FIRST SIGHT OF MONT BLANC.
The Host of Martigny--Vale of the Drance--Mount Rosa--Tete Noire--Col de
Balm--The Monarch of the Alps.
"Bring me for my ride to-morrow the _easiest_ of all the mules in
Martigny," I said to Antonio, on the evening after my return from the
pass of St. Bernard. I was knocked up nearly, done over certainly, and
contemplated another trip with a sort of shrink. But there is nothing in
Martigny to see, after you have looked at the measures of the various
heights to which the water has risen in times of inundation, to which
these valley-villages are sadly subject. So in the morning--a bright
glad day it was--Antonio came in to tell me that he had a lady's mule
for me, so easy I should be in danger of falling asleep on his back; but
this hazard I was willing to risk. The past few days of walking and
riding had made me so stiff in the joints that I was awkward about
mounting, and my host of the _Poste_, a huge man as well as an admirable
publican, put his hands under my shoulders, and with all ease placed me
astride of the beast in a moment. The feat was received with applause by
a score of rough-looking peasants, guides, beggars, &c., of whom there
are plenty in this unwholesome valley; and we were off for the vale of
Chamouni.
Following up the river Drance, we turned off to the right, and slowly
worked our way by a bad pathway, meeting people now and then coming down
with their truck to sell below. One man had a log of wood with a string
tied around it, dragging it behind him, women with baskets of
knick-knacks, all intent upon driving a trade in a very small way, but
industriously, and that commends a people to you wherever you see them.
On the left were terrible precipices, along the edge of which the path
often led us; till we came to a lovely reach of pasturages, a wide plain
where cottages were scattered, and flocks were grazing--a peaceful scene
in the midst of rugged mountains. Crossing this plain we ascended the
Forclaz, and from the ridge looked back on the valley of the Rhone. The
great road over the Simplon stretches for many a long mile up this vale,
and Sion in the distance is seen; and around us more than fifty snowy
peaks of the Alps with the morning sun gilding their crowns. Among them,
but in beauty above them all is Mount Rosa, admired even more than Mont
Blanc; and now that peculiar tint of pink was spread all over it with
uncommon lustre. "Great glory" was the exclamation which often rose to
my lips as from one and another point of observation I looked at these
white mountains, and the "excessive brightness" blazing from every
summit. But we cannot always be on the mountain tops looking at still
higher mountains. We descend into the valley of Trient, into which a
glacier extends, bringing its perpetual ice into the bosom of a sweet
vale, where green meadows were rejoicing, and the peasants were busy
with a scant harvest.
We have our choice of two roads from this valley to Chamouni. The one by
the _Tete Noire_ is the easiest, and we resolved in the freshness of our
strength to take this road first, and having pursued it to the _Tete_,
to enjoy the view, and then come back and go by the Col de Balm. By this
extra effort we accomplished a noble day's work, and were richly repaid
for the fatigue. In no part of Switzerland are the precipices grander
and more fearful, and for an hour we rode along the edge; and when the
rocks shoot out over the path, a tunnel or gallery as they call it, is
cut through; and near by a rude inscription cut into the rock celebrates
an English lady who contributed something to improve the pass. The
_Tete_ or Head, Black Head, is given to the dark mountain, whose
overhanging rocks present a gloomy front which has given its name to
this narrow defile. Hundreds of feet down in the dark abyss on whose
verge we are travelling, the Trient is roaring and leaping along its
rocky way to the Rhone. At every turn in our zigzag single-file march,
we are tempted to pause and study the scenes of sublime and terrible
that break upon us: for when we are in no danger ourselves, there is a
fascination in looking upon scenes where the fearful makes us shudder.
But we returned from these out-of-the-way places and were at noon in the
valley of Trient again, gazing at the lofty crags from which Escher de
Berg fell in 1791, when, like many more fortunate travellers, he
disregarded the advice of his guides, and lost his life in showing his
temerity and strength in making a leap.
The ascent of the Col de Balm has been described by the most of
travellers as one of the most difficult, and we are told it seems
incredible that mules can work their way up where travellers are obliged
to climb by the roots and shrubs. But over this hill lies the road to
Chamouni, and over this hill we are going. For an hour we did have hard
work, and Heinrich and I amused ourselves with digging up some Greek
roots, while the mules were slowly picking their way among the stones up
a path sometimes all but perpendicular. And when at last we emerged from
the forest, and reached the high pasturages, we had still a long hour of
travel before us, through the open country.
Our party had been enlarged during the morning by the accession of
others on the same route, and as we were nearing the ridge, there began
to be quite a strife among us as to whose eyes should have the first
sight of Mont Blanc. For a month we had been on and under the mountains
of Switzerland; gazing successively upon higher and yet higher heights;
and when the Jungfrau, and Mount Rosa, and other of the lesser kings of
the country had stood before us, we could not believe that any other
could be a monarch in the midst of such mountains as these. But Mont
Blanc was always to come. It was the last, for we had seen them all,
rejoiced in them all, looked up through them all to Him who holds them
in his hand, and counts them only as dust in the balance; and still one
more wonderful than they was just before us, on the other side of the
ridge, and in a few moments more would stand up and meet us face to
face. Over the pasturages there were many paths, and we scattered in our
attempts to gain upon each other. The mules seemed to catch somewhat of
the inspiration of the occasion, and did their best, till we came out
together, neck and neck, and we stood on the summit, with the vale of
Chamouni, the steeple-like _Aiguilles_ of Charmoz and Midi, Argentiere
and Verte, and others shooting up cold and black, sentinels around the
hoary old monarch of the Alps lying there with a crown of mist on his
head, which rises as we look at it, and Mont Blanc is before us.
"Disappointed of course," you say. Perhaps so. It does not stand in the
middle of a plain, and rise right up like a pyramid, till its apex
touches the blue sky. In fact, you must be assured by your guide that
the round summit to the South of two or three that seem to be higher is
actually Mont Blanc, the loftiest of them all; and as you sit here and
take in the wonderful panorama of the glaciers, needles, and majestic
summits, the grandeur gradually steals into your soul and takes quiet
possession. I wanted to be still and absorb the scene, which I should
soon leave and never see again. I would expose my heart to it, till a
sort of daguerreotype was made, which I could carry with me, and look at
when I should sit down at Niagara, or among the White Hills of New
Hampshire.
[Illustration: CHAMOUNI AND MT. BLANC.]
"'Pon my honor, 'tis very fine," said a very red-faced, red-whiskered
Englishman, who had followed me to my solitary stand-point. "What do you
think of it? Is it not fine: very fine?" And so he kept chattering on,
till I crept off gently a few rods, and again essayed to be alone. But
my tormentor followed up, and renewed his attack, as if it were
impossible for him to see the prospect with any satisfaction unless he
could keep talking to somebody all the while. A small house of
entertainment stands here, and while my Englishman went in to have some
brandy and water, I managed to get a few moments of undisturbed
possession of the scene. Of all the points of observation in this
country of stupendous scenes, there is no one that furnishes a more
sublime and glorious spectacle than this. It is the crowning hour of the
tour of Switzerland. I felt that I had reached the climax, and with
reverence I could make a parody on the words of old Simeon. All my
feelings have been of reverence in this country. The Alps and God have
been around me for a month, and my soul has been rising in high converse
with Him who covers these hills with his presence, and is glorious in
the solitudes of these vales. And now as I look off at these glistening
glaciers, so many miles of resplendent ice, a _Mer de Glace_, a sea of
glass, lying among those mountains, and extending far down into the
vales below; when I look up at these precipitous peaks actually piercing
the clouds, and then at the solemn brows of those giant mountains, where
the foot of man has seldom trod, and the glory of God is forever
shining, I feel a sense of the presence of the Infinite and Eternal as
no other scene has ever yet awakened in my soul. With the disciples on
another Mount, I feel "it is good to be here."
That was my first sight of Mont Blanc. The day could not have been more
favorable, and that evening as the sun went down, I stood in the vale of
Chamouni and saw his last rays lingering on the summit, the stars
trooping around it at night, and the next morning before sunrise I was
out again to see the first beams of day as they kissed his brow.
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest; not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstacy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.--
Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink;
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald! wake, O! wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad,
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shattered, and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam?
And who commanded, (and the silence came,)
"Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?"--
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain!
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest hue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! Let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer, and the ice-plains echo, God!--
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!--
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost,
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest,
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm,
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds,
Ye signs and wonders of the element,
Utter forth, God! and fill the hills with praise.--
Once more, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast.--
Thou too, again, stupendous mountain thou
That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration upward from thy base,
Slow travelling, with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me,--rise, O! ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven.
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
_Coleridge._