CLIMBING OVER THE ALPS
I tramped through several villages, and came to the bank of the Upper
Loire River. A short distance beyond, the road began winding up the
first foot-hills of the Alps. Along the way every rocky hillside was cut
into steps to its very top, and every step was thickly set with
grape-vines.
As I continued climbing upward I left the patches of grape-vines below
me, and came to waving forests where sounded the twitter of birds and
now and then the cheery song of a woodsman or shepherd boy.
At sunset I reached the top. The road led downward, the forests fell
away, the tiny fields appeared once more, and the song of the
mountaineer was silent. Lower still, I spent the night at a barracks
half filled with soldiers.
The next day was Sunday. As I tramped down the mountains I met groups of
people from Lyon, chattering gaily as, dressed in their Sunday clothes,
they climbed to the freer air of the hills. I continued my downward
journey, stopping now and then to look about me. The grape-vines
disappeared, to give place to mulberry trees. From my height I could see
the city of Lyon at the meeting-place of the rivers Soane and Rhône.
Even on this day of merrymaking the whir of silk-looms sounded from the
wayside cottages, well into the suburbs of the city.
From Lyon I turned northeastward toward the Alps. A route winding like a
snake climbed upward. Often I tramped for hours around the edge of a
yawning pit, having always in view a rugged village and its vineyards
far below, only to find myself at the end of that time within a stone’s
throw of a sign-post that I had passed before. But I kept on, passed
through Geneva, and in a few days’ time came to the town of Brig, at the
foot of the Simplon Pass which crosses the Alps.
The highway over the Simplon Pass was built by Napoleon in 1805. It is
still, in spite of the railways built since, a well traveled route,
though not by foot travelers. The good people of Brig cried out against
it when I told them I was going to cross on foot.
With a lunch in my knapsack, I left Brig at dawn. Before the sun rose
the morning stage-coach rattled by, and the jeering of its drivers
cheered me on. With every turn of the route up the mountain the picture
below me grew. Three hours up, Brig still peeped out through the slender
pine trees far below, yet almost directly beneath. Across the pit sturdy
mountain boys scrambled from rock to boulder with their sheep and goats.
Far above the last shrub, ragged peaks of stone stood against the blue
sky like figures of curious shapes, peaks aglow with nature’s richest
coloring, here one deep purple in the morning shade, there another of
ruddy pink, changing like watered silk in the sunshine that gilded its
top. Beyond the spot where Brig was lost to view began the roadside
cottages in which the traveler, tired out or overcome by the raging
storms of winter, may seek shelter. In this summer season, however, they
had been changed into wine-shops, where children and stray goats
wandered among the tables.
Higher up I found scant footing on the narrow ledges. In several places
the road burrowed its way through tunnels. High above one of these, a
glacier sent down a roaring torrent right over the tunnel. Through an
opening in the outer wall I could reach out and touch the foaming stream
as it plunged into the abyss below.
Light clouds, that had hidden the peaks during the last hours of the
climb, almost caused me to pass by without seeing the hospice of St.
Bernard that marks the summit. It is here that those wonderful St.
Bernard dogs are trained to hunt for and give aid to travelers lost in
the snow. I stepped inside to write a postal card to the world below,
and turned out again into a drizzling rain that soon became a steady
downpour. But the miles that had seemed so long in the morning fairly
raced by on the downward trip, and a few hours later I reached the
boundary line between France and Italy.