Going over the Tête Noire is another of the things that everybody does,
and like most things that are so easy, hardly worth while. I do not
mean that there is no good scenery on the road, but there is nothing
that quickens the pulse or sets one to breathing deep.
Perhaps I may do less than justice to the Tête Noire road because of
my bodily sensations while passing over it. I certainly was not happy
that day. The beast in my throat had downed me. I had a headache and a
fever, a cold in the head, and an unpleasant sense of collapsibility in
the legs.
Every few miles I stopped at some wayside inn or refreshment booth and
ordered a liqueur glass of kirsch (which is a local form of liquid
fire) and a few lumps of sugar, and, by dipping the sugar in the
nostrum, was able little by little to absorb its fieriness, whereby the
legs afore-mentioned acquired an artificial stiffening that carried
them a few miles farther.
Antonio was greatly distressed at this immoral method by which I
kept going. I think he had visions of my becoming a dipsomaniac in
consequence of that day’s tippling. If he had only known how unpleasant
the kirsch was, he would have been less alarmed.
The day passed somehow. There were showers here and there to add to
the rawness of my throat. We passed back into Switzerland about noon.
At dinner-time we began arriving at Martignys. There are an indefinite
number of them spread out for miles—old town, new town, and railroad
station. The last named was our destination. After dinner at the Hotel
de la Gare (a function in which I was not personally interested, though
I took another kirsch), we boarded a crowded train for Sion. I have
seldom been so glad to get anywhere as I was to get to bed in the Sion
hotel that night. I was sorry for poor Belle Soeur having to share my
room, for I was well aware of the infectious character of the microbe
I was harboring, but as they had no more vacant ones (or said they
hadn’t), there seemed to be no help for it.
The next day I felt worse. Belle Soeur nobly offered to stay with me
at Sion till I got well and let the boys continue the trip without us.
But I did not want to break up the party, and knowing I was bound to be
miserable that day _anywhere_, decided it might as well be on the road.
So Frater filled his pocket flask with kirsch instead of cognac, and
off we started over the Rawyl.
Now, the Rawyl is one of the least traveled passes in Switzerland.
Baedeker, who takes it in the reverse direction from ours, gives a very
inadequate description of the path, and says it takes ten and a half
hours from Lenk to Sion, and that a guide is desirable. We ought to
have taken warning from that ten and a half hours, for Baedeker’s times
allow for no stops and assume a pretty swinging gait. But we wanted to
go home that way, and we trusted to luck.
We did not get such an early start as we intended, and we took the
wrong road out of Sion and walked an extra mile or so before we got
set right. Those of us who had been brave enough to dig through the
Swiss histories were mildly interested in the roofless, windowless,
grinning skulls of castles that crowned the hill-tops over the town,
the Bishop’s and the Baron’s. They used to have such lively times in
Sion between their two sets of tyrants!
As always, it was sizzling hot in the Rhone valley, and we were glad as
our road lifted us out of it. We went through a fine fruit belt as we
rose, and I regret to say we plucked a plum or a pear or an apple quite
frequently as we walked along.
At Ayent, about half-past ten, we came to what we knew was the last
settlement. Here we fortified ourselves with a second _café-au-lait_,
and laid in a stock of bread, sweet chocolate and hard-boiled eggs.
Then we turned our backs on civilization and went on. We knew we had to
leave the wagon road soon, but were in great doubt where, till a very
intelligent peasant came along who gave us directions we could really
follow. He also told us that we were two days’ journey from Lenk—which
hardly sounded encouraging.
That day seemed to me about a hundred years long. Would there never be
an end to this picking up of one foot and setting down of the other?
And I had to keep _pushing_ the old things so to make them move! No
wonder I was tired. My head weighed about a ton, and had a red-hot and
very tight iron band around it. And every bone in my body ached. Oh,
_bless_ the old man at Chamonix! At Ayent I had happened to look in
a glass that hung on the dining-room wall, and the reflection I saw
fairly frightened me for its ugliness. Did that shiny red nose, those
bleary red eyes, that blotchy red face really belong to _me_?
By lunch-time we were among the high pastures and had opened up a
pretty broad view of the Valais mountains, our old friends around
Zermatt on the other side of the Rhone. We came upon a spring which had
been piped to a trough for the cattle, and, as we were very thirsty,
thought we would risk drinking from it, when, fortunately, we looked
closer and saw the water was alive with long squirming hair-thin eels!
They were the most uncanny-looking beasts I almost ever saw. Antonio
suggested picking them out, as they were extremely visible, and
drinking the expurgated water, but somebody objected that the water
must be full of their eggs and that it would be so unpleasant to have
them hatch—afterwards. So we ate our chocolate and hard-boiled eggs and
bread, and kept our thirst for future reference.
We felt that we must surely come upon the cattle pretty soon and that
then we could buy some milk. The afternoon was half gone, however,
before we saw a trace of anything alive, and then it was a very small
boy leading a pig way off in the distance. We hailed him and with some
difficulty made him understand that we wanted to buy milk. The patois
of that region is a fearful and wonderful thing. He agreed to lead us
to the cow châlets, but as it was away from our path, and seemed very,
very far, we were several times on the point of giving up the quest.
However, he kept encouraging us, assuring us we were nearly there,
and finally emerging over a grassy shoulder, we came upon the herd of
several hundred cows in a sort of pocket.
It was the milking hour, and we could not have struck it better for
our wants. The head-man, or Senn, I suppose, escorted us up to the
cheese-hut and gave us stools to sit on, while he ladled out foamy warm
milk from a bucket in a half gourd and passed it first to one and then
another, apologizing for his lack of conveniences. Imagine a dozen men
living up there for four months on end with never a cup or a bowl or a
ladle among them except this solitary gourd!
There were two huge iron caldrons under which fires were burning and
into which the men poured their buckets of milk as they brought them
in. This was to make cheese. We asked them to sell us some, but they
said they were not allowed to. They gave us, however, a bit of the
old, last year’s cheese which they ate themselves and declined any
remuneration for it. As it was a present, it would be impolite to say
what we thought of it.
All the men crowded into the hut and gazed at us with interest, but
only the two intelligent ones in charge did any talking. Perhaps the
others spoke only patois, but they were of the utterly stupid heavy
type I have already referred to.
We asked about our route, and they told us it was absolutely out of
the question for us to get over the pass that day, as we were not more
than half way, and it was already four o’clock. We must pass the night
at the châlets of Nieder Rawyl, the last pastures on this side of the
summit. Would the people there give us shelter, I asked. The man smiled
and shrugged his shoulders. “They will have to,” he said.
Very much refreshed by the milk and the little rest, we bade farewell
to our friends and made our way back to our path, then onward at a
quickened pace, lest darkness come upon us before we reached the huts
of Nieder Rawyl. We were getting pretty high now, and the wind that
blew down from the snow belt made us feel that a night in the open air
would not be a pleasant experience.
For me, the last hour of walking that afternoon was a nightmare, my
head swimming with weakness and fever, my feet staggering foolishly. I
kept on because I had to. Fortunately, we had no difficult climbing to
do, nothing requiring steadiness, no precipices to skirt, just a steep,
stony path.
About six o’clock we came in sight of a group of stone cheese
and cattle huts, which we knew must be what we were in search of.
The milking and cheese-making were just over, and a group of men
were standing in a doorway. We went up and addressed the most
intelligent-looking. Could they give us shelter for the night? The sun
had already set behind the mountains, the long shadows were falling
over the valley. It was perfectly obvious that we could not go on into
that bare region of rock and snow beyond. Very gravely and courteously
the head-man assured us that he had no way of making us comfortable,
but that what they had was at our service.
He led us to a little one-room stone hut. It had no windows, and the
door consisted of a couple of boards to keep the cattle from straying
in, I suppose. It did not keep out the mountain wind, but as there
was no other means of ventilation, perhaps it was as well. There was
a raised stone platform to build a fire on. Our host brought us some
sticks and started them blazing and hung an iron kettle full of milk
over the fire to heat for us. He owned a granite-ware cup and a sort
of spoon whittled from a cow’s horn, which he placed at our service.
There was a long wooden bench which we drew up in front of the fire and
sat on while we made our supper of sweet chocolate and hot milk. Our
bread and eggs were gone by now.
About half the hut was occupied by a raised wooden sleeping platform,
covered with musty-looking hay. Four greasy gray blankets were there,
too, which were put at our disposal. They were not inviting-looking,
but the bitter Alpine cold was getting into our bones, and we were in
no position to pick and choose. We did not even take our shoes off, but
each wrapping a blanket outside of whatever coats and wraps we had with
us, disposed ourselves on the hay pile and awaited slumber. Personally,
I could not have held up my head another minute if the world had been
coming to an end. But tired as I was, I could not sleep.
Our host and another man came in and sat on the bench, heated milk
and drank it with their supper, which consisted of hunks of black
bread and strips of last year’s cheese, which they cut off with their
pocket-knives from a stone-hard slab. When they had finished eating
they still sat on the bench and kept up a desultory talk. Hours passed
and they still stayed. At last one of them lay down on the platform
by the embers of the fire and the other stretched himself out on the
bench. Whether they slept or not I cannot say, but their conversation
ceased. We had been wondering why they stayed so late, but it dawned
upon us then that, having given us their beds and blankets, they had
no place else to go. Belle Soeur and I exchanged whispered comments
still from time to time, but at last she also went to sleep. Frater and
Antonio had dropped off first of all like nice tired children.
After this I kept vigil with the fleas. Their name was legion. I have
met this voracious animal in various parts of the world, Italy, Egypt,
California and Japan, but never in such concentrated swarms! What
between them and my headache and fever, and the place I was in, and the
company I was keeping, I did not succeed in forgetting my miseries till
daylight was appearing wanly in the doorway.
There had been the pigs, too. It seems our hut was built on a steep
slope, and though we had entered it from the level of the ground, in
the back it had a basement. This was occupied by the pigs. And surely
those brutes must have had uneasy consciences, for all night long they
kept up the most unholy noises! There were also waves of odor from the
piggery, which surged up to us from time to time.
Our hosts had gone out about their work when I woke up, and my
companions were starting the fire for breakfast. I did not feel
very gay, but the fever was gone and my head was very much clearer,
especially after I had bathed it in the chilly brook outside. We ate
some more chocolate and drank some more milk and were ready to set out
on our way.
When we wished to settle for our entertainment, we found our hosts were
charging only for the milk we had consumed, and were quite dazzled by
our munificence in adding five francs for lodging. Evidently they did
not expect it in the least, and had given up their beds and blankets to
us in a spirit of true hospitality.
One of the men offered to show us the path if we could wait about
half an hour till he finished his work, but as we had had no great
difficulty in finding the path so far, we fallaciously argued that it
would be the same the rest of the way, and declined with thanks.
About half a mile beyond the huts the path came to an abrupt end at
the beginning of an open meadow, bounded on the far side by a wall of
rock. Somewhere beyond that meadow the path began again and led up the
rock wall into the Alpine wilderness above. But where? No scanning
by the eye could reveal it. Each of us had a different theory as to
likelihood. We crossed the meadow and skirted the base of the cliff
looking for that vanished path.
At the extreme right, a stream tumbled down a gully in a series of
cataracts. By the near bank there had been a slide of stones and
loose earth, making a place several hundred feet in height, which,
though terrifically steep, was not, like most of the wall, absolutely
perpendicular. Above this we saw a horizontal line in the rock, which
_might_ be the path.
Somewhat dubiously we decided to try. I never encountered anything more
discouraging than that slide of loose stones. With every step we took
upward we slid back about nine-tenths of a step. Sometimes more. And we
were never sure that we would be able to stop ourselves till we struck
bottom. The higher we went, the more precarious and crumbly it became.
We clambered on all fours. Belle Soeur and I could never have gotten up
if the boys had not helped us. Antonio dubbed it the Gutter Spout of
Heaven. I don’t know about the Heaven part, but the Gutter Spout was
all right.
We kept encouraging each other with the nearer approach of that
horizontal line in the rocks. When at last we got there, breathless and
exhausted, we found it was _not_ a path, but merely a natural ledge.
How far it led, or whether it led _anywhere_, we did not know.
Belle Soeur’s heart was making itself felt just then, so we had to sit
down to let her recover, and while doing so, we held a council of war.
We were about half-way up the rock wall now, and none of us wanted
to throw away all the time and labor we had put in getting there by
going back. Also, since the waterfall marked the extreme right-hand
boundary of the rock wall, the path, if it existed at all, must lie
to the left. Therefore, by following our hard-won ledge to the left,
we should cross the path,—unless indeed the ledge came to an end too
soon. At all events we decided it was worth trying, so as soon as Belle
Soeur’s heart had returned to the normal, we started. After edging our
way along the ledge in a gingerly fashion for about fifteen minutes,
our faith was rewarded, for we made out an unmistakable path zigzagging
upward, and had no further difficulty in reaching it.
The joy of finding one’s path again is so great that I do not know but
it makes worth while having lost it! With renewed vigor we climbed
upward to the plateau-like region of snow drifts and rock ledges that
awaited us, which some ironist has named the “Plain of Roses.” We
should have had fine views of the Valais mountains but for the clouds
which enveloped them. Our immediate foreground was wild and desolate
enough, but as none of the peaks were more than two thousand feet
higher than we were, our views lacked grandeur of outline. For pure
bleak Alpine solitude, though, the walk of the next few hours was
unrivaled.
We quenched our thirst with handfuls of snow from the virgin drifts
around us. This is said to be a bad thing to do, but we experienced no
ill effects either on this or other occasions. At noon we sat down on a
rock and ate cheese and chocolate. This was the fourth meal we had made
from this combination of foodstuffs, with the addition of milk at the
second and third, bread at the first and hard-boiled eggs at the first
and second. This time there were no accessories. None of us felt much
of a craving for either cheese or chocolate for some time thereafter.
The summit of the pass (just under eight thousand feet) is marked by a
shelter hut and a great wooden cross, whose bare arms, stretched out
over the wilderness of rock and snow, have a singular impressiveness.
The cross marks the boundary between the cantons of Valais and Berne.
Another hour’s walking, past a cold gray Alpine lake, brought us to the
northern edge of the plateau, where the green and fertile Simmenthal
lay spread out at our feet between the piled-up Bernese mountains.
Our path plunged down steeply now, and about three o’clock we reached
the outpost of civilization, what Baedeker calls a rustic inn—at
Iffigen Alp. We asked with lively interest what they had to eat and
found they had neither meat nor eggs. What _did_ they have, then?
Coffee, milk, bread, butter, honey and cheese.
We balked at the last-named, but ordered a large supply of everything
else. As soon as the maid brought it in, we told her to begin getting
ready a second installment just as large. And how we did eat! Was
_ever_ anything so good as that bread and butter and honey, except the
long drafts of _café-au-lait_ that washed it down?
All day long my health had been improving and my cold disappearing, and
this ambrosial meal seemed to complete the cure. We asked for soap,
water and towels, combed our hair before a looking-glass, put on clean
collars, and looked so respectable that we hardly knew each other. For
myself, I felt as if I had just returned to life and the joy of it from
a most unpleasant dream. The treatment I had given my influenza had
been heroic,—a sort of kill-or-cure. But it had happened to cure, and
in a phenomenally short time. The rest of the family, who took their
share comfortably at home, also took longer to get over it.
Greatly refreshed, we left the “rustic inn” of blessed memory and swung
happily down the path past the pretty Iffigen waterfalls. We soon
found ourselves on a wagon-road which led us in the course of a few
miles to Lenk, a village of considerable size with thermal springs and
the attendant hotels and health-seekers. The specialty here is throat
and nose trouble.
We spent the night at Lenk and in the morning walked the eight and a
half miles down the valley to Zweisimmen.
[Illustration: _Bach Lake_ (_Faulhorn Route_)]
The Simmenthal is famous for its cattle, and as we happened to have
struck the day on which they were coming home from the high pastures,
the whole eight and a half miles was through a procession of moist
milky cattle. Sometimes they filled the road so that it required
ingenuity to get past. They were big, handsome, sleek creatures, and
seemed to be perfectly gentle.
The Rawyl wilderness separates not only the two cantons, but the two
languages as with a sharp knife. There is no lapping over at the edges.
The herdsmen at Nieder Rawyl spoke French, but no German, and the
waitress at Iffigen Alp spoke German and never a word of French.
Zweisimmen is the railway terminus. Here we took train to Spiez, and
hence to Interlaken and home in the usual manner.
Thus ended the second trip.