and the hunter Joseph Pichler, in September
1804-5. The Jungfrau was next ascended by the bro
thers Meier of Aarau, on the 3rd of August, 1811, and
on the 3rd of September, 1812 ; a thfrd ascent was made
by sis peasants from Grindelwald on the 10th of Septem
ber, 1828 ; and a fourth on the 28th of August, 1841,
by Professors Agassiz, Forbes, Desor, and Duchateher ;
and finaUy a fifth on the 14th of August, 1842, by Herr
Gotheb Studer of Berne. Shice then fr has never been
visited for scientific purposes. At the time of the first
ascent of the Jungfrau took place the first attempt at
an ascent of the Finsteraarhom, the highest point in the
Bernese Alps, by MM. Meier, which was afterwards at
tempted with great trouble by the naturaUst Hugi of
Solothurn, and in the years 1828-9 oiUy two guides
reached the highest point on the third ascent. Herr
Sulger of Basle first succeeded hi August, and on the
6th of September, 1842, in reaching the top twice and
Q 3

230 THE ALPS.
planting a flag on it. Since then this point has never been
reached.* The Schreckhorner are so inaccessible that
the highest point has to this time never been reached ;
on the 8th of August, 1842, the naturalists Escher von
der Linth, Gfrard, and Desor tried their luck, but only
reached the top of the Gross Lanteraarhorn. The ascent
said to have been made by the Englishman Eustace
Anderson is doubted, as no proofs have been given of
it.f The Wetterhorn (or Hash Jungfrau) was long con
sidered hiaccessible. On the 28th of August, 1844, MM.
Desor, DoUfuss, and others reached the southern point,
caUed the Eosenhorn, and two days afterwards the guides
Bannholzer and Jaun are said to have reached the highest
point. Since 1845, when MM. Fankhauser and Dr. Eoth
of Berne reached the middle point of the mountam on
the Oth of July, it has never been risited.J AU other
ascents of important summits of the Alps have taken
place quite lately.
Attention was early paid to the Monte Eosa by
M. Vincent, 1819, Zumstein, 1820 and 1822, and Ludvrig
von Welden, 1822 ; but none of these reached the highest
pomt, but only the lower points of the nine-pointed
colossus now called after thefr names ; Vincent Pyramide,
Zumstein Spitz, and Ludvrig's Hohe. After vain attempts
to reach the Hochste Spitz, made by Professors Ordi
naire and Puiseux, 1847, Professor Ufrich of Ziirich,
and Studer of Berne, 1848 and 1849, and the brothers
* It has been several times reached by English travellers ; amongst
others, for scientific purposes, by Professor Tyndal. — Trans.
f See Mr. Anderson's account in " Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers." Mr.
Anderson did not ascend the Schreckhorn. Possibly some of his guides
or porters may have said that he did so. — Trans.
X Mr. WiUs made the' first ascent of the northern and most diflieult
point, with Ulrich Lauener and others. See his " Wanderings in the
High Alps." It has since been reached by several Englishmen, amongst
others, by the translator. — Trans.

ALPINE SUMMITS. 231
Schlagintweit, 1851 and 1852, the Messrs. Smyth of
Great Yarmouth succeeded in reaching the highest point
in 1855. We shall several times retum to it in the
course of our narrative. There were similar attacks on
the Todi in Glarus, and many others. We wUl describe
the course and adventures of such an expedition some
what nearer.
The sleeping huts improvised for passing the night
are amongst the most necessary preparations for glacier
journeys. These are of course only necessary when the
ascent of a mountain occupies more than a day ; as is the
case in the Mont Blanc, Finsteraarhom, and Jungfrau, or
when a longer stay in the higher plateaux of snow
and ice is necessary for the sake of scientific inquiries,
observations of temperature, ancl glacier studies. It is
then either a vaulted, niche-Hke, overhanging rock on the
edge of the accumulations of ice ancl snow, or a cave
which keeps off weather, and must act as a bivouac. As,
for example, the Eussian Du Hamel, formed on the
Grands Mulcts, 9000 feet above the sea, in the ascent of
Mont Blanc, or the Enghsh phUosopher Forbes, in 1842,
in the recesses of the Mer de Glace, belowthe Tacul, 7000
feet above the sea; ancl in the same year the famous
mountaineer and lover of Alpine scenery, Herr Gottheb
Studer (of Berne), at the foot of the Wannehorn, near
the Aletsch Glacier (about 8000 feet above the sea), on
his ascent of the Jungfrau ; or an actual hut is buUt of
rocky fragments, on the moring foundation of a moraine,
or even on the firmly frozen neve itself Such barracks,
which in thefr naive style of architecture remind one of
the early attempts at buUding by uncivilised people, and
compared with which the most miserable chalets are
generaUy comfortable dweUings, were erected by De
Saussure, on the Col du Geant, at a height of 10,000
Q 4

232 THE ALPS.
feet ; Hugi, on his attempted ascent of the Jungfrau from
the Eoththal, and aftervvards on tliQ Unteraargletscher,
Loetschengletscher, and at the foot of the Finsteraarhom.
Their form and construction are of antedilurian simph
city. Four side waUs. are generaUy constructed of slabs
gneiss and mica, laid on each other, forming a long
rectangle on the ground, a few feet high, and covered
with sods of grass (where it is to be had) and cushions
of moss torn from the stones. A hole left on one side
forms the portal of the buUding. Over this rough fold
alpenstocks are laid horizontaUy at intervals to serve as
rafters, and a long wooUen covering spread over them,
and held fast by heavy stones, forms the -roof
The cabin buUt at the Abschwung, on the Aar glacier
(five hours from the Grimsel inn) in 1840, for Professors
Agassiz, Carl Vogt, Desor, Nicolet, Coulon, and Pour-
talet, and afterwards restored, gained European celebrity.
These phUosophers humorously christened it " Hotel des
Neufchatelois ;" it was inhabited for weeks in several
summers, and received many risits from traveUers. Pro
fessor Forbes of Edinburgh and Mr. Heath of Cambridge
spent three weeks in it in 1841. Desor gives humorous
pictures of this dweUing. The icy floor of the glacier
was coursed with slabs of schist, over which were spread
a thick layer of vrithered wUd hay, and waxed Hnen
cloth to keep off the damp. That was the common
mattress of the six phUosophers' bedroom. Bedclothes
and wooUen coverlets completed the arrangements, which
thus gained a roughly comfortable appearance. A kitchen
and dining-room were estabhshed before the sleeping-
room, also imder the roof of the huge black block
which supported the whole buUding. A cloth hung
across a fixed staff served for curtain and door. Below a
neighbouring block were the magazine for provisions

ALPINE SUMMITS. 233
and ceUar. When dinner time approached, the hungry
phUosophers coUected, and though there was little change
in the normal dishes of rice and mutton, cooked by the
guides, they aU confessed that a dinner in the open air,
on a table of gneiss, in front of the Glacier Hotel, was a
luxury. The cup of coffee and cigar after dinner, hnme-
chately under the Schreckhorner and Finsteraarhom
heightened the enjoyment of Hvely discussions. An hoiu:
later each went to his inqufries. The evenings were
short. They went to sleep, Hke fowls, dfrectly after
supper, because the temperature fell quickly to freezing
point. AU the numerous brooklets that trickled over the
glacier by day disappeared, one after the other ; the
murmur of their waterfaUs ceased, and utterly soundless
deep sUence sank with night over the broad dead icy
level The brave mountaineers, however, suffered nothing
from frost ; the sheepskin coverings used in the Grisons,
and especiaUy in the Valaisan Alps, produced such warmth,
that it became almost unbearable to remain under them,
in spite of the cold vrithout. Hence these truly " golden
fleeces" form one of the most necessary parts of the
baggage of a glacier expedition fer every traveUer in
the High Alps.
The ascent of unusual summits of the Alps would not
be a task worthy of so much consideration for a man of
strong muscles, and free from giddiness, if some con
tinuity prevaUed in the parts to be overcome, if the
glacier and its crevasses, the nev^ and its chasms, the
high snow, in its depth and consistency, remained the
same, year in year out, and skilful guides with local
knowledge could therefore tell confidently beforehand
which would be the best way, at what times the greatest
exertion of strength would be needed, and the most
threatening danger be encountered. But experience

234 THE ALPS.
shows that the change of aspect of a region never passes
through such constant varieties and transformations as
in the loftiest Alpine regions. Where hoUows and deep
basins of snow are to be seen to-day, perhaps next
year hiUs of neve vrill be towering ; where this sum
mer paths across the slopes of neve rise gently and easy
to be passed, rents in the snow and ridges of rock vrill
appear the year after, if there is little snow and long
continuance of heat, and thus the best guides may be
completely tlirown out. On account of such uncertain
ties (not to mention the possibUity of sudden storms) an
expedition must always be prepared for the worst.
Cautious mountaineers have the fundamental rule — to
keep as long as possible upon the " aberen," that is, on
the turf or rock free from snow, because the foothold is
generaUy safer, chmbing less troublesome, and generaUy
progress more rapid and better than on the element of
snow and ice, strange and hostile to man.* It is about
the same contrast as betvveen traveUing on dry land and
water. Only on decaying crumbhng stone and steep
slopes of debris, and in descending, when one generaUy
chooses the most dfrect Hne, the snow is preferred.
The crevasses generaUy present the first important
hindrances to direct and rapid ascent. There is scarcely
a considerable Alpine point to be named whose base is
not surrounded by an icy stream, or from whose flanks
one more or less formed does not slide. Turning the
crevasses, when it is possible to see across the glacier, is
certainly tiresome, but generaUy not dangerous. There
are, however, uneven glaciers, with swelhng mounds, such
as the Glacier de la Vanoise (between Mount Cenis and
* This rule cannot be said to be even generally true. When a
glacier is not very much crevassed, it usually aifords safer, easier, and
quicker going than rocks. — Trans.

ALPINE SUMMITS. 235
the Vai d'Isere), where it is impossible to keep to any
given dfrection. Wandering over a glacier vrith such
crossing crevasses may lead into the most dangerous posi
tions, because from the absolute similarity of the crevasses
to each other it is as hard to recognise the line which
leads to one's object as to find one's way back. If mist
overtakes unskUftil people in such a labyrinth they may
consider themselves very lucky if they get out again.
Very probably the traveUers wdio mysteriously disap
peared on the Gries glacier (pass from the Valais to the
Vai Formazza) towards the end of August 1849, the
brothers Leonard from Paris and Dr. Wolfrost of Frank
fort, about whom the fable was long cfrculated that Peter
Zybach, the former host of the Grimsel, had had them
robbed and murdered, feU victims to such a misfortune.
The later in the summer such regions are risited the more
crevassed they wUl be found.
No less dangerous than the crevasses are the unper
ceived snow-bridges which overvault them. They arise
in continuous snowfaUs by the same strange aggregation
of single snowflakes and crystals of ice which, even in the
lowlands, forms overhanging hoods in gardens or on
sohtary piUars and posts, or produces the " snowshields "
that cause avalanches in the mountains. When the
whole glacier is covered vrith fresh snow, such snow-
bridges cannot be at at once recognised. If, meanwhile,
it has ramed on the snow-bridges, or the sun has weak
ened the upper layer, so that this condenses as it sinks
and freezes again, one can pass vrithout danger ; a snow-
bridge a foot thick, if its span is not too great, vrill bear a
man. To provide against their frequent yieldings in
glacier walks, the guides knot themselves and the travel
lers together at distances of some four paces with a rope
passed round the body, in order that if one shiks the

236 THE ALPS.
others may easUy drag him out. A neglect of this mea
sure of precaution has afready caused many melancholy
accidents. In the year 1821, the young clergyman
Meuron, from the Pays de Vaud, feU into a crevasse 121
feet deep, on the top of Grindelwald glacier, and was
drawn up dead some time afterwards, after turning off
the stream which flowed below the glacier, and buried in
the churchyard at Grindelwald. This glacier received its
latest victim on the 10th of June, 1860. In the same
way Dr. Bifrstenbinder, of Berhn, lost his Hfe on the
Oetzthal glacier, in the Tyrol, in 1846, and a Eussian
gentleman on the Findelen glacier in 1859. In July 1836,
the guide Michel Devouasson fell into such a crevasse on
Glacier du Talefre, near the Jardin, but worked his way
painfuUy up by the help of his pocket knife, with which
he cut steps in the wall of ice. His knapsack, which he
lost on the occasion, was found in bits ten years after,
4300 feet further dovra, at the foot of the Couvercle, re
jected by the glacier. In the same way a chamois hunter
who had faUen into a crevasse on the Eosegg glacier
saved himself; the waUs of the crevasse, over sixty feet
deep, being too far apart, he tied his alpenstock to one
leg and thus, stretching across the crevasse, slowly worked
himself up. (!)
In 1803 the Chamois hunter, Peter Moor of Gadmen,
feU into a crevasse on the Trift glacier, but was lucky
enough to lodge on a projection of ice where he could
hold on. The rusthng waters murmured in the awful
depths, and a cold icy air breathed upwards from the
abyss. Strangely enough, he could hear the cries of his
comrades sharp and clear, vrithout their being able to un
derstand his loud cries in answer. To save their unfor
tunate fi-iend the others went four hours off to the ffist
houses, and did not return tUl near evening with the

ALPINE SUMMITS. 237
necessary materials for help. After the unlucky man in
the icy cleft had fastened the rope that was thrown to
him tightly round his body, and had been drawn up some
feet, the rope broke, and he feU again on to his ledge.
The rope now was too short, because half of it was below.
Nothing could be done but to perform the four hours' jour
ney there and back by night to come vrith a stronger rope
next morning to the unfortunate buried ahve, and save
him after sixteen hours of anxiety. StUl stranger is
the foUovring case : On the 7th of July, 1787, Christian
Bohren came over the Upper Grindelwald glacier, be
tween the Wetterhorn and the Mettelberg, in company with
a certain In. Aebnit, when suddenly a snowbridge gave
way under him, and he fell into a chasm sisty-four feet
deep. He broke his arhi and dislocated his wrist, but did
not lose his senses. LuckUy he found an opening below
the glacier, which the Weissbach, flovring from the Wet
terhorn, had excavated. He crept toilsomely through
this tunnel, 130 feet long, along the course of the water,
under the ice, and in this way escaped the fate of being
starved to death.
De Saussure, as he descended from the AiguUle du
Midi in 1786, suddenly broke through the snow vrith both
feet, but so that he remained sitting on a saddle of ice,
whUe his feet hung down freely into a deep abyss. His
guide, Pierre Balmat, close behind him, had the same
accident. He caUed out quickly, " Keep quiet, sir, don't
move the least, or you are lost." Pierre, vrithout movhig
a hmb, caUed to the other guide, who had not sunk, to
search quickly which way the crevasse ran, and what was
its breadth. MeanwhUe he conjured De Saussure to remain
as quiet as possible, because the sHghtest motion would
infaUibly cause the faU of both into the abyss. When
the second guide had carefully reconnoitred the ground.

238 THE ALPS.
and discovered the shape of the crevasse, he laid two long
alpenstocks crossways before De Saussure, by whose help
he rose carefuUy from his unsteady seat, and saved him
self, and then stretched out his hand to save Pierre in the
same way from his dangerous position. Invention is
never quicker than when the utmost need is pressing.
This appeared, to finish the subject of snow bridges, on
Hugi's retum from the Finsteraarhom. The snow was so
weakened in the aftemoon by the warm temperature that
every moment one of the company sank up to his breast.
Since the crevasses crossed the way, often ten or twenty
feet broad, and were generaUy vaulted over vrith a thin
weak crust of snow, the exceUent guide Jacob Leut
hold ordered them to lie flat on thefr stomachs, and thus
to pass the awful abysses shpping or wrigghng, brealdng
the danger by distributing the weight of their bodies over
a greater surface. Herr Weilenmann practised the same
precaution on his ascent of Piz Corvatsch and Piz Lat, in
the Bernina group.
When the mountaineer has crossed the lengtii and
breadth of the glacier, it frequently occurs that he meets
vrith unexpected difficulties in his passage to the &m
rocks, when he has again to tread them. In consequence
of its greater capacity for warmth, the rock generaUy so
melts away the border of the glacier close to it, that
there is a gap of four, six, ten, or even twenty feet
between them. If no point can be found from which
the traveUer can reach the rocks, made sHppery by the
melting water, by a successful leap, he has no way but to
be let down by a rope.
In many cases, however, it is not necessary or possible
to get on to the said rock ; but there is a gradual and
direct passage from the ice to the snow. This is
generally less crevassed on account of its granular and

ALPINE SUMMITS. 239
less coherent structure, and from its greater capacity for
motion and bending. There are snowfields over which
it is possible to pass for many hours vrithout meetmg
with the least hindrance, which are therefore especiaUy
favourable to rapid progress. But there are others
which, in consequence of the uneven and rent bed of
rock on which they rest, are crossed by rents and chasms,
knovra. under the name of Fernschriinde (Eimayes).
Terribly beautiful ghmpses open into such great caves
in the neve. They are often of immeasurable depth,
Hghted up inside by a transparent azure so magical and
tender that one is reminded of Kiihleborn's enchanted
palace in La Motte Fouque's " Undine." The points of ice
hanging from the cornices and ridges, Hke stalactites in
hmestone caverns, increase the marveUous appearance,
and when they reach to the bottom of the precipitous
hoUows, they appear Hke the supporting piUars of vaulted
cathedrals, and are weU fitted to present aU kinds of
fabulous arabesques to the fancy. The most inconvenient
crevasses or mountain ascents are those which occur at
the foot of lofty ridges, from which the slopes of n^ve
sink steeply down. They surround most mountain
summits, and imitate their figure in corresponding out
Hnes. When a mountain has several terraces of snow,
there is generaUy a " bergschrund " near each terrace, and
every summit may have two or three of them. Some
times, when much snow faUs, the " bergschrund " is fiUed
vrith avalanches, and on this ground years of much
snow are favourable to ascents of the High Alps.
The greatest difficulty to be overcome generaUy con
sists in the opposite waU of ice or snow being con
siderably higher than the standing point on this side.
When the guides are prepared for such an occurrence,
and have brought ladders vrith them, the crevasse is

240 THE ALPS.
generaUy easy to cross. Such a ladder is formed of a
thick, tough pole, some twenty feet long, through which
are driven cross pieces to serve as steps. But it happens
that a mountain expedition has to get on without ladders,
and then a boldness which despises all danger frequently
produces the most adventurous actions. Herr G. Studer
relates some of the most interesting. On his ascent of
the Mont Velan, undertaken vrith Herr WeUenmann, at
the end of August 1856, after crossing the Glacier de
Broz, he came, at the foot of a huge pUlar of rock which
rose from the neve straight towards the highest point of
the mountain, to a yawning " bergschrund." The guides
Andre Dorsat and Pierre Morey crossed the crevasse
vrith accustomed boldness at its narrowest point, and
climbed along the opposite ice wall up a standing-place,
made secure by a huge projecting rock. From here
they threw down a rope's end. Herr WeUenmann was
the first to attempt the giddy ascent, passing the rope
round his right arm, and aUowing himself to be puUed
over the abyss, whUst he steadied himself by holding his
alpenstock in his left hand, with its iron point driven
firmly into the ice. Herr Studer foUowed in the same
way. StUl more compHcated was the passage of the
" bergschrund," on the ascent of the Grand Combin, by the
same two observers in 1858. The enormously deep
crevasse was only some two feet broad ; but the opposite
waU of ice rose verticaUy to a height of seven feet more.
The guides FeUey (of Lourtier) here took counsel
quickly. Two long alpenstocks were bored firmly into
the opposite waU of ice at a height of some five feet
above the opening of the crevasse, to serve as stephke
props for the feet. Then Benjamin FeUey let Lumself
down on his hands and knees as near as possible to the
crevasse. His brother Maurice stood on his back and

ALPINE SUMMITS. 241
shoulder, used this Hving stafrcase, which graduaUy rose,
and the two sticks, as supports for his feet, and then
digging his hands deeply in, swung himself actively and
vigorously into the slope of snow above, which was not
so hard and less steeply inclined, tUl he had gained a
safe place. When he had reached it, the rope was
thrown to him ; a second guide tied the end round his
body, and managed to chmb up more easUy by its assist
ance. The others were drawn up in the same way
together with the baggage. Only the last guide had to
perform the manoeuvre rather more awkwardly, as he
had not the props of the two alpenstocks, which had
been afready drawn up. On their return, they had to
reach the level of snow, seven feet below them, by a- bold
leap ; one of the guides had leapt first, and received the
others with open arms.
Such crevasses have often proved impassable, and a
complete ascent of the mountain-top has therefore faded.
This fatahty interrupted the late courageous climber,
Hoffmann of Basle, on the Todi, in 1846. A snow
crevasse, sixty feet broad, below the highest walls of
snow, between the Todi and the Piz Eusein, repulsed
him and his celebrated guides, 344 feet below the top.
Before the ascent of high mountain points had become
so popular as it is now, wonderful legends were told, even
in good books, of all kinds of bodily aUments to which
traveUers in such heights were exposed. Sometimes the
afr was represented to be so extravagantly rarefied that
breathing became almost impossible. Then blood was
said to pour from the mouth, nose, and ears of the storm
ing parties on mountain tops ; congestion, pressure on
the breast and stomach, and aU kinds of inconveniences
were represented as erils unavoidable by every one who
penetrated to heights of 10,000 feet and upwards. Even
R

242 THE ALPS.
a mountain sickness, corresponding to sea sickness, was
invented vrith its symptoms, frritations, remissions, crises,
&c., and a formal doctrine of medical remedies was op
posed to it. The mountain climbers of our days ^ow
nothing of such sickness. Here and there a man may
bleed at the nose, but certainly only in consequence of the
increased circulation caused by the effort of the ascent ;
inconveniences may happen to people who are especiaUy
liable to disorders of the stomach, and weariness is a very
natural consequence of the bodUy effort when one is
walking vrith great exertion for six or eight hours
' uphiU in rarefied afr and amongst many dangers. The
only reaUy existing phenomena whicii exercise some m-
fluence on the body and its normal functions, are the
scarcely to be avoided burning thfrst*, with an absence
of decided appetite, which mountaineers very signifi
cantly caU thfrst-hunger, and the inflammation which
threatens the eyes, and may end in the so-called " snow
blindness," if the organs of rision are not guarded by blue
or grey spectacles agahist the constant intensely bum
ing influences of the dazzHng reflections from the snow,
after a journey of hours over the neve. But this radia
tion of Hght from the snow attacks not only the eyes, but
every exposed part of the body, especiaUy the face, when
not protected by a colom-ed veil. These effects are so
marked that a complete burning of the skin, as in the
most powerful heat of the sun, takes place, followed by
bhsters and wounds. VeUs certainly interrupt the view,
ancl considerably increase the heat by interfering vrith
freedom of breathing. To refresh themselves, the guides
make snowbaUs and place them in thefr necks, a means
of cooling which does not hurt a strong man in such re-
* It is easily avoided by a little training. — (Trans.)

ALPINE SUMMITS. 243
gions, where, besides, body and soul are unfettered and in
dependent of external influences.
We return to the mountain walk. The snow crevasses
are not the last difficulties to be overcome ; new ones ac
cumulate, which may be dangerous under certain circum
stances. Such are ice slopes. At considerable heights
the sun or the warm wind melts the surface of the snow
on steep slopes frequently to a depth of several feet.
The water released by the warmth from its crystaUisation
penetrates the snow and freezes again at night. Hence
arises a surface of ice, which, to make a lame comparison,
resembles the smooth ice of the lowlands, only that it is '
far more thick, compact, and massive. To chmb such
ridges of ice demands much labour, trouble, and patience.
Here the axe must help to hew steps in the tough ma
terial. It wants a good instrument dfrected by a skUful
hand ; if it once faUs from the hand, which easily grows
stiff, there is a break in the calculation and a blank in the
lottery. The passage of a party under such cfrcumstances,
where step after step has to be made, leveUed, and en
sured, is then slow, wearisome, ancl freezing. On Studer's
first ascent of the Einderhorn (11,415 feet high, near the
Gemmi), 400 such steps had to be hewn in an icy slope, a
loss of several hours. It is the rule of moimtain-climbers
to ascend such an artificial stafrcase as straight as possible,
so that the face remains turned to the ice. The foot treads
far more safely with its point than with its side.
Such steep ice slopes are most dangerous when freshly
faUen snow masks the smooth surface of ice. There is no
want of stories to make one's hair stand on end in the
chapter of shps on the snow, when the new-faUen layer
has set itself in motion vrith the party of travellers over
the concealed pathway of ice. Hugi, on his second at
tempt on the Finsteraarhom, nearly lost his Hfe by such
B 2

244 THE ALPS.
a sHp, when the determined Leuthold seized him by the
arm and saved him at the last moment. The most fear
ftfl accident of this kind is that which frustrated the com
plete ascent of Mont Blanc by the Eussian phUosopher,
Hamel. He had left Chamouni on the 16th of August,
1830, in company with two EngHsh savants from the
University of Oxford, Messrs. Dornford ancl Henderson,
vrith the most skUful guides of Chamouni (Coutet, Mat.
Balmat, Favret, Jules Devouassou, &c.), and many porters
with comforts, prorisions, and mathematical and physical
instruments ; had passed the night at the Grands Mulcts,
and next day was afready in favourable weather near the
Petit Plateau, under the Dome de Goute, from which the
top of Mont Blanc can be reached in two or three hours.
The guides were afready vrishing him luck, saying that aU
difficulties were passed, no more dangers or crevices to be
feared, that no expedition had ever been carried out with
such good luck, so quickly, and such freedom from acci
dents. The whole expedition was in the best hopes, and
afready saw itself at the end of the jom-ney. Hamel
had written notes, which he was about to fasten to a
strong pigeon he had brought from Sallenches, which he
would then release to see whether it would again find its
mate in the dovecot at SaUenches, some five hours off in
a straight hne. The savants were afready rejoicing over
the place of honour which the piece of protogene broken
off vrith their own hands from the top of the highest of
European mountains would occupy in the cabinets of
London and St. Petersburg ; in short, every one was en
joying his own favourite thoughts and plans. Each
marched behind the other, following the first guide who
made the steps, and who changed vrith the others from
time to time to relieve himself No one complained,
though aU were a httle tfred by the effort. " I was stUl

ALPINE SUMMITS. 245
the last," says Herr Hamel, in the Bibliotheque Universelle.
" I generaUy walked twelve paces and then stopped, and
took fifteen breaths, resting on my alpenstock, as I felt
that I could proceed in this way without being tired. I
was looldng at the footsteps through my green spectacles
and the veU which covered my face, when I suddenly
perceived that the snow was giAdng way under me. As
I thought that I was only shpping, I tried to support my
self vrith my alpenstock on my left hand, but in vain.
The snow accumulating and rising on my fright threw
me over and covered me, and I felt myself being dragged
downwards vrith fr-resistible power. At ffrst I thought
that I was the only person affected ; but when the snow
accumulated so as to stop my breathing, I supposed that
a great avalanche was coming down from Mont Blanc and
pushing it before it. I cried out, but apparently in vain.
I saw my companions no more. I expected every mo
ment to be crushed by the mass. I stUl constantly endea
voured to turn myself round as I rolled, and apphed aU
my strength to divide the snow, in which I was, as it
were, swimming. At last I succeeded in freeing my head,
and I saw a great part of the slope in motion ; but as I
was tolerably near the edge of the part which was shding,
I endeavoured vrith all my strength to reach the firmer
snow, on which I was at last enabled to get a firm foot
ing. I now recogmsed the real danger. I saw that I
was on the brink of a crevasse which bordered the slope.
At the same time I saw Mr. Henderson's head appear out
of the snow stiU nearer to the crevasse, and somewhat
further on Mr. Dornford vrith three guides, trying with
desperate efforts to gain firmer ground as I had done.
They fortunately succeeded, but I could nowhere distin
guish the remaining five. I stUl hoped to see them creep
out of the snow, when Bahnat called to us that there
B 3

246 THE ALPS.
were some of us hi the crevasse. This news startled me
Hke a thunderstroke ; — five men buried ahve, and that
-owing to me and my friends' persuasion. Dornford threw
himself upon the snow vrith th^ wUdest gestures, and
Henderson appeared for a moment so overcome that evil
consequences might be expected. The infinite feeHng of
joy which electrified us when on examining one point we
saw the snow move first a little, then more decidedly, and
after a few moments one of those we had supposed lost
came out, is not to be described. An exulting hurrah
greeted him, and was redoubled when we saw shortly
afterwards another fight his way up. Our hopes of see
ing the other three appear were already bright — it was
in vain." After a long, toUsome, but ineffectual search, as
far as was possible in a complete want of shovels and such
implements, the whole party, after being so near their ob
ject, turned back in the deepest melancholy, as the guides
declared that new snowshps would certainly foUow these
in the places through which they had still to pass. At
nine in the evening the caravan reached the valley with
thefr terrible message. But those three victims were
sleeping the sleep of death in the icy cellars of Mont
Blanc. It is not, however, only these snowshps aUied to ground-
avalanches which threaten the traveller at considerable
heights, but also the avalanches properly so called, which
are detached overhead and may bury or kill one. A
very celebrated place of this kind, known to aU moun
taineers, is the so-called Schneerose or Schneerunse on the
Todi. It is a Httle rocky vaUey about half an hour long,
under the so-caUed " YeUow Wall," which is enclosed by
huge waUs of ice, cut off verticaUy at a considerable
height. Great blocks of ice faU from them at intervals,
which roll vrith fearful bounds to the lower end of the

ALPINE SUMMITS. 247
vaUey. As a passage through the Schneerose is always
accompanied vrith more or less danger, those who ascend
the Todi always hasten at their best, to pass this awkward
place as quickly as possible. Such a cannonade of frag
ments had nearly crushed Dr. Hegetschwyler, of Zifrich,
the weU-known botanist, and monographer of tins colossal
mountain. He was making a thfrd attempt at ascending
the Todi on the 12th of August, 1822, accompanied by
sis friends and guides. When they had reached this
terrible guUy, three persons of the expedition were
afready standing completely protected under the shelter
of overhanging rocks, and the guides were busied in
guiding the last vrith ropes through the most dangerous
point of the gorge, when there was a thundering murmur
through the desert. A glacier fall roared down from the
height of the ice-laden ridge. The anxious cry of the
guides fiUed the afr — a rush of snow from aU sides, then
an awful stiUness for two moments. Then came a louder
roar; enveloped in 'a spray of ice as if in mist, Httle
fragments of ice rushed over the precipice and through
the gorge right upon those who were stUl there. As these
pressed close to the rocks and clung to them, the stream
passed over them without any injury of importance.
Those who were standing in safety remained in stupified,
painful anxiety for two more awful moments ; then the
stream ceased, and the rescued men recognised each other
with hvely caUs. The fragments of glacier were com
pletely crushed by their deep faU, and thus rendered
almost harmless.
The arsenal of the high Alps is however not yet
finished by a great deal. The nearer we get to the
desired points, the more the sum of dangers and hin
drances accumulates. The next thing to be feared is the.
b4

248 THE ALPS.
projecting " Schnee-weheten" (or snow-cornices), which
form broad, hoUowed, deceitful curtains over fearftflly
deep abysses, over faces of rock sinking verticaUy for
several thousand feet, and without any mechanical prop.
They are only held up and supported by the frost binchng
together the drifted needles of ice, and the coherence of
the snowflakes. A trifling additional weight may loosen
such scaffoldings of snow, which project into the air hke
roofs over the cliffs, and send them down. Herr WeUen
mann observed some on the Gufferhorn (in the Adifla
group) which projected without support more than thfrty
feet, and deserved to be caUed models of bold snow
architecture. It is necessary to take good care not to
go too far out on such overhanging cornices. Great
difficulties again are prorided for the mountain-cHmber
in the decaying rock, the crumbhng fragments loosened
by erosion and the action of atmospheric influences,
either because the foot can get no hold on them and is
in constant danger of shpping, or through their giving
way above and causing a haU of stones. Thin needles of
rock, which stand up hke the spfres of a Gothic cathedral,
and have to be chmbed round on the edge of precipices,
are amongst the smaUer troubles of the last hours of the
march. The last actual central point, the utmost culmination,
is in many Alpine summits the hardest nut to be cracked.
Many an expedition, prepared vrith the utmost care, has
completely or partially faUed close mider the domineering
point, because it was only perceived too late that the
attack had been made upon the bulwark from the wrong
inaccessible side (this was the case in the attempts on
the Monte Eosa in the year 1855), or because the
stornnng party was deficient in that truly mysterious
coohiess and grim resignation, as well as in the muscular

ALPINE SUMMITS. 249
power, necessary to encounter such risks of life and death.
Some examples wiU give a sufficient Ulustration.
The last passage to the top of the Bernina Spitz (13,345
feet high) consists of a sharp icy ridge, which sinks
towards the vaUey of Eosegg, steeper than the ridge of
the steepest church-roof, in fact almost vertically, for a
good two thousand feet, and on the other side looks to
wards an amphitheatre of glacier. In the ascent of this
gigantic mass onthe 13th of September, 1850, Herr Coaz
passed the saddle with his two guides by shding along it
astride. On the Gross Glockner, the path leads to the
actual top over a sadcUe of rock thirty-eight feet long by
only three or four inches vride, Hghtly covered with
snow ; the Austrian Major Sonklar Edler von Innstadten
passed it with three companions and five guides, half
riding, half creeping, on the 4th of September, 1855.
The ascent to the Monte Eosa is similar, but stUl more
compHcated. Johann zum Taugwald, on the second ascent
after that on the 14th of August, 1855, passed the ridge
scarcely a foot wide, levelhng the snow ridge by treading
it down, free from giddiness, as though in a flat field.
Herr WeUenmann, the adventurous mountaineer, foUowed
him (by his own confession) holding his breath, and not
without a shudder, but stUl upright. The summit of the
furthest point was not even then reached ; they now had
to cross a rocky platform only a few paces in length, but
covered with smooth shining ice, whicii was graduaUy
inchned towards the waU of snow that sinks steeply
towards the Gorner glacier. When this too was passed,
an ahnost vertical chimney-Hke guUy had to be chmbed,
leading dfrectly to the highest summit. In the ascent of
it there projects a prominent slab of rock, which cannot
be passed without the help of skilful, firm, and courageous
companions. Peter zum Taugwald squeezed himself like

250

THE ALPS.

a chimney-sweeper between the walls of the cleft, his
cousin John mounted on his shoulder, and thus this last
was enabled to get his arm round the projection. He
hung over the chasm for a second. When he was once
up, the others mounted quickly, by the help of the rope.
A helpless keeper of archives, who is often mentioned in
this expedition, had to be hoisted up Hke a bundle of
goods by a crane, with the rope fastened round his body.
The unlucky man had shortly before, as they were pass
ing the giddy ridge, put his arm out of joint, and, after
long fruitless tugging and pushing, the guides, who did
not possess any particular surgical knowledge, had suc
ceeded in replacing it. A similar passage is that over the
Eoththal-sattel on the ascent of the Jungfrau ; it requires a
firm tread, eyes accustomed to abysses in order that they
may not be Hable to giddiness. This mountain, however,
leaves its most terrible moments to the very last point.
A sharply cut ridge leads up to this, whose breadth
varies from six to ten inches, whilst the slopes on both
sides have an inclination of from sixty to seventy degrees.
When Professors Agassiz, Forbes, Duchateher, and Desor
had reached it on the 28th of August, 1841, they thought
that they would never be able to get further. Jacob Leu
thold, however, maintained the contrary fearlessly, and to
prove it took off his knapsack and went forwards, so that
he was on the left side of the snow ridge, whUst he had
the sharp edge, in the most hteral sense, under his
arm, and his stick was fixed on the right side. He thus
went slowly and carefully along the precipice, treading
clown the snow as much as possible to a path, to make
the way passable for others. In the attempted ascent of
the Schreckhorn, by Professors Escher, Von der Linth
Girard and Desor, in which, however, they only reached
the top of the Great Lanteraarhorn, the party was un-

ALPINE SUMMITS. 251
expectedly stopped as they were going along the edge of
a rocky " comb ; " the path was cut off from the main
body of the mountain by a vertical notch ten feet deep,
over which the summits appeared a few hundred paces
further. This notch itself showed a sharp ridge of snow,
such as has been several times described in the last few
pages. Whilst they were stUl consulting whether to let
themselves down by the rope or to tum the hindrance,
the guide, Bannholze, without having himself tied, sprang
at one bound down to the snow saddle. A general cry
of horror ! — they thought he was lost. However, vrithout
hm-ting himself, he descended into a sitthig position on
the snow saddle, and vrithout attending to the caUing,
praying, and cursing of the other guides, he ascended the
opposite point, reached its summit, and beckoned to them
to follow. One after the other was let down by the rope,
and the whole caravan foUowed the courageous man
vrithout accident. A final difficulty awaited them close
to the summit. For some fifty feet, the ridge is so
narrow as to be scarcely eighteen inches broad, wliUe on
both sides yawn nearly vertical precipices some 4000 feet
high. Here the most courageous guides did not dare to
go upright, but crept along the place, with eyes gazing
straight before them, like quadrupeds, until they reached
the desfred summit.
To conclude with the ascent of the Finsteraarhom.
Hugi, on his third attempt at the ascent of this highest
point of the Bernese Alps, had reached the high saow
slopes on the 10th of August, 1829, which are to be seen
so plainly from aU good points of view in Northern Switz
erland, especially the Faulhorn. In order to reach the
central rocks in the highest summit of the snow and of
the Horn itself, a HteraUy hanging ice slope had to be
passed. It could only be done by hewing steps. The

252 THE ALPS.
guides Leuthold and Wahren set to work at once, struck
thefr feet firmly into the hewn steps, allowed them to
freeze on a Httle in order to stand ffrmer, and then went
on cutting. It vvas a neck-breaking moment to see them
hanging to this wall of ice. The dangerous work was
done at last, and the place had to be crossed. Leuthold
came to fetch Professor Hugi across, but told him plainly
that if he shpped, salvation was impossible, and that he, on
account of his own safety, would not even dare to give
him a helping grasp of the hand. The end of many at
tempts was that not a single man of the whole expedition
(amongst whom were many weU-prepared mountaineers)
dared to cross the ice slope. Leuthold and Wahren alone
reached the giddy top.
The moment at which one reaches a celebrated summit
after unspeakable trouble ancl risk to Hfe, has always some
thing startling, almost solemn ; it is a moment of high
feeling, when aU round in almost endless chain stretches a
far-extended horizon of mountain forms and vaUey basins.
There Hes spread at our feet the noble mighty world of
Alps, ridge beyond ridge, top beyond top, and as the eye
of a mighty ruler looks at his accession over all the peo
ples, nations, ancl races that wUl henceforth follow ffis
guidance, here too there is a spfritual taking possession,
a muster in the service of inteUigence. The expanded
mountain- world opens his own joumal for the much
traveUed mountaineer, the recollection of his summer
pains, pleasures, enjoyments and deprivations; friends of
earlier days beckon to him from aU sides, whom he recog
nises and greets, and his eye passes rapidly over all the
known heights, passes, and river-beds. There too it meets
on its way forms of reverend, proudly erected elders vrith
silver summits, rising weU above the crowd, on which it
rests thoughtftiUy ; it knows them without at once recog-

ALPINE SUMMITS. 253
nising them. Map, telescope, and guides are caUed to
help. " Ah, old feUow, you are there too ? How different
you look from this side ! I always have seen your solemn
face from the other side, as you brood over your stony
streams, and to-day you give me a stolen look over your
shoulder." So our eye sweeps quickly round the points
and summits of the giant ridges, ghdes down to the deep
imbedded vaUey hoUows, and over glistening river veins,
tiU it retums to its starting point, to caU over its roU after
thus setthng its bearings. And stUl more is it an elevating
sensation, when it is a point where a man's foot has trod
but seldom or never before ; this is a stUl more sublime
inauguration than the other, brought about by human
minds and hands. Why does the account run through aU
the newspapers when at length an Alpine summit, long
known to aU the civUised world, drawn in mnumerable maps
and panoramas, and named in books, has been ascended
for the first time ? Because it is a repetition of Columbus
on a smaU scale ; because the bold men have added a build
ing stone to the great temple sanctuary of science. AU
fears and privations are forgotten, the glacier crevasses and
neve chasms with their deceitftd bridges, the giddy abyss,
and the crumbhng slope of debris, he like faUen enemies
behind us, and our heart rises in exultation, and beats
more strongly as though closer to God.
StiU more, how is this feeling strengthened, when, as
was the case on the first ascent of the Todi in August
1837, the fearless mountain-warriors, chmbing for a long
time through mist, and hindered in thefr view aU round,
suddenly discover, as the grey covering veil is rent, that
aU the surrounding summits are lower than that on which
they are standing, and that the long-sought goal is reached
at last. So it chanced to these iron mountaineers as they
pressed on as true as steel ; Bernhard Voegeh, a chamois

254 THE ALPS.
hunter of sixty, and a wUd hay cutter, with his son
Gabriel, and the bold Thomas Thut, who aU three lived in
the Obbord mountains, behind the vUlage of Linththal.
AU the expeditions that had started for this mountain vrith
the greatest preparation had not succeeded hi their object,
and in the whole vaUey of Glarus it was considered an
undisputable fact that the Todi was inaccessible, as are
still the Matterhorn, Dent Blanche, and Weisshorn of the i
Valaisan Alps.
The ascent of such a high summit, through aU the
hindrances and dangers that we have counted up, is
very seldom successful, if the weather is not remarkably
favourable to the undertaking and the air quite clear.
Days are rare, on which the temperature is tolerably
mUd at heights over 12,000 feet, and a long stay on them
comfortable or even endurable ; the temperature even of
the warmest summer days generaUy varies vrithin a few
degrees above or below freezing point. De Saussure
found it at 28° in the shadow and 30° in the sun on
the top of Mont Blanc ; Hugi, on the Finsteraarhom, at
1 P.M., at 31° in the shadow, and 32° in the sun ;
Agassiz, on the Jungfrau, at 3 p.m., at the end of August,
26° in the shadow ; Coaz, on the Piz Bernina, on the 13th
of September, at 6 p.m., at 39°. Some cases certainly
of an extraorcHnary height of temperature are known.
Thus on the Todi, in the middle of August, Herr Dorler
found the temperature 45° in the shadow at 1 p.m., and
49° in the sun ; Zumstein, on his attempted ascent of
Monte Eosa, found it 50° at a height of 14,894 ft. (whether
in sun or shadow is not mentioned) ; and Weilenmann, on
Piz Linard, at the beginning of July, at 11 A.M., found it
even 70° in the sun on the south side. The mountain
chmber, however, pays in general but Httle attention
to the smaU degree of warmth in the afr; Agassiz'

ALPINE SUMMITS. 255
companions danced on their passage of the Strahleck,
and roUed Hke boys in the snow ; the guides tried
a "Hosenlupf" (bout of wresthng), and Bernhard
Voegeh, sixty years old, stretched himself on the snows
of the Todi and was soon snoring comfortably. In
general, mountaineers boast of an elasticity peculiar to
the afr, the freshness of which extinguishes even the
greatest fatigue ; they complain, however, with equal
unanimity, of the great dryness of the atmosphere, which
causes a peculiar stiffness in the skin and in other ob
jects, which in consequence seem to sHp very easily from
the grasp.
A second agent, which considerably interferes with
enjoyment, is the generally very slight transparency of
the afr below. High up it is so remarkably clear that
the heaven's blue towards the zenith looks almost black
or hke dark poHshed steel ; distant mountains appear, as
seen from Mont Blanc or the Monte Eosa, almost of a
deep yeUow colour ; and even the fields of snow take
a yeUowish tinge. On the contrary, the depths of the
valley seen from such high points waver through the
overlying mists tUl they become almost invisible. Only
in the clearest weather can the neighbouring Alpine
chains be clearly distinguished from Mont Blanc, the
diameter of whose panorama is some seventy leagues.
Further down everything grows more and more misty,
tiU it disappears into entfre vagueness. Meanwhile,
according to the position and immediate neighbourhood
of the summit, the view downwards ancl to the distance
undergoes great changes. Studer, describes this admirably
in his glacier journeys : " The view from the Jungfrau is
rather subhme than beautiful. It has an almost over
powering effect upon him who reaches the summit for
the first time, and to whom it is reveaHng the colossal.

256 THE ALPS.
almost mysterious forins of its panorama. It is de
ficient in variety and charm. No blue lake rejoices
the eye — for it looks down so steeply upon the Lake of
Thun, that in colour and character it resembles a mourn
ful mountain tarn between barren treeless mountain
heights. The pleasant level country is too distant to
reveal its charms. The sad grey, which covers it hke
twilight, melts into the dim vapour, which hovers form-
lessly over the vast horizon and permits neither form nor
colour to be recognised. There extends a world of torn
glaciers, snowy valleys, and variously torn ridges of rock
or glacier, bordered by the colourless depressions on the
misty horizon, above which we sit enthroned in strange
sohtude, and which is iUuminated by the broken gleams
of a faint sun in the black-blue firmament. The Todi,
which overlooks all Eastern Svritzerland, offers an im
measurable panorama ; it may be said that it shows only
too much. The single disappears in the whole, and there
too the distant hoUows disappear in misty vapour, and
the huge realm of Alps shows a few isolated subhme
forms of groups, which enchain the eye. The Bernese
Alps ancl the Bernina are too far off to produce a very
imposing impression. On the other hand, the view from
the Mont Velan gains its great charm by the subhme and
picturesque appearance and varied character of the only
mountain groups visible. The particular forms repay
one's trouble. The eye has not to be wearied to de
cipher a confused labyrinth of monotonous mountain
chains ; each has its special beauty, and one can scarcely
satisfy oneself vrith gazing at the sharply defined beautiful
forms of the various summits that strike up aU round.
Looking up to the great heads of Mont Blanc and the
^ grand Combin, their impression of mighty size is over
powering. And yet the widely panoramic view shows

ALPINE SUMMITS. 257
the loftiness of the standing place, and our glance can
proudly command a thousand mighty summits which
bend before it. Many fables are told in old descriptions
of travel of the stars being seen to shine on such ex
traordinary summits in the mid-day ; aU the modern
mountain climbers have nothing to say to this."
Amongst the most original devices are the plans
by which the mountain climbers of different times and
nations correspond with each other and telegraph to the
inhabitants of the bordering vaUeys. Whenever a point
has been scaled for the first time, its conquerors leave
some sign of thefr presence behind them, as the old
Eomans left thefr " hoc iter Csesaris." When the ex
pedition consists only of herdsmen and of vigorous
dalesmen, or of lovers of Alpine chmbing who wish
to measure thefr physical strength against such a colossus,
because year in and year out it has been gazing down
into thefr vrindows, they build a little pyramid by col
lecting fragments of rock as a "promemoria" for future
travellers ; the first business of the passionate mountain
chmber, when he gets to the top, is to search in the
" stone-man," to see if there is not some note or account
left by former traveUers. To preserve such correspon
dence, destined for future times, the vrine bottles emptied at
the top are generaUy used. Thus the bottles intended for
the depths of dark ceUars, which have slept through many
a changing moon in the depths of the earth, are now chosen
out to serve as a practical confirmation of the cheerful
" post nubila Phoebus " — after night cometh Hght. They
who have hitherto been the bearers of strong drinks,
now serve the spiritual fiuid of human thought, and be
come the messengers of greeting between persons wholly
unknown to each other. The page torn from the journal
with the names of the ascenders, dates, and notes about

258 THE ALPS.
temperature, view, adventures, &c. (not vrithout a con
fidential joke or two, especiaUy after the wine has raised
the mental barometer), is placed in the bottle, which is
tightly corked and placed in the middle of the stone-man,
safe from storm, rain, and snow. WeUenmann found in
such a bottle, on the Monte Eosa, vrith an envelope of
greetings and notices, some broad black and red silk
ribands, left by the brothers Smyth of Great Yarmouth.
(The Schlagintweits had reached a point only twenty-two
feet below the highest.) He cut off Httle strips, of which
he afterwards sent portions by letter to the Smyths as
proofs of having foUowed them. Such deposits remind
one of the custom of the middle ages of leaving in the
foundation stones and turrets, documents and coins for
distant unknown generations.
When, however, the mountain-chmbers have prepared
for a celebration of thefr ascent, flags wave from the
summit, in sign of having taken possession, which can be
recognised from below with a telescope (or Itahan field-
glass, as the mountain peasants caU it). They are generally
improvised standards, red streamers tied to a stick fastened
in the stone-man, or, as in Coaz's ascent of the Bernina,
the white cross of the Federation on a red ground, which
flew triumphantly over glaciers and snovriields. But as
such trophies seldom survive the storms and soon fall
away in the rain, or (as that whicii Weilenmann found on
the Piz Linard) are splintered and singed by the Hghtning,
Hugi had one planted upon the Finsteraarhom, of fron
wfre covered with cloth, which was observed through a
telescope from the Grimsel, from Berne, even from Solothurn
(a distance of twelve geographical mUes). The most
original flag, the work of the invention of the moment,
was placed by the Schlagintweits on the Monte Eosa,
where, in the absence of the requfred materials for a flag.

ALPINE SUMMITS. 259
they fixed a shirt — which was perhaps surpassed by the
one which Studer fixed on the Einderhorn ; there, too, a
flag was wanting when the march began, and the host of
the sohtary Schwarenbach inn could oifly manage it by
devoting an old waistcoat to be the sport of the winds.
As afready stated, the chmbers are foUowed from the
vaUey by good telescopes, and it sometimes happens that
when at length the longed-for flag is fluttering merrUy on
the top, the discharge of cannon announces the success of
the expedition to the inhabitants of the vaUey. It is in ac
cordance vrith the general laws and conditions of acoustics
that those on the top can hear the signals of joy, as the waves
of sound, cast back by the surrounding mountain wall, must
pass upwards, whilst pistol shots on such heights whicii rise
above thefr neighbours, from want of catacoustic reagents,
disappear almost without effect, and are therefore inaudible
in the valley. In general absolute, stUl, solemn sUence,
interrupted by no sign of Hfe, is an almost terribly
characteristic mark of these points, which He in eternal
sabbath : only when storm is roaring round the tops, the
air is stfrred sighingly by the pulses of the wind, and long-
drawn, howling disharmonies ribrate in a wUd series
through the mournful sohtude.
At these heights organic Hfe has disappeared as a normal
phenomenon. It is rare to find the tracks of chamois in the
snow, and as rare to see one of the birds which buUds m.
the lower snow region. Every now and then an eagle or
" Lammergeier " circles round a neighbouring peak and
mterrupts the dead sUence with its long-drawn, shriU cry
of " Pfii " and " Hia." The bodies of smaU creatures are
fi-equently found, that is, of the insects which belong to
the vaUeys, and are borne up here by a whfrhng draught
of wmd, soon to find their death on the snow. Herr Durler,
durhig his meal on the icy top of the Todi, saw a butterfly
s 2

200 THE ALPS.
(Papilio brassicce) flutter feebly past, having just been
blovsm up by the storm into these fields of death. Withered
leaves of beech and sycamore are often found on the snow
from eleven to twelve thousand feet high, but always, in
consequence of thefr greater warmth, sunk to a depth of
a few Hnes, with sharply marked outHnes in the snow.
The vegetable kingdom has stUl, here and there, solitary
outposts ; the Arctica helvetica and glacialis stiU appear at
heights of 10,500 feet in rocky places, the latter vrith its
fiery-red forget-me-not star enlivening a Httle the death
like wUderness. The Poa alpina var. frigida, and on the
Schreckhorn even the Ranunculus glacialis, have been
found at heights of 12,000. A few mosses venture up
here, but very sparingly, and, as the last representatives of
the vegetable kingdom, perhaps, a couple of lichens, such
as Parmelia elegans and muralis, Cetraria nivalis, and on
the top of the Jungfrau the one caUed in consequence
Umbilicaria virginis.
We have afready partly described what it looks Hke on
these farthest culmhiating points of our earth. The sum
mits of Mont Blanc, Todi, Mont Velan, Cima de Jazzi, &c.,
present soft, round, vaulted, snowy cushions on a broad
base, affording perfectly safe resting-places. The Galen-
stock (11,840 feet) displays a softly rounded cupola of
snow towards the west, but on the east sinks suddenly
and almost vertically downwards for some thousand feet.
The top of the Gross Glockner, in Tyrol, is an uneven
rocky space of chloritic schist, giving room for twelve per
sons at the outside. The southern point of the Schreck
horn (eighty-five feet lower than the higher northern, stiU
unsealed, summit) has a surface of some four square feet,
in shape of a bow or semicircle, with its convexity to
wards the north. On the other hand, the top of the
Finsteraarhom is forined by an luididating ridge, some

ALPINE SUMMITS. 201
twenty feet long, and a foot or a foot and a half in
breadth, sinking steeply on both sides. The Jungfrau
presents a simUar form ; it faUs in a hard snow ridge, hke
the roof of a tent, at an inchnation of some 60° or 70°,
vritii a breadth of some six to ten inches, and the icy roof
of the great Einderhorn is everywhere so awfuUy sharp
that the boldest mountaineer would be unable, from the
steep slope of the ridge, to ascend it astride or to slide
down it. The Bernina affords just room enough for three
persons to stand close together, and the Grand Combin
runs into an absolute snowy point, upon whicii one dares
not venture. We find thus an abundant variety of forms,
both of those improvised by the snow and ice, which are
remodelled every year as they melt away or accumulate,
and of those which take a fixecl shape in rock. Trouble
some and dangerous as it is to chmb such a point, it is
just as hard to take leave of it. It is a parting, perhaps
for ever, from a fair sublime world, far above the petty
pursuits of man. Eetreat is often surrounded by stUl
more difficulties than the ascent. For though gmdes and
traveUers are now certainly better acquainted vrith the
road than before, their strength is partly exhausted, the
surface of the snow has become softer, moister, and more
yielding by the effect of the day's warmth, and chmbing
down waUs of rock is far more troublesome and requires
more care than chmbing up, because one always has to
seek for the firm footing below, which, in the opposite
case, is visible at once. It happens, too, that the sun
sometimes removes the traces of the upward path, and
this clue is lost on the descent. Again, towards the after
noon, glacier brooks furrow the surface and make the
path unusually shppery. How important these Httle
veins of water, which fall with a loud roar into the glacier
crevasses, may become for the careless or exhausted
s 3

262 THE ALPS.
traveUer, is shown by an anecdote which Herr Weilen
mann relates on occasion of his Monte Eosa tour. One
of the EngHshmen who were of the party, shpped in such
a glacier brook and disappeared entfrely. The guides
sprang after him with a cry of horror, and caught him by
his clothes as he was being washed dov^m into a deep
funnel thfrty or forty feet broad and fiUed with water.
The man, horrihile dictu I had put on goloshes (" Gummi-
schuhe "), and hence had no firm tread.* It is possible to
shde down in a standing position over snowfields, holding
the alpenstock behind, with the rapidity of a skater. It
requires practice. Beginners make ridiculous exhibitions
at first ; but, as in everything, practice makes perfect.
Daily struggle vrith the elements on the high Alps gives
not only boldness and confidence, but their extraordinary
skill to the guides. It is almost incredible with what
safety and ease the mountaineer passes the most danger
ous places, carrying heavy burdens. When Hugi, on his
Finsteraarhom expedition, could scarcely get on, ovring to
an injury to his foot, Leuthold took him up nolens volens
on his back, and hastened with him down the glacier,
whilst storm and night were approaching. The other
two experienced guides, Wahren and Zemt, emulated him
in carrying their master : Hugi says, it was incredible to
him how these men, without a stick, holding their burden
vrith both hands, sprang over crevasses in the twffight,
where all was deceitful and uncertain.
We have afready given examples of the audacity vritii
which the guides venture upon breakneck leaps ; here is
one more that vriU Ulustrate thefr courage in another way.
* The unfortunate gentleman to whom this misfortune occun-ed,
had lost his baggage, boots included, on the railway, and had gone
straight to Zermatt notwithstanding, and very pluckily chmbed the
Monte Eosa in this most inconvenient apparel.

ALPINE SUMMITS. 263
Got. Studer, on his retum from the Jungfrau, had let his
hat fall into a deep crevasse, which sank vrithout a break,
with surfaces of ice as steep as the steepest tower. The
crevasse grew narrower further down, whUst the opposite
waU rose verticaUy out of the darkness covered with
icicles. The guide, Bannholzer, who was annoyed at the
loss of the cap, caUed out at once that he would see
where it was, and, spite of aU dissuasion, had the rope tied
round his body, and let himself shde down into the awful
depth. When he had got some way down, having got a
footing on an ice pUlar that threatened to give way every
moment, he saw the lost cap lying stUl some way below
him. The rope held by the two men above was not long
enough. The foolhardy Bannholzer untied himself and
got further down. After an anxious pause he gave an
exulting cry. He had got liis prey, and came up again
to dayhght. Although he had been to a depth of at least
100 feet, he said that the crevasse continued to an im-
fathomable depth.
It is an enriable day's work, when the lover of nature
has got back in the evening, without injury, with his
spfrits raised, rich in experience, and vrith an increased
treasury of knowledge, aud has returned to human
habitations as a distinguished guest ; it is a pleasure and
a consciousness that only a few of the great mass of
Alpine travellers can enjoy. The question, " What is
the use of going up there?" has never been better
answered than by TschucH : " It is the feeHng of spiritual
power that glows in him, and drives him to overcome
the dead horrors of nature ; it is the charm of measuring
the power pecuhar to man, the infinite capacity of an
inteffigent wUl, against the rough opposition of dust ; it
is the holy impulse to seek out, in the service of the
s 4

264 THE ALPS.
«
everlasting science of the earth's Hfe and framework, for
the mysterious connection of aU creation ; it is perhaps
the longing of the lord of the earth to place the seal on
his consciousness of a relationship to the infinite, by a
bold, free deed, on the last conquered height, looldng
round on the world lying at his feet."

.^^

ALPINE KOAD.

265

CHAP XXV.
MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS.
The boundary between tlie German and Latine elements
runs along the highest ridge of the central Alpine chain.
They would have existed in sharp separation on the
opposite slopes, unaffected by their neighbouring pecu
harities, for thousands of years, had not the two popu
lations and their ways of hfe met in the deepest recesses
of the hiUs. It was a natural need of the first inhabi
tants who settled in the Alpine vaUeys, to find other
ways from thefr secluded sohtude, than merely that
which foUowed the course of the streams down to the
plains. They pressed in on both sides, foUovring up the
course of the water to its sources ; and here the two
elements met. That these encounters belong to the
earhest period in which the Alpine land rises from the
pre-historic darkness, appears from the present universal
name " pass ;" it was the passus which the Eomans made
over the Alps, in thefr rictorious expeditions. When
thefr mastery of the world began to extend northwards,
the Eoman consul, Julius Cassus, crossed them when
acting against the Cimbri and Teutons ; and, after his
defeat, Marius with the Eoman legions crossed Mont
Cems, or Mont Genevre ; JuHus C^sar penetrated by the
Mons Penninus (or Great St. Bernard) to meet the
Salassi ; and after the foundation of the colony Pra3-

266 THE ALPS.
toria Augusta, shortly before the bfrth of Christ, this
became a much frequented path in the time of JuHus
Cffisar. The luxury, discord, and crimes of the Eomans
produced the faU of thefr empire, and now the northern
hordes whom they had preriously oppressed, Sueri and
Vandals, Burgundians and Alemanns, poured over these
passes into Italy. The desolate, inaccessible mountain-
paths served up to that time only for works of strife,
conquest, and destruction. As the emigrations of tribes,
which had hitherto shattered and transformed everything,
passed away, the moral and ennobhng blessings of
Christianity found admission to the Alps, and here we
meet the messenger of the faith, Columban and his
disciples, on the lonely heights of the Lukmanier. This
pass now became the most frequented by Frankish and
Carlovingian princes ; Pepin's army crossed it to help
Pope Stephen IH. ; Charlemagne fetched his imperial
crovrai by this road ; and the teachers whom this great
rider brought from the south, to spread civUisation, arts,
and sciences amongst his people, may have crossed the
rocky ridge of the Lukmanier. By its side the Spliigen,
the old road of the Lombards, was one of the most
celebrated miHtary passes of the middle ages : it was
already a weU-known pass for Eomans in the time of the
Emperor Antoninus.
With the increase of intercourse between the north
and south of Europe, with the beginning of the trans
alpine trade, with the arrival of the pompous expeditions
to Eome, undertaken by German kings to be invested by
the Pope vrith the German empire, and crowned " Kaiser,"
with their battles in Italy, the Alpine passes of the
Brenner, Bernhardin, Septimer, and Juher came into use.
The last was the chief commercial road between Venice
and France or Germany in the fifteenth century.

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 207
The value and significance of Alpine passes rose from
century to century. There are few great military roads
in aU Europe which are so historical and subhme as these
vrild mountain ways. The greatest commanders of ahnost
aU centuries have striven for their possession, and on the
loneliest heights, even in the midst of eternal snow, we
find ruins of old fieldworks and fortifications, as on the
GargeUen-joch, in the Ehgetikon and the Theodul trench
on the Matter-joch, 11,000 feet high. We need not re
caU Baldfron's troops in the Thfrty Years' War, Suwarov's
fearful actions on the St. Gothard, and his retreat by the
Prague and Panitzer passes. Napoleon's passage by the
Great St. Bernard to the battle of Marengo, and Andreas
Hofer's defence of the Tyrol, to prove the pohtical and
strategical importance of Alpine passes. Neither the
constructive, beneficent, and improring phases of peaceful
development, nor the mighty pulsations of trade that
binds and civilises the peoples, occasioned the building of
the first artificial road over the Simplon. " Le canon
quand pourra-t-U passer les Alpes?" was Napoleon's
repeated and pressing question to the reporting engineer-
officer. The aim of the great conqueror was to be able
to send cannon, columns, and mUitary provisions quickly
and easily across the Alps. But this bold work, the
execution of which must have previously seemed a mad
fancy, gave the impulse to other equaUy grand roads,
of whicii there are now more than a dozen across the
Alps. The conception of an " Alpine pass " is very relative.
There are some which the practised pedestrian can pass
very easily, and vrithout the least danger, which scarcely
cause any exertion ; and, on the other hand, there are
some, leading across glaciers and fields of ice, which re
qufre no less pluck and freedom from gidcHness than the

208 THE ALPS.
ascent of considerable mountains. They may approxi
mately be divided into those which form artificial carriage
roads, in which there is active Hfe in summer and winter,
ancl across which run daUy dihgences and post waggons ;
bridlepaths, whicii can be used in favourable seasons, and
can be used by means of sleighs even in winter, and finaUy,
mere footpaths or glacier passes.
The artificial roads are masterpieces of art, triumphs of
human understanding and iron endurance ; thefr builders.
Napoleon I., the Emperor Francis I. of Austria, Khig
Victor Emmanuel of SicUy, and the Swiss cantons, Grisons,
Tessin, and Uri, have erected memorials by them which
exceed the pyramids and temples of the ancients. There
were indeed paved roads before our century, as over the
Septimer ; but they were bmlt in such difficult places, and
with such httle regard to maldng the way easy, that it
was considered a tolerably rash undertaking to pass them
with carriages. Consul Bonaparte was, as afready stated,
the first bold adventurer who had the road buUt across
the Simplon, between the years 1801 and 1806. The
passes over the St. Gothard, Spliigen, and Bernhardin, had
for a long time been of commercial importance, AU
merchandise had been for centuries carried into and out
of Italy on mules and packhorses over these three passes,
which often took up the whole narrow inountain path in
long processions. Grisons recogmsed the incalculable
value of practicable carriage roads, and undertook the con
struction of the Bernhardin at its own cost, in the years
1819 to 1823. Austria was thus coinpeUed to foUow the
example, and buUt the Spliigen ; and when the cantons,
especiaUy Uri, perceived that the passengers and baggage
which had formerly crossed the St. Gothard went more
over the eastern passes, this road was also built at last
from 1828 to 1830.

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 209
AU mountain-roads foUow the courses of tolerably im
portant rivers : the St. Gothard the Eeuss and Ticino ; the
Bernhardin the Hinterrhein and the Moesa; the Stelvio, the
Adda and Adige ; the Brenner, the vaUey of the Eisack,
&c. The inchnation is at first generaUy shght, the cHrec
tion tolerably direct. The deeper the roads penetrate into
the mountains, the more rapid becomes the com-se of
the mountain streams that meet them, the more thefr in
clination and dfrection v^ary. Narrow rocky gorges soon
make compHcated erections necessary. Bridges of lofty
span, penetrated gates of rock, winding zigzags begin, and
the ascent increases to 6 or 7 in the 100. As the whole
coiffiguration of the Alps shows a more extended level
and a less steep inclination towards the north than the
south, the difficulties generaUy accumulate chiefly on the
southern side.
The road here winds up into the gorge in numerous
snakehke windings (tourniquets, giravolte), sometimes
blasted in the rock, sometimes propped upon waUs. The
" Kehren," or " Eank," as the driver caUs the curves by
which the road rises from one story to a higher one, and
which are generally buUt up, look from below like bas
tions of a fortress erected one above another. This
arrangement is most strikingly shown in the steep Vai
Tremola, on the southern slope of the St. Gothard. On
the ascent from Airolo it seems as if one would never reach
the end of the windings, for when the one that seemed
highest has been chmbed, new projections of waU with
protecting stones built into them rise again and again,
from the barren treeless slope, covered with black frag
ments of mica-schist ; and the hospice is only reached after
forty-six such wincHngs. The Spliigen is also rich in such
zigzags both on the north and on th e south towards the Isol a,
as are the Bernhardin near the viUage Hinterrhein, and

270 THE ALPS.
the Stelrio, on, the ascent from Trafoi, in sight of the
Madatsch glacier and the mighty mass of the Ortler.
At times a deep lateral vaUey, cutting across the main
cHrection of the road, forces it to go round and enormously
increases its length, This appears especiaUy in the
Ganther Gorge, on the Simplon. There, after the second
mUestone from Brieg, the road has to go a good league
eastwards to gain the point of passage of the Ganther
bridge. The sixth house of refuge is risible at a distance
of scarcely three-quarters of a league in a direct line high
up over a deep gorge, and it takes three and a half hours
upon a broad level road to reach it.
In the wildest places, where the snowstorms rage most
furiously, in order to afford an asylum to the traveUer in
winter, stone houses of refuge are erected at measured
intervals, whicii are partly inhabited by the pioneers
(Eutiier or cantonniers) appohited to keep up the road —
a kind of Siberian banishment. During the mildest winter
months, the man who seeks for help in the uninhabited
houses of refuge finds sJDlit wood enough to hght a fire in
the chimney, and a loaf and bundle of hay, in case he and
his horse should be compeUed by an avalanche or deep
drifts of snow to stay here longer than a day. On the
Simplon, in addition to the great Hospice, the old Hospice,
the viUages of Berisal, Simpelen and Gsteig, there are nine
houses of refuge in nine leagues, of which, the fifth and
sixth, as also the eighth and ninth, are scarcely a quarter
of an hour apart.
The galleries are of greater importance for the safety
of the road in vrinter and spring. They are either tunnels
driven through the rocks, as the thfrd gallery on the
Stelvio in the Vallone deUa Neve, the galleries of Gondo
and Algaby on the southern slope of the Simplon, or arti
ficiaUy buUt vaulted passages, vrith openings Hke port-

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 271
holes, as in the SchoUenen gorge near Briigwald on the
St. Gothard, and on many other mountafri roads, which are
intended to secure man, beast, and burden, in notorious
places, exposed to regularly recurring ground avalanches,
against being buried in snow. They are so firmly con
structed that avalanches cannot injure those who are
staymg in the gallery by thefr fearftfl blows, and thunder
over them to hurry down to the vaUey. It has certainly
often happened, that unusual broad surfaces of snow have
given way and choked each end of the gaUery. In this
case, the pioneers generaUy soon come to help, breaking
through the barricades of snow, and freeing the persons
immured. There are gaUeries, however, which have to be erected
as a protection against water, because mountain streams
shoot down over the road in fuU, broad cascades, and
would render the passage impossible. Such a one is the
Kaltwasser gaUery on the Simplon. Here the Kaltwasser
glacier hangs threatemngly over the road from a neighbour-
hig peak, and during the warm season discharges a rigor
ous brook of mUky-looldng water, which roars in a moving
arch over the middle of the eleven gaUery windows.
The traveller stands behind the cascade, in the gaUery
vaulted with stalactites, and sees through the hurrying
sheaf of rays. But, in addition to this, the gaUeries are
also a protection against the colossal icicles formed by the
trickhng and freezing snow water, which detach them
selves in the spring from the overhanging masses of rock,
and crash down with fearful vehemence.
The longest of aU the galleries is that called All' Acque
Eose, 1530 feet long, on the Spliigen, which receives its
name from the trickling chalybeate waters, which have
coloured the rocks red. It is certainly trifiing as com
pared with the modern works, such as the Hauenstein

272 THE ALPS.
tunnel, 8310 Swiss feet in length, but was long considered
a marvel of Alpine architecture. Crosses on the road
mark the places where traveUers have perished in ava
lanches and snowstorms.
A big, lofty, wooden cross, painted red, generaUy marks
the height of the pass, as a sign of victory that the ascent
is finished, and a warning to thank God for his protec
tion. The hospices or mountain inns generaUy He a httle
to the south below the water-shed, in order to be in some
degree protected from the storms which rage from both
sides. This is the case on the Simplon, Gothard, and
Spliigen. The old manyfold romance of the road, which raU
ways have completely destroyed in the plain, stiU rules
over these cultivated Alpine passages. The far-sounding,
discordant ring of the six heavy, robust coach-horses
before the high-vaulted, broad-wheeled carriage, with its
white roof, still sounds, and the rough postihon stUl cracks
his variations on the whip, and accompanies them at times
vritii his choicest selection of oaths. Dust steams up in
long-drawn clouds. An Itahan cattle-driver is taking his
herd of young, black, and dark-brown mUch cows, aud a
numberof "mails stiere" (beasts for fattemng),to the Lugano
market. The lad goes on with his mountain stick and
the usual umbreUa under his arm (for no Tessiner or Ap-
penzeller ever travels vrithout this means of protection),
ou his shoulders the mUking-stool, and he raises his loud,
high-pitched cry, sinking vrith a graduaUy faUing tone —
" Ooo — ohohohohoho, komm wadh, wadli, wadh," with
vvhich he encourages his beasts to step out stoutly (wadli=
weidhch). In the midst of the crowd of beasts, rather
driving than haranguing, and working very demonstra
tively on the backs of his immechate neighbours with
blows from a cudgel, goes an interpreter, a ruined cattle-

MOUNTADf PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 273
dealer, who has lost goods and chattels by unfortunate
speculations. He has fuU command of the Itahan patois,
since he has held deahngs and driven cattle in Lombardy
for the last quarter of a century. Now, as his last beast
has been put up to auction at home, he is serving his
neighbour as broker and bargainer for daily pay and a
proportion of the earnings. The real adventurer of the
Alpine caravan brings up the rear of the whole long-
extended train. The chief part of his fortune is in this
wandering capital. Now, it depends upon luck whether
the demand is lively and good prices to be had, or whether
the market is over-stocked vrith good cattle, and the
demand flat. If the speculation takes, he may earn a
thousand francs at once. But he may lose as much,
if he has to lower his price ; for, to drive his fifty cattle
home again, twelve days' joumey over different moun
tains, and without sufficient food, would cost him dearer
still. He steps on, meditating deeply on his luck. Sud
denly, the roffing of the carriage, a loud cry, the confusion
of his herd, startles him from his meditations. The dUi
gence comes quickly down the pass : the postihon, conscious
of his dignity on his lofty seat, to whom, as the servant of
the state, even a herd of cattle must give •W'ay, cfrives
sharply amongst the horned troop. Eaging and cursing,
cudgelhng and coaxing of the drivers, cracking of whips
and laughter of the coachman, the screams of the nervous
lady in the coupe, who is afraid for her personal safety,
cows lovring in every tone, and the hoarse barking of
dogs, mingle and rise into a tragic scene in the thick
clouds of dust. A few cows turn and start homewards,
but "Schnauz," the rigilant, trustworthy dog, who
only thinks of the duty imposed upon him of the most
strict and unconditional " forwards," and takes no notice
of impediments, puts his pohce arrangements hito action
T

274 THE ALPS.
vrith inexorable zeal ; he has to struggle with "B'platzed"
(a cow so caUed from a great white spot or " platz " on
her forehead), who wishes to estabhsh her rights vrith her
horns, whUst " s'Mohrh," a gentle, intelhgent cow, goes
steadUy on her way. She is therefore thought worthy of
wearing her master's cloak roUed up round her neck.
The cattle-drivers abuse the postihon and guard, who is
lying on the covering of the carriage to give up his pro
per place to an Englishman ; the post people reply vrith
equal vigour. The horses become restive in the tumult ;
one jumps over the traces, the confusion increases, the
dUigence has to stop. A general row, scandal, and
confusion of tongues — " Briccone ! Dundershagel I Mal-
detto vUlano ! Scempiotto ! Strahls-chogg ! " is screamed
and growled from aU sides.
" A dehghtful comphcatipn ! " " En avant la voiture ! "
" Jar kene Ordnung nich I " rises from the dUigence. At
length the conflict ceases. The herd goes on down-hUl ; the
carriage roUs with redoubled speed to the vaUey. The
many sharp corners do not hinder the skUful driver on ffis
lofty box from keeping up the pace. He shoots, in the
twinkhng of an eye, past his comrade, who is creepmg up-
hUl on foot by his horses, and can only get his heavy
burden slowly upwards. He is greeted by a bit of chaff,
which he repays next day on the inverse meeting.
Unheard and unseen, above them aU, a message from
the Italian peninsula flies along the fron wfres of the
electric telegraph which accompames every Alpine road,
" Garibaldi has taken Palermo."
How different are the winter forms of Hfe on the
road ! By the middle of October the first burdens of
snow sprinkled by the clouds are laying the foundation
of the futm-e sleigh -road along the height of the pass.
If the autumn is clear and sunny, and a prevailing warm

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 275
southern vrind blovring, these foundation layers are partly
melted by the day's heat. But smaU sporadic remams
always hold out on the shady side, and are preserved by
the night frosts. As often as it rains in the vaUey it
snows on the heights. These shy attempts, though fre
quently repulsed, are repeated tiU one day the whole
country is covered far down with snow, and winter has
fiflly begun. The mountain is now impassable for
wheels ; the sleigh serrice begins both for the post and
for baggage. It is nothing very remarkable over the
French passes of Mont Cenis (6800 ft.). Col de Lautaret
(6890 ft.), and Mont Genevre (6140 ft.). The traveUers
are packed in large six-seated post-sleighs, with a team
of from ten. to twelve horses. White horses have been
used for a long period, because " CavaUo bianco mai
stanco " — white horses never tfre. Wooden shutters
have to be provided instead of glass vrindows, through
whose cracks and holes the storm whistles, and smuggles
the fine, dus1>Hke snow into the darkness vrithin. It is
different on the passes of the Valais and Grisons, across
wMch the postal serrice is now taken vrith the Svriss
baggage to Cohco Piano, on the Lake of Como, from the
Spliigen ; and Arona, on the Lago Maggiore, from the
Simplon. The journey is made in large, comfortable
carriages as far as the road is " aber," i. e. free from
snow. Dots of snow on each side announce the approach
of the snowy region. When the even, smooth, white
sleigh-road appears, the passenger sees a number of
sledges with one or two seats, which are lying turned
over by the roadside, ©ut of cover, left unwatched and
unattended to.
Scenes now occur which remind one of an arctic
expedition. The postUion treads a manger in the snow
vrith his feet, puts hay into it for the horses to bait and

276 THE ALPS,
be ready for new exertions. The conductor chooses the
fittest carriages for his freight ; and the loadmg of
goods, letter-bags, boxes, and passengers begins. Each
of the last has a thick buffalo cloak given to him. It is
a praiseworthy act of humanity for the Confederacy to
provide such sufficient means of sustaining warmth.
When it is dry and cold, cheerful, unrestrained Hveliness
generaUy prevaUs amongst the travellers. Painters would
find subjects for genre pictures, fuU of humour — com
panions to the rendezvous under the Wettertanne. But
when there is strong vrind and snow, if the atmosphere
is full of ominous grey clouds, and the stonn is howhng
through the rocky clefts, then certainly there are scenes
of sufficient discomfort. The huge, firm dihgence is now
well closed, and left standmg with as Httle care as the
sleighs by the way-side, untU the post, coming over the
pass, leaves its sleighs on this side, and undertakes the
transport of the passengers in the opposite direction.
There were formerly sleighs for the transport of women,
in which they were packed up Hke babes in swaddhng
clothes. These consist of long, coffin-like boxes, vrith
clean bedding, so that a person might He down at fuU
length, vrith a four-fold wooUen covering, and be covered,
besides, up to the upper part of the body, vrith a fiimly-
fixed leather apron. It was a complete protection against
wind and cold. It is obrious that the passengers had to
change thefr position at the top of the pass, so that thefr
heads might be higher than thefr feet.
Each sleigh has one horse. The postihon sits in the
first, the guard in the last, to oversee the whole train.
All the horses go vrithout being driven. If heavy snow
has faUen, a sledge drawn by oxen is sent in front,
accompanied by half a dozen men, pioneers, armed vrith
shovels, to help if needful. The transport of gentiemen's

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 277
carriages at this season is very troublesome and costly.
They have to be taken to pieces, and packed upon
several sleighs; and that which carries the coach-box
is in need of special precautions and of an uninterrupted
fastenhig vrith ropes, to preserve its equUibrium. Where
smaUer burdens go easUy and safely across narrow
places, a sleigh laden vrith a coach-box runs in no smaU
danger of faihng hito the depths, if the men vrith it do
not lend a hand quickly and skUfuUy. For the higher
one climbs the mountam, the more uneven becomes the
accumulation of the snow. Particular places seem to
have been swept, from the thinness vrith which the ght
tering vrinter crystals are scattered on the road, whUst
elsewhere there are gigantic drifts. The further in the
winter or spring, the greater of course becomes the
acciunulation of snow. It frequently happens that
though the path Leads over snow from six to ten feet deep,
it stffi hes between bastions of snow as high as stockades,
or in places where the snow has been so accumulated
that one would have to chmb up reaUy steep hUls if the
pioneers had not broken tunnels and gaUeries through
them. The most dangerous places in the spring are those
which Lead near precipices. The drifted snow graduaUy
makes overhanging projections, which run out like rafters
from the proper foundation of the road, or rise up freely
like buttresses. A driver or postihon not weU acquainted
with the pass may easily be misled by the entfre altera
tion in the form of the road, to choose the apparently
more convement path along the edge, not suspecting that
he has hteraUy no ground under his feet, and is traveUing
with his burden hanging over an abyss. A trffiing cfr
cumstance may cause such a mass of snow, which has
t3

278 THE ALPS.
been holding firm through the winter, as though buUt up
with cement, to give way and bury man and horse.
This, together vrith numerous avalanches, is one of the
causes which have given such ominous names to the
steep, narrow gorges built up in snakeHke windings, such
as the Vai Tremola (Tremble VaUey), buUt on the St.
Gothard, and the Passo deUa Morte, above Isola, on the
Spliigen. The road is only opened vride enough for sleighs in
the deep winter snow ; lofty snow-waUs rise on each side.
Hence stations for sidings are necessary, where the over
pass caravan may wait in a sheltered place when it
observes a train below, tUl they have crossed each other.
In the parts of the road which ascend by zigzags the
postUion often gives his horse a sharp cut vrith his whip,
and leaves the train for a quarter of an hour to ascend
by a shorter trodden path. The traveUers generaUy drive
thefr horses on vrith snowbaUs when they get tfred.
There are seasons when the road is so fiUed by snow
drifts for long cHstances that the post has to remain stuck
fast in the pass, and may congratulate itself on reaching
the hospice or mountain inn. Here it often waits a whole
day tUl the roads are again practicable. At Christmas
1859 four guards had to wait for four days at the St.
Gothard hospice for the opening of the Vai Tremola.
It is the business of the pioneers, " cantonniers," to
keep the roads open and passable. In the plains the
forester and woodman, the peasant and road-maker, and
such people, are supposed to be thoroughly hardened
against wind and weather. It is a question whether they
could display that toughness of nature, that almost
invincible last and fron strength without which the
cantonnier is inconceivable. It hes in the bone and
marrow of the mountaineer, in his india-rubber sinews

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 279
and muscles, in the harder organisation of his body,
stunted, as it seems, by the effect of the cold, that he
reaches old age in good health, whilst pursuing every
year his chfficidt and dangerous craft. The cantonniers are
paid by the local governments (on the St. Gothard by the
Swiss Federation, which pays yearly fifty or sixty thou
sand francs to keep this pass alone open). In earher times,
before there were weU-arranged regulations for the road,
commumcation would often be stopped for a fortnight by
heavy snowfaUs : such an interruption never extends at
the present time for more than one or two days.
The work is generally dirided into two halves. The
first is the so-caUed "Fifrleite." It has to force the
first actual breach after heavy snow. The "Fiirleiter"
goes vrith a dozen strong draught oxen before the sleigh
mto the waste depths of snow. One beast is harnessed
before another, because two abreast easUy get into a
mess vrith thefr harness. The best and ror^pt lasthio-
horses are tfred far sooner than a team of oxen. A
faint path is traced by these attacks begun simultaneously
on both sides of the mountain. The accompanying
pioneers foUow the sleigh and partly shovel out the
first tracks. A second company of workmen is of a less
radical nature ; it has the conservative task of vridening
the trench which has been opened and keeping it in
a practicable state. These are the " Weger" or Eutner,
with the "Hauptweger" at thefr head. Dangerous as
are both branches of the work, few men lose their Hves
by it. They know the he of the country as weU as
thefr ovra rooms. They carefuUy watch every change
of wind and weather, and observe its consequences ; they
know almost instinctively how to avoid avalanches.
Postffions, coachmen, packmen, aU who are on the
road, pay attention to the warnings and adrice of the,
T 4

280 THE ALPS.
cantonniers, and when they have been neglected from
levity or conceit, eril consequences have generaUy re
sulted. When the post has once reached the top of the pass,
and passengers and horses have been refreshed, the train
rushes down with the speed of Hghtning with loud cries
of exultation through the icy breeze. At times the
whole train cuts off the zigzags, where the snow is not
too deep or a diagonal Hne (contrapendenza) has been
broken tiirough. After various troubles, the traveUer
reaches the vaUey, and greets the first houses with joyful
enthusiasm. In comparison with the many accidents
that occur in the plains from upset carriages and restive
horses, wonderfully few calamities of this kind occur
in the Alps. To diminish, however, as much as possible,
the effects of those which do happen, covered sleighs
provided with vrindows are never used on the Swiss
roads, for fear the passengers should be injured by the
broken panes of glass. For the same reason the French
and Sardinian mountain sleighs have wooden lattices
instead of glass. Such is hfe upon the carriage roads.
It is very different on much fi-equented passes not
practicable for carriages. There the fluctuating Hfe
appears stUl in the primeval simphcity of home-growth,
both in the construction of the roads and in all the arrange
ments with regard to it. Where nature has not suffi
ciently opened a passage, and where swamps and yielding
ground make the path msecure, the Alpine peasant
sank unhewn masses of rock, and made a Cyclopean
pavement, which here and there reminds one of the
fragments of old Eoman roads. Here the mountain
traveUer finds no gaUeries to protect him agamst
avalanches, and no houses of refuge to secure him
against snow-storms. At the utmost the valleys whose

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 281
intercourse is carried on over the pass have erected
(as on the Fluela pass in the Grisons) a wretched wooden
hut, where a httle hay may be provided for the horses,
or rough huts of stone, iike the Daubenkehr on the
Gemmi. For the rest, it looks Hke death between the
starting points, and skeletons of horses, Hning the way,
teU of numerous accidents which occur on these wastes
during winter. For most passes are dreary in landscape, \
and tfre the traveUer by their monotony. The passes
rise for several hours along broad, uniform mountain
guUies, shut m on both sides by uninteresting forms
of rock, and watered by a mountain brook and perhaps
beautiful waterfaUs, vrith a broken stony pathway, and '
show on thefr heights no riew, either to a distance or
into the vaUey, to repay one's toU, but lead down into the .
opposite vaUey by a way corresponding to the ascent.
This is especially the case in many of the passes through
the outlying mountains of Svritzerland and the Tyrol.
The Pragel, between Glarus and Schwyz, is a model of
this dulness, which is foUowed however by many of the
other passes in the Proper Alps, as the Septimer, the
Albula and Fluela, the Pfietscher Joch, &c.
The passes of central and westem Svritzerland are far
more energetic, more interesting and rich in forms, re-
veahng beautiful riews vrith startling suddenness. To
these belong especiaUy those which are to some extent
prorided vrith means of protection, on account of thefr
being greatly frequented. The best example is the Great
St. Bernard, between the Valais and Savoy, with its cele
brated hospice. It is no less a point for the risits of sum
mer tourists than a help to travel for many thousands of
traveUers yearly. The Grimsel may be put by its side for
importance. The most important cheese trade from Can
ton Berne to Italy is carried over this pass. It is one of

282 THE ALPS.
the most frequented Alpine passes, for which reason the
vaUey of HasU has founded and endowed a strong stone
building as hospice near the top of the pass. Every
poor traveUer here, as on the St. Gothard, Simplon, and
Great St. Bernard, is aUowed to pass the night, and taken
care of free of expense. The thfrd high Alpine pass, pro
rided vrith such a hospice, and not practicable for car
riages, is the Lukmanier, in the Grisons, the neighbour
hood of which is a model of dreary landscape.
On many high Alpine passes which are used for daUy
communication, " Berghauser," or " Taurenhauser," as they
are caUed in the Tyrol, are buUt and kept by peasants,
where, as in other inns, food and lodging is to be had for
payment. The Schwarenbach house, on the Gemmi, has be
come known in Germany from Werner's tragi-comedy," The
Twenty-fourth of February." The murder there described
is mere fiction. The Gemmi and Grimsel, like all the other
passes leading from the Valais to the Canton Berne, pre
sent subhme, although somewhat restricted, views over
noble groups in the high Alps from their summits. As
the southern slopes of the Alps, as afready observed, is
steeper than that towards the north, the descent of the
passes on this side are generaUy steeper and rougher. A
good leveUed path leads from the Griifrsel over the steep
Mayenwand to the Ehone glacier, and a similar one has
been blasted on the Gemmi, from the lofty Balmwand,
rising almost verticaUy to a height of near 2000 feet. It
is one of the strangest paths to be found anywhere in the
Alps. A deep, dismal rocky cleft sphts the waU from top
to bottom. By artificial buUding or blasting a winding
rock passage, rising as it were in stories, has been formed,
which seldom shows more than a dozen paces to the tra
veUer. A loud echo, Hke that in the empty haUs of a
large church, accompanies every spoken word. The

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 283
traveUer ascending from the baths of Leuk can hear the
cries of those descending more than half an hour off,
without seeing them tiU he is close upon them. Mean
whUe the view downwards over the parapet is more than
awful, and for an hour and a half, at every turn of the
road, Leuk seems to he verticaUy under his feet. The
packman and his packhorses are stiU sometimes met as a
rarity m this pass.
Since the building of the great roads, this method of
transporting baggage over the Alps on the backs of horses
and mules, which had been in use for centuries during
the whole middle ages tiU quite modem times, has aU but
disappeared. It is only to be met with at times on passes
much frequented and yet not practicable for carriages
Hke the Gemmi. Every mule carries a saddle constructed
of wooden staves, which reaches far out on each side, and
covers the whole back frorn the neck to the haunches.
The rolls of baggage, which are obHged to have a tole
rably even shape, are laid upon the saddle, divided so that
the whole weight, of not more than three hundredweight,
hangs in equihbrium. The beasts are obliged to wear
basket-muzzles, in order to prevent one animal throwing the
whole train of beasts behind him into confusion by stop
ping to pick up grass. Every beast is also provided with
a beU, in order that the caravans meeting on the old paths,
wMch were so narrow, especiaUy in the winter, might
pass without difficulty at the appointed siding. A great
waterproof covering was spread over the whole burden,
generaUy painted brown and marked with the name of
the packman. As the laden wares stand up some way on
each side of the packsaddles, each horse requfres a tole
rably broad space of road, and this compels them not to go
in the centre of the path, where they might easUy strike
against the projecting or overhanging corners of rock.

284 THE ALPS.
but along the side of the way, often close to precipices. A
trifle, a single careless step, may send the beast a crushing
faU over awful depths. These cavalcades, one packhorse
behind the other, announcing themselves from far by a
harmonious tinkle, were formerly a considerable orna
ment to Alpine landscapes. Each packman had from sis
to seven horses, and such a section was caUed a " Staab
Eosse " (a staff of horses).
The adventurers in these organised Alpine caravans
were dirided, according to the district which their trains
of transport were to cross, into " Strackfuhrleute " or
" Adrittura " packmen, and " Eoodftihrleute." The first
crossed the mountain vrithout dehvering thefr goods from
Itahan markets (Chiavenna, BeUinzona, Meran, Aosta,
&c.) to the dep6ts on this side of the Alps ; the others
only went to the head of the pass, where the custom
houses (Mauthhauser, Susten, or Dogana) stood, and were
there unladen. There the " Ennetbfrgish " packmen or
those from the Itahan side transferred their goods to
the " dissentbirgischen Eoodern." They generally met
up there at mid-day, and a rapid exchange went on
for a few hours, and loud, busy hfe reigned in the dead
wastes. This kind of transport has, as we have said, entfrely
disappeared since the practicable carriage roads were
made. The custom-houses on the heights and the Hnes
within the Swiss territory have been turned to other uses
since a common cham of customs has surrounded the
whole Swiss frontier. Only single names, as Dazio grande*
(great toU) in the Zweiner Thai on the St. Gothard, bring
the old state of things to mind. Neither tolls nor road or
bridge money exists within the whole of Svritzerland since
the new arrangements of 1848.
The packhorse, as weU as the mountain horse so much

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 285
used "at the present day, the last of which is used for
tourists in summer, and in many places for carrying the
utensils and mUk up to the Alpine pastures, is smaU, com
pressed, tough-boned, and muscular, but of by no ineans
handsome or weU-proportioned shape. His legs are short,
his hoofs round, the fetlocks long, which gives greater
elasticity to his paces ; his breast is very broad, the Liair
on his mane and feet generally very rough. Although in
hveliness of temperament, grace of motion, and nobUity
of bearing, it is unmistakeably hiferior to the riding or
carriage horse of the plains, it not only does not yield to
it hi faithfulness, good wUl, and inteUigence, and generaUy
in solid practical quahties, but even exceeds it in aU that
concerns foresight and wonderfuUy perfect instinct. It
goes wonderfuUy safely ; it thoughtfully picks its way
along the rough stony road, and a packliorse very seldom
stumbles or faUs. If left to its free choice, it finds the
way that suits it, without Ul-timed leading or driving,
and avoids the outside edge leading down to the precipice
where it is to be feared.
The now extinct class of packmen were a \ Ough,
brutal class of men, utterly unpoHshed by civUisel ' Hfe ;
every second word in thefr mouths was an oath « .; bad
name. Thefr dangerous and laborious caUing, and con
stant strife with the elements, produced stiff hardihood
and contempt of death in them. Most of them had had
hands or feet frozen, or been in some way maimed by the
time an immoderate use of spfrituous Hquors producing
inflammatory attacks had laid them in thefr graves, or
an avalanche had carried them off. It is calculated that
on the roads of the Grisons, in earher times, three or four
packmen were kUled yearly.
Very different from the passes hitherto described are
those sohtary, rough, and strange footpaths, which often

286 THE ALPS.
lead for hours over glaciers and snowfields, whicii are
scarcely ever trod but by smugglers, poachers, and
custom-house officers, or by shepherds, messengers, and
porters in the summer. But here again there are many
shadings and subdirisions. The trodden Hne which should
make the path recognisable by the eye is generaUy
invisible : through forest guUies, on the brink of dark
gorges, over Alpme meadows and furrowed slopes of
debris, the path winds upwards to be found by the
memory of the traveUer, or by special bearings, tdl it
reaches the sphntered rocky labyrinth, in whose deepest
hollow Hes the point of passage. Here there is not, as
on the common passes, a high level basin between the
broad ridges of the mountain range, vrith its tarn lying
in almost everlasting rest. A sharp-pointed ridge, only a
few feet broad, generaUy separates one side from the
other, offering beautiful riews backwards and forwards,
as on the Juchh, between the Engelberg and Melch-thal,
in Unterwalden, on the Gocht, in the Churfirsten, between
' -¦'¦'^.n on the WaUensee, and in Alt St. Johann in Tog-
gc Passes of this kind generaUy appear in the
"-^xn auv... "o.d hmestone Alps.
ridges -ise above the snow Hne are stUl
wUder a. ""-^ore siai.. ~nch as the Segnes or Fhmser
pass (betweeii ^''i-us ana ti^e Grisons), where a narrow,
dark-grey ridge ot ._ -^stone rises from the beds of snow.
Here is the celebrated Martinsloch, a natural rock window
of considerable breadth in the Tschingelwand, through
vvhich, in March and September, the sun shines for three
days on the viUage of Elm. The snow-storms rage on this
pass vrith cHaboHcal fury, and many traveUers have faUen
rictims to it. Others, who have lost thefr way, and
thought that it led through the Martinsloch, have faUen
over the chff and had to be picked up, severely hurt, by

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 287
the peasants of the Alp. Stdl worse is its westem neigh
bour, the Eisten pass, 9000 feet high, leading from Linth
thal to Brigels. There the road leads to the rocky waUs
of the Euchi and the so-caUed " Hohes Loch," and from
thence over narrow terraces of turf and rock to the Mutt
Alp. The " Hohes Loch " passes through a redcHsh lime
stone chff, and affords such a narrow passage that only one
person can creep through after another. On putting one's
head tiirough the hole, the awful depths of tlie Limmen-
thal become visible right under the rocky vrindow. Only
bold chamois hunters and determined, firm-headed moun
taineers, dare to take the road, because one has, in ad
dition, to wade the brook fiowing in the dismal Limmern
gorge, and at one place, the Eothstein, to jump down
mto the water from a rocky cliff, when the brook, as
frequently happens, has washed away the pine trunk, which
the chamois hunters leave to chmb over.
There are many higher glacier passes which are far
less dangerous, such is the Langtaufergoch, the Oetz-
thaler-ferner, and the Hochthor under the Gross Glockner,
the Monte Moro (8970 feet), the Col d'Oren over the
AroUa glacier in the Vai d'Herins, into the Piedmontese
Vai Peffina, and most remarkably the Matterjoch on St.
Theodule, below the Matterhorn, from the Zermatt
vaUey into Vai Tournanche, which, although it leads
over glaciers for four hours, is not only passed by women,
but, in October and November, when the crevasses are
crossed by bearing snow bridges, is even used for mules
and cattle.
FinaUy, the worst passes, for which indeed the word
"pass" vriU scarcely serve in its ordinary acceptation, are
those ways over icy deserts only to be attacked by hearty
men of iron strength and free from giddiness, and which
are subject to the same conditions and accidents as ex--

288 THE ALPS.
peditions to the tops of the high Alps. There are some
which have great fame in the world of tourists, and are
often crossed under the dfrection of proved and celebrated
guides. Amongst these are the fourteen hours' march over the
Strahleck, a ridge of ice between the Schreckhorn and
Finsteraarhom in the Bernese Oberland, the dfrect route
from Grindelwald to the Grimsel, in which the whole
length of the Lower Grindelwald, Fmsteraar, and Unteraar
glaciers have to be crossed ; again the passage over the
Col du Geant, which leads from Chamouni, over the
whole length of Glacier des Bois on Mer de Glace, and
the Glacier du Tacul, between the AiguiUes du Dru, du
Moine and du Geant on the east, and the AiguiUes de
Charmoz, Blaitiere, and Mont Blanc du Tacid in the west,
and leads down by the Glacier d'Entreves to Courmayeur
hi sixteen hours, more than half the way being over
glaciers. On the 15th of August, 1860, three EngHsh
traveUers were lost in the descent to Courmayeur. They
were going along a ridge, with a precipice to right and
left, the last one stumbled from fatigue, shd down the
snow, and drew after him the guide and his two com
rades. The two other guides who held the ends of the
rope, did thefr best to save the four unfortunates, but in
vain; they had to leave their hold for fear of being
themselves carried away. Those who feU shpped five
kilometres down the slope, and their fall started an
avalanche which rolled after them, and overtook and
buried them. Next day, people found the four bodies
beneath a mass of rock. They were buried at Cour
mayeur on the 17th of August, m presence of aU the
strangers there at the time.
To this category, again, belong the paths from Zermatt
across the Saasgrat over the Findelen glacier, between

MOUNTAIN PASSES AND ALPINE ROADS. 289
the Strahlhom and Adler to the Mattmark See — the noble
pass from Evolena in the Vai d'Herins, over the Ferp^cle
glacier, by the T^te Blanche, and down the Zmutt glacier
to Zermatt — then the way from the Eiffelhom, over the
Weissthor, vrith its fearfuUy rapid descent dovra to Macu-'
gnaga in the Vai d'Anzasca. The way from the Eiffel Inn
to the top of the Weissthor, although it leads over the
Gorner glacier and a huge snowfreld, is stUl not dangerous
nor very difficult. Only at the top, where an indescribably
beautiful riew opens east and south, a snowy ridge has
to be passed vrith great care, because the deep crater of
Macugnaga sinks steeply from it. A false step, a single
stumble, would cause an frremediable faU down the cliffs.
On tffis awfiU waU of rock, furrowed by numerous channels,
between which Httle [ larp-pointed ridges project, the
traveUer has to desceha by crumbling rocks. The foot
has no safe step, the hand no firm hold, the decaying
stone is incessantly brealdng off. The path, too, is so
steep that the man below strikes his head against the foot
of the traveUer above. In clear weather it is difficult to
find one's way out of this chaos, and woe to him who is
surprised by clouds gathering on the Monte Eosa, or
snow-storms ; he is hopelessly lost if the hand of Provi
dence does not save him. The strange Col de Trift,
however, surpasses aU others in high mountain scenery ;
it has been only made passable a few years, and leads from
the Einfischthal to Zermatt. The passage is so hard, that
besides other difficulties an almost vertical waU has to be
chmbed step by step like scahng ladders agahist a for
tress, and an equaUy vertical waU of rocks to be crossed
by an fron chain fixed into it, and hanging loose over the
chffs. People complain of bad roads in the plains, when the
u

290 THE ALPS.
ground is weakened by faUs of rain, or a new road freshly
covered with stones, or a forest path interrupted by roots.
What are such annoyances to the ordinary frequented
passes, and these again to those winch we have described
in the last paragraph ?

291

CHAP. XXVI.
THE HOSPICES.
There is plenty of theoretical Christianity taught in the
world, and there is plenty of ostentatious preaching about
Love of our neighbours, and words of mercy, the diri
nity of which is developed for patient mankind with
such a mass of profound learning and caustic pene
tration, that there is no other branch of knowledge which
has cost so much paper, printer's ink, and men's blood, as
just this doctrine of the highest ancl noblest possessions and
tasks of the human race ; but in free, unseffish practice, the
great lesson of the Sermon on the Mount, "Love thy neigh
bour as thyself," is only carried out in sohtary and pecuhar
instances. The hospices on the Alps certainly belong to these
very discontinuous manifestations of practical Christianity.
Hospitium signifies in Latin both the place and the hospi
tahty. Although in such cases the significations, of words
are only fafr pretences for less honourable reahties, we
here unexpectedly come upon a very modest description of
great tasks of noble Hves. Here there is not merely a
resort for hungry and tfred people : the very elastic con
ception of hospitahty includes not merely a work done
without respect to persons, races, or creeds, but the unselfisli
endeavour to be useful to men in trouble — to help where
there is need, to save where there is danger, to do the
work of the Samaritan (vrithout calculating upon expected
u2

292 THE ALPS.
gratitude), that is the real aim of thefr task ; and it is claUy
performed honourably and modestly, quietly and noise
lessly, vrithout a Pharisaical outcry. They who devote
themselves to this work of humanity do not hypocriticaUy
cry out to the world, " I and my house vriU serve the
Lord," but they do what they promise.
Our hospices are thus not splendid outwardly, nor
from the possession of estates, for they possess in general
none at aU, or only under great restrictions ; they are not
painted falsehoods, neither is thefr practice of works of
mercy enveloped in a pious nimbus, nor adorned by sapo
naceous phrases and hypocritical sleekness. The dweUers
in the hospice greet their risitors straightforwardly and
roughly, as is the nature of the mountaineer. Old Zybach
at the Grimsel, before he aUowed himself to be seduced
into a stupid trick, of which we shaU presently have to
speak, was the model of a sensible, sharp, practical Alpine
peasant, upright and unassuming; his praises may be
read, put forward from a fidl heart in Agassiz' geological
travels. The Dfrector Lombardi, aged 70, on the St.
Gothard, and his inteUigent son-in-law, are people as fresh
and free as the mountain afr that blows round them. And
in the hospices presided over by monks, as the St. Bernard
and Simplon, there is a hearty, Hvely tone, and an uncon
strained -sociahty which appears at ffrst hard to be re
concUed with the prerious conception of a convent.
And then the buildings themselves — those simple, firm,
thick-walled, stone houses — they stand without external
omament, without a coquettish look, grown grey and of
primeval appearance, often looking more Hke ancient
ruins than places hitended for general pubhc receptions.
Form and character correspond completely to the vrild,
rough mountain country, which speaks of its rough,
stormy winter of nhie months. The Simplon hospice

THE HOSPICES. 29

o

alone, which was begun by the world-swaying emperor
of the French, Napoleon I., who laid dovrai aU his plans
on a grand scale, but afterwards was acquired and finished
by the Bernardines, stretches across the pass Hlie an
Alpine castle, palace-hke, four storied and many whi-
dowed. All the hospices, of which there are about fifteen in
the Alps, are pious foundations, of greater or less extent,
intended to shelter every traveUer according to his means,
free of expense, to give a meal gratis to the poor, or if
the vrildness of the weather should compel the wanderer
to wait longer, to keep him for a time, and to guide
people who have lost thefr way during snow-storms by
ringing bells or sending out dogs. AU the Alpine passes
do not enjoy this great blessing. Only those over the
Col de Lautaret (Mont Genevre), Mont Cenis, the Great and
Little St. Bernard, Simplon and Gothard, the Grimsel, San
Giacomo in the Tessin, and that over the Lukmanier, are
prorided vrith hospices. The others have, at the outside,
inountain inns, in which hospitahty has to be paid for.
Thefr height is generally only a few thousand feet below
the perpetual snow. On the St. Gothard the fall of snow
generaUy begins in the middle of October, and lasts
through two-thfrds of May. It thus lasts a good seven
months. There is no day, however, in the calendar on
which it has not snowed in some year or other. It is
often so bitterly cold in July and August, at this height
of 6834 feet above the sea, that flowers are frostbitten
at the vrindows as in vrinter, and have to be warmed
every day. The Lago Grande near the hospice is gene
raUy frozen at the beginning of July, and in vrinter there
are nights whose bitter cold may be compared vrith
that of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. Thick clouds
envelope the house more than half the days in a year,
n 3

294 THE ALPS.
whilst perhaps sunHght is smihng in the vaUeys, or on the
higher mountains. For the passes are also the roads by
which the giants of watery vapour stride over the Alps
from the warm, damp vaUeys of the south, and hang over
the neighbouring piUars of rock as mantles of cloud and
caps of mist, untU either the south vrind drives them over,
converting them into perfect urns of rain, or the north
wind repulses them. The hospice on the Col de Lautaret
is remarkably simUar. On the Great St. Bernard (7884
feet) the number of winter months increases to mne,
in consequence of its greater height, and the clear sunny
days of the year are quickly told over. All fuel has to
be fetched from a distance of several hours.
Taking aU these cfrcumstances mto account, it requfres
unusual resignation to become an " ospitahere." For the
mere vrish to take a place to be occupied as a benefice
can scarcely be strong enough for such an act of self-
denial. It is no sinecure, no hospital manager's place,
like that of a great sick or poor house in a town ; heavy
duties (often without sufficient means) and severe depri
vations burden it. To understand these cfrcumstances a
little more accurately, we must classify the hospices.
In the first place there are the four great monasteries
on the Great and Little St. Bernard, the Mont Cenis and
Simplon. They are inhabited and maintained by Augus
tine monks, and the foundation of the first three dates far
back in the middle ages. The hospice on Mont Cems is
said to have been founded by Charlemagne, was con
siderably increased by Napoleon I. in 1801, and served
as an asylum to Pius VH. in 1812. The foundation of
the monastery on the Great St. Bernard by St. Bernard of
Menthou (sprung from a noble famUy in Savoy), foUowed
in 962, although the annals of the bishops of Lausanne
commemorate a stUl earher one standing in 862, whose

THE HOSPICES. 295
foundation is also ascribed to Charlemagne. Archives
and documents were completely destroyed by tfres which
have tvrice visited the buUding. The present large buUd
ing dates from the 16th century, is inhabited by twelve
Augustine monks and a number of serving brothers, and
is sufficient for the reception of from seventy to eighty
guests. The Simplon hospice is the property of the St.
Bernard monastery, is connected with it, and provided by
it with from four to six ecclesiastics, under the authority
of a superior. The hospice on the Little St. Bernard is
perhaps the oldest of aU, although here too there are no
written records. It is far more scantUy prorided than
the above-mentioned, and is supphed partiaUy by the
commune of Aosta, and inhabited by brothers delegated
from the Great St. Bernard. According to tradition, Han
nibal is said to have rested on this height and held a
councU of war, on whicii account a space surrounded by
large red blocks of stone on the plain at the top of the
pass is caUed the Cfrque d' Annibal. The young monks
who shut themselves up to serve in these monasteries
generaUy begin in thefr twentieth year, and imdertake
the duty of remaining here fifteen years. Many of them
give way in that time from the severity of the chmate,
and the hardships or dangers to Hfe when they make the
excursions vrith thefr dogs in winter or spring, after
avalanches or severe faUs of snow, with the riew of help
ing traveUers in difficulty. The few endurable summer
months, during which traveUers for pleasure arrive, are
the only time of recreation for the monks. During this
time, however, they thoroughly enjoy Hfe, devote them
selves to the entertainment of thefr risitors, make excur
sions with ladies to beautiful points of view, play on the
piano, and by thefr refined and gentlemanhke behaviour,
win the favour of aU their guests to a high degree.
V 4

296 THE ALPS.
Sciences do not appear to trouble thefr heads partlcidarly,
and if here or there one busies himsefr vrith some kind of
experiment, the results are tolerably unhnpo'rtant.
The friendliness of thefr greeting, and attention to
treating strangers, if too many of them have not taken
up thefr quarters there, is ready great. Immediately on
thefr entrance, one of the serring-brothers meets the
stranger as at a good hotel, and leads him, accordhig to
his rank, either to the refectory or to a great room behind
the kitchen, intended for the poorer classes. Here the
guest is regaled vrith something to eat, if it is not time
for meals. Strangers of the higher classes dine with the
monks at the same table, and have a ready rich and
abundant series of dishes, considering the height, with a
dehcate wine. The poorer passengers, who claim an
absolutely gratuitous entertainment, are strengthened for
thefr continued journey by soup, meat, bread, and a
small glass of brandy ; and at evening led to a clean,
warm, and comfortable sleeping-room. On the great
St. Bernard female' guests are received in a smaU special
builcHng next to the regular hospice, caUed the H6tel de
St. -Louis. According to the rules of the order, ladies are
also excluded from the table at the great meal-times,
six in the morning and evening, which, however, does
not prevent the monks from devoting a great part of
thefr unoccupied time to the ladies, vrith French gal
lantry ; for French is the universal medium of conver
sation at aU these four monastic hospices. The property
of the two other affihated hospices, the Little St. Bernard
and Simplon, is perhaps considerable. At the same time,
the sacrifices which they make to the community are
very great. The- yearly number of passengers over the
Simplon varies between ten and twelve thousand ; that
over the Great St. Bernard, from sixteen to twenty thou-

THB HOSPICES. 297
sand ; so that the budget of expenses in the last-named
hospice reaches 100,000 francs.
The St. Gothard hospice is far from being so favour
ably situated, vrith regard to its economic means or
locahty. Its foundation probably faUs at the beginning
of the 14th century. From 1682 to 1841, it was occu
pied by two Capuchhi monks (vrith some interruptions
from wars, fire, and destruction), since which time it has
passed into the hands of its very zealous dfrector, the weU-
known old Lombardi, who does not belong to any rehgious
order. He Hves up there summer and vrinter ; and it is
his duty to see that the road is properly attended to,
even in bad weather ; and has, therefore, tiirough the
bad half of the year, either in person or by the people
he employs, to inspect the road, and set to work the men
set apart for clearing off the snow. In order that he
may thoroughly carry out search and assistance for people
in difficulties, he is compeUed, on the side belonging to
Canton Tessin, always to keep a strong male servant, and
a maid to attend upon female traveUers, as weU as one
horse at least, by which means he can transport strangers
who are unable to continue thefr journey on foot to the
houses of shelter at Afrolo or Urseren. It is also his
task to take care of strangers so long as they are unable
to continue thefr journey, whenever necessary.
In the government Hcense it is said, " Tutti gh uomini
sono frateUi ed eguah, tutti hanno dfritto ai medesimi
serrigi, ai medesimi benefici " (aU men are brothers and
equals ; aU have a right to the same serrices and bene
fits). That is a senthnent honourable to the Canton
Tessin and its statesmen. But the hospice is poor,
entirely vrithout means ; it possesses no funds, and has to
draw its sources of support, amounting to 10,000 francs
yearly, from benevolent voluntary contributions. Thesq

298 THE ALPS.
come in so sparingly, however, that almost every year con
cludes vrith a deficit. It is then a very difficult problem to
be benevolent vrithout having the means for it in one's
hands. The number of poor traveUers taken care of
yearly amounts to between ten and twelve thousand, and
is unnustakeably on the increase, without an increase in
the funds. Eich people, who have reached the Hmits of
their earthly Hves, might weU deposit thefr goods here by
vriU, do a hundred-fold greater serrice t© suffering hu
manity, and gain more heartfelt blessings than by many
other donations to funds which have, without thefr help,
accumulated many considerable estates. For it is cer
tainly an elevating consciousness that, by a drop of vrine
or a bit of bread, one may have been of serrice to the
poor who are fainting in the terrible rocky wUds, or
whose lives are threatened by the unchained wrath of the
elements. May this cursory remark find some echo in
the hearts of humane people !
The govemment of Canton Tessin, vrithin which the
house Hes, occasionally presents them with old clothes
that have become unserriceable for the army, for distri
bution amongst the poor. The method by which here,
as in the great monastic hospices, help is given to tra
veUers half frozen by great cold or sudden and unex
pected storms of weather is highly to the purpose. They
are first led about in a cold room, and have given to them
either muUed wine or a kind of weak grog. The parts
of their bodies which have been most exposed to the
cold are then cHpped in snow water, rubbed with snow,
and, as the cfrculation of the blood becomes more hvely,
laid in a warm room, weU covered vrith wooUen cloths,
and supplied vrith the necessary food. This is generaUy
foUowed by a lethargic sleep, which sometimes lasts for
twenty hours. On waking the patients are generaUy so

THE HOSPICES. 299
restored that, after a meal, they are able to continue their
journey. The feeHng of intense relief, and the happy
comfort which embraces the traveUer who enters in wUd
weather, and finds such a humane and hearty reception,
is not to be described ; and the stranger who has any
means, vrithout being asked for it, vriUingly contributes
the worth of that which has been unselfishly given to
him. There are certainly traveUers of higher rank who
are mean enough to go on vrithout giring anything.
In aU these hospices those celebrated dogs are kept
who go out vrith the servants in bad weather, and help
them to find out people who are lost, or have had
accidents, by thefr wonderfuUy developed instinct. By
thefr powerful build and unusual hardiness they are able
to hold out against the most vehement storms. An
accurately characteristic description of them is to be
found in Tschudi's " Thierleben der Alpenwelt." On the
St. Gothard there are now kept one St. Bernard's dog,
one Kamschatka, and two Leonberger dogs (presented
by Herr Esseg of Stuttgard), which are said to be very
serriceable. The number of real accidents has much diminished of
late years. On the Great St. Bernard no fatal case has
occurred for some time. It is worse on the St. Gothard,
on account of the necessary regular postal serrice.
Besides the accident related on page 188 of this book, it
happened a few weeks earher that on the so-caUed
Plangen, above the refuge " Am Matteh," thirteen men
who accompanied the post, together vrith horses and
sleighs, were carried down into the Eeuss by an over
powering avalanche. Three of them, fathers of famihes,
and nine horses, found thefr graves in the snow ; the others
were saved by speedy help. A truly tragical case, how
ever, overtook one of the most zealous helpers, Herr

300 THE ALPS.
Joseph MiiUer of Hasperthal, during these attempts. He
had gone to stand by his neighbours, but was over
whelmed by a new avalanche at the place caUed " Im
Harnisch," and lost his Hfe. On the 27th of October, in
the same year, the post coming from Airolo was over
whelmed by an avalanche near the house of refuge,
Ponte Tremola; a traveUer from Bergamo was kUled,
the others were saved. The latest accidents took place
on the 2nd of November, 1855, on which day three men
were carried over an abyss by the faU of a " snow-shield,"
but were saved by united and rigorous efforts.
The weU-known Grimsel hospice is of very different
character in greatness and importance. It now has far
more the splendour of an inn opened for speculation, in
which aU that tickles the palate is to be had for money,
than the character of an unselfish, benevolent institution.
The cfrcumstance that it was let by the Oberhash vaUey
to the present landlord, shows its different position.
Besides, the landlord formerly had the right to ask every
passenger a toU for keeping up the road, and leave was
promised to him to keep an inn for money. When the
lessee was obhged to give poor traveUers a night's
lodging and a simple meal, he had, on the other hand,
the right to make collections throughout aU Svritzerland,
and to recover payments for his intended benefits. If
we add that the pass of the Grimsel is one by no means
so universaUy used for trade and intercourse as that over
the St. Gothard, that in consequence only the poor of the
immediately neighbouring districts profited by it, it
foUows that the Grimsel is nothing more nor less than a
regular inn, and by no means a hospice in the proper
sense. Besides this, the landlord does not pass the
winter with his famUy at this hospice, 700 feet lower
than that on the St. Gothard, but leaves it vrith his cattle

THE HOSPICES. 301
in November, and does not retum tUl the beginning of
March. During the most severe quarter of the year,
only one servant, or at most two, remain in the Grimsel,
in order to keep the road close to the house in order, to
send out dogs in heavy snow-storms, and when the dogs
bark, to show the direction by loud cries. This vrinter
stay may almost be compared to Siberian banishment, as
in severe and snowy winters, weeks or even months pass
without any one crossing the road, whilst aU intercourse
vrith the neighbouring riUages is cut off. The nearest
human dweUing is the Valaisan viUage, Oberwald, two
and a half hours off. Eemembering that in deep snow
a walk often becomes three or fourfold the time on hard,
dry ground, and considering that the snowfaU in this
neighbourhood often reaches such a height that the
servant has to get out of the upper vrindows of the house
to clear the path to the door, and finally, that avalanches
frequently threaten to destroy the huge, firm, casemate-
hke buUding, it wiU be granted that the lot of a winter
servant on the Grimsel is more dull and disheartening
than that of a villain shut up in a cell.
Formerly the landlord was aUowed to go about col
lecting in the country, or to send men about for this
purpose. As it followed, however, that much deception
was practised under this pretext ; as, moreover, experience
showed that the landlord was cariying on an exceUent
business in his remote, uncontrolled district by the extra
ordinary increase of visitors and by sufficient bUls, the
good wUl of benevolent contributors sank, and in most
cantons he was forbidden to coUect,- in compensation for
wffich the govemment made him a present from thefr
cantonal poor fund. Besides this, the whole number of
poor people yearly relieved here amounts only to between
900 and 1600 persons.

302 THE ALPS.
A celebrated criminal case contributed a good deal to
clear up the nature of the Grimsel hospice.
Since the year 1836, Peter Zybach of Meyringen had
been lessee of the Grimsel, vrith the meadows and rights
of coUecting for a yearly payment of 2500 francs, and
managed it to every one's content. He himself had the
best reason to be content with his lease, as it was estabhshed,
that during the summer he took from rich tourists yearly
some 140,000 francs. The lease came to an end vrith the
year 1852, and as Zybach had become weU to do at the
Grimsel, there were other aspfrants for the term of a new
lease. Besides this, a report was current that the Grimsel
would be put up to open auction, and in such an auction
it might be driven up to a high price. Zybach proposed
to the Land Commission a new four years' lease, at a con
siderably increased rent, without, however, gaining the
consent of the court. Suddenly an account came from the
wUderness of the Grimsel to the Hashthal, that the hospice
had been burnt down in a few hours on the night of the
fifth of November. According to the report of three
servants, a stranger had come in in the evening and lodged
in the middle story. At half-past eleven at mght the ser
vants had been awakened by the barking of the dogs, and
when they went out into the passage, a clear flame was
shimng. The fire had obriously been kindled by the im
prudence of the guest, and he had been burnt. The fire
had so soon gained the upper hand that aU attempts to
extinguish it were in vain. The furniture, msured for
20,000 francs, was bumt. In spite of the deep snow, a
commission of investigation went up to the Grimsel, and
it soon appeared that almost all the goods and chattels
had been concealed and thus saved. Zybach hesitated in
his answers, then wished to give up Lus claims for mdemm-
fication, but was foohsh enough to make proposals of

THE HOSPICES. 303
bribery to the commissioner, if he would be silent, and
when he remained honourably firm to his duty, the un
fortunate criminal threw himself into the lake behind the
hospice, to escape by suicide from the shame of a severe
punishment. Zybach, however, was saved, and thrown
into prison with his servants. Here an investigation
showed that, by Zybach's persuasion, and on a promise of
750 francs, the servants had declared themselves ready,
and after putting the effects in safety had set fire to the
buUdmg. Zybach, who was, independently of this, not very popu
lar vrith the people of the vaUey, because he had rapidly
turned into a prosperous man, and one making show of
his prosperity, was not only at once condemned through
the whole Hashthal, but the wrath of the people found
new food for irreconcilable hatred because the destruction
of the hospice made it impossible for the people to pass
the Grimsel in the spring, the time of the most active
cheese trade with Italy. For it is four and a half hours
from Guttanen, the last viUage of the Hashthal, and
several hours more from there to the Valais, by a very
difficult, and in winter very dangerous road. A good
resting place was thus an absolute necessity, and the
hospice had in fact been founded with this object.
The state prosecution had to propose the punishment
of death for Zybach, and the judgment of the court ofthe
Bernese Oberland was death, and twelve years' imprison
ment for the accompHces. The appeal brought by
Zybach before the great Court of the Canton, changed
the sentence of death to imprisonment for Hfe, because
Zybach had during his whole Hfe been an honourable
man and an exceUent father of a famUy ; and when the
unfortunate man had been imprisoned for some years, and
the physicians had declared that a change of residence

304 THE ALPS.
was necessary to save his life, the rest of his punishment
was remitted on a petition from his famUy conditionaUy
on his emigrating to America. He now hves unknown,
and under another name m Germany — where, no one
knows. The Grimsel has been increased, and buUt anew
with more convemence, and is a yearly rendezvous of the
tourist world.
Such are the great, celebrated, world-known Alpine
hospices. There are a few more of them, which are not
known or celebrated, Httle risited, and stiU less thought
of by the Hberahty of benevolent people, leading a qmet,
sohtary Hfe. They are those small houses of refuge on
the old Alpine pass of the Lukmanier, which are kept by
poor peasants. In the depths of the Vai Blegno, behind
OHvone, the path creeps up to the top of the pass, and here,
at a few hours' distance, lie the two Httle houses at Casaccia
and Camperio. They were founded by St. Carlo Borromeo
out of the property of the orders of humihation which he
abohshed, as opposed to his reformatory tendencies, but
which have now grown so poor that they do not deserve
the name less than they fulfil the duty. StiU more effete
and robbed of aU means of support are the three on the
Grisons side of the mountam. Santa Maria, the miserable
and dfrty St. GaUs, and further on St. John without means
of Hfe or any kind of endowment. TLie formerly rich
convent of Dissentis used originaUy to take care of and
support them ; but since the monks have not much Left
for themselves, and the State has been obHged to act to
a certain extent as thefr guardian on account of thefr
disorderly housekeeping, these beneficial institutions are
gradually faUing into more complete ruin. A httle better
situated are the Ospizio inVaUe, and that AU'Acqua (near
the waterfall of St. Charles), in the Bedretto vaUey.
On aU other mountam roads, however rough and

THE HOSPICES. 305
dangerous they may be, there exists no such excellent
institutions of a humane benevolence. At the utmost a
mountain inn may have been estabhshed by speculation
when the pass is frequented, and serrice may be had for
money. For the rest, every poor devU is freely permitted,
on any of these passes, to starve and to freeze at his
pleasure.

X

306 THE ALPS.

CHAP. XXVIL
CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS.
The patriarchal husbandry of the Alps comes down to
our century strange and legendary, almost Hke a romantic
reminiscence of bygone times. When we have seen the
farmers and economists of the plains take a hvely share
in modem progress, in discoveries over the domains of
chemistry, mechanics, and physics, which affect him —
when he brings the treasures of his bams and his stalls to
market by the raUway, Hves at the best hotels, wears
town-clothes, buUds town-houses, adopts town-manners,
and begins to destroy our conception of the good, old,
original, round, firm "peasant" — many wUl find it hard
to understand that, close to raUways and the thronging
life of tovras, there is stUl a peasant world which, in a cer
tain sense, stands upon the second historical stage of a
people's development, and like the Tartars leaves house
and home, wife and chUdren, to pass a nomade life during
part of the year, in order to travel vrith thefr wealth of
herds a day's journey mto the mountains, where fresh
young pasturage is to be had for the cattle. The meadows
scattered high up in the Alps, vrith strong, short, tffick,
herbage, very favourable to the production of mUk, form
an important part of the national wealth, and yearly pro
duce a value of many million francs.
But, just because the Alphie life in the chalets is some-

rOEEST CHAPEL.

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 307
thing unusual and strange, he who has never visited the Alps
easUy confuses the romance of the neighbouring landscape,
the subhme impressions of the mountams, as he has met
them in pictures, and a poetical ideal of customs, habits, and
ways of Hfe of the people, with the real hfe in chalets, and
invents omamental pictures which have no actual existence.
Alpine husbancfry is something quite different from
what people sometimes fancy. It exists only late in the
spring, in summer, and in the first autumn months. Dur
ing the winter the peasant keeps his beasts in staUs in the
Alps, just as in other places. He who goes up with the
cattle into the mountains during the good season is a
"Seim." In Svritzerland this is done by men; in the
Eastem Alps, in the Bavarian highlands, and in Austria,
generaUy by women, the " Sennerin," " Almerin."
A Senn (" Sejniun " in Eomansch) is, with few exceptions,
a very prosaic mountain peasant. His cattle are his chief
possession, and therefore the source of his life's occupation,
the object of his study, meditation, and greatest care, his
pride, and, in short, they form his great problem in Hfe.
He takes rank amongst his companions in his commune
according to the greatness of his herd ; he is valued
according to it, ascribes to it his respect at home, his
magnateship in the viUage. Thus it is in most Alpine
vaUeys. There are also, however, rich peasants in Alpine
rillages, who do not trouble themselves about breeding
cattle and Alpine husbandry, and their Alps are let out for
rent. Every peasant who possesses cattle does not go to the
Alps ; the size of his herd determines it. He who has twenty-
four or more cows is caUed a " Sennten-bauer," because
this number, especiaUy when a buU is added to it, is caUed
a " Senntum." He who has fewer is caUed in AppenzeU
only a "SchuppeH Vech." Such greater possessors of

308 THE ALPS.
cattle, caUed " Alpadore " hi the Itahan Alps, have either
pasturages of thefr own, or pay rent for some, or (what
is generaUy the case) make use of the common Alps or
" Hfrteren." SmaUer peasants, who have only a few cows,
go themselves in sprmg to the Vor Alps — " Berg-giiter,"
or " Maiersas?e," also to the common Alps ; but when the
cattle are cfriveii up to the higher pasturages in July and
August (the so-caUed middle and upper "Staffel," hi Itahan
" Stabei" or " Corti "), a number of neighbours intrust
their cows to a common Senn, vrith whom they settle
accounts at the conclusion of the Alpine season, generaUy
at Michaelmas. To be able to arrange the amounts of
cheese and butter business clue to each indiridual, as
cHffereut cows do not give the same amount of mUk, all
the persons who share go up on two appointed days dur
ing the Alpine season (caUed in the Engadine "in Slfras"),
each cow is mUked in presence of the sharers, the mUk
measured, and according to this result the proportion of
the share of each to the whole is determined. The Senn
who looks after the mUk undertakes the duties of every
day with his helps, and receives a fixed pay or a share in
the profits.
To keep the Alpine pasturages in good order, and to
keep general order, notwithstancHng the greatest freedom,
ou the mountains, to which all must be subject, aU the
companions in the Alps choose an Alp-master, a kind of
mountain pohce, " who is to keep the Alp honourably,
protect and guard it as his own goods, make paths and
look after them, and take care that no one mows wUd hay
tUl St. James's Day, to oblige the companions in the Alp
to clean and stone the Alp on a certain day," and much
more of the same kind. So the " AlpbuchH " prescribes
a naive code of laws passed by the peasants themselves in
the Alp assembly, which has to be read over once a year

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 309
and confirmed, or altered if required, accordmg to the
decision of the majority.
The vrinter passes monotonously and quietly. The
Alpine viUages are snowed up ; the communication be
tween one and another is often cut off, and, when the
houses are widely scattered, even the commuincation from
one house to another. The only inducement which leads
the peasants up to the mountains is either shding down
wood or vrild hay. In many Alpine districts it often
happens that when the Senn has exhausted the provision
of fodder in one hay stable, he goes to another perhaps
an hour off with his herd, then to a thfrd or fourth, and
thus leads a wandering Hfe, even in vrinter, tiU the Alpine
season begins. At last spring returns to the land of the
Alps. It is the end of May ; the long-expected day of the
journey to the Alp arrives — the feast of resurrection in
the calendar of the Senn. A few days before he had
aheady been there with his man, had repafred the way
where perhaps it had been destroyed by an avalanche,
had looked to the roof, and made the most necessary
preparations for the entry of the guests. Now the Senn,
and aU who are going with him to the mountam, adom
themselves. The sister fixes nosegays of flowers with
gold tinsel, or wreaths of young leaves and box, on the
hat ofher brother, the " maitele" (maiden) on that ofher
"buob" (lad); varied ribands flutter and twinkle; the
dazzhng white Hnen roUed up high over the brown arms
contrasts weU with the scarlet cloth waistcoat and the
bright yeUow leather gaiters of the AppenzeUer and
Toggenburger, or where there is stiU a national costume,
and where the leveUing tendencies of our time, penetrating
even mto the mountain vaUeys, have not wiped out every
trace of the ancient independent growth of the people's
X 3

310 THE ALPS.
doing and thinking, dress and manners. For there are
great Alpme vaUeys in which aU spirit, the whole poetical
side of the people, has disappeared, and only the most
home-brewed, neat, and prosaic daUy Hfe rules. The
cows are stroked and sleeked tiU thefr coats shme in the
golden sunshme, and not a drop of water would stick to
thefr smooth coats. With corybantine shouts of exulta
tion, betokemng an inexhaustible humour, the "Zusenn"
opens the procession, if only men are going to the Alp,
vrith his white or pp' ted mUkpaU on his shoulder. The
largest, handsomest cows foUow him with thefr brazen
" trychlen" (beUs), a foot high, hanging from thefr broad
leathern neckbands prorided vrith aU kinds of coloured
ornaments sewed to them. These bells, of which there
are generaUy three to each train, bulge out to a con
siderable breadth near the hancUe, often to a foot in
diameter, but grow narrower below, and cause such a
fearful alarumhke and yet not inharmomous sound, that
it can be heard an hour away in favourable weather.
These gigantic beds are put on the cows only whUst the
procession is passing the vUlages, to give splendour to the
herd and entice all the people. If this object is gamed,
this mstrument of display is taken away from their necks,
because experience shows that it is prejudicial to the
cows' lungs.
A concourse of people takes place in the riUages
through which the procession passes, for old and young
wish to pass in review "Korde-Urche-Biibh's" (Conrad
Ulrich's) or Franz-Anthony-Lismet-Seppeli's beautiful
cows, and examme thefr shape and "g'schlachtheit" (breed)
with the afr of connoisseurs. The mountain peasant has
his cows' sesthetics, which distinguishes the finest shades
of colour, position of feet and horns, and other pecuhari
ties with close discrimination. Jumping and springing as

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 311
if they knew that they were gomg up to the rich nourishing
Alpme pastures, the whole herd of cows, goats, and lambs
foUows in long procession. Eoaring and grumbhng, in the
midst goes the Sultan of the Seragho, the " Muni, " to
day the scapegoat for universal amusement ; for it has
been the popular custom from of old to bind the mUking
stool, adorned vrith flowers, between his horns. The
"gaumer'' or herd, ancl the "handbub," go with the
procession in Hnen slifrts and rough cloth hose, sup
porting the "Zusenn" with cries and "jodels." The
packhorse with the cheese implements brings up the
rear, with the possessor of the herd unmistakably
conscious of the triumph that is being celebrated.
Women and chUdren generally stay behind in the
vaUeys. But there are places in the Grisons (such as
Davos and Mutten), as also in the Valais, which migrate
altogether into the summer viUage, learing thefr vrinter
abode vrith the houses shut up ; perhaps one old man
left behind as a watcher. Such is the journey into the
Alps. This is the picturesque, animated side of the journey,
at least. But there are other expeditions of herds into
the high mountains, in which not only dUficult passages
have to be overcome, but strength and skUl to be em
ployed, and even Hfe to be risked. This is especiaUy the
case when the Alpine pasturage Hes on the other side of
a glacier, and the sHppery level of ice, vrith its concealed
rents and crevasses, has to be crossed. There is then
need of special erections ; by help of picks and axes,
roads and bridges of boards are prepared, or ways
made through labyrinths of ice, and scattered vrith sand
and earth, hi order to overeome the instinctive repugnance
of the cattle to the element so strange and deceitful to
them. The herd often hesitates with inrincible obstinacy
X 4

312 THE ALPS.
to tread upon the surface of the ice, and the Senns are
compelled to seize the most desperate means of com
pulsion. There are even Alps where one cow after
another has to be let down over lofty waUs of rock Hke
bundles of merchandise from a crane.
The protective roof of the chalet (" Sennhiitte") Hes
amidst the grassy ocean of the Alp, vrithout omament
and simple as a rough sketch, hearty and invitmg, as
a greeting of welcome to the meadows, and yet vrith
something theatricaUy picturesque (as the Alp BiUs on
the Churfirsten near the WaUensee). The whole construc
tion, in the districts abounding in forests, is throughout
that of a blockhouse ; it is erected simply of wood that
has turned a deep brown from the action of the sun's
rays through many years. Only the substructure, a few
feet in height, is of stone, often a waU that seems to have
been buUt in times before civihsation. Above this one-
storied, artless ground floor, that, from its naive, un
laboured naturaffiess, harmonises with the majestic sim
phcity of the mountain world, rests the flat, sUver-grey,
rough shingle-roof It is weighted vrith heavy stones, in
order that the vrild Fohn, the oldest countryman of the
mountaineer, when he is roaring up warm from the south
and plungmg over the cliffs into the mountain basins, may
leave the huts untouched. This is the asylum of the Senn
and his helps during the summer months. In the Alps
where good order reigns, and proper care is taken of the
cattle, " gaden " or staUs are erected by the chalet, where
the herd is placed during oppressive heats, in cold mghts
or wUd storms. Eational management has not introduced
such erections everywhere, and there are Alps enough in
which the Wettertanne is the only refuge of the wretched
cattle during heat and fearful storms. The born-and-
bred sluggishness of the mountaineer will not suffer any

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 313
innovation to be undertaken in the Alp. The Alpine
husbandry is stiU carried on as it was in " Pfuch-ahni's"
(great-great-grandfather's) times. If at all practicable,
the chalet is buUt against a rock, or, if it overhangs, even
partly under it, in order to get a thoroughly cool place
for the milk. If a fresh spring or glacier brook runs
near, the dweUer in the Alps hkes to conduct the water
through Liis ceUar, to drive away the air which has grown
. sour from the mUk by the ventUation produced, and to
bring fresh particles of air with the water into the room.
The immediate neighbourhood of the chalet is gene
raUy a bottomless swamp of mfre, in which nettles and
Alpine sorrel grow luxuriantly. The interior generally
answers to this filthy surrounding, and is a powerful
corrective for every brain heated by. subhme fancies ;
for purity and neatness are everywhere anything but
distinguishing attributes of cattle-keeping people, and
the mountaineer makes no efforts to be an exception.
The bright-coloured, cheerful feast-day dress, which
so excited and charmed the eye on the joumey up,
has disappeared. White coarse Hnen trousers, whicii
speak of stable-work in every shacle, and a ditto " futter-
hemd," i. e. a blouse-Hke jacket vrithout an opemng in
front, together with the heavy clamping wooden shoes, and
a close fitting cap, form the whole dress of the Senn.
An entry into the interior of the chalet leads at once to
the central rooms. According to the old German custom,
dweffing-room and kitchen, dining-place and dressing-
room, are all united in one general apartment, and here
one may HteraUy rest at the hospitable hearth. This
hearth, and the mUk-kettle hung above it, take up most of
the room, displaying thefr high importance. Here is the
spot where the chemical process of separation takes place
which lays the first foundation of the delicate Swiss cheeses.

314 THE ALPS.
Hence this locahty is significantly called the "Weller "
(where the milk is gently simmered or " erweUet "). Be
low the hearth no extensive culinary apparatus need be
looked for, such as one finds in old peasants' houses, vrith
vast chimneys : such superfluities do not belong to the
simplicity of the Alpine world. The Senn in the Svriss
Alps manages his cooking to this day something as in our
youthful recoUections Eobinson Crusoe did from neces
sity ; a blackened hole in the front corner of the chalet,
surrounded by a few stones, without chimney or passage
for the smoke, forms the hearth. " To give a promise
behind the hearth " would certamly not be possible here.
Close by it stands an upright tree, fixed in above and
below, and thus capable of being turned round vrith a
long fron arm, the so-caUed " turner," to which the mUk
kettle is hung. The smoke may find its own way out
just as it hkes, — through the door or roof-shmgles, or
through the cracks between the beams. Hence the in
terior of every chalet is tolerably fuU of smoke. If the
Alpine air is pure, fine, thin, and not much saturated vrith
watery vapour, the smoke is soon consumed, so that the
organs of breathing are not much burdened. If, how
ever, it rains and snows, so that the air presses heavUy on
the roof, the othervrise draughty and cold resting-place
inside the chalet becomes scarcely bearable. Other com
forts for daUy wants are a foldmg table some two feet
long, which is fastened by hooks to the waU, and for the
sake of room can be turned back when not used ; then a
chest in form of a bench along the waU, a block of wood
which may act as a seat, and a shelf which has to take
the place of a cupboard, where aU kinds of things, bread
and articles of dress, are kept. Besides this, there per
haps hangs a rifie against the wall, if the Senn is also fond
of sport ; and in the Cathohc districts the peasant of strict

CHALET LIFE IN THB ALPS. 315
behef does not forget the basin of holy water, with the
" nuster " (paternoster, or wreath of roses), which is per
haps increased by a " HeUigen Helgeh " from the monas
tery at Einsiedeln pasted to the wainscot. Every other
piece of furniture in the house is part of the preparations
for cheese and butter. The sleeping-room is very va
riously arranged. In the Bernese Oberland, where the
chalets have along their fi-ont a kind of artless entrance-
haU or peristyle, caUed " mulchedach," or mUk-passage
(because the cows are milked there in bad weather), the
sleeping-place, caUed the " gastere," is placed in this pro
jecting part of the building ; in other districts it is over
the pigstye, and caUed " trUeten." It is easy to under
stand how agreeable this position is from the immediate
neighbourhood of the restless grunting sleeping compa
nions, and the exhalations which arise from them. For
the rest the couch is not inferior to the rest of the house in
originahty of construction and simphcity. A mattress
stuffed with wUd hay, the undisturbed home of a legion
of bloodsuckers, and a wooUen coverlet, or, as in the
Valais and Grisons, a cloth made of sheepskin, is the
whole preparation for the sleeping apartment. If the
shingle roof is out of order, an involuntary shower-bath is
prepared for the travellers in steady lasting rain ; or if, as
before said, the flat roof of the chalet leans agamst an ac
cessible block of stone, the inquisitive, never-resting goats
chmb round about it aU night, and keep up such an awful
clattering as if the fabulous unicorn was passing his
monstrous existence up there. Such is hfe in the idyUic,
romantic chalets, which appear so charming in poetical
productions on the stage.
In aU the moderately-sized Alps of Switzerland there
are generaUy three men and a boy ; women look after
them, as we have afready said, only in the Eastern and

316 THE ALPS.
Austrian Alps, and in some vaUeys of the Valais. The
" Senn " is major-domo ; either as himself possessor of
the herd, or as appomted by a society, he is commander
of the regiment, takes care of the cheese and the magazme,
and is, at the same time, book-keeper of the concern.
Memorandum-book, day-book, hst of current prices, ancl
ledger-books, generally are either united in a calendar of
the quarter interleaved vrith paper, and stuck behind a
flat board nailed to the waU, or some kind of smaU pocket-
book contains the hieroglyphics of the whole management
of the business. His help and supporter is the " Sennbub,
handbub, schorrbub, junger," or, in the Valais, the " pat6,"
who, lU^e the Senn, spends the greatest part of his time in
the chalets ; he has to clean the vessels (winch, in contrast
with the ordinary habits of the chalet, are kept perfectly
clean, because the goodness of the cheeses, &c., depends
upon it), and to help the Senn, but is not always a lad
(bub) of fourteen or fifteen, but often a tough feUow of
thfrty or more. The mediator between vaUey and moun
tain, the cheese mercury and telegraph to home, is the
" Zusenn," who has to carry down all the productions of
the Alp, and to bring back wood and victuals. In the
Valaisan patois he is generaUy caUed " Lamieiy " (I'ami).
Where thmgs are well ordered, he has a packhorse to
help him. FinaUy, the proper herd is the " Chiiener,
gaumer, Kiihbub," or "Einderer," or, in the Valais,
" Vigly " (vigilantia f) His exclusive duty is to drive
out and look after the cows.
In safe places where the cows cannot faU, and no beast
of prey can attack the herd, he Hes half day long on the
ground in fine weather, looks out on the noble Alpine
landscape, "jodels" to his heart's content down to the
vaUey, and is happy in dreamy idleness. If, however,
the cattle have to be kept on a steep Alp, he has to go by

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 317
giddy precipices, to points where the pasturing cattle docs
not trust itself, and death goes step for step with Mm.
In storm or thunder, in pouring rain, and at every time
of day, he has to fuffil his dangerous calling, and often
has to remam aU day long in wet clothes. This is the re
verse of the charming picture of shepherd life. But the
Senn has his part of it too, when it rains weeks together,
clouds he Hke evU spirits of the mountain grey and dis
maUy round the huts, the wet wood wiU not burn, and
wind and icy draughts whistle througii the hut tUl the
limbs are frozen, or when it is snowing in July, and pihng
up its flakes a foot deep, so that the cattle can find no
food for days, are roarmg for hunger, and give no milk.
Handsome and sightly as the herd is on the Alp during
good weather, they grow equally miserable and thin in
cold wet summers.
The arrangement of the day in the Alps is uniform in
the extreme. Sundays and weekdays ahke — no beU
announces the sabbath rest, no clean dress marks the
feast-day, not a drop of wine at the inn wets the thirsty
throat in the evenhig. WhUst the whole landscape is
stffi resting a dreamy cloud-blue in the arms of the early
mormng, the vaUeys are steaming deep below in the
twihght, and strips of white mist are creeping througii
ravines and gorges, whUst the night sends its last greet
ings by the mornmg star, and the forehead of the sky
and snowy points of the ice-mountains are just blushing
with the day's first kiss, the Senn rises from his hard
couch of hay, and. mUks whUst the " handbub " is Hghting
the fire. The milk is directly warmed in the great
kettle, and separated vrith " etscher" (rennet) so that it
runs off mto " kasbulderer" and whey. Meanwhile full
day moves up on its cheerful morning pinions.
The Sennen have had breakfast, the herd cfrives out his

318 THE ALPS.
cattle, the " handbub " cleans his vessels, and the Senn
contmues to work at his cheeses. The household work
fiUs up the day. As evening comes on, the tired day
graduaUy goes to sleep, the everlastmg " world's heart of
flame," the sun, sinks behind the mountams, the herd or
the Senn entices the cows to the chalet with the " Eug-
gussler" or Eanz cles Vaches, empties the foaming pads of
the rich creamhke milk, and the morning's procedure,
vrith supper and cleaning the utensUs, finishes the day's
work. At nightfaU the Senn, in Cathohc districts, goes
out of the chalet, sings vrith a loud voice through a great
wooden milk funnel (caUed "Valle") a prayer in the
choral melody, generally verses from the Gospel of St.
John, with the EngHsh greeting. The other herdsmen in
the mountams and the vrild hay-cutters or rool^diggers
who hear it, kneel down piously, and utter a Paternoster
or Ave Maria. This caU replaces in the solitary Alps the
evening beU, which in the vaUeys summons people to
thanksgivings for the past day, and serves at the same
time as a hospitable invitation to belated and perhaps
lost traveUers. There are, however, hitches in the hospi
tahty sometimes, especiaUy in the Itahan Alps. The
herdsmen in remote cHstricts often have a great objection
to receive traveUers for the mght, for fear of entertaining
robbers. They cannot believe that any one shoffid
clamber about the rocks vrith a riew to pleasure or com
fort, and suspect that only necessity and ffight drive men
to the mountains. In the Tyrol, they often fancy inountain
traveUers to be messengers of the government, sent to
inqmre into the condition of the people, thefr number of
cattle and property. " Now we shaU soon have a new
tax," is the general chorus of the incredulous. Other
Senns on Alps let out for hire, or on those belongmg to
a company, refuse most decidedly to give anything, or

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 319
perhaps give "um GotteswiUen," a bit of "zieger" (dry
cheese) to the almost fainting traveller, but vrill take no
money for it, in order not to be suspected of infidehty to
thefr employers. This happens of course in cHstricts
httle visited by tourists, such as the lateral vaUeys of the
Engadine. When aU is. finished in the chalet, they go to rest on
the vrild hay, under the " SchnetzH-Decke," and deep
strong sleep strengthens the wearied Hmbs of these harm
less chUdren of nature.
Only one interval comes as a friendly resting-place into
the monotony of Alpine existence. It is the Alpine feast-
day, the " Alpstoberte," the " Aelplerkibli," or whatever
it is caUed in the different districts. To these we shaU
devote a later chapter. In Cathohc districts, a pubhc
mormng serrice is connected vrith it. Very few Alps
have chapels or places of worship in which divine serrice
takes place through the whole summer. The largest
chapel is on the most beautiful of aU Alps, or the " Urner
boden;" it looks Hke a stately church, and the assistant
priest of Spfrmgen hi the Schachenthal (TeU's native
vaUey) reads the mass to a numerous congregation of
Senns. The chapel with the monastery, " Maria zum
See," on the Eigi, is of simUar origm. Then far up in the
Kalfeuserthal in' the St. GaU Oberland, is the Httle chapel
of St. Martin lying in the midst of numerous rock-ruins ;
and in the MarteU VaUey (Pinschgau, Tyrol) stands the
lonely chapel of " Maria-Schmelz," originaUy buUt for the
workmen in the extmct smelting works. At present the
chaplam comes up every Sunday from the vaUey.
The most original temple of this kind is the " Wild-
kfrchh" in AppenzeU. A cave in the rocks, in a lofty vertical
chff (below the beautiful Ebenalp), into which, had it not
been dedicated by his remote ancestors as a place for

320 THE ALPS.
dirine worslnp, the goatherd would fly from thunder
storms vvith his flocks, presents the hall of the chapel,
modest and artless, a natural vault, as it came from the
hand of the creator. No marble altar, no picture from
the artist's hand, adorns the consecrated shme ; a modest
shelf, cut out by the mason's hand, is provided for the
service ; the altar is hung with a cloth, and freshly ga
thered Alpine roses fill the vases ; the candles flicker in
the draught at the back of the cave, smoking against the
martyr's cross, before which the crowd kneels m the dust.
The "WUdkirchh" is dedicated to St. Michael, and a
Capuchin monk celebrates the service there every year
on the feast of the guardian-angel. There the people
kneel humbly down, smite their breasts in repentance,
and murmur their prayers. Do they retfre into the
depths of their spirits ? Do they, after thefr fashion,
look into thefr hearts in moments of overwhelming
emotion, ancl laying bare aU the springs of thefr souls ?
The incense steams ; mechamcaUy, diUgently, untouched
by the power of the sacred moment, the ministering boy
swings it ; a faint sickly scent of ambergris arises,^ — ¦ what
is it to the vast consecrated vapour of the summer mormng
which floats round the steep, lofty Alpme chffs ? Now the
far-sounding tinkle of the bell announces far down in the
depths of the Seealpseethal that the mysterious transub
stantiatlon has taken place far up on the steep waU of
rock, and the lonely Senn on the Maarvries or the rocky
bastion of the Alpsiegleten, who was prevented from
coming over to the feast by his work at the chalets, strikes
his breast and murmurs his customary prayer. Down
below in the Schwendi, the matron is sitting on the
threshold before her son-in-law's house, with the rosary
held between her withered trembling hands. She, too,
hears the sound of the beU and prays ; but her thoughts

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 321
do not dweU m the sanctuary of her hereditary faith.
Her imagmation certainly rises, but not to the shining
space where, according to her chUdhke behef, the blessed
are waitmg beyond the clouds round the beaming throne,
surrounded by troops of angels : her thoughts only rise
as far as the Ebenalp. She thinks of the feast to be
celebrated to-day, how joyfully it passed in aU its country
splendour in her maiden days. Fifty years ago she was the
fafrest of aU the countryside. Franz-Anthoni's Mareieli
must be at aU the dances and evening festivities hi the
vrinter for far round; she was the omament of every
Alpine feast, and of the Urnascher ChUbi, the most jovial
meeting in aU the land of AppenzeU. She was the leader
in the cfrcle of singing maidens ; her clear beU-hke voice
rose most joyously up the mountain walls, and, as if the
echo had chosen MareieH for its love, it only repeated her
" Juchzger " loud and clearly accentuated, whilst the echo
of the song of the rest came back confused, vrith Mareieh's
reheved with chamond clearness against it. Ah ! she had
hved a pleasant harmless youth, and it was at the guardian-
angels feast that the " Senn " of her parents had asked
for her as his vrife. Now he is dead, twenty years ago ;
St. Michael had not been a guardian-angel for him, for he
had slipped and been kiUed just under the WUdkfrchh at
the leaf-gathering. Now MareieH is sittmg there alone,
old, infirm, and poor. The sound of the bell caUs up
her memories, joy and grief together, into the wearied
heart. Let us go back to the Alp. We have already mentioned
the Eanz des Vaches. This now celebrated herdsman's
song, which was once forbidden under penalty of death in
France, because at its sound the soldiers of the Swiss
regiments were seized with home-sickness, deserted in
masses, and hastened to the mountains, — the real genume
Y

322 THE ALPS.
"Chuereiha" has almost entfrely disappeared; it is, at
any rate, seldom to be heard. It is, as we have said, the
song for brhigmg home the cows, which the cowherd
sings at the stable door to entice the cows vrith its weU-
kiiovra note. To make them foUow better, he gives
them a Httie safr from his " LacktaschH." The text of
the AppenzeU Eanz des Vaches is as foUows : — " Wond
er * Uia Loba ? Allsamma mit nama, di afra, di junga,
aUsamma, Loba, Loba, Lo ba. Chond aUsamma,
aUsamma, Loba, Loba ! Wenn i-em Vech ha pfeffa, ha
pfeffa, so chond aUsamma, zuha schHcha — schhcha wol
zuha da zuha. Trib iha aUsamma, wohl zuha, bas zuha !
Hopsch sonds ond frei, holdsahg dazue. Loba, Lo ba!
Waas wohl, wenn ers singa vergod, wenn e Wiega idr
stoba stod, wennde ma mit Fiista dre schlod, ond der
Loft zue aUa Lochera inablost — Lo ba, Loba, Loba,
Lo ba ! Trib iha, Uia alsamma, n'alsamma ; die
trinlied, die Stinked, die B'bletzed, die Gschegget; die
Gflecket, cHeBlasset; dieSchwanzert, dieTanzert; ghnzeri,
bhnzeri, d'Lehneri, d'Fehneri ; d'Schmalzeri, d'Hasleri,
d'Moseri ; s'Halbohre, s'mohrh : s'E'augH, die erst gel ond
di Alt, der Grossbuch, ond die Euch; d'Langbeneri,
* The translation of this singular patois appears to be, as nearly as
I can make it out : " Will you come, cows ? All together, at your
names, old and young, cows ! cows ! When I have whistled to the
cattle, come together, run hither. Come hither, better and better.
You are pretty and free and innocent too. Was it well, if you forgot
my singing, if the manger was put in the room, if the man struck you
with his fists, and the wind sang through all the holes ? Cows ! cows !
together ! drinking and stinking, spotted and dappled, marked and pale,
long tails and short, shining and blind, fat and lean, half-eared and one-
eyed, young and old, vicious and tame — come hither, cows ! Since I
married I have had no more bread, since I married I have had no more
luck, cows 1 If you go so well and don't stand still, it is all right.
There is nobody better than our cows ; they drink of the brook, and
may they thrive ! "

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 323
d'Haglehneri, — trib Uia wohl zuha, da zuha, bas zuha.
Lo - ba — Sit das i g'wibet ha, ha - n i ke Brod
me k'ha, sit das i g'vribet ha, ha - n- i ke glock me k'ha I
Loba! — Wenn's asa wohl got, ond niena stUlstod, so ists
go grotha, — s'iss kena Liita bas, as osera Chiicha ; sie
trincket os-sem Bach, ond mogid triicha." However Httle
poetry there may be in it, we must recognise its heartiness
when the herdsman, calhng over his cows by name, asks
them to come in, and in the midst of his Alpine simphcity
is suddenly reminded of his domestic misfortunes, but
soon knows how to comfort himself
The mhabitants of the Alps in the valley of Ormond
have a simUar Eanz des Vaches, with more poetical
swing in it. It begms thus : —
" Les armailles de Colombetta
D^ bon matin se son livL
Ah ! ah ! Lioba, lioba, por t' aria.
Venide tot^, petite, gross^,
E bliantz 6 n^r^, d' zouven e autre,
Dezo stou tzano, yo yi^ ario,
Dezo stou trimblio, yo yi^ trinzo,
Lioba, lioba, por t'aria, etc. etc." *
The impression made upon the beasts by these Alpine
soBgs is inextinguishable. When cows of the Alpine
breed have been taken away from thefr native place,
and afterwards accidentaUy hear the tune, aU thefr recol
lections of the mountain pasturages seem to awake in
* " The herdsmen of Colombetta
Have risen early in the morning.
Ah ! ah ! cows, cows, to the milking.
Come all, great and small.
Black and white, young and old.
Under this oak, where I milk you,
Under this aspen, where I let the milk run.
Cows, cows, to the milking, &c. &c."
T 2

324 THE ALPS.
them. They break out, become quite ungovernable, run
up and down, and burst through the fences. GeneraUy
cattle brought up on the mountains show a longmg
desfre for the mountams in sprmg ; they become restless
in the meadow, uncertam m thefr feedmg, and do not
rest tiU thefr mnate impulse towards the high mountains
is satisfied. Corrodi says, m his Alpine letters, " The
Alpine cows show inteffigence ; when you chmb upwards
over the pasturages, and the beautiful creatures lift up
thefr heads so cleverly and inqufringly, you think you
ought to show them your passport. These are not cows
such as are harnessed and fastened to every kind of
vefficle m the country below, that you might hang your
hat on thefr horns ; they are honourable, conscious,
feeHng that they are not cattle, but animals. They show
race and character. Do you think a cow of the vaUeys
would show feeHng if the great bell had been round her
neck and taken away agam ? No ; but go and ask how
the leadmg cow becomes sad, and won't eat, if deprived
of her beU," &c. The leading cow is the handsomest
beast of the "Senn "-dom, and because she goes farthest
of aU the cows, and as it were at their head, she is caUed
the " Heer-Kuh." If a beast of this kind, which formerly
enjoyed the preference of being leader of the herd, is
sold to another herd, and has to submit to the rule of
the other leading cow, a fight for Hfe and death often
arises. The cow on half-pay attacks the one in pos
session of the beU, and vrith such a determination and
fury that the herdsmen have often great trouble in
separating the fighters. As they strive for the first rank,
they are often called m the " Senn" language "d'Eing-
geri" (strivers or wrestlers). The buUs have just the
same habits. Prudent and careful herdsmen avoid
drivin two herds, each of which has a pair of them,

CHALET LIFE IN THE ALPS. 325
into adjoining pasturages ; no hedge and ditch, not even
a ravine, can keep off the rival " Muni " from a duel,
wffich generaUy ends in the loss of one. So it happened
m the summer of 1856, that on a common meadow
belonging to the commune of Tamms (in the Vorder
Eheinthal) two herds were driven to the same spot, and
owing to the carelessness of the herdsmen came so near
each other that two horned monarchs caught sight of
each other. With a deep roar, and heads sunk for the
attack, they rushed at each other, and the buU-fight
began. The herdsmen who came up did not venture to
come between the beasts, and the beautiful but expensive
sight ended, not only by the conquered buU faUing over
a cliff, but by the conqueror not being able to stop his
vehement charge, and faUing over too.
However decided an aversion the " Senn" has to clean-
hness and neatness in his Alpme economy, he is carefrd
about the success of his manufacture, his production of
mUk. He devotes the greatest care and attention to it,
and as the great rine cultivator and producer of vrine
takes the connoisseur about in his subterraneous rooms
between the rows of casks, so the clever " Senn" can try
experiments vrith his cheese-tasters. The unfortunate
man whose cheeses " vertschaaggen," i. e. go wrong and
are spoUt, is for years exposed to the chaff of the viUage,
and there are some who at the present time have stiU to
bear a nickname descended from their grandfathers. To
be acknowledged as a perfect " Chaser" has even (who
would beHeve it ?) an influence on love affairs ; the
maiden wUl not endure that her young man should not
be a perfect "Senn," and many a "brogglere" (proud
ghi) has given up her suitor for this reason, though he
had plenty of batzen. This is not surprising when one
considers that, in the mountam land, which is so poor
T 3

326 THE ALPS.
in wheat, cheese is an important part of daily nourish
ment, and the whole production from milk in the Alps,
includmg what is used at home and exported, is valued
at more than a hundred mUhon gulden yearly. For the
export of the popular Swiss cheeses from Switzerland
alone reaches at least eight miUion francs.
Neither longing for his home m the vaUey nor want
of pasturage drives the " Senn" from one Alp down to
another ; there are many Alps which are not completely
exhausted when the herd leaves them. The increasmg
coldness of the night on the heights drives him down ;
hence it happens in mUd seasons that the " Senn" re
mains some weeks longer in the Alps than is otherwise
customary. When the autumn has decidedly begun, and
the night frosts candy leaves and stalks with thefr rime,
the fohage loses its colour, and the forest puts on its
varied clothmg, the herdsmen think it time to leave
the Alp. On the evenmg of his departure he Hghts a
merry fire before the door of the chalet, shining far down
into the lowlands, — the old beacon of the mountain folk
by which they corresponded in thefr wars of Hberation, —
and vrith loud jodels they roll the flaming logs over the
cliffs, that the sparkles may be scattered mto the afr.
The people in the vaUey see and hear, and rejoice at the
return of thefr friends.
The poetry of the herdsman's life is over for the
current year, and the " Senn" goes down with the gains
he has won, thinking of the pleasures of the Alpme thne,
and feeds on the recoUection in the snowed-up winter
chalets of the vaUey, hoping for the return of spring.

327

CHAP. XXVIIL
THE ALP HOEN.
The Alp horn belongs to the framework of an idylHc
picture of the high mountains — an instrument which is
counted so little amongst musical ones, and yet produces
such great effects and pecuhar tones — only, however, in
its origmal home. The subhmity of the high mountain
world, the gigantic faces of rock above narrow vaUeys,
with their enchanting echo, and the fresh pure afr, are
necessary to give the proper colouring of tone which no
other musical mstrument possesses, and which here makes
such a powerful and enchantmg impression.
The exterior form of this herdsman's mstrument is
simple as the great lofty Alpine nature and the people
that hihabit it, vrith its powerful tones which yet awake
a tender longing for home. It represents the manufac
ture of instruments in its earhest chUdhood, An Alp hom
is made of two parts : the first is formed of a young
pitie, 5 feet long, which grows broader at the lower end^
and is generaUy bumt out with a hot fron, or hoUowed ;
the lower part consists of a second piece of pinewood,
wMch is bent and spread out Hke a cup, and has a length
of about 18 inches. That is the whole external shape.
In modern times it has been attempted to place a mouth
piece at the higher sHm end, as in the great trumpets, in
order to produce a quicker and more precise note, ahd
T 4

328 THE ALPS.
to employ the instrument itself more extensively. What
was gamed, however, in this way, was lost in another,
in a much greater degree. The mstrument, originaUy
blown vrithout a mouthpiece, lost the volume and poetry
of its tone by this addition, the melting and magical ring
of its natural tones ; although it coidd not be domed
that by this artfficial extension a fuller, rounder sound
was produced. It is about the same relation as that
between the old hom without valves and the newly-
invented ones ; simphcity and greatness on the one side,
and on the other a more florid tone, with more instru
mental power, and a capacity for aU harmomc appHca
tions and arrangements.
The general character of the Alp hom comes nearest
that of a large trumpet, but cannot be exactly compared
to any particular instrument. It possesses the metaUic
tone of the trumpet, and, as a wooden instrument, the
softness and fulness of a good clarionet. By its length,
on the other hand, it gains the power of an 8-foot organ-
pipe, near the bourdon in its mean position, a mixture of
metallic sound and wooden character, pecuhar as the
whole nature of the instrument. The compass is of about
the same extent as a trumpet, m which the middle part
is especiaUy used, because these notes are more easy to
produce and have also a finer tone.
The effects of the Alp hom depend upon a number of
other cfrcumstances, and even accidents. Heard from
near, the Alp horn has a rough unpleasant ring, more to
be compared to a hoarse groan than a sound of lament.
A Httle way off, this roughness diminishes (which may be
partly produced by the great exertion of the lungs of
the performer), and the tone passes, faint, fine, and vrith
a tender ribration, over the vaUeys, extendmg the more
the further the afr bears it. In a clear sky, and espe-

THE ALP HOEN. 329
ciaUy in pure afr, it sounds clear, definite, and sharp, and
is most hke m character to the trumpet. In sultry,
thundery days, or when the sky is covered, it takes a
ffismal melancholy character, fuU of longing and strange
pecuhar laments — that sound whicii caUs up a painful
feehng m us, awakenmg melancholy thoughts from which
we stUl would not escape, for it lays an enchantment
upon our soul, delights and beguUes our senses. It
might be a part of the Orpheus tones that governed
everytffing by mUdness and soul-piercmg tenderness. A
special pecuharity of the high mountains appears in our
instrument, that certam waUs of rock and the vaUeys
below them, or forest-covered slopes, have a pecuhar
facffity m re-echoing the sound of the Alp horn. Un
fortunately, physical science has not yet dravra the cfrcle
of her studies rornd acoustics sufficiently to be able to
give laws as to the capacity of mountain-walls for echomg
notes, the difference of the tone between different moun-
tam-waUs, or of the districts shut in by them, as she has
done in the case .of musical instruments and thefr acoustic
effects. The melody of the Alp horn, whUst fr kept frs maiden
purity, and was not yet screwed up to a concert instru
ment, is a smaU simple flourish, and varies according to
the humour, readmess, or fancy of the blower. It is
always rhythmical, and generally severely so, even to being
harsh and broken. As the Alp horn was constmcted for
the vast spaces of the mountains, frs object is at hand
and excludes every greater, more melodious tune ; the
echo is its object. These few notes, with a long and
generaUy powerfuUy drawn concluding tone, are suffi
cient to produce a splendid natural concert by means of
the echoes. The melody itself is so short that an appre-
.ciable pause comes between it and the echo, so that the

330 THE ALPS.
echo comes across to us undUuted and undisturbed by it.
Alp-horn players (who are paid vrith a trifle for their un
wearied vriUingness and summomng forth of the echo)
generaUy choose such points as cause frequent repetitions
of the echo. These voices of the rocks repeat each other
very variously. Some are to be heard which return three
or four times, sweffing fuUer and more boldly in a cres
cendo, as though the notes strildng against the gramte
waUs received some strength from thefr firm, hard-grained
nature. Then again, in other places, the first echo rises
exultingly and Hvely in pure peaceful volume, like a true
chUd of the Alps, then wearies from step to step, and
sounds the follovring repetitions in elegiac sounds, of
recoUections flying far, far away into the hiUs, Hke the
expiring breaths of a fafr soul ; and again, there are
some which answer at first shyly, almost vrith maiden
modesty, then take courage, rouse themselves, and come
forth loudly and decidedly, but then dfrectly retreat in
fear, mutter something confused and uninteUigible, and
die away almost hnperceptible. Enough, the acoustic
results are as varying in thefr quicker or slower repeti
tion, and in the fulness and power of thefr tone, as the
formation of the Alps and thefr rocky faces, and the
various distance of the reflecting surfaces. A few steps
right or left, above or below the assumed standmg point,
often completely change the effect of the echoes. If the
undulations which bear the tones through the afr could
be seen and determined, strange new problems would be
presented, for the solution of which new mvestigations
would be necessary. But we must content ourselves vrith
the plain obvious results which produce such enchanting
effects. The rising and faihng power of the notes, and
the intervals of stiUness between the echoes, are not the
only problems which are pressed upon the Hsteffing and

THB ALP HOEN. 331
thhiking observer : quite different secrets as to the pro
duction of the tones are revealed. The melody is borne
across to the waU, and returns, for the first time, just at
the same pitch, clear, sharp, and marked, as the original.
The second echo has lost a quarter of a tone, has lost its
rhythmical liveliness, and sounds faint, slower, and dying
away more quicldy. What cfrcumstance, what unknown
aerial medium, what secret of sound changes the repro
duction of the first so clear and weU-marked echo ? We
have observed the echo below the Faulhorn, have had it
repeated certainly twenty times, and always obtained the
same sinkmg of the tone at the second echo, an ahnost
famtmg close to the melody. The diminution of the un
dulations ovring to the great distance can certainly only
explam the sinking and gradual dying away of the tone.
Another example of different character is given by the
blower of the Alp horn on Alpiegen, by the Bustiglen-lager,
on the ascent to the Wengern Alp from Grindelwald.
There the forest seems to intercept the whole melody,
and to mcrease it by a thousand echoes in its pine-co
lumned haUs, for the echo returns like the rolhng volumes
of an organ from the majestic vault of a cathedral, in
raighty fuU waves passing into each other, like an im
pressive and overwhelming hymn filHng the Alpine
cathedral. The sound of the Alp hom is most enjoyable when it
comes upon the traveUer unexpectedly. We ascended
one fine morning from the vaUey of Lauterbrunn to
wards the chalets and barns on the Wengern Alp, up a
steep path, through primeval pines vrith long tufted
boughs. On our right the noble Jungfrau shone down,
the lofty quiet queen of the Alps, of incomparable splen
dour and clearness ; from the heights and vaUeys rose the
melodious sound of the bells of the herd. Then a long-

332 THE ALPS.
drawn tone struck our ears from the rock-waUs of the
Jungfrau. One of us called in surprise to the other, " An
Alp horn ; " and we aU stood stUl, enjoying in fuU draught
what even a symphony of Beethoven's could not produce.
The herdsman began his art, and we listened breathless to
the sympathetic notes that seemed to spread from the
glaciers of the Jungfrau ; we suspected the performer to
be about half an hour off, and hastened to look for him.
But how great was our astomshment when, bendmg round
a comer of the forest, we saw the horn-blower standing
on the left of the road close to us, him whom we had
supposed to be far off, and whose peals now sounded
harsh and rough.
The Alp horn is unluckily now seldom used, and it
appears that its use is graduaUy becoming rarer. Even
where it is stUl found, bunglers generaUy misuse it, and
torture the ears of the deceived Hsteners, as, for example,
on the Eigi. In orchestral composition we know of no
introduction of the Alp hom except in Meyerbeer's " Di-
norah." In Eossim's "Tell," the shalm occurs charac-
teristicaUy in the middle of the overture, affied in tone to
the oboe, shovring a side of Alpine music whicii is even
less cultivated than the Alp horn. To what magnfficent
and characteristic effect Eossini would attam in the Griith
scene, if he had employed an Alp horn, which might
sound dovra as though from the mountains through the
quiet night, to introduce the great scene of the national
oath ! The effect would have been powerful.
It has already been attempted to tune Alp horns, so as
to perform quartets or even duets vrith them. The at
tempt does not seem to have succeeded, as we have never
heard anything but solos on our mountam horns. On
the other hand. Alp-horn blowers have amused them
selves by corresponding from distant and opposite Alps,

THE ALP HOEN. 333
which produced an indescribably beautiful effect by the
varymg depth of the tone and the deceitful echoes. We
once listened near Kandersteg to such a musical match —
a war of Alp horns. The most interestmg circumstance
was, that the answering Alp horn stood exactly one whole
interval below the one which caUed. This answer, re
turned with a completely altered character, produced a
striking effect. In earher times the use of the Alp horn
was umversal ; as new forms of life penetrated into the
quiet Alpine valleys, and the old popular usages and dress
gradually disappeared, the Alp hom disappeared also.
Formerly, when the Eanz des Vaches was stiU universal
in the hiUs, this Alphie song was accompanied vrith the
Alp horn, or its melody blown on the Alp horn by itself :
this usage has also disappeared. Its origin dates far back.
Conrad Gessner speaks of it in his book on the PUatus-
berg, printed in 1555, and caUs it lituum alpinum, and
says that it is 11 feet long. In the fourteenth century it
served as a signal-horn to the bold and manly inhabitants
of Entlebuch and Unterwalden, to announce the approach
of the enemy afar off; and now some notes are rung
from it with difficulty to attract a " trinkgeld." " Autres
temps, autres mceurs."

334 THE ALPS.

CHAP. XXIX.
THE GOAT-BOY.
AwHiSPEEiNG, rusthng sound of bells, mixing together, now
carried away and dymg in the wmd, grovring dumb, then
suddenly swelhng out loudly, a strangely frregular fuffiess
of harmony, comes down from the height. Now it sounds
monotonously and hollow, but stUl gently modulated by
the breeze, vrith the caU of a hom at intervals, wffich
comes and goes, now near and sharp on the ear, then
again it creeps far, far away into the labyrinth of rocky
gorges, a mischievous gobhn which seems to be playing
hide-and-seek. You stand and Hsten to this spirit^hke
sound, which fluctuates m enchantmg and varying notes,
and holds you fast bound, — a new wondrous charm of the
Alpme world. It is the goat-boy, who is pasturing Ms
mischievous, clambering herds on the chffs. He has seen
us, and sends a joyful " Juhu!" down to us, as his rough
Alphie greetmg.
The goat-boy is as much a characteristic of the Alps as
the thunder of avalanches and the Alpine glow, as the
chamois hunter and the shy whisthng marmot. He is an
ornament to the hills, an element of jorial Hfe amongst
the rocky wastes. Where no " Senn" can drive his heavy
cattle because the paths disappear, and the weeds only
hang hke tattered rags to the stormbeaten rocks, the
brown merry lad scrambles vrith his troop of goats, and

\ ^^mMk

ill*

./«

THE OOATBOY.

THE GOAT-BOY. 335
dreams himself greater, happier, and richer than Imights
and khigs.
And yet it is generally the poorest lad of the viUage,
often the son of a vridow or a complete orphan, who has
not learnt to know the pleasures of other chUdren, and
not found nourishment and protection on his parents'
hearth. In order that he may earn his bread without
becoming a burden to the parish, his guardians have
sent him out into the mountain vrildemess, where no other
human foot treads. There he dweUs from the early spring
tiU the late August ; mother Nature brings him up on her
bosom, gives him pure air to drink, and makes him big
and strong for the dangerous trade, which he works at
with joy. But he loves her too, his foster-mother, and,
shooting up Hke a vrild bough, enjoys pleasures which we
in the vaUey can harcUy imagine.
The mountain peasant dirides off the broad rich
table which the Alp offers to his cattle, according to his
pleasure and convemence, into separate classes, in order
to derive the greatest profit from it. The low-lying part
near human dweUings, and the highest-cultivated land, is
used for the winter provision stores, for the aromatic hay
stacks. Further up, the slopes of gentle inchnation to
wards the level shoulders or basins of the mountain, are
dedicated to "Kuh- Alpen" ("Cow- Alps"), and each
separate terrace is prorided vrith a duly proportioned
nuinber of cows. The higher steep and stony region,
where offiy short grass grows, is described in the " Alp-
rodel " as " Schaf-Alp " (" Sheep-Alps "), and in the Tyrol
and Grisons is generally let to the Bergamesque shepherds,
in other districts used for grazing sheep. Finally, those
parts which are still wUder and more sphntered, where
nothing but " Legfohren " and Alpine roses spread over
the lower growth of weeds, or the clumps of wood which

336 THE ALPS.
are splendid with a richly-coloured flora, to which, however,
the cattle shows but little inclination — these belong to the
goat-boy and Hs herd.
It is a very different, fresher, and more characteristic
nature wffich looks out from such a goat-boy, from the
melancholy, wasted-out appearance ofthe stocking-kffittmg
shepherd on the North German heaths, or the half-stupid,
vegetative village herds in agricultural districts. Here is
elasticity, firmness, race — rough and uncultivated as it may
be. By daUy Hfe in the wilderness, and steady practice,
these boys of from twelve to sixteen grow so confident in
the use of every vantage-place for rock-climbing, that one
is as much astonished at their eminent skUl as natural gym
nasts, as at their .rare courage and the resolute quickness of
eye vritii whicii they spy out the right path. Where one
would think that scarcely a mouse could creep along the
narrow rock-cormce, not to speak of fincHng room for a
man's footj the goatherd finds a way for himself and his
flock. Whisthng and jodeffing, he creeps hke a cat round
the projections, for he has a need for chmbmg in his limbs
that wiU not let him rest. Giddiness is a thmg not to be
found in his vocabulary. When Kohl, on his Alpme
journey, asked a peasant on the St. Gothard whether his
boy was not afraid to scramble over the rocky points, he
answered, " Non ha paura da cervello " (he has no brain-
fear) ; " he was brought up from his bfrth on goat's mUk,
and that gives skUl and pluck in chmbmg." That is the
same popular superstition as that of the chamois' blood,
wffich the old writers fable to have been drank warm by
hunters to cure giddiness.
The eye gains an eagle sharpness, a power which
borders upon the fabulous. Such a boy wffi show us
chamois on a lofty point an hour off, describe their mo
tions, and point out the smaUest distinctions of form in,

THE GOAT-BOY. 337
the shape of the ground, where the unpractised eye only
sees a great duU mass. Of such boys are generally made
the most daring wUd-hay cutters, the most fearless and
passionate chamois hunters. I have seen goat-boys who
had the earnestness of a man steeled in the school of life ;
under the brown weathered vrildness of the face, a cool
energy looked througii the marble countenance, such as
marked the heroes of old times. There are some such
boys who, as they stand on a lump of rock in the mea
dows, m spite of thefr tattered trousers and old shapeless
felt hat, have somethmg dictatorial in their looks ; in
their qiuet observmg looks, in the young determined gaze
of the sunburnt face, in thefr steady unconstrained bear
ing, there lies the consciousness, "Here I am master."
And so he is thoroughly, the autocrat of the lands he
treads. Let us go up to the high Alp on the stony slopes,
or mto the ravine, where the goat-boy is at home. He
who just now welcomed us vrith an electric jodel, the like
of which is not to be heard far and wide through the
mountams, now does not think us worth a greeting as we
approach him. He looks boldly into our faces, as fr he
would ask " What next ? " There is something Hke a
chaUenge m the look vrith which he measures us, and yet
a concealed smile is playing round the corners of his
mouth. Well ! we vrill greet him first, and put a ques
tion to him. The sounds so strange to his ear must ap
pear very comic to him, for his smile takes a scornful
expression, as though he would say, " Ah ! you mannUdns,
what are you doing m my domains ? " If we press ffim
for an answer, it is very questionable if it is not tolerably
evasive, if not downright rude. He thinks it, m fact, a
superfluous proceeding to come up to him there in the
wilds, and we must not take it ill in such lads, grown up
in the sohtudes, far from aU intercourse with compamons,
z

338 , THE ALPS.
and developed by nature, if they show nustrust towards
strangers. The AppenzeU lads are an exception. The
desire to afr thefr opimons and humours by rough unex
pected vrit, which is deeply rooted in aU the people, ap
pears strongly in these boys, and it needs a good-natured
and not too susceptible sympathy vrith their tone to move
them to any confidence. Once moved, however, they are
as good as gold, fuU of fresh original thoughts, hke the
first rough draft of a sketch by a genial painter. Aug.
Corrodi expresses enthusiasm (in his Alpine Letters) for
Hanbischh (Johann Baptist) on the Ebenalp.
Even in regard of dangers, these lads are quite masters
of the situation. It is hard to form a conception of their
measured courage, of their determined nervous readiness,
and thefr quickness of decision. They have, as it were,
grown up under pressure, have learnt to despise the hos
tile elements from thefr youth up, and thus nothing startles
them. Woe to the robber who ventures to seize one of
their herd ; he has to do with a stiff-necked, cool, and de-
ternuned opponent. The boys generaUy take good order
against the large bfrds of prey ; if they know of the nest
of one it is all up with his brood. Everywhere in the
Alps there are examples of the rarest adventures to seize
nests of young bfrds. But they also hold thefr own
against the old ones. We may mention a piece of bravery
of modern times. Towards the end of July 1859, a boy,
named Jann Guler, only foiirteen years old, was on a
sheep Alp belonging to the monastery of Pratigau, at a
place caUed " im Hafen." He had several times afready
seen a great bird of prey circle in the air above his place
of pasture, and was therefore specially on the watch.
One day he suddeffiy saw the beasts run together in a
fright, and the next second a fuU-grovra eagle swooped
down and foUowed a lamb which was takmg refuge in

THE GOAT-BOY. . 339
the "Legfohren." The boy, with quick determination,
sprang with his ironshod stick to the bush, in which the
bfrd was quite entangled, so that he could make no use
of his wings. He made such an energetic hammering
attack on the eagle that it was at last killed.
The goat-boys show no less thought, courage, perseve
rance, and sldU, when one of their beasts has lost itself or
" verjuckt," i. e. sprung on to a rocky ledge from which
it can neither get forwards nor back ; for, wherever they
are enticed by a spot of green, the goats and sheep scram
ble, see new strips of grass lying below them, and spring
from ledge to ledge, often a fathom in depth, till they
cannot get any further. Then the boy who looks after
them has to release the imprisoned animal. Our iUustra
tion shows such a moment. That is the tough, unyield-
mg, dogged nature of a genuine goat-boy. Beast and
boy look as if they had been cast in one piece. The
eagles are hovering above, attracted by the anxious cry of
the goat, which, if the boy had not released it, they would
have driven vrith thefr wings over the chff, and have
preyed upon. If they were to come now, the boy would
let ffimself be crushed in the abyss before he would let go
the goat. A charge of smaU shot in Lus back would not
make the obstinate, stiff-necked lad quit his hold.
In the high mountains the sheep often remain for
months left to themselves, and browse on the grassy
places sticking in scattered spots to the rocks. It is then
sufficient if the owner from the vaUey or the chalets,
where he is looking after his cows, counts the herd over
with a telescope. If he discovers that some of them have
got into a fix, he ascends the mountain to a place from
which he expects that he wiU be able to descend verticaUy
to the sheep. The most determined, generally such a boy
as we have described, is then let down by the rope. It then

340 THE ALPS.
happens somethnes that the beasts are frightened by the
apparition hovering above them, perhaps mistake it for a
bfrd of prey, and jump right over the chffs. It may
happen again that the right dfrection has been missed, and
the boy has to climb again over many a ledge of turf, or
along sHppery waUs of rock, to which he can only hold
himself by chnging almost Hke a swallow. When he has
actuaUy reached the beasts, the dangerous part of the
task begins. He has to catch the animal on the narrow
cornice of rock, drag it after him, or to lift it above his
head on the face of the giddy cliff, and so burdened, with
only one hand free, to start on his return, tiU he reaches
the rope, to which the recovered head of the flock is tied,
and drawn up. The lads vrill thus perform this manoeuvre
three or four times or more, tUl they have succeeded.
Nothmg frightens them, and it is often less the actual
value winch they trouble themselves about, than the pig
headed carrying out of a determination once formed.
And what is the pay for aU these dangers, deprivations,
and trials ? Let us consider the way of hfe of tffis half-
savage m a civUised country more closely. The goat
herd generaUy starts very early in the mornmg from the
valley, driring up a herd of milch-goats to the hffis. He
keeps good order amongst his horned tribes vrith their
curiosity and prymg excursions, and gets them up to
the heights much more qmckly than one would have
thought. Before the sun is up he is already several hours
away from his vUlage. There he leaves the herd to
thefr vrill and pleasure, Hes down in a comfortable place,
and dreams away the day in the cfrcle of ideas presented
by his goatherd's phUosophy. If he is hungry he must
be content with a bit of hard, dry barley bread and a bit
of cheese ; if he is thfrsty he catches one of the best
goats, Hes down, and draws the foaming mUk into his

THE GOAT-BOY. 341
mouth. When high noon is come, heating the walls of
rock with its sweltering glow, he seeks a shadowy place
for himself and his herd, and they aU hold thefr siesta
together. So too, when a thunderstorm breaks, he has
caves or rocky hollows to take refuge in.
In 'a cold rainy summer, the poor barefooted lad has
at the outside an old sack over his shoulders to keep off
the wet. He is merry notvrithstanding, and does not
seem to care for the attacks of weather. In the evening
he goes home, adorns ffis hat with Alpme flowers, and
comes into the vUlage as fresh and strong as he left it in
the mormng. So time passes from early spring to late
autumn. And for pay he gets every year two or three
batzen for each goat.
On the southern slopes of the Alps there are splendid
long-haired goats. In autumn, when they give no
more milk, they are driven to the forests, left to them
selves vrithout care, and caught again half vrild when
near lambing time in the spring. The hides are exported
to Belgium, France, and England in great numbers to
be turned mto kid gloves. Has any of our fafr readers
thought, when she drew on her delicate, elastic, per
fumed gloves, that the materials came from the wildest
and most remote districts of the Alps, where the
" Gizzi" and their boy lead a wretched, needy, but free
existence ?
The Hfe of the goatherds has also its terrible, ro
mantic side. When the owls screech in the forest at
night, so that it sounds like a heffish jubUee, such as one
hears at hay-time in the mountams, the people say it is
" the WUd Goatherd." His story is as foUows : — " A big
goat-boy, who often did not know how to pass the
time for dulness and mischievousness, and had afready
played a thousand tricks with his beasts, hfr upon the
7. 3

342 THE ALPS.
idea of crucifying a great strong he-goat, i. e. tying
him on to a cross extemporised out of rough tree-
stems with creeping plants or string, erecting him as
a crucifix, and then driring his goats to him to perform
service. This crime, however, was punished on the spot.
A fearful storm broke out, dispersed the herd with awful
thunder and Hghtffing, ancl slew the boy with the
crucffied goat, so that the mountaineers found him next
clay with his face distorted and his body blackened
aU over. For pumshment of his impious tricks he was
condemned to wander at night as a ' wild goatherd.'
In the forest near Aldenbach in Glarus he is heard
wffisthng at eveffing, and starting from thence over
the Alps." So say the people. But there are also
enchanted and bevritched goats. Carrodi's Hamibischh on
the Ebenalp gave the follovring story word for word : —
" Eben* in Herbst ist en Eossma uf de Siegel ni, ebe dass
er e Eoss hat miisse suche. So hat er das Eoss nit
gftmde, s'ist mene gsi, und so ist er in e stadel ce
cho ufem Siegel. Chuebode hassts. So sind siebe
Motschgasse drin gsi i dem stadel. So bass e ghungeret ;
so denkt er, er woll suge, und so wie-n-en er wott suge letts
ke mUch ge, bets ke strich glia ; do sat er, Du oflat du,
bisch gad e Boek ! Unci so hand die andere Gasse nebet
* " Just in autumn, there was a horsekeeper on the Alp, he had to
look for a horse. He couldn't find the horse, he was nowhere, so he
went into a stall on the Alp. It is called Chuebode. So there were
seven milch-goats in the stall. So he was hungry ; so he thinks he
would suck {i.e. the milk), and when he tried there was not any milk,
not a drop ; so he says, ' You brute you, you're a he-goat.' And the
other goats laughed at him. So he was afraid, and he said there were
monsters there, and went off. And he ran half a quarter of an hour,
and the goats ran after him, and all laughed at him. And he stopped
in Santis, and found the horse, and told what had happened at Chue
bode, there were monsters there, it was not quite canny, he was in an
awful fright, he almost ran his feet off."

THE GOAT-BOY. 343
Uim zueglacht. So hei's em gfiircht, und so het er
gsat das seit Onghifr da gong er wieder. Und so lauf er
e holb Viertelstond, wit abe und d' Gasse send em
naheglaufe, und heud em aU usglachet. Und so ist
er halt in Santis abi, und hat's Eoss gfunde, und bet's
verzeUt, wie's im Chuebode gange sei es seiid Onghifr
dobe, es sei nod ganz richtig, 's hei em grusam gfiircht,
er sei g'laufe dass er d' Fiiss fast verlore hei."
Little enriable as the lot of an Alpine goat-boy may ap
pear, it is comfortable and sociable as compared vrith that
of many shepherds in the Alps. We do not here mtend
the Bergamesque shepherds, who also Hve very frugaUy
and scarcely trust themselves to taste their own cheeses,
but those shepherds who Hve m a voluntary banishment
durmg summer, as on the Zasenberg below the Eiger, and
elsewhere. The Zasenberg Hes m the recesses of the Grin
delwald glacier, opposite the Schreckhorner, and is sur
rounded by ice. Here two shepherds Hve vrith one boy,
several hundred sheep, and a few goats. One of their
chalets is dug out under a gramte rock, and the other
is close to it, made out of red slabs of gneiss. The fru-
gahty of these shepherds exceeds aU belief, according to
Hugi's account, who risited them. Two Httle cups and a
pan form aU the household utensUs belonging to one shep
herd. The other, who makes Httle sheep's-mUk cheeses,
has a bit or two more, but aU of primeval simphcity. The
wood has to be carried more than two hours across the gla
cier ; nevertheless they are very extravagant with their
bit of artificial heat, and do not even stop up the
cracks of the stones with moss or hay, to keep up the
warmth, AU thought, aU effort at improvement, seems to
cease here, and no admission is given to news of what is
passing ; of the merry Hfe which prevaUs in the lower Alps
there is here no trace. Their power of speech seems to
z 4

344 THE ALPS.
have been frozen ; their whole behariour is as frosty and
cold as the wild glaciers which surround them. No one
comes to see them, and when it happens that they see far
off tourists commg over the Strahleck, it is an event in
this utter wUderness. They do not go down to the viUage
the whole summer ; they cannot go to pass the time at any
friendly Alp, as the herdsman's caU can penetrate to no
sympathetic human bemg. These troglodytes have as httle
conversation with each other. Offiy a short, broken scream
caUs the goats to the salt prepared for them, and to mUk
ing. The sheep wander, vrithout ever seeing the chalets,
about the mountam ridges. What the herd leaves behind
them when they return in the autumn to Grindelwald is
browsed by the chamois. Still more dismal is the herds
man of the Oberaar Alp. In the year 1841, when Agassiz
ascended the Jungfrau, a poor lad of twelve had been
sent up there from the Valais, who led a stupid existence,
badly clothed and badly fed. He had prorisions for three
months ; his bread was as hard as the graffite of his
wretched hut, and the cheese was drier than the hay on
which the poor lad slept. All shepherds are of course
not so badly off; there are some who lead a reaUy com
fortable Ifre. So, for example, the shepherd on the Chur
first Alps, a very friendly and talkative fellow, who has
the misfortune not to possess a chalet. They tried to buUd
him one under the Fakloch, on the pass to Toggenburg,
but the artless natural walls were, as the man maintams,
torn dovm by inrisible hands, and the workmen persecuted
by stones thrown at them, so that the buUding became
impossible and had to be given up. Sffice then the sheep
are pastured unassailed m the rocky basm of the Kasera-
riick, and the shepherd Hves in the chalets of Buls.
This is one of the reverse sides of Hfe in the free Alps.

WILD HAY OTTTTBRS.

Q

45

CHAP. XXX.
THE WILDHEUEE.
High up on the rocky summits, which, as seen from
below, appear to be inaccessible to human feet, where the
httle round and bright green cusffions of turf refresh the
eye by their contrast with the smooth vertical grey chffs,
and clothe with ndldness the jagged weather-beaten Hne of
dead rough rocks, where at the utmost one would look for
the eyries of the eagle and Lammergeier, there is the
harvest-place for the Wildheuer (vrild-hay cutter).
When Armgart, the woman in grief, in SchUler's
" WUham TeU," throws herself before the horse of the
Landvogt Gessler on the open road and caUs to him m
agony,— •
"Mein Mannhegt in Gefangniss,
Die armen Waisen schrei'n nach Brod — habt Mitleid,
Gestrenger Herr, mit unserm grossen Elend."
"My husband lies in prison, the poor orphans cry for bread — have
compassion, stern lord, on our great misery."
— and Eudolf asks her, —
" Wer seid ihr ? Wer ist euer Mann ? "
" Who are you ? Who is your husband ? "
. — she answers trembhngly, —
• " Ein armer Wildheuer, guter Herr, vom Eigiberge,
Der uber'm Abgnmd weg das freie Gras

346 THE ALPS.
Abmahet von den schroffen Felsenwanden,
Wohin das Vieh sich nicht getraut zu steigen."
" A poor wild-hay man, sir, of the Eigi, who mows away the free
grass over the abyss from the steep walls of rock, where the cattle do
not venture to climb."
And the proud kffight, knowmg weU what a melancholy
lot is this trade, begs for the man himself.
" Bei Gott 1 ein elend und erbarmlich Leben 1
Ich bitt' euch, gebt ihm los, den armen Mann !
Was er auch schweres mag verschuldet haben,
Strafe genug ist sein entsetzhch Handwork."
" By God ! a wretched and pitiable life ! I pray you, let him go,
the poor man ! however heavy guilt he may have incurred, his awful
trade is punishment enough."
Yes, mdeed it is a wretched hfe, a toilsome day's work,
full of deprivations, fighting agamst wind and weather,
always vrith one foot on the border between Hfe and death.
For offiy those slopes of grass in the mountaffis wffich are
almost inaccessible become places for vridd hay, generaUy
high above the forest region, that is, at a height of 6000
feet and upwards, inasmuch as from thefr steep inchnation
they can be approached neither by goats nor sheep, much
less by heavy cattle, or perhaps it may be qffite impracti
cable to approach them vrith a herd.
Here, where at the utmost the spring of the sure-footed
chamois may find hold enough, man ventures to come in
his fight for subsistence, here he finds vrinter fodder for
the beasts which support him and his fanuly ; and as the
Bible prophesies the hard lot of the workman — " In the
sweat of thy forehead shalt thou eat bread" — one might
add ffi the case of the wild-hay cutter, " As reward for
your toU and contempt of death, you may drink mUk."

THE WILDHEUER. 347
For there are places for wUd hay where the audacious
venturer cannot take off his crampons the whole day,
because he has to drive them into the ground at every
step. These awful districts, which may ahnost be compared
to a possession in the moon, because their value is due to
the foolhardiness of the adventurer, who sets his hfe as
the stake, with the prospect of needy gains, — these un
cultivable vrildernesses would, one would suppose, be the
common property of aU the Alpine folk, and of the
countries pohtically connected vrith them. No ! the
greediness and desire of conquest of man, and ffis striring
to improve his property by his exertions, penetrate on
the earth as far as the eye can reach. Where boundary
stones and diriding fences of wood, or deeply-cut chan
nels and gorges as natural boundaries, do not visibly
ffivide mme and thine ffi the mountams, the common
boundary of an Alpffie vUlage runs in an ideal Hne over
rocks and dark abysses, over glaciers and fields of neve,
througii wUdernesses which the human foot has never
trod. But vrithm these boundaries we have to consider the
position of a second line, which divides the good Alp
meadows suitable for pasturage from the dangerous grass
slopes, or "bosenen;" and tffis does not always remain
fixed, for even up here, ffi this vrildest part of the
mountams, there still prevails the old unrestmg quarrel
between the antipodes of rich and poor. For the
wealthy peasant, in the consciousness of his possessions,
who is lucky enough to be able to drive a whole " senn-
thum " of cattle to the Alps ffi summer, who can Hft his
voice with effect in the council of the commune, because
he belongs to the moneyed aristocracy of the viUage — he
wUl not aUow the fuU enjoyment of his private or com-

348 THE ALPS.
munal rights to be lessened an inch, and demands, ac
cording to the old custom of the country, the weeds
growing on the pasture for his cattle, " as far as one can
go vrith cow and calf" This is certainly very vague,
and depends upon the weight of the cattle, thefr power
of chmbing, and the risk which thefr owner is prepared
to run ffi driring them to places not weU suited for pas
ture. The poor wUd-hay cutter, on the contrary, who
feels the earnestness of hfe bitterly, who strives at his
troublesome trade vrith danger of death, who perhaps
hardly caUs an emaciated kid his property, but who has
just as good claims to be a member of the commune as
the rich peasant, finds that the boundaries of the place
he is to mow are some hundred feet lower m the Alp, when
he sets about ffis work. Hence the claims of those who
have and who have not always depend upon measure
ment where a satisfactory decision of the commune has
not determined the boundaries once for aU.
The wild-hay cutter can, however, practise ffis break
neck caffing only for a few weeks in the year, generaUy
ffi August and September. The rest of ffis time he
perhaps works as a bffilder, hired workman, in autumn
perhaps as chamois-hunter; in the vrinter as weaver,
carver, or labourer in the vffiage or forest. Either by
the decision of the commune, or by the law, the day is
fixed once for aU on wffich vrild-hay cutting is aUowed.
As a rule, only one man may go from each household.
At midnight on the opeffing day, the wUd-hay cutter
starts. At break of day he is to be on ffis " plangge,"
which he has chosen for the place of ffis harvest. He
takes leave cheerfuUy of his home, of his vrife and
children, perhaps for ever — never to see them again.
His scythe, alpenstock, crampons, a cloth in order to
carry the vrild hay that he gets to the " wUdgaden," and a

THE WILDHEUEE. 349
bag for provisions, form the whole travelhng preparations
of the poor man. In addition, perhaps, a goat may
foUow him as a faithful compaffion to provide milk for
him in his solitude. So he goes up the mountain in the
ffight. As it dawns, he jodels clearly through the silent
world of rocks, through which he climbs upwards on his
narrow path. The echo sends back the moming greeting
with a feeble voice, and from different sides, far and near,
his comrades on similar errands answer his voice. It is
from impatience and anxious desire to find out whether
another may not have preceded him. For the wild-hay
cutter must keep watch and ward not offiy against the
inclemencies of the hUls, but against his equals, the
competitors in his busmess, who perhaps vrish to dispute
his place with him. Bloody fights have been fought
before now close to the abyss, where an unguarded step
woffid plunge into eterffity.
Hay-cutting is exposed to other dangers besides those
mentioned. Many a wild-hay cutter has been injured by
faihng stones, crumbling from high rock-waUs ; death has
overtaken others as they tried to wade through the
streams swelled by sudden thunderstorms, shpped and
were washed away by the hurrying torrents. Or a
sudden snowfaU, which, at heights of 6000 feet and
upwards, is no rare phenomenon in summer, covers up
the narrow rocky ledges m a few minutes, so that they
become almost inaccessible. And such cross ridges along
the vertical masses of mountain are in general the only
natural passes which the wild-hay cutter can use to reach
his " fluhsatzen " (cliff-ledges) or " berghetten."
The warmer and more steady the weather is in August
and September, the richer is the harvest of mountam
hay ; and, on an average, each man may bring home a
hundredweight a day. He gains by this three or four

350 THE ALPS.
francs. If stormy weather occurs, the wind, which often
roars wildly over the heights, frequently carries away the
mown swathes of hay from the ridges, scattermg it far
round, or swoUen brooks wash it away, maldng much
toil and danger frffitless. For the wild hay generally
consists of tender, thin-stalked, short weeds and grasses
of uncommoffiy tender growth, a true HUiputian vegeta
tion, as opposed to the heavy-stalked, ffigh-shooting,
broad-leaved hay of the lowland meadows. .The fragrant
"mutteri" (Meum mutellina), with its white umbel of
blossoms, takes the first rank amongst these plants ; it is
considered the most milk-producing Alpine plant, to which
the " adelgras " or " riz " (Plantago alpina) approaches
most nearly. With them are found the " berg bene-
dikte " (Geum montanum), creeping low on the ground,
with broad leaves and great rosettes of golden flowers :
the low, white-flowered "AlpenmasHeb" (Chrysanthe
mum alpinum), the tender "mannschUd" (Androsace
ohtusifolia and chamaejasme), and the round " frauen
mantele," i.e. ladies' mantle (Alchemilla vulgaris), called
also " thaumantele " (dew-mantle), because the medical
art of the middle ages, and popular behef, ascribed
wondrous powers to the dew shaken from its round,
kidney-shaped, silk-hafred leaves. Between them nestles
the "eberwurz," i. e. boar's root (Carlina acaulis), so
sensitive to moisture in the afr ; the dwarfed alpen-
ehrenpreis ( Veronica alpina) ; the low, buming-yeUow-
blooming " flngerkraut " (Potentilla aurea) ; the flnely-
chaped "alpenschwmgel " (Festuca pumila and nigrescens);
the low rock " windhalm " (Agrostis alpina) ; and the
" romerge " (Poa alpina), valuable for its nutritious
powers. From this often thickly-matted weedy turf
there rise sporadicaUy the- "frauen schiiheh," i. e. laffies'
sHpper, or the " wundkrautklee" (Anthyllis vulneraria and

THE WILDHEUEE. 351
alpina) ; the " schaafgarbe " (Achillea atrata), vrith its
dark green cup, on a low stalk furmshed with deeply-cut
Leaves ; the splendid "alpenklee," i. e. Alpine clover (Tri-
folium montanum and alpinum), with its noble iiesh-
coloured large-bloomed knots of flowers; the isolated
" knoterich " (Polygonum viviparum), with a long stem
above its lancet-shaped leaves, stretchmg forth its white
flower-stalk, beset with red knobs ; the low, sharp-leaved
" rapunzel " (Phyteuma hemisphericum), lifting its head of
azure-blue flowers from the thick turf; the variegated
oat (Avena versicolor) ; the glowing violet campanulas ; the
hdkjThieracece; the vaugged-iesiYedAlchemilloB ; the Aretice,
Androsacece, the endless family of grasses, and aU the strong
aromatic mountain plants. These together compose the
wild hay, which is therefore of uncommonly strong scent,
is more freely eaten by the cattle, and produces a much
richer mUk for butter than the vaUey hay. Li Norway
the mountain peasants of the Kjolen consider it a
panacea for all the diseases of cattle ; they fetch it at
the risk of their Hves from the highest ridges and poffits,
and keep a bundle of it as a treasure tUl the next har
vest. If the hay is properly ripened from one day to another,
it has to be coUected at a deeper, more accessible place.
This part of the work is no less difficult and dangerous
than mowing it. When the wall of rock on wffich the
¦wUd hay Hes is not too high nor too much split, the vrild-
hay cutter simply throws the packed-up "burdenen"
down, roUed up in rough Hnen cloths or nets, descends
uffiaden, and coUects it at the place he has chosen. If,
however, the chff is very high, so that the heavy firmly-
tied bundle iffight be crushed in its faU by tlirowing it
down, or if the rock is too thickly overgrovm with bushes
and " knee-timber," in which the baU inight be caught.

352 THE ALPS.
the wild-hay cutter has no other choice than to carry the
burden of a hundred weight on his shoulders down paths
which frequently do not give room for him to put one
foot before the other.
Imaghie a rock-waU several hundred vertical feet hi
height, almost overhangffig the luxuriant green Alpine
terrace below, and the " plangge " of the vrild-hay cutter
high up on the rocky scaffolding. This vast mass, by the
side of which the greatest cathedral, the most gigantic
buUding of the earth, woffid be a playthffig, consists of
elevated layers of slate, Hmestone, or dolomite, placed as
it were on their edges. The weathering has exfohated
particular layers at different heights, broken them, and
thrown them to the vaUey, so that horizontal ridges like
terraces run along the mighty front Hke corffices on a
building. According to the thickness of the sphntered
layers, these corffices may of course be only a few inches
or feet broad, and form those strips of rock or of grass
when they are overgrown ("draie"), which, seen from the
vaUey, are spun across the grey or ochre-coloured rocks
Hke tender green cords. They are the paths of the
chamois hunter and the wUd-hay cutter. On the right
the waU rises sharp, smooth, and vertical, to the next strip
of grass on the jagged ridge ; on the left it siffi?:s as
deeply mto the depths. Between Hes the rocky way,
inclined, sHppery, crumbhng, often offiy a few hand-
breadths wide. The eye can look freely over the whole
vaUey if the head is free from giddffiess and accustomed
to strikmg impressions ; an unlucky look into the blffish
depths — down to the tops of the pme trees, wffich seem
shrunk ffito mosses — draws one vrith magnetic power to
the fatal faU. .
But the mountain folk are so used to the size and
majesty of the Alpine world, so familiar with the awful

THE WILDHEUEE. 353
horrors of the mountains, that up there, where any other
mortal woffid tremble, they are Hving and moving for the
first time in thefr element. Most of the accidents which
happen m carrying the hay arise when the carrier remains
hangmg with his burden to some rocky point or bush.
Loses his equUibrium, and faUs. The father takes his boy
with him early to the hiUs that he may accustom him to
them. At first the lad steps cautiously along the chffs,
chngs firm to the rock, and ffis heart beats as his eyes
sink with anxious curiosity towards the forest ffight in
the gorges, to the mountain brook rustlmg deep below, or
the sUver gleammg stone-weighted roofs of the chalets,
wffilst the parent vrith ffis heavy burden on his shoulders
foUows ffim in steady steps, calcffiatmg whether the pay
ment for his daily work wiU cover his rent to Michaelmas.
But the boy feels happy ; his rough mdependent nature,
common to aU the mountain folk, is breakffig out, and
wUl grow greater in ffis struggles vrith nature. What lot
is then hard for the lad ? Must not he foUow ffis father's
trade ? He has no choice left.
Far below, where the mountaffis begffi to spread out
conveniently at the foot of the fearfffi waUs, stand" Httle
hay bams, artless wooden huts, "Bargaun" in the
Eomansch, "Gaden" ffi the German Swiss; ffi these the
adventurous mower keeps ffis vrild hay through the
harvest tUl the sleigh path ffi vrinter gives him the oppor-
tuffity of brmgmg down aU ffis store to the vaUey. Even
these scanty nomadic magazines are often wanting, and,
in confidence on his luck and the honesty of ffis neigh
bours, he pUes up the hay he has got m the open afr,
where there is any defence agamst vrind and weather.
The " heu-feimen "(haystacks) are firmly fix«d round poles
driven into the ground, and weighted vrith large stones.
It frequently happens, however, that when the poor man
A A

354 THE ALPS.
vrishes to brmg ffi his fodder at Christmas, the mountain
hares or other hungry game have half devoured his pro
visions. In the vrinter, when the paths are deeply covered vrith
snow and aU the mountam buttresses are vwapped in their
tffick wffite coverlets, the vrild-hay cutter goes with his
" hornscffiitten " (sleigh) on ffis back as soon as the snow
bears — i. e. has grown firm and has a hard crust — up to
his magazme, fixes a rough "schochen" or bundle of hay
firmly tied upon it, places himself in front of ffis vehicle
between its lofty shafts, and, settffig it sHdffig ffi motion,
plunges dovra the slopes vrith the speed of a raUway. Even
this last part of his work exposes him to great danger, as
frequently, when aU the snow below is frozen "pickel-
hart," i. e. too hard to be broken vrith a pickaxe, a mUder
afr is breatffing over the heights, or the warm Fohn vrind is
prevaffing, and avalanches are started which bury man
and burden. Hence the Tyrolese prepares himself for all
contingencies when he goes up with his compaffions to
the " batzen," or carrying the hay, and a common prayer
begins the dangerous day's work. If the frequently
repeated adventm'e succeeds, if aU return home fresh and
weU, the good fortune is celebrated by a uffited feast,
caUed the " hatzermaffi."
AU the hay wffich is carried dovvn on sledges in the
wmter is not merely wild hay; there are mountam
meadows which are managed just like the rich vaUey
meadows. If they are too far from the vffiage or from
the home of thefr ovraer, thefr crop, as weU as the vrild
hay, is kept hi " gadens," and either used on the spot m
vrinter, or brought dovra hke the other on sleighs to the
vaUey. The audacity and skiU vrith which the hay
sleigher dfrects ffis burden of several hundredweight, rising
far above his head, is remarkable. Perfectly confident

THB WILDHEUEE. 355
amongst the dangers which threaten ffim, he knows the
rarines (now fiUed with snow) through which his icy
pathway runs, even in thefr smaUest detaUs. With a quick
glance and cool calcffiation he draws ffis cfrcular com-se,
so that he drives dovra^ close by the awftd abyss vrith the
speed of an arrow — a few feet iffiscalcffiation in the
curve woffid send ffim down ffito depths whence no
return woffid be possible. " God helps the brave," and
"no brave man grows pale at a bold deed." These
words of SchiUer may be fuUy apphed to the vrild-hay
cutters, especiaUy to the fooffiardy Moffiser (Glarus), who
once took the most dfrect Hne from the hay moun
tams under the Frohn Alpstock to the vaUey over the
terrace-shaped ledges of rock. Certam signs announced
to him whilst he was above that avalanche falls were to
be expected. Many parts of the common route lay ffi
the path of terror of these wmter greetmgs. The awfid
death of bemg buried ahve threatened him. Every
moment's delay fficreased the danger. He tbok his part
at once, commended his soffi to heaven, and chose the
least of two terrors. Any one who knows the ground
woffid consider such an tmdertaking madness, for it is far
more probable that the adventurer woffid be destroyed
than that ffis tour de force woffid succeed.
Enough, our hay sleigher resolved, but, ffistead of
puttmg himself at the head of ffis train, caught hold
behind, stuck his head ffito the hay, and left the rest to
chance. The bold deed succeeded ; this rigorous decision
saved the courageous man.

A A 2

356 THE ALPS.

CHAP. XXXI.
"alpstubete," oe alpine feast.
The people's feast I this word of pleasant memory and
promises of joy to which the hope of thousands springs joy
fuUy forwards — this bright star ffi the dreary press of daUy
life — how it vaffishes under the influence of transforming
time, and changes ffi its original chUdish kffidly character !
DaUy it loses its fresli spfrit and character, and tums pale,
vrithout body or marrow. Splendours that diffi the
senses, and empty show, cover the poverty and bareness
of spirit which, with an exuberance of outward ffisplay,
creeps over everythffig, even the feasts, Hke an epidemic
disease. The Alpme feast, however, mefets us in unexpected
simphcity, in its natural hearty pleasure, as a phenomenon
to do us good. As so many customs and usages have
stUl been preserved in thefr purity by the Alpine folk, as
if the hard sohd ground on wffich they Hve had passed
ffito their thoughts and actions, we stiU may see the
rough muscffiar lad exercise ffimself on the Alp at games
which his fathers enjoyed centuries before him, giving a
rigorous undaunted character to thefr time.
" Alpstubeten" or "Dorfeten" are herdsman's feasts,
which are perhaps as old as the Senn system, wffich last
as long as the herds are driven to the Alps. Thefr
name brings to mffid their original cfrcumstances, as
thefr nature and course stffi remains unaltered. In the

i'te^

'f ^''^

ALPINE FEAST.

"alpstubete," oe alpine feast. 357
scattered mountain riUages, arising from ancient settle
ments and spreadmg of famffies, lymg apart from the
great roads of commerce and commuffication, there were
no inns of any capacity tiU very modern times, as is stiU
the case in Savoy, the Valais, Grisons, and Tyrol. The
Alpme peasants had no need to go and spend money in
thefr neighbours' houses ; money scarcely cfrculates in
many mountaffi riUages the whole year through, as each
produces for ffimself what he wants at home. They had,
however, need of sociable life, of neighbourly risits for
entertainment, and sffice there were no houses for com
pany nor casinos in the hffis, they went to each other's
rooms ("stube"),andthese visits got the name of "stuberta."
The designation is especiaUy apphed -to those motffigs of
young people, who met for play, song, or dance ffi the
largest and most conveffient room of a neighbour, and
these improrised meetffigs stffi take place everywhere in
the Alps and Black Forest. They are however by no
means always of the harmless idyUic character of these
proper " stubem " meetings, but are frequently causes of
great demorahsation of the people.
It is othervrise vrith our Alp feasts, to wffich, as they
were equally occasions for visits and pleasure, the same
name was apphed as to those wffich took place ffi the
vaUey. The day of thefr celebration is as fixed as that of
a samt ffi the calendar, and in Cathohc districts generaUy
takes place on the day of the patron saint. AU the
mountaffi folk, who feel more solitary ffi summer than at
any other time, because half the population is Hvffig on the
Alp, and half ffi the vaUey, stream impatiently to the place
of meeting, hsten to preachffig and mass, and when they
have satisfied this old custom, aU spfritual pastors and
thoughts are done with for the day — the comffig hours
belong to the most unrestrained pleasure. AU the.
A A 3

358 THE ALPS.
people appear ffi thefr Sunday dress, in bright shining
colours. MeanwhUe care is taken that a Senn, ffi the dress
of honour of ffis stable work, moves amongst the com
paffions, if not for omament, at kan-t for the artistic com
pletion of the groups. With loud cries and jodeffing, tffi
the mountain waUs yeU it back, and the afr is fiUed vrith
ringmg joy, every Senn lad sprffigs vrith the maiden of his
choice to the neighbouring chalets. Here everytffing is
prepared for the visit, — cakes and fritters, pear tarts, and
" geschwungener ffidel," i. e, swung cream (rich cream
whipped to foam), enticffig fine wheaten bread and wffie :
all that the art of the mountaineer can produce is spread
out for a jorial meal. Then there is jokffig and caressing,
banter and chaff, rough and unmannerly enough at times,
such as is the custom up there.
Once more the young people separate. The maidens
disperse sffigmg ffi groups, seek the best knovra places,
and compel the gnomes of the mountain walls to second
them with echoes. It is the most thorough overflow of
spirits, the elasticity of humour and fun at its utmost
stretch, wffich is strivffig to unburden itself, and seizes
every occasion of workffig off thefr superfluous happffiess.
The sun stands high. The ffififfite ether glows vrith its
deepest blue. The joyful cries are rising from every
corner and aU the slopes. Wherever a chalet lies ffidden
behind a group of firs, where the path leads over a
mound to another Alp, or the narrow serpentffie way
crosses the gorge to the neighbourffig pastures, the people
are streaming up, eager for enjoyment. Down on the
flat meadow, what a throng is undffiating and ffiterwearing !
There is the feast fully begun. " Wer gerne tanzt, dem
ist leich gepfiffen " (It's easy pipffig to those that Hke to
dance). Lifted on a block of stone, the orchestra is be
ginning its performance. It consists of two self-taught

"ALPSTUBETE," OE ALPINE FEAST. 359
musicians, who are playffig Hvely tunes, ffi their shirt
sleeves. One has the " hackbrett " on his knees, the
great-great-grandfather of aU pianos, from whose strffigs
he draws clear metaffic tones ffi sharp jumping rhythm
hj help of a steel mstrument. His compaffion is a
fiddler of equal originahty, fuU of wit and overflow-
mg fun; he adorns the melody, afready sufficiently in
spiriting, vrith aU kmds of qffips and cranks, quivers
and ribrates through his whole body, and beats time vrith
his feet to liis musical arabesques. The poor feUow is
sweatmg aU over, and, to have some protection ffi his
severe work, he has tied the canopy of a huge red cotton
fanffiy umbreUa to a long stick, and stuck it up behmd
him, to go tffiough Lus day's work ffi its faffit shadow.
Tffis just suits the people. They must and wiU have
music. The vfrtuosi of a prfficely chapel would be use
less; vrith aU thefr precision and clearness of play, they
would be unable to hold the fascffiated Alp folk balanced
on this trembhng height of joyfffiness, as does the dirty,
diabohcaUy screeching viUage fiddler. And now the
dance itself, the primeval dance which the Indians and
wUd races stffi dance at thefr feasts, the great round ring
of arms wffich, fastened in a chain, reels round the brown
mossy clump of rock. What is this primitive jumpffig
and springmg in comparison vrith the fafry-Hke grace of
the artfficial dances at our soirees and baUs ? Stffi there
is grace enough ffi it, because nature is ffi every tum of
the boffies. The lads have caught each other's hands,
and, Leaffing agamst this maffiy arm-chafr, as in a cradle,
the " Sennerm " places her arms gently on the shoffiderg
of her two neighbours. There is a coquetry in this
figure wffich has its charm, and shows beautfrffi undffiatffig
forms. 4-dditional tours are ffitroduced. A fellow with ffis
feet trembhng and tvritchmg as though a galvaffic stream
A A 4

360 THE ALPS.
was passing through him, catches his partner by the waist
with both hands, whfrls round in a circle just large enough
for four human feet, pierces the afr vrith ffis fresh hearty
jodel, and svrings the laughing chUd of the Alps ffigh
over ffim like a playtffing. So it goes on vrith noise and
fun, a spectacle that vanishes as it grows.
Such is the ffiternal kernel, the centre of pleasure and
happffiess. The scene is surrounded by rich groups, every
few men forming an effective picture. Even the cows
have come up, and stare with astoffished eyes at the crowd,
that is so strange in their generally qffiet haunts. They
make known thefr sympathy by loud lovring : is it a protest
against thefr luxuriant grass being so carelessly stamped
dovrai, or are they expressions of approval ffi the language
of cows ? The Senn, however, who was enjoying him-
sefr over a glass of vrine, wiU not put up vrith the intrusion
of his household beasts and chases them away, gaUoping
vrith taUs in the afr, to the terraces set apart for thefr
pasture. At last the whole circle is glovring, pantffig, and per
spiring under the sffitry rays — the umbreUa fiddler and the
"hackbretth" man, the lads and the lasses, must rest from
thefr excess of pleasure.
Then a new circle, which we had not yet observed,
attracts our fuU attention. A big stone weighing a hun
dredweight flies through the air and falls with a duU
thump on the ground ; a roar of laughter foUows. This is
the proof of strength in putting stones, the primeval game
of the Alps, a recoUection of the roffing stones at the
battles of Morgarten and Sempach, which crashed down,
hke the foul fiend, ffito the heavy armed ranks of kffights
and troopers, and threw them to the earth. Here it is
offiy ffin, offiy boys' play on a large scale, but it shows
the vigorous maffiy spirit which rules in the mountaffi folk.

"ALPSTUBETE," OE ALPINE FEAST. 361
The Senn grasps the stone in his strong hands, and raises
it with apparent ease to his shoffiders, whUst the palm of
the right hand properly bears it. The mark at which he
is to throw it is about a dozen paces before ffim. With
a swmg of the upper part of his body, he seeks to hit
upon the right moment, and suddeffiy strUdng out with
his arm, he casts the stone at the mark. It is generaUy a
bet for half a bottle of vrine. Gymnastic exercises have
also been knovra in the Alps for centuries.
The cHmbffig talent of the goat-boys is as old as their
class, and for accuracy of aim WUham Tell has been an
historic proof for more than five hundred years. The
most entertaining of aU such gymnastic performances may
stffi be seen at our Alpine feasts ; it is the wresthng, —
"schvringen," or "hosenlupf" In AppenzeU they are
hnmeffiately after an Alp-feast ; ffi the Enthbuch and
Emmenthal, in the Bernese Oberland and Unterwalden,
they form popular feasts by themselves, which have certain
days appointed for them, as the Stubeten have elsewhere.
Some take place on the Wengern Alp and on the great
Scheideck at the foot of the Wetterhorn — the first much
frequented by the people from Grindelwald and Lauter
brunnen, the other by the inhabitants of Grindelwald and
the Hashthal It is commoffiy on a border Alp, to which
the most pugnacious youths from each valley ascend, for
it then happens that the victory is gaffied by the party
from one of the two valleys. It naturaUy foUows that
those who last left the ground covered with glory are now
anxious not to lose it, and apply thefr whole strength to
do aU that is possible. The party conquered before now
strive to revenge thefr disgrace, and to leave the place as
conquerors this time.
When such a wresthng match is being got up, the
men who are to enter the contest abstaffi from the

362 THE ALPS.
hardest kinds of labour, take care of themselves, and
keep to nutritious foods and drinks. On the wresthng
day the fighters of both sides meet at a pubhc-house.
Each one chooses an opponent ffi the opposite party
vrith whom he wishes to have a round, and they meet
vrith hearty friendhness and unaffimity, drmking to each
other. The hour strikes. The opponents go up arm in
arm, preceded by music, in a long procession to the
wresthng place, where a crowd of people is afready
waiting. The court of umpfres, old trustworthy men,
has been afready chosen. The rest of the people form a
rmg, ffi the midst of which stand the wrestlers. They
have made themselves ready : thefr shfrts and " schvring-
hose" (wresthng-breeches) are the offiy clothes they wear.
The schwffighose are made of strong tough cloth, wffich
must be strongly sewed. It is roUed halfway up the
thigh, over the naked foot and knee, and has a roU
round the waist to be grasped. Thus prepared, the
wrestlers enter. The manager whom they have chosen
determffies the order ffi which the pafrs are to contend :
first the weaker, and then rismg by degrees to the
strongest. First of aU, both parties shake hands heartUy,
to show opeffiy that they have no hate or spite concealed
ffi thefr hearts, and that the wresthng is to be free and
friendly. The coUar of the shfrt is opened, in order that
it may not ffiterfere vrith the breatffing ; the shirt-sleeves
are roUed up above the elbow, so that the arms are
bared and can move more easUy. According to old
custom, there must be nothmg laced ffi the whole dress,
and one must be precisely hke the other, because ffi a
long obstffiate struggle any trffie may give the decision
by producing earher fatigue. Thus prepared, the first
pafr enters the ring; joy, cheerfuffiess, confidence, and
eagerness for the struggle shme out of thefr eyes. The

"ALPSTUBETE," OE ALPINE FEAST. 363
grip foUows qffietly, i. e. each places his right hand firmly
m the gfrdle of his opponent, the left ffi the roUed-up
band of the trousers on the thigh, or, as it is caUed in
the Enthbuch, " ffis Gestoss." AU false and underhand
dodges are strictly forbidden, such as rubbing the gfrdle
with taUow, to prevent the opponent's obtaining a secure
hold. The grip may take place either standmg or
kneehng, the head of each lying upon the adversary's
shoulder. If they are two experienced wrestlers, they
cfrcle round for some minutes, movmg cautiously up and
dovra ; neither of them tries to get the first hold tUl he
tlhnks the right moment is come. As each holds himself
on the defensive, he expects every moment the sudden
attack of ffis opponent, and ffis whole attention is there
fore dfrected to standmg fiLrmly. The least sHp, the
shghtest weakness of ffis opponent is immediately
attacked by an energetic grip. It sometimes happens
that a pafr " dusen" (as it is caUed in the Enthbuch) so
long at each other, that they leave off from fatigue,
throw themselves down on the cool turf to take breath,
drink a glass of vrine Hke brothers to get new strength,
and rub their hands vrith earth to make the skin rougher.
During the " dusen" perfect stUffiess reigns ffi the ring ;
aU listen ffi suspense for the first grasp, and as soon as
this takes place, and the desperate wresthng, the leg-
tvristmg and puffing, the liftffig and tugging begffi, the
spectators of both parties follow every motion vrith
feverish haste, vrith inquisitive looks, and beating hearts.
Half-suppressed caUs, stffied interjections, and exhorta
tions accompany the fight, tiU suddeffiy, by a single turn,
by an unexpected grasp and effort, one becomes master
of the other, and throws him to the ground. Tffis single
defeat, however, does not decide the rictory. " Eines
Mannes Eed ist Eeffie Eed, man muss sie horen aUe

364 THE ALPS.
beed " (One man's say is no man's say : one must hear
them both). On tffis prfficiple, opportunity is given to
the beaten to save ffis honour as wrestler, and it frequently
happens that this time luck is on his side. He who
throws ffis opponent tvrice on to ffis back is the final
conqueror. When the wrestlers of two vaUeys contend for the
honour of thefr party, as the Unterwaldners and the
Hashthal men on the Breitenfeld Alp above Meyringen,
or the Enthbucher and Emmenthaler on the Schiipfer-
berg or Ennetegg, a man of the party who was last
thrown comes forward and tries his fresh strength
agaffist the conqueror in the last match, whose strength
is by this time tolerably exhausted. This order is kept
to with particffiar strictness when it is a contest for
a set prize. If, however, it is offiy a common wresthng
match, any number of wrestlers may come from two
separate parishes to try thefr strength agaffist each
other. If it happens that ffi a solenui wresthng match the
strongest and most skilful combatants of the two parties
are the last, and each vaUey places its final and decisive
hope of rictory on its man, and thus it is a question
of savffig the honour of the day for a whole community,
a special ffind of spectacle takes place. The two wrest
lers fearing each other try to keep on the defensive, each
one to avoid a faU, and make the rictory of ffis adversary
impossible. Then both generaUy give up the ordinary
way of wresthng. When the two gymnasts have taken
hold regularly, they let themselves down on the right
Imee, each accurately measuring the position of the other,
and get as far off as thefr grasp and muscular tension
wiU aUow vrith the lower part of thefr bodies. If one
fears stffi to be thrown in tffis fashion by the su-

"ALPSTUBETE," OE ALPINE FEAST. 365
¦perior strength of ffis adversary, he lays himself flat
on his stomach, and the adversary must follow him.
In tffis unnatural position the two frequently strive for
half an hour, vrind on the earth Hke creeping snakes,
and strain muscles and sffiews so immoderately that their
faces seem a reddish brown from the fearful exertion
of strength. If neither can overcome his adversary by
endurance, strength, or cunffing, they stand up at last
of their own accord, but tired to death, on the fightffig
place, recognise each other's manhness vrith a hearty
shake of the hand, and neither party can boast of the
day's rictory. It is wUd, almost barbarous, tffis ex
hibition of physical power; but it gives proof of a
maffiy fighting people, of a race that is not effeminate,
and has stffi courage and endurance enough to fight
for its honour, its freedom, and its fatherland, with its
most resolute determination.
The most original wresthng match, wherever these
trials of strength are practised by the people, takes place
in the refectory of the Capuchffi monks at Appenzell, in
the presence of the monks. In autumn young strong lads
bring from far and near, on an appointed day, offermgs ffi
kind of wme, corn, wood, &c., as free gifts to the monas
tery. For these gfrts the monks have a substantial meal
prepared for the donors, and as dessert, when the tables
are cleared, a wresthng match takes place in the refectory
by the men for the amusement of the monks. The monks
stand on tables and chafrs, take the most Hvely interest in
the course of the contest, and often laugh so heartUy that
the wrestlers take up the laughter of the monks, tffi
they can wrestle no longer. Tffis monastic arena is so
well knovm that the men not offiy inrite each other aU
the year through to the monastery for the " IQoster-lupf,"
but hercffiean feUows chaUenge any one in the whole

366 THE ALPS.
country, who wishes to measure ffimself against them, to
appear at AppenzeU on the appomted day.
The rest of the day passes at an alpstubete as it
began, offiy that the fun rises instead of sinking. With
unwearied pleasure every maiden jumps vrith the hand
of her lad down over stock and stone to the vaUey.

-< . J*

*"^'i>C

-¦'.l^^^y ,*¦•

" tS

',
,.,i^
WOODMEN.
367

CHAP. XXYTT.
TIMBEE FELLEES AND FLOATEES.
" Cinque ! sette ! tre ! Cinque ! quatter ! due ! Haha-
hahaha I " rises in a hoarse roar from the osteria of
Cremagha. The peasants of this Tessin vffiage, lymg on
a ffigh mountain terrace, sit by fuU cups of the fiery
Cugnasco vrine and play at thefr beloved game of mora,
dashing thefr fingers dovra on to the table, and screaming
at each other like madmen. In Germany, and on tffis side
-of the Alps, one woffid thmk they were really gone mad,
as th^y rave at eiach other ffi aU love and friendship ; that
is the Itahan blood. The mountaineer of the Levant, or
the "depth of the Vai Maggia, is a qffiet feUow enough tffi
ffis passions are excited ; quarrel, company, and strong
drink qffite transform ffim, and turn the generaUy qffiet
thoughtfffi man into a hot-blooded, ragffig coward. What
is it that excites tffis handful of people so much on a work
day? The whole commune of Cremagha is officiaUy called
•together. GianeUa, the great wood speculator of Com-
;ptO¥asco m the Bleffio vaUey, has bought a large forest
from the commune, and is giring a drinking party in con-
isequence. The ratffication of the treaty is thus settled by
the 'mufficij)ality, and the soHd rmgffig purchase-money
does not come into the budget of the patriciate, to bffild
streets vrith or to support schools and almshouses, but the

368 THE ALPS.
" vicini," or neighbours of the commune, ffivide the money
amongst themselves, so that each gets several hundred
Ifre. Therefore the " confederati " of Cremagha are m
such good humour to-day.
Every honourable German-Svriss citizen, who looks
with pride at the " Gemeinde-Sackel " (communal budget),
who takes some interest in the economical position of ffis
native place, or any other civUised man who has culti
vated conceptions of the arrangements of a properly ma
naged common estate, wiU be startled at such a simple
apphcation of the purchase-money of communal goods ;
the Tessiner peasant is not. He has no conception of the
necessity of a regffiar management of the forests by the
State. His mountains have plenty of high forests, at least
in ffis opiffion, which wUl last his time and ffis chUdren's
children ; and by that time, if there is want of wood,'new
forests vriU be growffig up. So the peasant reasons.
There were once square mUes of forest which had not
been used for centuries. When the price of wood rose
in Lombardy, Italian speculators came ffito Svritzerland,
bought wood for a trffie, and whole mountains were
robbed of thefr costly treasures.
A large, fine high forest, far in the recesses and deep
est vaUey gorges, at the foot of the Eheffiwaldhom, is now
about to faU under the axe of the borratori. The forest
Hes far from the road, and a few days' joumey from the
Lombard place where the wood has been bought for the
sawmills. The wood would be raised to an enormous
price if transported on wheels, and no one woffid buy it ;
hence other means of transport must be thought of, if
offiy to bring the wood from the deeply sunk corners of
the mountffins into the neighbourhood of human commu
nication. Wherever large mountain streams come down from the

TIMBEE FELLEES AND FLOATEES. 369
Alps, the valley walls are very bare of forest. The tim
ber, whose weight and volume bears no relation to its
value, is at a smaU distance, a natural product not worth
the carriage. Hence rivers have been claimed for the
transport of the timber, and thus the axe has first attacked
those forests which lay ffi the neighbourhood of strong
water carriage. The southern side of the Alps is far more
bare of forest than the northern. The dense population
of Italy has for a long time not been able to satisfy its
demand for wood ; hence the Alpine forests were attacked,
and retreated step by step towards the kernel of the moun
tain treasures before the plundering speculators, till that
remarkable bareness on the southern slopes was produced,
which strikes us so much in crossffig the Alps. The
forests most easy of access feU first, and when they were
thhmed the timber trade penetrated deeper into the
lateral vaUeys and the retfred wooded gorges, wffich once
were rarely trodden by a human foot. Here too, as the
mountain's kernel is more nearly approached, the inchna
tion and rendffig of the ground increases. The larches
and red firs chmb boldly, Hke genuine storm trees, up the
steep chffs, which are often scarcely inferior in slope
to a church steeple, so that each one peers forth far above
the head of his neighbour. Far in the mysterious recesses
of the great mountffin folds, there are isolated cones, sur
rounded by cliffs whicii bear splendid forest canopies on
flieir rocky shoffiders. They stand up maccessibly, like a
group of tree-sentinels, or Hke the smaU and courageous
garrison of a fortress, since no one, so long as there was
more conveffient wood to felL hit upon the idea of attack
ing the exclusives up there. Many an ancient Hghtning-
spht stem is indeed mouldering on the ridge, many a
boughless shaft is shiffing Hke a sUver-coloured spHnter
up from the darkness, whUst the young growth, fresh and
B B

370 THE ALPS.
strong, is overtaking the old one. Where in the outlying
mountains everything has afready faUen under the axe
of the woodman, this Httle capital, hitherto respected, is
attacked. The forest speculators offer, aU the bold forest
trees are condemned to death, by shaking hands, the
signature of the podesta, and the counting down of the
sum of money, and next year a cold grey surface of rock
is grinning down into the sohtude.
The peasants of Cremagha have already sold such a
piece of forest, and are getting jolly over thefr bargain.
For they, as corporation, woffid not have brought dovra
the timber from its retired corner all the days of thefr
Hfe ; a firm speculative wUl is wanting, costly preparations,
buildings, and disposable capital are necessary, and Signor
GianeUa has plenty of aU these. To-day the cup is stffi
cfrchng through the noisy company ; to-day every one is
enjoying ffis Hfe. To-morrow the dangerous work
begms ; who knows whether he wffi see the last stem faU
— whether he vriU not himself be first resting vrith crushed
limbs at the foot of the rocky waU ?
The inhabitant of the Canton Tessffi is qffite a different
man from the German-speakhig mountaineer. The cold
resolution, the mountain Hfe with its hard fatigues and
deprivations, is united vvith the restlessness, the hot-
blooded, quick-actffig Itahan element. He is an excel
lent workman, prudent, sharp-sighted, inventive, and not
slow, when it is requfred, to invent clever schemes and
ways of helping himself, whicii Hghten his labour ; he is
also endurffig, industrious, and sparing. Therefore he is
often employed on this side of the mountains ffi road-
makmg. Every one of them brings a certain sprinkhng
of engineering capacity ffito the world with him, and he
apphes this vrith remarkable ingenffity, especiaUy to the
feffing of the forests.

TIMBEE FELLEES AND FLOATEES. 371
WhUst thousands yearly seek their bread during the
summer in foreign parts, as plasterers, glaziers, stone-
breakers, and workers in earth, and Hve sparingly through
the wmter in their remote Alpine riUage, vrith vrife and
chUdren, on the money they have saved, thousands of
others work at home as " Taghatori di Selva," and " Bor
ratori." The first are tlie proper wood-feUers, men with
saw and axe, who give the death-blow to the tree ; the
last, often Bergamese, are those who, by inventive de-
rices, get the stems out of the labyrinth of the mountain
wUderness down to the river, which then bears the rocks
playfoUy on its back.
If we have admfred the talent of the goat-boys, we
here find worthy compaffions, natural gymnasts, whose
equals cannot be found. They run Hke woodpeckers,
vrith chmbing frons for claws, up the stems, and hew off
the boughs so that the slender staff, adorned only vrith its
crown, stands up hke a torch. Then comes the work of
the axe. Where the moss embraces the stem most luxuri
antly is the most sappy texture of the tree, and there the
axe finds the most yielding place to its cuts. As the hafr
is shorn from the neck of the criminals before the exe
cutioner dehvers ffis sword blow, here the woodman's
hand bares the stem from the chams of ivy or thick
cushions of moss, wffich passed thefr tender parasitic
hfe on the strong tree. Then it glances clear in the sun
shine. Blow on blow rings through the vride qffiet forest,
and the murdering axe penetrates deeper and deeper.
The chips fly hissing through the afr, the wound grows
¦greater and comes nearer to the sound internal tree
kernel. Now, the axe is no longer sufficient; after a
short rest, the woodmen take the saw. It is a dangerous
position wffich they have chosen, for the ground sinks
steeply from thefr sight. The foundation on wffich they
B B 2

372 THE ALPS.
stand oscffiates with the stfrrffig of the root-work of the
tree they are felHng. Eent after rent, and cut after cut
sinks deeper towards the sound side, opposite the axe
wound, tffi here too the feeble power of man gives way,
and the murderous mstrument refuses its help. Then
comes the last means of torture for the noble tree stand
ing resigned to its fate. A broad wedge has to stretch
the yawnffig cleft, and the eating teeth of the saw now
work more freely. Now, there is a groan through the
tree ffice the shudder of death ; his top trembles and
wavers gently to and fro ; he stiU arms himself ; the firm
tough power that Hves in him holds him up ; then the
last vital fibre rends, a ratthng crash, and the pffiar of
the forest sinks vrith a plungmg faU, tffi some other stem
or projectmg tooth of rock stops its vrild flight. Many a
woodsman has been swept away from ffis post by the
boughs of a tree charging down the mountaffi, before
it had been sufficiently feUed, and carried over the
cliffs. So the slaughter continues. As often as part Hes on
the ground, the sphtting of the wood into blocks or
" borre," of a certain length, and the stripping off of the
bark or " strapina" begins. Up tiU this time, the feffing
of the tree has Httle that is pecuhar, except the danger-
ousness of its standing "^ace ; the Hke may be seen ffi
other forests. But now comes the work of the " Borra
tori." The heavy sohd roUers coffid offiy be transported an
hour's distance down to the river by a great exertion of
strength, if some other much Hghter means of transport
had not been ffivented. These are the " Sovender" or
" Seguender," i. e. thnber shdes or riaducts, wffich fre
quently, not only equal, but even excel the ancient aque
ducts ffi boldness of construction. With an exqffisitely
cultivated sense of locahty, with a power of accurate

TIMBEE FELLEES AND' FLOATEES. 373
judgment by eye, and with a sharpness wffich would be
wonderful in many an engineer, they spy out, without
help from map or compass, vrithout tables of measure
ment, or hypsometrical data, ideal Hnes reaching for hours
over abysses, through forests, along waUs of rock, some
times m a straight Hne, sometimes in a number of vrind
ings, wffich preserve the right elevation and come out at
last to the chief valley.. They use every smaU advantage
that offers ; a single projecting tree, an overhanging wall
of rock, even the roofs of chalets have to serve as props for
thefr constructions. These " Striisone " or timber shdes,
are buUt with uncommon accuracy, of from six to seven
smooth tree stems ; they are three or five feet broad,
basin-shaped, provided on both sides with projectffig rims,
and preserve a slope of at least 10 in 100. So long
as possible, they run on firm ground, over, the backs of
the mountains ; when the dfrection no longer suits the
" Borratore," he leaves the safe foundations, and suspends
ffis path from the naked waUs of gneiss or graffite, just
as the rain-gutter runs under the house eaves ; and where
this becomes impossible, it spans the track with a desperate
jump, at a tower's height, through the afr, from one
rarine bank to another, in Hnes comparable to the boldest
bridges. It always preserves, however, approaches as
conveffient as possible, on which an 'accustomed moun
taineer may pass over the giddy depths.
When tffis mgeffious, dangerous, and expensive work has
been erected caUed "Las" or "Laass'' in the Tyrol and
Styria, the Borratori and thefr men wait for the vrinter.
As soon as the first firm frost begffis they hasten up to
thefr trough, pour water dffigently over it, so that ita
cracks and clefts are fiUed vrith ice, and the whole interior
surface of the canal is covered vrith a smooth icy crust. Often
when the Fohn begins unexpectedly, the whole careffilly
B B 3

374 THE ALPS.
produced. level surface melts away agaffi at ffight, and the
work has to be done over again. If everything is pre
pared in this way the transport begins at last. The hardy
workman, despising the icy wind and vrildest weather,
cHmbs up the steep snow slopes to the place where the
blocks are laid out. Winter has cast its wffite sheet of
flakes over them, and only vague outlines show where
they are buried. The first work is now the " Portarunt,"
i. e. the carrying the timber to the shde. Tffis is done in
different ways. Either when the snow has a hard frozen
surface it is sufficient to set the blocks ffi motion, which
then ghde down over their vrinter path to the place, where
they are brought on to the Striisone, or a man fastens
them together ffi the form of a triangle, places himsefr on
the top of them, and goes down steering vrith his feet, or,
as in the wffiter carrying of the hay or wood ffi the other
Alps, smaU sleighs are used. This work of carrying down
to the path is generaUy kept tffi wffiter, because the blocks
being rough, heavy boffies are much harder to move when
the ground is not covered with snow.
When the proper passage to the vaUey begffis, the
"Borratori" divide themselves as sentinels at measured
distances, hke the watchmen on a railway, along the whole
sovenda, armed with long strong spears ; they especially
place themselves at points where in consequence of the
vrindings of the trough the blocks might easUy hitch as
they shde down. At such places too the " Eisriesen" (as
they are called in Lower Austria) are raised at the outer
side, to prevent the beams springing up in their swift
course. The stems are now thrown ffi, one after the other,
and piece after piece plunges down at a fiery speed, far
exceeffing the pace of a locomotive, crossffig a distance of
several hours across precipices ffi a few moments. They
generaUy carefuUy avoid throvring in crooked stems.

TIMBEE FELLEES AND FLOATEES. 375
because they easUy cause lodgements, or leap over the
trough. If such a confusion arises, the Barratore tele
graphs the interruption to the next post by a loud whistle,
and the signal goes from man to man, up to the place of
startmg, where they wait tiU the hindrance is removed.
A new signal conveys the order to continue. When
several dry, frosty and biting cold days with clear moon
hght mghts foUow each other, they work on vrithout stop
ping, to profit by the favourable disposition of the weather.
Only under these severe voluntary deprivations, and by
efforts which almost produce exhaustion, is it possible to
continue the work. Thefr way of Hving durffig the work
is simple and modest enougli ; polenta or maize-meal
porridge, and a little cheese forms thefr whole support.
Spfrituous Hquors, to give a stimulus, must be entfrely
avoided ; for as they have frequently to stand stffi for
hours ffi great cold, the use of brandy might produce
sleep, which woffid resffit ffi death by freezing. But the
danger of losing hfe by the faU, or sudden leaping of
the trees out of the trough is constantly present. In spite
of the pomted crampons on ffis feet, the position of the
Borratore on the ice-covered chffs is very unsteady. If
blocks have stuck fast in the trough, an energetic apphca
tion of strength is frequently requfred to start them agaffi :
the first, second, thfrd shove wffi not do it. The blocks
are wedged together, so that great force is necessary to
loosen them. The Borratore gets on to the smooth edge
of the trough and tries to help vrith ffis axe, but the stop
page wffi not move. Then he ventures rashly on a block
to move one of those below it a Httle ; and before he sus
pects it the whole burden starts again. If he is lucky,
an instantaneous sprffig saves his life ; but many have
lost it when their leap failed, or they perished miserably
torn dovra' by the hurrymg logs, and carried senseless
B n 4

376 THE ALPS.
down the abyss. There are few " holzer" (woodmen)
who do not stagger about ffi thefr old age vrith thefr feet
frostbitten, or thefr bodies otherwise maimed. And stffi
a fresh aftergrowth is never wanting, who know their lot
in old age, and yet devote themselves to the dangerous
caffing. Where the forest slopes straight to the great water-
channels of the Alps, to the svriftly streaming rivers and
strong mountaffi brooks, Httle preparation is wanting to
carry the bffildffig wood and ffiel further : the water there
has to perforin its old transport serrice that happens in all
the Alpffie districts ; but the Alps have here agaffi thefr
romantic and subhme pecuharities. Without considering
the state of the water, the wood is felled and laid in the
often half dry river beds. If the brook rises through rain or
meltffig snow, it carries away the goods entrusted to it
for transport, and tffis is the moment which presents new and
unknown pictures. In the description of the " Eufe" it
was shown what fearful destruction may be caused by the
vrild waters, when they have been dammed up, and sud
denly force new paths. As the inhabitant has to look
out for them, so here the wood floater must seize the mo
ment and help when a stoppage is threatened.
And ffi the rffidst ofthe excited element, -where the
waves hurry it dovra vrith furious rage, the floater risks
himself vrith his hook, and opens here, and pushes there,
tffi the heavy logs roU tumbUng past him. The rffin pours
down in tffick streams — ^he does not put himself out. That's
his calHng, he knows no other. And if the stream forces
itself through a black rocky gateway, in which huge stony
fragments prevent a free exit, the fearless mountffineer lets
himself dovra by a tffick rope to the grisly depth, and
half hanging over the vrildly foaming waves, perhaps

TIMBEE FELLEES AND FLOATEES. 377
planting one foot on the rocky waU, he labours with rest
less zeal, to gain a wretched day's pay.
During the wood floating ffi the mountain waters which
stream down from a steep inchne, great blocks of stone
come down with them from the Alps, which a dozen
horses could not move from thefr place. These of course
stop up the free river bed, and ffinder the undisturbed
passage of the wood. In such cases the floaters have to
descend with mallet and chisel into the midst of the roar
ing stream, and drive holes into the washed down rffins of
the mountaffi, to blast the unwelcome guests vrith powder.
Unfortunate accidents often happen, which cost the Hfe of
the workman. But even in floating the feUed jammed
logs, when the floaters have to let themselves down by ropes
(as related) ffito deep gorges, they often faU rictims to
thefr caffing. So it happened on the 2nd of October 1860.
ffi the Schanfigg, a few hours from Chur, four floaters
were busied in the Plessur gorge in startffig lodged tim
ber. A very skUful floater, named Christian Jager, hung
hke a spider from a rope, and began to work with an axe
whUst the others held him up, when a warnffig signal cry
came from the watchman. But at the same moment a
mass of broken stone crumbled from the chff, and buried
all four ffi the river vrith its debris.

378 THE ALPS.

CHAP, xxxin.
" AUF DEE JAGD."
The mountaineer is a steady, sohd, simple feUow ffi
all the utterances and relations of his Hfe. Sparffig as
he is in his wants and unsophisticated in his manners,
courageous ffi danger, and enduring in the hardships
of his trade, he is just as bold and obstinate, vigorous
and self-denying ffi the chase. It is perfectly in uffison
with his hfe, and the mighty subhme nature which sur
rounds him.
The pursffit of Alpine game is, both in locahty and
method, subject to qffite different conditions and cfr
cumstances from the chase elaborately got up in the
hffis or plains for purposes of science or amusement ;
most of the practices, which are there admissible or
even enjoined, and the accurate knowledge and ready
handhng of which poffit out the accompHshed huntsman,
cannot be apphed ffi the Alps ; there is no systematic
forester's craft which can be theoreticaUy taught in
books, to produce an elegant kffightly comedy, but the
chase is as unnaturaUy rough and wUd as the AJps
themselves. He who has not the right stuff ffi ffis bones
and blood, muscles and sinews, who cannot set his face
laughmgly agamst dangers and hardships, whose eye
cannot look straight and without giddiness dovra abysses,
had better leave his rifle at home, or try his luck in the

'"^ H^iis^.

^C-"'*

^..ff

CHAMOIS HUNTEBS.
"AUF DEE JAGD." 379
vrithered stubble and along the green fields, where the
hound may help him to catch the hare, or bring the
c®vey of partridges within shot. On the Alps there
are wUd beasts enough, bears, wolves, eagles, and vul
tures, or the fugitive far-seeffig chamois, or the sly,
shy ptarnugan, and grouse. A man may be a perfect
Nimrod after the red-deer, or have giveii the death-stroke
to many a wUd boar, without bemg able to kiU one of the
best knovra Alpine beasts.
In the first place, a man must have marrow in his bones,
a hght, firm tread, which, when the screes and crumbhng
stones give way on the mountain side under the hard
spiked shoes, stffi hastens on steadUy and cooUy ; he
must be able to help himself on the labyrinth of crevasses,
or on the smooth treacherous snow slopes ; he must
not be afraid of desperate leaps on the hard limestone
cliffs, and • go along the grassy ledges of the precipices
hke a tUer along the corffice of a church roof ; hi one
word, the Alpine sportsman must be a good, lastffig
mountaffieer. One cannot ride on a Hght hunter ffito
the recesses haunted by the game, ffis own firm foot must
lead the sportsman up to ffis work in the wUderness of
jagged Alpine rocks. Then too he must be acquainted
with the country ffi which he has to try his luck. He
must know the mountain masses and thefr relations,
the ridges, passes, poffits, and crests, the ffiternal
connection of the gorges and rocky guides, that he may
not be "pounded," as once was Kaiser Max on the
Martmsward ffi the Tyrol, or Eudolph Blasi of Schwan-
der, ffi that adventure wffich makes one's flesh creep, and
has been commemorated by the poet Eeithard in ffis
poem of " The Two Chamois Hunters." There is scarcely
a mountain sportsman who has not already been often ffi
such scrapes, and offiy saved his Hfe by a despafring leap.

380 ' THE ALPS.
How many have already been kffied by faUs or starved to
death cannot be calculated. And, finaUy, he must be
able to go without food and drink, rest and warmth. If
we reflect that the chase generally takes place in the
mountffins, when the Alps are left by the herds, so that
no milk warm from the cow, nor shoe of bread is to
be got at the chalets, that the sportsman often has to
wander four or five days in the vrildemess, without ever
descending to his house deep in the vaUey below, that he
has, therefore, to separate ffis meal times so to make the
most of his scrap of dry bread and cheese and his flask
of " Chriesiwasser" (Kfrschwasser) — and remember that
not even the rough layer of wild hay in the needy chalet
offers him a couch protected agffinst cold and weather,
but that the man is often compelled to sleep on hard
stone, in any kind of cleft he can find in the rocks when
the clouds conceal the heights and he cannot stfr from his
place but at the utmost perU, — he vriU confess that it
reqffires a body uncommoffiy accustomed to hardships,
besides the properties enumerated above, to venture upon
huntffig in the Alps. The noble chase ffi the meadows
and forests of Germany does not requfre aU these bodUy
preparations. The chapter of chamois and chamois hunting has been
exhausted by that thoroughly experienced Alpffie tra
veUer, F. Von Tschuffi, in his " Thierleben." As we
glance at it, we shall only relate a few characteristic
hunting adventures, to fiU up the framework of our
picture. Skffi in trackmg and knowledge of the game are, after
the bodUy reqffisites we have enumerated, the first
necessities for the chamois hunter. He must search out
thefr standing places, pasturages, and sleepffig haunts, to be
able to calculate with any certainty in what place he vriU

"AUF DER JAGD." 381
probably meet chamois at a given time. "Spittler Jan"
of the Grisons Miinsterthal, a musician by trade, but one
ofthe most desperate chamois hunters, is said frequently to
have won wagers by pointing out accurately the place and
time where so many head might be seen. If the hunter
knows accurately the place where he is to look for his
game, he starts, according to the distance he is to go (if
he hunts alone, as the best chamois hunters always do),
about midffight or soon after, and chmbs as high
through the silent ffight as he can do without prejudice
to his chase. He has to observe carefully the direction
of the wind, that it may not bear a warffing sound
or scent of ffis coming to the chamois. If he is behind
the beasts, which are stffi lying quietly on the grass, and
have only posted the "Vorgaiss" on a lofty block of
rocks, he creeps, stiU under protection of the tvrihght, as
near as possible, and endeavours to conceal his body
beffind any lump of rocks or tree trunk. Here he waits,
ready for a shot, tffi the break of day. What infiffite
careffiffiess and prudence is requfred for these cat-like
creepings, what exciting lying in wait, with the utmost
cooffiess and quiet ! When the beasts have roused them
selves, he chooses his victim and fires. It often happens
that the resolute hunter, before the frightened chamois
have found out the quarter from which they are threatened,
knocks over a second beast with his double-barrel. If
he ffits, the chamois makes a high bound and faUs over ;
but it often happens that beasts struck, but not fataUy
wounded, are off and away vrith the whole herd. There
are occasionaUy large herds of this game which re
main together tiU the pairing season. The weU-known
mountaffieer, Gottheb Studer of Berne, once saw a herd of
sixty feeding together. Sohtary hunters do not generaUy
take dogs with them.

382 THE ALPS.
The most accompHshed chamois hunter of the present
time is perhaps Ignaz Troger, of Oberems in the Valais,
at least the shepherds on the alps of the Turtman and St.
Nicolas vaUeys teU wonderful stories of him. He seems
to be a modem Colaffi of that district, who has sUently
usurped several square miles as his exclusive huntffig
ground, into which no other hunter ventures. Besides
tffis, the popular belief surrounds ffim with a mysterious
legendary ffimbus, and makes ffim a Freischiitz, who can
hit everytffing that he aims at at every shot. It is at any
rate acknowledged that he is the best shot in Canton
Valais, and probably the circumstance that by a skUful
use of his observations he has shot perhaps three or four
chamois in one clay, cleverly hidden them, and then
brought them down one after the other to his house, may
have given occasion to aU ffinds. of fables. He is at the
same time the rashest and most adventurous mountaineer ;
if the ascent of the Weisshom should ever be possible,
Troger would be first on the top. So the Valaisans
maintam. Another first-rate shot, who kiUs yearly from
twenty to thirty chamois, and has afready Idlled two
bears, is Battista Margffia ffi the Vai Calanca, who travels
during part of the year as a glazier in German Switzer
land, especiaUy the Canton Glarus. In the Grisons,
Benedetto Cathomen of Briegels, in the Vorder Eheinthal,
is said to be the greatest chamois hunter, and after him
the celebrated bear hunter Fffi, postmaster in Zernetz;
Jacob Spinas of Tinzer ; ZinsH, of Scharams, and
others. The combined " Treibjagd " (driving chase) of chamois,
undertaken in company by the less distinguished hunters,
is less dangerous. It generaUy takes place in the outlying
alps, which are poorer in game, and ffi many respects is
like the orgaffised battue of the plffins, as the hunters are

" AUF DEE JAGD." 383
posted at different points and dogs used for driving the
game. This way of huntffig has, however, its special difficul
ties, which, from their nature and origin, are less Hable to
occur than in the sohtary chase. A plan or certain
understanding between the drivers and the hunters must
of course be arranged as in other similar hunts. If the
order determined upon is not accurately kept to, owing
to some of the unforeseen mishaps so easUy possible in
the hffis, a complete faUure in the day's huntffig may be
the result of many efforts. Our picture represents such a
moment. Three experienced shots of AppenzeU were
hunting on the Gloggeren, that lofty waU rising south
east from the See Alp, which one passes on the way from
Weissbad over the Meghs Alp. One of them went by
this lower path, a second higher up over Marvries, and
the thfrd hunter over a narrow grassy ledge on the rocky
waU between the two first mentioned. The chamois were
driven along this grassy ledge. The highest and lowest
had easier going, and came earher to the place where the
combffied shootffig was to begin. The first saw the
beasts coming to ffim, coming dfrectly towards his rifle,
and waited, looking out constantly for the tffird, who was
driring them along the grass ledge. The chamois come
graduaUy nearer ; he is afraid of losing ffis shot, Hes ffi a
feverish state of excitement, fires, and, frightened at the
report, the beasts tm-n and fly hurriedly along the ledge
the same way that they had come. Just at a narrow
slopmg place, scarcely broad enough for a man to pass
where it bends round a projecting rock, they came in
thefr wildest flight upon the hunter chmbing toilsomely
upwards. If the two parties had met upright on this
giddy rim of rock, the hunter must infaffibly have been
dashed over a chff sinking for more than 100 feet, as the

384 THE ALPS.
chamois would instinctively ffi the agony of despafr have
tried to squeeze themselves between the rock and the
hunter. The man prudently observed this, and to save
his Hfe, threw himsefr dovsm and let the whole herd rush
at a flying leap over hhn. Another hunter in Glarus, in
a simffiar position at a critical place, thought that he
might secure his booty by a qffick resolve, and cowered
down sitting, wedged firmly against a rock, and shot.
The charge missed, the chamois jumped over ffim, but
touched him ffi its bounffing elastic spring vrith one of its
hind hoofs on the jacket, and tore its highest button
hole ; a hesitation would have hfraUibly sent both over a
crushing faU.
The follovring incident is related of a Tessiner chamois
hunter from the Vai Blegno. Two of them had gone out
to drive. One of them fired, ffit the chamois ffi the
shoffider, which, though wounded and bleeding, stffi ran
away and met the other hunter in a defile between two
colossal blocks of rock. Covered by the rock so that the
excited beast coffid not see him, he took aim and puUed
the trigger, but the gun missed fire. With qffick decision
the Tessmer threw his gun away, sprang upon the
chamois, who could get neither backwards nor forwards
between the rocks, made a lucky snatch at his horns vrith
first one hand then the other, and ffilowed the beast with
a display of extraordffiary power to drag ffim thfrty or
forty paces over turf and rock tffi close to a precipice,
where it fell down exhausted. Two or three bounds
more would have dragged them both over it. Here, on
the brink of the cliff, another struggle began after a
second ffi a lake of blood. The hunter caught firm hold
of a tough twig of firwood vrith one hand, whUst he
grasped the affimals horns vrith the other, kneehng at the
same time on its neck. He wffited so a few mmutes tiU

"AUF DER JAGD." 385
his compaffion came up, and vrith a few stabs from his
bread kffife kffied the beast, resistffig to the last.
It very seldom happens, ffi ordinary Alpine tours, that
the traveUers see chamois even at a great distance. There
is one place where, early ffi summer, chamois may be seen
almost every day. Tffis is in the Churffist Alps above
WaUenstadt. These mountains, between the Speer and
the Gonzen, have been officiaUy declared free mountains ;
no game may be shot there under heavy penalties. Any
one who passes the ffight at WaUenstadt and chmbs the
Alps Lbsis and Bids early ffi the morffing, may easUy
manage to see chamois ffi addition to a noble mountaffi
panorama. The path is very easy, even for ladies.
Bear-huntmg is not, Hke chamois hunting, a passionate
pursffit of sportsmen, nor is it pursued for money : it is
either — and that very rarely — an ffivoluntary proof of
courage for the mountaineer, produced by accident, or an
intentional, very dangerous mternecine fight agamst the
dreaded plunderer of the herd. In both cases this chase
is no less difficult and dangerous than the other, offiy that
the danger consists less in hiaccessible country than ffi
the nature of the game to be kffied.
The pecuhar home of the bear in the Alps is in the
cantons of Valais and the Grisons. As the most thiffiy
uihabited Alpine country which stiU possesses the thickest
and most extensive forests, and broad, Httle trodden, moun-
tain ffistricts, it offers an undisturbed retreat to the great
beast of prey. Not a year passes ffi the EhEetian and
Valaisan Alps, but the message comes dovra to the valley
at one place or another — the bear has been agaffi carryffig
off sheep, calves, or young cattle. But often, to restore
the feehng of uffiversal security, the joyfffi report qfficldy
spreads through the hUls that another bear has been
Mled, often under the most adventurous circumstances.
c c

386 THE ALPS.
The number of bears shot in the Alps may be guessed at
from twelve to twenty head a year ffi modem times.
There are, it may be said, bear-years, ffi wffich an extra
ordffiary number of these beasts appear, and many are
shot vrithin narrow Hmits ; and other years agaffi ffi wffich
but few are heard of The number of bears kiUed would
be far greater if there were more hunters ffi the moun
tains, and the reward paid were greater. (In the Grisons
the government pays offiy twenty-eight francs a bear, old
or young, besides wffich the sportsman gets the beast and
skins.) Enumerations by foresters and huntsmen estimate
the bear popffiation, from the Grffian Alps, to Styria and
Elrain, at some 500 head. The calculation, however,
becomes more uncertam, as it appears that the bear is
continuaUy wandering between the east and west of
Europe, and only keeps to ffis quarters for an uncertam
period. Miinchhausen is not offiy a coUeague of the hunter of
the hills and plaffis, he has also found reception amongst
the Alpine hunters ; hence it foUows that a number of
the most exaggerated bear-hunting stories are to be heard.
Tffis does not however exclude the fact that there are
hunting adventures which are of the most excitffig
character. A tragi-comic action vrith bears took place in the
summer 1857, at the bottom of the Engadine Valley, Vai
d'Uffia. A hungry feUow had several tunes attacked
herds which pastured on the slopes of the Griankopf and
Piz Comet, so that a hunt was got up agaffist hhn. A
man of Sins met the rough companion in the wUderness,
shot at him, and sffiged his coat vrith a buUet. The bear,
too shghtly wounded to be mcapable of escape, turned
angrily at the hunter, who, perceiving the danger of his
position, took refuge behffid a large rock in the open.

"AUF DEE JAGD." 387
WhUst the bear followed him growhng and Hmping
along, the hunter loaded agam, runffing steadUy round
the rock. When ffis rffie was ready, he halted again,
fired and ffit the beast, but stffi without kUling it. The
bear offiy grew the angrier, and rushing round the rock,
first left and then right, a hide-and-seek game began
between the bleeding bear and the flying huntsman, that
became more terrible every moment. Far and vride
notffing but a barren vrildemess — no friend to save ffim
or to support hhn against the bear. The peasant of Sffis
never lost his presence of mind, and a certaffi rare cool
ness. He succeeded durffig the chase in loading his rffie
again, and fired a thfrd time. Whether he hit this time
is uncertain. To his horror the hunter now discovered
that ffis ammuffition was at an end ; he had probably lost
part of it by loading during ffis course. The game
began to get terrible. The bear's loss of blood was
indeed becommg greater, but its fury increased at the
same time. The mountaineer, almost senseless, stffi con
tinued ffis flight round the rock, and hoped to weary the
beast, so that ffis strength woffid faU, but in vain. He
saw ffimself constantly pursued step by step by the
monster vrith loud growls, now close behind him, and
now meeting him by a cfrcffit. His knees trembled, his
feet became unsteady and stumbled more than once, he
lost his breath, and bathed in sweat he expected every
moment to faU down faffitffig. At length the beast grew
tfred, ffis growls came only in bursts, and ffis run was in
terrupted. The hunter, wearied to death, took advantage
of tffis circumstance, and rushed vrith a last exertion of
aU his strength to the vaUey, vrithout for a long time
lookmg round to see whether he was foUowed or not.
He escaped, but could hardly get to ffis house. He was
thrown on to a bed of sickness from severe exhaustion.
c c .2

388 THE ALPS.
Neighbours who went up to the place weU armed next
morffing, foUowed up the traces of blood, and found the
beast lyffig dead at a considerable distance from the
theatre of the chase.
Colaffi of Pontresina, ffi the Ober Engadffie, once ffis-
played no less presence of mffid and determination. He
one day discovered, durffig a hunt, the unnustakable
tracks of a bear, and, foUowffig it ffiong a ledge of rock
(simUar to that shown ffi our picture of the chamois-
hunting adventure), came to a cave, ffi front of which the
path ran. As the day was afready late, and he had offiy
a Hght rffie vrith him, he determffied to put off ffis attack
upon the beast, and returned vrith the greatest care.
Next day, before dawn, the right hunting time, he went
accompaffied by ffis son, then twelve years old, to the
bear's cave ; the lad had also a rffie vrith hhn. They
had not lain long before the lafr, the boy close be
hffid ffim, when somethffig Hving began to stfr inside.
Soon two eyes Hke coals shone from the depths of the
cave, and the old experienced sportsman fired ffis fijst shot
at them. He had hit, for a loud roaring growl came up
from the cave ; but at the same time the dark outHnes
became more distinct, and next moment a huge she-bear
crept out of the cave. When Colaffi thought he was cer
tam of his aim, he fired agaffi. He shattered the right
forepaw of the monster, which feU vrith a thundering
growl, but ffistantly got up, crept out of the cave, and
prepared for action on its two ffind legs, as the forelegs
were unserriceable. " Father, shaU I shoot ? " cried the
lad, who was looldng over his father's shoffider trembhng
for eagerness. But old Colaffi ffid not for a moment lose
ffis coolness as a huntsman, and his calm decision. The
next shot must make an end of the beast, or it woffid be
aU up with ffis boy and ffim. " Give me the rifle," he told

"AUF DER JAGD." 389
his boy, vrithout turnmg his eyes from his prey, and
changed arms whUst the bear was offiy a few paces from
ffim. He cooUy aUowed the brute, standffig upright, to
come so near him, that the muzzle of the gun ahnost
entered its wide mouth. The first barrel missed fire, the
second rang, and the beast feU over vrith a heavy fall, a
bffilet through its braffis. The boy could stand it no
more ; ffi a twinkhng he clambered round his father on
the steep slope, and hammered with the butt of his
rifle on the skuU of the struggling beast tUl the last spark
of life was extmct. Colani has been dead for many years,
but his son is now a courageous chamois hunter, and, in
summer, guide to the top of Piz Languard.
The latest and oddest adventure with bears took place
at midday on the 18th of August 1860, on the Buffalora
Pass. A Bergamesque shepherd, some of whose sheep had
been kffied, had taken off thefr skins, cut away the flesh
that was not spoUt, and packed them on his horse, to brffig
it to his hut. Without the least thought of danger, he
was riffing along the road, sitting sideways ffi Bergamesque
fasffion, when he suddeffiy met two young bears, one of
whom, astoffished at the unwonted spectacle, began to roar
loudly. The old she-bear, suspecting that somethffig was
happeffing to her young, dashed out of the forest and furi
ously attacked horse and rider. The shepherd jumped off,
to save himself, learing ffis horse to its fate. The horse,
more courageous than its master, kicked out so rigorously
vrith ffis hinder hoofs, that the bear, deafened by the hail
of boxes on the ear, shrank back several times, but always
recovered herself and repeated her attacks. The rough
brown woollen cloak of the shepherd, ffi which the skins
and meat were wrapped up, was loosened by the riolent
plunges ofthe horse, and feU as a fresh onslaught on to the
head of the bear afready bhnded with fury. The bear,
c c 3

390 THE ALPS.
supposing hersefr attacked by a new enemy, left the horse
ffi peace, and vrith her young ones set about puffing the
cloak ffito miffions of rags, whUst the shepherd with ffis
horse took hastily to flight, and luckUy reached the pubhc-
house, where he was taken seriously ffi.
The summer of 1860 was remarkable for the number
of bears ; in the Lower Engadffie they frequently came
close to the vffiages, and it happened at Siiss that a huge
overgrown " Master Petz " was feedhig carelessly about
hffif a rffie-shot from the high road, whilst a driver was
cracking his whip vrith aU his might to drive ffim away,
and across the Inn hffif a dozen people were busy hay-
maffing At Zernetz, a few days before, a bear had carried
off seventeen of the fattest sheep ffi ten days.
It does not however always pass off so weU. On the
news ofthe greatnumber of bears ffi 1860, a couple of
gentlemen, the Prussian Prime Minister, the Prmce of
Siegmarffigen, who was stayffig at his summer seat of
Weiiiburg, and the Grand Duke of Hesse, ffi company with
some weU-known Alpffie hunters, attempted a bear hunt in
the Engadffie towards the end of September, but could
find no beasts, and had to content themselves with shoot
ffig a few chamois.
The bear is at first shy, almost cowardly ; he flies vrith
ffis prey, when he has robbed a herd, as if an evU conscience
drove him from the presence of men. Offiy when he is
prov^oked or attacked, or when he supposes that his young
ones are threatened, does he take the offensive. The
vulture and eagle are more vicious than Bruffi amongst the
Alpffie affimals of prey. They do not wait to be attacked,
but attack of themselves, though vrith very acute calcula
tion, when they tffink they can be sure of thefr prey.
Chamois hunters, root-diggers, wUd-hay cutters, can teU
stories enough of cases when they have been surprised on

"AUF DER JAGD." 391
steep cliffs by a huge bfrd of prey, and which has tried to
hurl them into the abyss by a stroke of its vrings. Christian
Danuser of Felsberg, forest-inspector ffi the Vai Misocco,
was standmg one mornmg in the middle of September,
1856, close by the edge of a lofty rocky cliff, and looking
out for chamois below. Startled by a loud and increasffig
rusthng ffi the afr, he saw a large eagle (steinadler), at a
height of some sixty feet above hhn, on the pomt of
swooping down upon ffim with closed vrings. Danuser,
who weU knew the treacherous mode of attack of tffis
affimal, jumped hastily a few paces backwards, threw him
self on the ground, and was hardly on his back when the
eagle shot by, and passed so close as to touch him vrith the
extreme pomt of one vring. The bfrd had scarcely shot
past its intended victim at its fffil speed into the depth,
when he jumped up, fired at the eagle vrith his rffie as it
slowly raised itself again, and knocked it over just as it
was preparffig to make a second attack. The bffilet ofthe
determffied hunter had pierced the bfrd's breast, and vrith
a mighty clap (as Danuser expressed himsefr) it feU dead
before him. Tffis beautifffi specimen is now stuffed and
adorns a coUection at Frankfort-on-the-Maffie.

c c 4

392 THE ALPS.

CHAP, xxxrv.
VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS.
It is pretty much the same vrith riUage Hfe m the moun
tains as vrith the imaginary poetry of " Senn" Hfe on the
Alps ; people are apt to suppose it to be ffi many respects
far more romantic than it reaUy is. The enthusiastic
visitor from the plaffis, who has at his command aU the
conveniences of travel, only carries away the pleasant
general impression of the summer morffing landscape blue
vrith vapour, and the peacefffi eveffings spent ffi the
Alpffie vaUeys, and transfers tffis satisfaction of aU his
wants to the vffiage in which he Hved, to its inhabitants
and thefr circumstances ffi business and society, vrithout
becomffig ready acquainted vrith them in thefr internal
relations and habits ; he constructs for himsefr, whUst
using the first name at hand, an ideal Alpine vffiage, from
the fancies which move round him ffi happy hours, and
thus creates a thmg wffich has no existence ffi reahty.
The Alpine peasant, as we have afready learnt to know
him m detached sketches, is, on both sides of the moun
taffis, a very rough and intensely prosaic character, who
woffid at first sight be hardly ffistinguished (except
perhaps ffi dress and bearffig) from the peasant of the
plain, if it were not that a far more substantial nature,
and a kind of primeval originahty, one iffight ahnost say a
classical simphcity, were concealed behmd his modesty and

BUBIAL.

VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. 393
prosaic appearance. He is far from beffig so drUled and
poHshed as most agricffitural peasants, who, by contffiual
intercourse vrith town Hfe, have leamt and received much
from it. This is the pecuHarity which appears ffi every
mountameer as compared with the lowlander. Thefr
patriarchal solemnity is increased by the more rigorous
and dfrect expression, wffich again is a resffit of the
action of an imposing and often terribly subhme nature.
It gives steel and vigour not offiy to the body, but also^to
the character of the people, which is unacquaffited^ with
the daUy accumulatffig new wants of the great world, and
therefore moderate ffi its desires, and grown rigid vrith
old-fashioned forms and usages, which are striking and
pleasmg on account of their very strangeness and old-
fasffion. We next meet these inartificial natural forms of hfe,
and most immediately, ffi the arrangement of the houses,
which is strange to us. They are an integral part of the
charrffing landscape, and enhven it remarkably by their
scattered positions aniong the meadows. They would
however not be sufficient to produce thefr picturesque
poetical effect, if we were only to recogffise ffi them over
agam the weU-known straight Iffies, the external marks
of modern arcffitecture ffi the plains, and the modest
wffite stripes of colour. Dweffings in the Alpine vffiages
are not hke artistic erections of the human hand : they
seem to have grown out of the ground vrith the trees and
mountams. There is stffi the sappy, faint brown colour
of the wood, which Nature hersefr has given to the stems ;
there are the sUver-glancing shffigle roofs, loaded vrith
the hearily mossed stones, the sturdy guarffians agaffist
the wUd Fohn vrind. Broad and low stands the mountain
house, as fr it had been hafr sunk into the ground by the
yearlong pressure of the stones ; but just this comfortable.

394 THE ALPS.
croucffing breadth gives it an infiffitely pleasant rest,
wffich corresponds to the subhme simphcity and qffiet of
the Alpine world. Advantageously as these houses act
upon the composition of the landscape, thefr ffiternal
arrangement and constitution woffid be Httle satisfactory
to risitors. The carelessness for cleanUness ffi thefr dwell-
ffigs, more or less characteristic of aU pastoral people,
prevents any idyffic ffiusion. The household stuff is
simple beyond aU conception ; a great part of it is the
produce of the domestic hanffiwork, and there is many a
viUage ffi the Alpffie recesses in wffich the fron door-lock
has as yet found no reception or apphcation, and the
burffing pffie torch suppHes the place of sunHght or oU
lamps. No cffimney prorides for the smoke from hearth
or stove to give it exit ; ffi many mountain houses the
shaft of the chimney goes down to the ground floor, and
there smokes through every hole and crerice of the roof
Men and cattle live and tffiive in common in the same
house ; the stables generaUy take up a considerable part
of it, and protect it ffi vrinter against severe cold by thefr
natural warmth.
On enterffig the Httle church of the Alpffie vffiage, it
seems as if one had taken a gigantic step back ffito the
iffidffie ages. Most of them are models of simphcity in
architecture, and scarcely betray the time of thefr foun
dation or the style to which they belong. The interior
has the same qffiet sfrnpHcity, adomed vrith aU kffids of
ornaments from the hands of stroUffig pamters, pictures
from the Hfe of the patron saint of the place, or other
legends of saints, ffi which the deril vrith homs and hoofs
generally plays a conspicuous part ; it frequently happens
that the riUage youth have given way to thefr wrath
agaffist this heffish monster, and qffite scratched out Satan
in holy zeal. Or one suddeffiy finds, to one's utter as-

VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. 395
tomshment, a new altar-piece painted by an able hand,
and hears on further ffiqufry that some Diisseldorf or
Muffich paintef , after lodgmg aU the summer in the vffiage
mn, pamted this picture and gave it to the church. There
are also Alpine vUlages, in the deep vaUey recesses, which
have places of worsffip of noble style and elaborate exe
cution, with marble columns and excellent carvings —
churches which far surpass those of many a capital. A
monastery either stands or has stood there, which bffilt
the church from its weU-fiUed budget, or by the help of
the obeffieat people of the vaUey ; or a man has Hved in
this secluded corner of the Alps, vvho knew how to excite
his neighbours to such a great work, so that aU lent a
hand tffi the buUding was completely finished. The
mastery of outward cfrcumstances wffich is everywhere
apparent ffi the Alps, shows itsefr here also.
And now the Hfe itsefr of these vffiages in these great
hermitages of central Europe — how much primeval sim
phcity meets us here too ! Most inhabitants of the Alps
enter thefr famUy cfrcle vrithout the assistance of the
midwife or medical aid. The first nursffig which they
receive is often far mferior to that with wffich the wUd
she-bear instinctively cares for and protects her young.
There are no few districts amongst the Alps whose inhabi
tants look upon the blessffig of chUdren as a great material
burden, for is it poverty alone which chases out the
wandering youth of Savoy ffito the strange distant world,
or is it not far more the almost dried-up spirit, the
parents' hearts turned to rock and stone, that always re
news this spectacle which has become a popffiar custom ?
On tffis ground too the performance of baptism in many
parts of the Alps is not a famUy feast. And agaffi, the
most striking contrast Hes close beside it. Wherever the
people, either from zealous faith and conriction, or from

396 THE ALPS.
the pressure of necessity, place a high value on baptism,
long pUgrimages to the church of the commune often
take place with the cffild a few days old ; for house bap
tism is not known ffi the Alps, and it is not every vUlage
or every hamlet or house ffi a remote side vaUey that pos
sesses its own church. The evangehcal Valaisans went,
for centuries after the Eeformation, when the Cathohc
fffith had been rerived aU round them, a good six or
seven hours over ice and snow with the chUdren to be
baptized to the Protestant Grffidelwald, to receive from
the priest of thefr faith the sanction of the church for the
admission of thefr chUdren to the Christian community.
Thefr path was one wffich the boldest mountaffieer of the
present day scarcely ventures to take, because it is aU
covered vrith fearfffi glaciers and torn by crevasses. Here
again the strength and obstinacy of the mountaineer
shows itself, the earnestness and endurance, the firm vriU
and courage, jiot only in matters of every-day necessity,
but ffi matters of ffis own decision and free wffi : tough
as he is ffi physical hardsffips, he is equaUy endurffig in
the resffits of ffis reflection and free wffi.
Given over almost entfrely to physical development,
the cffild grows up hafr naked vrith the domestic affimals.
During the better season its playground is on the sweffing
meadow that surrounds the " heimet " (homestead), in the
forest, or on the steep rocky cliff, always surrounded by
a thousand dangers, here of tumbhng ffito the brook or
bemg crushed by faffing stones, there of being drovraied
ffi the lake or poisoned by plants and berries ; but as it
is not peace but war which makes great heroes, aU these
horrors threateffing his tender youth make the cffild of
the Alps ready and strong for his lot in Hfe. A manly.
Spartan, and fron race of people would grow up ffi every
direction were it not that an utter want of attention to

VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. 397
external cleanhness, and a Hfe passed during the vrinter in
overheated and narrow rooms fuU of foul afr, prevent
a healthy normal development of the body. Hence, in
particffiar districts, where other agents are at work in
the same direction, there is a remarkable number of cre-
tms, idiots, and hafr-developed human beings. The school
troubles the smaU citizen of the Alps Httle enough ; three
or four elementary branches vrithffi the narrowest Hmits
are sufficient to lay a basis for the spiritual horizon
of aU thefr life ; the practice of later years must teach
everythffig else. And tffis schooltime — oh worthy ex
ample, thought of happiness for youth oppressed by
instruction and lessons ! — laSte only sis months ; the
whole beautifffi long summer, from Easter to Michaelmas,
is hohday — hohdays for teacher and scholars. What is
thfrstUy imbibed by the nerves of the brain durffig winter,
and leamt by rote on the finger during wffiter, is puffed
away again durffig the free summer Hfe on the hffis and
the fragrant grass slopes ; offiy a few remains of arith
metic for home and market use, a Httle capacity for read
ing, and the often scarcely decipherable hieroglyphs
which represent a signature, are in many cases aU that the
scholars have accumulated for futurity. And under what
ffifficffit cfrcumstances are these trffiffig gaffis acqufred!
The teacher, poor man, is generaUy on the same Level with
the shepherds ffi poffit of pay, frequently even below
them; he is a wandering scholar, who has to scrape
together a prorision for the summer time, who, if he
possesses a cottage and a Httle land, with a few head of
cattle, fiUs up the time left from mstruction with land and
hand work. In more than a hundred vffiages there is no
school-house ; a Httle room in the parson's dweffing, or at
the chaplain's, where scarcely hafr the chUdren can find sit
tmg room, has to supply its place. The schoolmaster has

398 THE ALPS.
a sleeping-room ffi the same house, or wherever there is
room for him, and has his meals to-day here, to-morrow
there, at the peasants' tables. The chUdren often come
an hour's distance in snow and stormy weather to the
school. When the boy begins Hfe, his future, as elsewhere,
depends on ffis parents' possessions, on the number of his
brothers and sisters, and a hundred other cfrcumstances.
Many a poor lad, who formerly kept his goats, and caUed
little besides his clothes his property, has acqufred wealth
and estates. The people of Grisons are above aU others
a strangely speculative race. Tffis great, thiffiy popffiated
country sends every year a considerable part of its popu
lation abroad, in order to earn their bread. What is
least of aU pecuhar to them at home, sugar and sweet
meats, lays the foundation of no smaU prosperity vrith
many of them. They travel as poor boys, fitted out vrith
a few pence and a travelhng recommendation, far away
into Italy, Germany, Eussia, and France, in order to act
as servants and helpers to some confectioner estabhshed
there. Here they learn to grind cocoa, pound sugar, and
boU coffee, and thus by degrees learn to become confec
tioners. They save up vrith the utmost care thefr few
pence of pay and "trffikgeld." MeanwhUe they find
opportunity to hfre a Httle room from some other coun
tryman, even to estabhsh a chestnut busffiess, a httle
chocolate manufactory, or a coffee-shop. The groschen
grow ffito doUars, the compaffions separate, each of them
to set up in business on his own account ; they set up
greater busffiesses, and fffil manhood finds them rich
people. Then thefr longffig drives them back to thefr
dear old fatherland, where by degrees they acqufre
estates, meadows, houses, and there, ffi qffiet sohtude, they
wear away the eveffings of thefr Hves. Another part of

VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. 399
the young feUows, especiaUy from the Cathohc cantons of
the Valais, Uri, Unterwalden, Schwyz, and the Grisons,
leave house and home to seek their fortune as mercenary
solffiers abroad. The Svriss troops in Eome and Naples
have lately had a melancholy celebrity. Or the Tyrolese
becomes an imperial " Jager " ffi the Austrian garrisons,
ripens mto a steady man, has capitffiated and served his
fatherland, when death calls him home on a battle-field,
or a miserable pension supports him needily in his old
age. Most Alpffie lads, however, who possess but few
means, stay in their mountaffis, and do not stfr a hair's-
breadth in thefr way of Hfe from the household usages of
thefr remote ancestors. Accordffig to thefr capacities
and local usages, they either devote themselves to cattle
breeffing, leam to understand markets and trade, and try
thefr luck themselves ; or they become " floaters," wood
cutters, root-diggers, and perhaps guides in summer.
There are but a few places in wffich, as in the Bernese
Oberland, a real manufacturing trade and mdustrial
activity have found space.
The mountameer depends far less on foreign help and
foreign productions in ffis way of Hfe than the lowland
peasant ; meat, mUk, cheese, and butter are provided by
his own stable, he gets his rough black bread from the
com he has himself gathered in, and he weaves his
clothes himsefr. There ar^ farffilies ffi the mountain
vffiages which do not for months take in hand the
smaUest bit of money for thefr support. In many Alpine
vaUeys there are no inns, and where they exist they are
houses rather for social meetings than for runnffig up
scores. Thus, for example, the peasants of the Liriner-
thal, watered by the Spoel, sit for hours together in their
inn smoking thefr "Eegie-tabak" (the offiy tobacco used
m the Austrian time) without consuming a drop of wine or

400 THE ALPS.
brandy ; there, however, they scream and dispute as
lustUy and vrith as much feverish excitement over their
game of mora, as if they were soaked tffiough and through.
Such friendly risits to inns, ffi which there is no mtention
of consumffig anythffig, occur also in the German-speakmg
population of Alpffie vffiages, although they are more
frequent on the Italian side. It is a habit of the ancient
celebrated hospitahty of aU mountain folk ; thefr sohtude
and need of human society brings them together, without
boozffig and gorgffig often demandffig thefr tribute. In
those valleys ffi which no inns exist, it is often the man of
spfritual consolations, the parson or chaplffin, who also
takes charge of the hungry and thfrsty needs of traveUers ;
in the Valais, ffi Canton Unterwalden, and in other dis
tricts, the wine-bottle and shoe of cheese are an accidental
trade of the spfritual class.
There is a great number of Alpine vffiages upon wffich
the extreme of sohtude and stffi Hfe has settled ; few are
surpassed by Eofner Hoff, on the Oetzthaler Ferner in the
Tyrol, where once Frederick of the empty purse found an
asylum after being proscribed by the Council of Con
stance. Four brothers Hve there together, and work
at aU the trades in common wffich have to be carried
on for their wants in life ; they are shut out from all
intercourse, hke a colony of Eobmson Crusoes, and
vrinter, at this height of over 6000 feet above the sea,
divides them for near hafr a year from their next
neighbours. In this separation from the noisy enjoyments of the
outward world, there are stffi places in the Alps where,
from the popular temperament and manners, they have
merry times enough. The country feasts in summer,
the journey to the Alp, the " Goh-messe" day, the
wresthng and Alp feasts, have afready been sufficiently

VILLAGE LIFE IN THB MOUNTAINS. 401
treated of; but the mountain population is not content
with them. When the herds come home well-fed and
fat from the lofty pastures, old and young celebrate the
return of thefr domestic compaffions ; that is the " Aelpler
kUbi," which faUs vrith the viUage feast at many places.
Then the country customs are seen. In many Valaisan
vaUeys they brmg the parson's tithes to his house,
consisting of great fat cheeses ; his reverence then regales
his parishioners vrith a substantial, weU-prepared mid
day's meal, ffi wffich there is no want of wme. In
Unterwalden the whole troop of " Sennen," exuberantly
adorned with wreaths of flowers, goes one Sunday ffi
autumn to church, and takes the place of honour of the
day on the front benches. After the picture of their
patron samt, Wendehnus, has been placed on the altar,
the priest of the place preaches a sermon in praise of
the herdsman's position, and the rest of the dirine serrice
is carried out accordffig to the ritual. When church
is at an end, an exffiting meeting takes place out of doors.
The musicians sweU thefr flourishes, the Alpine flag
waves, and St. Wendehnus is carried through the viUage
hi a Hvely procession accompaffied by the priest; lads
dressed up as savage men and women, wrapped up
in green pme-tvrigs, vrith beards of long Hchens (Usnea
barbata), heighten the general madness, whUst the flag
is brandished in artisticaUy studied motions. So the
procession goes to the inn, where the excitement rises
to the highest, and is concluded vrith a pleasmg act of
humaffity ffi the meadow, where the "braten-meister"
(master of the roast) gives to the poorest people of the
riUage the " kirchweffi-braten," adorned vrith flowers, and
a great can of wine of the best. Next mornffig, when
aU have slept, the dance begins after the usual ffivine
serrice, and is continued vrith noise and excitement as
D D

402 THE ALPS.
long as a leg can shake. The AppenzeU people behave
stffi more madly in thefr " kilbene " at Urnasch : there
day and ffight passes in feast and fun. And what is held
the greatest honour for the maiden who comes from the
feast ? — wffi it be beheved ? Black-and-blue and bloody
elbows ! — it is a sign that she has had brave partners, and
never been left out of a dance. The room hi wffich they
dance is in fact so smaU for the crowd, that in the
rigorous whfrhng the bare elbows are constantly knock
ing together, and hence the bloody signs of rictory. In
the Vorder-rheffithal in the Grisons, such a feast comes off
at the carnival time, which lasts three days and three
ffights ; the guests bring thefr food vritii them, and merely
take wffie from the host. The love of dancing (wffich
generaUy takes place offiy a few days ffi the year) is
generaUy so strong hi the Alpine people that the strangest
results foUow, Thus it is customary m the AppenzeU
country that after the so-caUed " Tragete," i. e. after the
hay has been brought down from the outlying mountaffis
into the deeper valleys, the owners give a dance to the
lads who have taken part ffi the work, on a bam floor,
with a very frugal meal to reward them. There they all
press together to be aUowed a share ffi the work, in
order to be able to have a few hours' dancffig.
The vrinter eveffings, too, are by no means so qffiet as
one might fancy from the scattered position of the houses.
The women have thefr spffinffig parties, in which aU kffids
of wondrous stories and superstitious hocus-pocus are re
lated ; and when they have heated thefr fancies to the
utmost, at least in the Cathohc vaUeys, they fiffish by
repeating a common prayer, some hafr-hour long, to pro
tect and shelter themselves against the attacks of the
powers of evU. In the Mayenthal on the St. Gothard,
which is frequently threatened by avalanches, the neigh-

VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. 403
hours coUect in stormy winter weather in one of the
largest houses, in order to watch and be able to set to
work together, if a snowfall should come down and
bury everythffig. In order, however, that time may not
pass too slowly for the good people, they dance through
the dangerous ffight to the sound of a fiddle or accordions.
Thus custom duUs a fear wffich the foreigner cannot think
of vdthout horror.
The winter's eveffing meetings, the " Spinneten," " Stu
beten," or " z'Liecht gob," ffi which young people of both
sexes take part, generaUy ffitroduce the love affafrs of the
riUage, whose immeffiate consequence is the " KUtgang."
Tffis custom does not prevffil everywhere, and where it does
its effect upon morals is very various. " KUtgang " means
the leave which any maiden (with the knowledge of her
parents) grants to her lover to risit her in the eveffing at
home. Sometimes this tete-a-tete only takes place at the
vrindow, so that the lad has to scramble up on to a heap of
spht wood, and talk confidentiaUy vrith the maiden of his
choice far into the nigiit, for wffich reason the inhabitants
of the Bavarian and Salzburg Alps caU it " s'Fensterffi ;" or
the meeting takes place ffi the gfrl's room, and lasts till the
grey of morffing. In both cases the gfrl regales her lover
vdth cakes and wine or other spfrituous hquors. It is an
ancient custom, which has caused evils enough, but which
it is hard to banish. As the lads of a place, i. e. aU the
marriageable young feUows, wffi not suffer any one to come
into thefr vUlage from another, especially not to the
daughters of a rich peasant, the "Kiltgang" has often
caused murder and homicide, and unfortunately criminal
trials take place almost every year resulting from tffis old
popffiar custom. The favoured lover must vrin his bride
vrith cunffing and courage, with undaunted and bold
bearing, if he does not belong to the lads or " nacht-
D D 2

404 THE ALPS.
buben" (ffightboys) of the place. The mountffineer is
rough and ready in aU that he does and undertakes.
The marriage feast-day has retained but Httle poetical
beauty ffi most Alpine vffiages ; generally this most de-
Hghtfhl moment of Ifre has sunk into a modest exhibition
restraffied by need and social laws, wffich is carried on
materiaUy with eating, drinking, and dancffig, vrithout any
symbohcal ceremony. The pleasantest usages, vrith great
local variations, stffi prevaU in the Bavarian highlands, ffi
the Salzkammergut, and in part of the Tyrol, where the
handsome popffiar costume adds considerably to the orna
ment of the solemffity. In many rillages there, the bride is
sffiy hidden on the eveffing before the marriage, and the
bridegroom, vrith the help of his fi-iends, has to observe aU
the movements of the bride's party Hke a hostUe general,
and continuaUy to reconnoitre the neighbourhood of the
house, ffi order to force his way into the place of conceal
ment and carry off ffis bride Hke a conqueror. If he is a
clear-headed sharp feUow he does not attack tffi he is sure
of his rictory; roars of laughter and good-humoured
chaff foUow him for a long time fr he makes one or two
misses. He who makes a right shot at first, is expected
to make a good sensible master of the house, who gets
everytffing by the right way, and goes vrith open eyes
at ffis mark.
SimUar preliminaries occur in the Lirinerthal. There
the bridegroom, accompaffied by his friends and relations,
goes to the house of the bride and demands that she
should be given up. A long parley foUows, in which the
droUest and most pointed remarks are made. At last
the father decides to open the house-door and bring out
the lady of ffis heart to the bridegroom ; but generaUy the
oldest housewife of the neighbourhood, vrith a long hood
or cloak over her back, or a dressed-up puppet of straw

VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. 405
or some other object, is pushed out to the bridegroom, at
wffich the whole crowd explodes in storms of laughter.
The seeker, tfred of the jokes, at last forces his way
tumffituously into the house, and finds the bride in her
ornaments, whom he carries off in triumph.
It is offiy in a few vaUeys that the pretty custom pre
vaUs of goffig to church with a long festive train of
bridesmaids vritii wreaths, and playing musicians in front.
The way ffi wffich the bride is brought home from the
Lnmensee in Schffier's " WUham TeU," is long gone out of
use. Duffiess has penetrated ffito the mountains, and
has destroyed many beautifffi customs vrith the disuse of
the old national dress. The firing off of old rusty blunder
busses, pistols, and muskets, on the way to church, or even
of hoUowed pipes of wood buried in the earth, is stiU
pretty commoffiy practised, and, owing to carelessness,
produces many hours of terror in the thunders of joy.
Sunday in mountaffi vffiages has something very ele
vating and solemn. It is as fr aU nature kept hohday.
The same wondrous acoustic waUs, which give back the
tone of the Alp horn vrith such magic modulations, repeat
also the sound of beds in the Alpine vaUeys vrith mde-
scribable beauty. The sound seems to lose its metaffic
tone, and takes a deeper, warmer fulness, such as is
pecuhar to crystal beds of glass. To hear the church-
beUs rffig from a rather lofty poffit above an Alpine tarn
on a clear summer morffing, as the calhng and answering
beUs send their notes far and vride over vaUey and gorge,
and the whole landscape round Hstens in bhssful peace
to the tones, belongs to the best enjoyments whicii the
mountaffi world can give to the receiring spfrit. The
congregations in thefr country Sunday dress stream up
out of every corner, from the dark ravines, and down
from the brown timber chalets over the spring-green

406 THE ALPS.
meadows. The women and girls, according to the valley
custom, solemn and dark in tbeir thickly folded gowns,
or in bright Hvely colours vrith picturesque caps bolcUy
perched on their heads, and sUver chams, go straight ffito
the church, wliUst the men and boys stand vrithout and
taffi over events, tffi the whole peal sounds together as
a last warning, and uoav the organ raises its mighty
voice, and everything is stffi and qffiet ffi the lanes.
Such is Sunday — it is a real feast, more impressive
than hi towns ; and when church is over, those who
have lately lost a dear member of thefr- famdy wander
to the graves and adom them with freshly plucked
Alpine roses, or deck the simple black cross with a
wreath of immortels, rosemary, and cloves. The men
go ffito the inn to strengthen themselves for thefr long
walk home, or there is a general meeting before the church,
where government proclamations and orders about mihtary
service are read, or parish officers chosen. Afternoon
uffites the young men in the shootffig-ground ; for the
rifle is the mountaineer's dearest arm, with which he
defends the freedom of his hills and his fatherland, if any
foreign intruders should wish to undertake rictorious ex-
peffitions to it.
And when the smaU, quiet hfe of Alpine sohtude has
passed, when the body is given back to the earth whence
it came, a new pecuhar impression is made upon us by
this last solemffity. Down in the country where aU the
neighbours Hve close together, and have grouped thefr
houses round the riUage church, there (if we do not
attend to special country customs) burial is almost every
where alike. It is different in the Alps, when, an hour
from the common restmg-place, the citizen of this world
enters eterffity. The way which he went every Sunday
to church whilst alive, his corpse has now to go in its

VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. 407
narrow house of boards for the last time. It is hard to
carry ffim so far down. Then, fr it is summer, the son
places his father's or mother's coffin on a smaU narrow car,
harnesses whatever he has ffi his stable — a horse or a cow
— m front of it, and so bears the earthly remains to the
vaUey. Wherever the mournftd procession comes, the
people run out, pray aloud " Our Father," or join the pro
cession. And if wffiter has cast its mantle of snow over
mountam and vaUey, the sleigh has to do its last serrice
to the dead. The coffin is firmly tied on ; a strong, power
fid man, vrith two alpenstocks under his arms, places himself
in front, gffides it with his feet, and shoots down vrith
the corpse ffi rapid flight to the vaUey.

THE END.

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