_THE TITLIS, FINSTERAARSCHLUCHT, PETERSGRAT, AND ITALIAN LAKES._
In the summer of 1866 I first went to Engsteln, one of the most
charming spots in the Alps. It had at that time a double charm, for the
handsome young widow who kept the inn supplemented by her kindness and
attention within doors the pleasures extracted from the outer world.
A man named Maurer, of Meyringen, was my guide for a time. We climbed
the Titlis, going straight up it from the Joch Pass, in the track of a
scampering chamois which showed us the way. The Titlis is a very noble
mass--one of the few which, while moderate in height, bear a lordly
weight of snow. The view from the summit is exceedingly fine, and on it
I repeated with a hand spectroscope the observations of M. Janssen on
the absorption-bands of aqueous vapour. On the day after this ascent I
quitted Engsteln, being drawn towards the Wellhorn and Wetterhorn, both
of which, as seen from Engsteln, came out with inexpressible nobleness.
The upper dome of heaven was of the deepest blue, while only the
faintest lightening of the colour towards the horizon indicated the
augmented thickness of the atmosphere in that direction. The sun was
very hot, but there was a clear rivulet at hand, deepening here and
there into pebbled pools, into which I plunged at intervals, causing my
guide surprise if not anxiety; for he shared the common superstition
that plunging, when hot, into cold water is dangerous. The danger, and
a very serious one it is, is to plunge into cold water when _cold_. The
strongest alone can then bear immersion without damage.
This year I subjected the famous Finsteraarschlucht to a closer
examination than ordinary. The earthquake theory already adverted to
was prevalent regarding it, and I wished to see whether any evidences
existed of aqueous erosion. It will be remembered that the Schlucht
or gorge is cut through a great barrier of limestone rock called
the Kirchet, which throws itself across the valley of Hasli, about
three-quarters of an hour’s walk above Meyringen. The plain beyond the
barrier, on which stands the hamlet of Imhof, is formed of the sediment
of a lake of which the Kirchet constituted the dam. This dam is now
cut through for the passage of the Aar, forming one of the noblest
gorges in Switzerland. Near the summit of the Kirchet is a house
with a signboard inviting the traveller to visit the _Aarenschlucht_,
a narrow lateral gorge which runs down to the very bottom of the
principal one. The aspect of this smaller chasm from its bottom to its
top proves to demonstration that water had in former ages worked there
as a navigator. It is scooped, rounded, and polished, so as to render
it palpable to the common eye that it is a gorge of erosion. But it was
regarding the sides of the great chasm that I needed instruction, and
from its edge I could see nothing to satisfy me. I therefore stripped
and waded into the river until a point was reached which commanded
an excellent view of both sides of the gorge. The water was cutting,
but I was repaid. Below me on the left-hand side was a jutting cliff,
which bore the thrust of the river and caused the Aar to swerve from
its direct course. From top to bottom this cliff was polished, rounded,
and scooped. There was no room for doubt. The river which now runs so
deeply down had once been above. It has been the delver of its own
channel through the barrier of the Kirchet.
I went on to Rosenlaui, proposing to climb the neighbouring mountains
in succession. In fact I went to Switzerland in 1866 with a particular
hunger for the heights. But the weather thickened before Rosenlaui was
reached, and on the night following the morning of my departure from
Engsteln I lay upon my plaid under an impervious pine, and watched
as wild a thunderstorm and as heavy a downpour of rain as I had ever
seen. Most extraordinary was the flicker on cliffs and trees, and most
tremendous was the detonation succeeding each discharge. The fine
weather came thus to an end, and next day I gave up the Wetterhorn for
the ignoble Faulhorn. Here the wind changed, the air became piercingly
cold, and on the following morning heavy snow-drifts buttressed the
doors, windows, and walls of the inn. We broke away, sinking at some
places to the hips in snow. A descent of a thousand feet carried us
from the bleakest winter into genial summer. My companion held on to
the beaten track, while I sought a rougher and more direct one to the
Scheinigeplatte, a resting-place which commands a noble view of the
precipices of the Jungfrau. We were solitary visitors there, and I
filled the evening with Miss Thackeray’s ‘Story of Elizabeth,’ which
some benevolent traveller had left at the hotel.
Thence we dropped down to Lauterbrunnen, went up the valley to the
little inn at Trechslawinen, and crossed the Petersgrat the following
day. The recent precipitation had cleared the heavens and reloaded the
heights. It was, perhaps, the splendour of the weather and the purity
of the snows, aided by the subjective effect due to contrast with a
series of most dismal days, that made me think the Petersgrat so
noble a standpoint for a view of the mountains. The horizontal extent
was vast, and the grouping magnificent. The undoubted monarch of this
unparagoned scene was the Weisshorn, and this may have rendered me
partial in my judgment, for men like to see what they love exalted.
At Platten we found shelter in the house of the curé. Next day we
crossed the Lotschsattel, and swept round by the Aletsch glacier to the
Æggischhorn.
Here I had the pleasure of meeting a very ardent climber, who
entertains peculiar notions regarding guides. He deems them, and
rightly so, very expensive, and he also feels pleasure in trying his
own powers. Very likely it is my habit of going alone that causes me
to sympathise with him. I would, however, admonish him that he may
go too far in this direction, and probably his own experience has
by this time forestalled the admonition. Still, if skill, strength,
and self-reliance are things to be cultivated in the Alps, they are,
within certain limits, best exercised and developed in the absence of
guides. And if the real climbers are ever to be differentiated from the
crowd who write and talk about the mountains, it is only to be done by
dispensing with professional assistance. But no man without natural
aptitude and due training would be justified in committing himself
to ventures of this kind, and it is an error to suppose that the
necessary knowledge can be obtained in one or two summers in the Alps.
Climbing is an art, and those who wish to cultivate it on their own
account ought to give themselves sufficient previous practice in the
company of first-rate guides. Here, moreover, as in every other sphere
of human action, whether intellectual or physical, as indeed among the
guides themselves, real eminence falls only to the lot of few. Whatever
be the amount of preparation, real climbers must still remain select
men.
From the Bel Alp, Mr. Girdlestone and I, without any guide, made an
attack upon the Aletschhorn. We failed. The weather as we started
was undecided, but we hoped the turn might be in our favour. We
first kept along the Alp, with the Jäggi glacier to our right, then
crossed its moraine, and made the trunk glacier our highway until we
reached the point of confluence of its branches. Here we turned to
the right, the Aletschhorn, from base to summit, coming into view. We
reached the true base of the mountain, and without halting breasted
its snow. But as we climbed the atmosphere thickened more and more.
About the Nesthorn the horizon deepened to pitchy darkness, and on
the Aletschhorn itself hung a cloud, which we at first hoped would
melt before the strengthening sun, but which instead of melting became
denser. Now and then an echoing rumble of the wind warned us that we
might expect rough handling above. We persisted, however, and reached
a considerable height, unwilling to admit that the weather was against
us, until a more savage roar and a ruder shake than ordinary caused
us to halt, and look more earnestly and anxiously into the darkening
atmosphere. We were forced to give in, and during our descent the air
was thick and dark with falling snow. Holding on in the dimness to the
medial moraine, we managed to get down the glacier, and to clear it at
a practicable point, whence, guided by the cliffs which flanked our
right, and which became visible only when we came almost into contact
with them, we hit the proper track to the Bel Alp hotel.
Though my visits to the Alps had already numbered thirteen, I had never
gone so far southward as the Italian lakes. The perfectly unmanageable
weather of July 1866 caused me to cross with Mr. Girdlestone into
Italy, in the hope that a respite of ten or twelve days might improve
the temper of the mountains. We walked over the Simplon to the village
of the same name, and took thence the diligence to Domo d’Ossola and
Baveno. The atmospheric change was wonderful; and still the clear
air which we enjoyed below was the self-same air that heaped clouds
and snow upon the mountains. It came across the heated plains of
Lombardy charged with moisture, but the moisture was in the transparent
condition of true vapour, and hence invisible. Tilted by the mountains,
the air rose, and as it expanded it became chilled, and as it became
chilled it discharged its vapour as visible cloud, the globules of
which swelled by coalescence into raindrops on the mountain-flanks, or
were frozen to snow upon the mountain-heads.
We halted on the margin of the Lago Maggiore. I could hear the lisping
of the waters on the shingle far into the night. My window looked
eastward, and through it could be seen the first warming of the sky
at the approach of dawn. I rose, and watched the growth of colour all
along the east. The mountains, from mere masses of darkness projected
against the heavens, became empurpled. It was not as a mere wash of
colour overspreading their surfaces. They blent with the atmosphere as
if they were part and parcel of the general purple of the air. Nobody
was stirring at the time, and the ‘lap’ of the lake upon its shore only
increased the sense of silence.
The holy hour was quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration.
In my subsequent experience of the Italian lakes I met with nothing
which affected me so deeply as this morning scene on the Lago Maggiore.
From Baveno we crossed the lake to Luino, and went thence to Lugano.
At Belaggio, on the junction of the two branches of the Lake of
Como, we halted a couple of days. Como itself we reached in a small
sailing-boat, as a storm prevented the steamer from taking us. There
we saw the statue of Volta--a prophet justly honoured in his own
country. From Como we went to Milan. A climber, of course, could not
forego the pleasure of looking at Monte Rosa from the cathedral roof.
The distribution of the statues magnified the apparent vastness of
the pile; still the impression made on me by this great edifice was
one of disappointment. Its front seemed to illustrate an attempt to
cover meanness of conception by profusion of adornment. The interior,
however, notwithstanding the cheat of the ceiling, is exceedingly grand.
From Milan we went to Orta, where we had a plunge into the lake. We
crossed it subsequently, and walked on to Varallo: thence by Fobello
over a country of noble beauty to Ponte Grande in the Val Ansasca.
Thence again by Macugnaga, over the deep snow of the Monte Moro,
reaching Mattmark in drenching rain. The temper of the northern slopes
did not appear to have improved during our absence. We returned to the
Bel Alp, fitful triumphs of the sun causing us to hope that we might
still have fair play upon the Aletschhorn. But the day after our
arrival snow fell so heavily as to cover the pastures for 2,000 feet
below the hotel. Partial famine among the herds was the consequence.
They had eventually to be driven below the snow-line. Avalanches were
not unfrequent on slopes which a day or two previously had been covered
with grass and flowers. In this condition of things Mr. Milman, Mr.
Girdlestone, and I climbed the Sparrenhorn, and found its heavy-laden
Kamm almost as hard as that of Monte Rosa. Occupation out of doors was,
however, insufficient to fill the mind, so I wound my plaid around my
loins, and in my cold bedroom studied ‘Mozley upon Miracles.’