Rhone overflowed—Baths of Louëche—Tourtemagne—Visp—Ravages of the
Rhone—Madonnas placed to stop its further rise—Glys—Brieg—Ascent
of Simplon—Ganther—Gallery of Schalbet—The toll-gate—Hospice—The
Barons of Stockalper—Village of the Simplon-Broken
road—Algaby—Gorge of Gondo—Fanny too near the edge—Gap in the
road—Part of gallery carried away—Opportune aid—Arrival at
Gondo—Broken road near Isella—Accident during the storm—Remnant of
a carriage—The douanier’s aid—An auberge—The military post—My
consolation—An amiable hostess—Good company in a quiet kitchen—A
French gentleman expecting murder—An Italian vetturino—The Juge de
paix and his interested verdict—Torrent or bedchamber—Our hostess’s
supper—Departure—First difficulty—Road completely swept
away—Impossibility of advancing—A lady and her guide killed—Way
over the Trasquiera—Fanny aiding her conductor—A painful path—A
draught of water—Top of the mountain—Inhabitants—Milk and
apples—Fanny’s leap—Danger of Grizzle—Descent—Bridge
gone—Torrent forded—Gallery of Crevola—The broken
column—Arrival—Our friend’s welcome—Domo d’Ossola.
18th September.
Left Sierre early, and found, when but a short distance on our way,
that the damage done by the Rhone had not been exaggerated. We crossed
it on a bridge, and beyond, in lieu of the road which had been there,
found a broad and deep deposit of the river, which had broken and swept
it away. Three hundred workmen are employed since the overflow, and, as
none of our party could swim, we stopped to inquire at which part it
might be fordable. One of the men came good-naturedly forward to lead
Fanny, and in and to her shoulder in water we went, Grizzle following,
and arrived safe at the opposite shore. Rode fast up the hill to dry
ourselves, leaving our friend grinning at his fee, and shaking himself
like a gay poodle. The route here turns through a pine forest, a wild
and beautiful way, St. Bernard and the range of brother Alps behind.
The Gemmi, to the left, topped with snow, and the Rhone at its foot,
and, on our right, cliff above cliff,—not cold, white, or grey, but
rich with tints warm and beautiful; and fir woods below them and around
us, covering the peculiar and conical mounds. A tract of forest on one
of these had been burned, probably by lightning or inadvertence, and
the scathed and blackened trunks stood like the plague-stricken among
their green fellows. The road skirted the river, still on our left, and
we saw opposite, on the mountain, a romantic village with an old
turreted castle, to which conduct a wooden bridge, sinking ominously in
its centre, and a steep winding road. It commands the noble gorge in
the grey rock, through which rushes the Dala river, and the Gemmi
surmounts it in turn. This is the village of Louëche, and its famous
baths are about nine miles higher in the mountain. I might give you an
account of these hot springs, which flow at five thousand feet above
the level of the sea, but that I think I might weary you. They must be
of extraordinary efficacy, as the cold of morning and evening at
Louëche does not impede the cure, though snow sometimes falls there in
July; and crowds frequent them notwithstanding their inconvenient
position and the total want of comfort, often of necessaries, in the
dilapidated wooden dwellings which receive the sick. It is strange that
the water which at its source will harden an egg and scald a fowl, and
in which one cannot, from its extreme heat, plunge the hand, so soon
loses this quality, that it may be received in a glass and immediately
swallowed without annoyance.
Near Tourtemagnen, where there is a strange looking inn, but I hear
comfortable notwithstanding, the beauty of the country wholly
disappeared, for the road ran among pools and marshes—the melancholy
cows standing to their knees in water to eat the high coarse grass
which half grows, half floats, around—the few trees which have
attained any size bent and blasted by the searching wind; the wretched
stunted women, who would be prodigies of ugliness even without the
goitre, were digging in the mud for the unwholesome potatoes which grew
there.
The day had grown cold and foggy, and lighted sadly the late ravages of
the Rhone—painfully visible; as its widened bed now dry once more
swept over meadows and fields of Indian corn, and left, on its retreat,
desolating heaps of stones and sand. We passed here and there a
shattered mill and a ruined habitation—the owners mostly standing idly
and hopelessly on the bank—a few striving to combat with misfortune,
and reap the rotting harvest; or at least collect the logs flung to
their feet on the shore—relics of bridges broken and scattered in the
contempt of the waters they had spanned for a time. We compared it to a
land visited by a curse;—the struggle seemed so unequal between
earth’s frailest race and her heaviest disasters.
I think it is after passing a village of some miserable huts called St.
Pierre, that it improves for a space—green pastures once more
ascending to the pine forests, and neater wooden houses covered, for
the first time, with trained vines. The peasants seemed miserable as
ever, ragged, and famished, but a spice of coquetry remaining through
it all, for the outwork of broad riband with a tinsel border eternally
trimmed the low crown of the felt hat.
With the exception of this and one other portion of better land, the
marshes stretch to Visp, and the thick air is impregnated with miasmas.
Visp is built where the valley parts itself in two distinct branches.
The one, down which rushes the torrent which gives its name to the
village, leading to Monterosa; but it is the Haneck and not Monterosa
whose white mass, seen from this spot, terminates the defile of the
Moro. The Visp is here broad and rapid as the Rhone, yet this place,
situated near their junction, is filthy as all villages in the catholic
cantons,—their united streams cannot wash the blackamoor white.
After traversing the streets, our road wound grandly and perilously
round the base of rocks blasted for its formation; but this portion
passed, we were again amidst the marshes, and between Visp and Glys the
overflow of the Rhone has done most damage, as it is hereabouts swollen
by numberless tributary streams—most turbulent vassals. Our horses
sank above the fetlock in soft mud, which covered the whole face of the
valley: Indian corn and pumpkins floating on its surface. The ground
floors of the deserted cabins were flooded, for through this desolate
tract wound a stream whose deposits made pools deep and broad; and
planted in the mud, or half drowned in the water, were several small
wooden crucifixes and Madonnas, placed there to deprecate its further
rise.
We passed through Glys, in whose church lie buried Georges of Flue and
his twenty-three children. At the entrance-gate stands the Virgin Mary,
the iron glory round her head resembling the snakes of Medusa; and over
the portico is a painting of the heavenly Father, extending his mantle
over multitudes of the faithful, who look like deformed children,—the
native artist drew, alas! his inspiration from the goitre-afflicted and
the cretin. The last bridge which we crossed over the Saltine leads
directly to Brieg, and at the window of the hôtel de la Poste we saw
the pretty face of Mrs. —— looking out to greet our coming. The pine
log fire blazing in the wide hearth was agreeable this chill evening,
and her voice and laugh aided to dispel the impressions left by the
dull air of that desolate valley. There are rumours of the
impossibility of crossing the Simplon, of roads injured and bridges
broken by some recent storm—the postmaster’s son has been sent hence
to verify their truth, and we wait his fiat.
September 19th.
It is decided that we are to go, the courier from Sierre having passed
through Brieg at daybreak with news that the road is open.
September 21st., Domo d’Ossola.
After two days’ silence, I write again to give you a recital of
adventures which have befallen us wayfarers. Our friends and ourselves,
with the rest of the party assembled at Brieg, left after breakfast,
and we hardly said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. H——, in whose company we
were to dine at Domo d’Ossola. The morning was cloudy and cool,
changing to the loveliest of days. Half a mile above Brieg we passed
the covered bridge which crosses the Saltine, and is the first of the
works of the mountain, for it is on the direct road, which begins from
Glys, but is seldom taken, as there is no inn there. At this spot they
join, and the ascent grows steeper, turning away from the Glytzhorn,
which bounds the valley on the right, towards its comrade the
Breithorn. Our horses, at a walk, soon left behind the posters and
heavy carriages, and we passed beneath a hill, at whose summit is a
Calvary, the stations conducting thither peeping whitely out among the
thick dark firs. The valley of the Rhone looked beautiful below, Brieg
in the plain, the tin globes which surmount her minaret-like steeples
shining in the sun as if his rays had kindled so many stars; behind the
town and the high bridge which spans the Saltine, dashing towards the
Rhone, arose the mountains—parted by the deep and narrow cleft whence
the river issues; and again above these were the glaciers, their forms
half concealed by the vapours which, as we ascended, partially veiled
the range of Bernese Alps also, but made our road the lovelier;—where,
skirting the precipice from the depths of the gorge through which the
Saltine foams, they rose curling thin and delicate as the smoke from a
cottage chimney, or, lying at our feet for a few moments, impenetrable
as a floor, slowly opened to show the torrent, glittering among its
black crags, and the green forests, all dew and sunshine. At several of
the windings of the road, now steep but always smooth and broad, and
almost always protected, we again hung over what seemed a miniature of
Brieg and the valley as far as Tourtemagnen, till arrived at a certain
height, it runs nearly on a level along the edge of the ravine of the
Ganther to the bold bridge at its extremity. Beneath its arch, from the
rocks which back it, rushes the torrent, forming a cascade in its leap,
where in winter roll the avalanches. Crossing this bridge, we returned
on a parallel line with that we had already gone on the opposite side
of the valley: we could distinguish the carriages some miles behind.
The route ascends thence in steep zigzags to Berisol, a post-house and
poor inn.
Fanny sometimes started at a pine trunk fallen on her path, or a cow
feeding above us with its tinkling bell, or obstinately refused to pass
some unfamiliar object, such as the poor priest who, book in hand, was
summoning a dozen white goats from the pinnacles on which they were
perched feeding, and who came bounding from crag to crag at his call.
At such times, to distract her attention, we cantered along through the
sunshine and sweet air, acknowledging its influence, for on the broad
road there was little danger; it is certain the mind has less energy,
and the body feels more fatigue, on the plain. Somewhere hereabouts we
crossed a bridge of planks without parapets, not dangerous however.
Here also a stream gushes from the rock, and passes under to foam and
lose itself among the pine trees,—some standing to fringe its shores,
others, broken by its force, lying at its feet to do it homage. It is
one of the sweetest glimpses on the Valais side of Berisol. The last
named place consists of two houses, connected by a roof which crosses
the road; and here we passed more carriages, ourselves proud and
rejoicing in the lesser weight which enabled us to desert them all.
Continuing to mount higher, our way became more wild till we had passed
the pine region, and the crags were clothed with rhododendron only,
whose blossoms lent beautiful tints to the far mountain side. Here and
there we saw a solitary tree broken by some avalanche, or raising
boughs withered and whitened by the ungenial climate. But the sterility
is almost total near the Gallery of Schalbet, the first which we
traversed: it is hollowed through a rock which obstructed the passage
of the road, here cut along the verge of the precipice and edge of the
bare mountain, narrower and without barriers.
From the fifth refuge, which immediately follows this cavern of
ninety-five feet long, to the summit, is the place of peril in the time
of tourmentes and avalanches. I looked with some attention to the snow,
which, lately fallen, had accumulated thick and far above our heads,
and to the track of the avalanches, now marked by stream and torrent,
which rush down the chasms uttering their ominous roar, repeated and
prolonged by all the mocking echoes of the mountain. We were beneath
the glaciers of the Kalt Wasser, and, to afford adequate protection to
the road they threaten, two houses of refuge, three galleries, and an
hospital, have been erected within a brief distance. The second of
these galleries passes beneath one of the mighty falls, and our horses
started to find themselves wet with its spray, as, carried over the
roof, it dashes down before one of the apertures which light it.
The longest of these glacier galleries has been blasted through the
living rock, within which it turns, and damp and cold it is as a
dungeon—the water distilling through the fissures in its roof, forming
in winter long needles of crystal, but now dropping mercilessly on our
heads, changing the soil to a sea of mud; and the draught of air
striking a chill so penetrating, that to save the horses from harm, we
trotted them the one hundred and thirty feet which form the length of
this gloomy cavern.
A little further, we passed the sixth refuge, which is the toll-gate
also. The receiver, who came running out, found time to tell that he
had served in the Hanoverian guard, and fought at Waterloo, and also to
cheat us of two francs per horse, the toll amounting to four for the
two. It was twelve o’clock, he said, so that we had ascended in three
hours, for here is the cross which marks the highest point of the road.
It continues bare and wild; but down in the meadow, which seems rather
to produce a kind of moss than grass, there are scattered a few
wretched cottages; heaven knows what the inhabitants exist on. The
hospice founded by Napoleon, and at present occupied by a few Augustine
monks, is a fine-looking building without, but desolate and unfinished
within. We were saluted as we rode by two of the lonely brothers, who
were wandering on the irregular hillocks which surround it, bare of
bush or verdure, surmounted by the unchanging snows. In the broad
valley below our road, shut in by rocks naked as itself, rises on a
mound the square six-storied building, or rather tower, which served
for hospice ere this was instituted. A few cows were standing before
it, chewing the cud—“of sweet and bitter fancies” it must have
been,—for there appeared nothing to swallow bodily. It is said that
the old barons of Stockalper were in the habit of sending hither their
children to preserve them from the baleful influence of the air of the
plain: it still belongs to a proprietor of the same name.
From this place the road commences and continues to descend. We were
among green and living things once more, and the milder temperature
restored to activity that worst of all species of crawling fly which
had already so persecuted our horses in the ascent, and,
notwithstanding my long apprenticeship in fly murder, consequent on our
ride, resisted all efforts to kill, being cased in armour, till I
adopted suffocation, and therefore, for the benefit of future horse
travellers, recommend that they be pressed between finger and thumb
until death shall ensue.
Crossing a torrent on a bridge, at last, about two leagues from the
summit, we entered the most dirty village of the Simplon, where we had
decided to stop only to feed the horses, who were well able to end
their day’s journey at Domo d’Ossola: it is built on a knoll above the
rapid stream, commanding an unproductive valley. The houses, built in
stone, take mellow and picturesque tints from the moss and lichens
which clothe them, and winter lasting here during two-thirds of the
year, the small garden, which each possesses, is cultivated almost in
vain. The clearing of the snows and the transport of merchandise (for
it has been calculated that at least two hundred horses pass weekly in
the severe season) supply to its hardy inhabitants, the profit more
easily won in other regions, preserving from the misery which would
seem their doom. Traversing courageously heaps of manure and pools of
abomination, D—— accompanied the horses to the stables, while I
walked into the inn opposite, before which stood a collection of
English and other carriages, and on the steps, in discussion or
dispute, discomfited gentlemen and villanous-looking Italians. The
house was crowded to overflow, a circumstance which appeared to improve
neither its attendance nor the politeness of its landlady: for when I
asked the last-mentioned fat personage for some refreshment, she handed
me to her sharp-faced, thin daughter, who left me on the stairs, saying
the salle was at the top, and disappeared, promising to ask the cook if
he had anything to eat, which she said she believed he had not, owing
to the immense influx of guests who had come thus far, unapprized of
the road’s real state, and stayed from the impossibility of proceeding.
As she did not come back, I found my way through corridors innumerable
to the kitchen, and stood opposite the cook and his company of
marmitons. Perhaps he felt mortified that the uninitiated should
perceive the nakedness of the land, devoid of both food and fire;
certainly he received me unamiably, proffering only a foot of raw beef
sausage, and being sulky when I declined it; informing me that it had
been five times the length, and all the remainder of the guests had
been very glad to eat it raw. When I assured him, that although it
might serve his house to spare fuel, it by no means suited me, he
produced two shining slices of ham and a piece of bread, the last in
the house; he said he had sent to Domo d’Ossola for more, and I
returned in triumph to the eating-room, a little marmiton carrying the
hot ham and dry crust behind me. I found there several disconsolate
groups, and as companions in misfortune we were in five minutes
acquainted: there were two American gentlemen, who from their accent I
thought Irish, and from their kind politeness afterwards made me feel
that Mrs. Trollope’s recital was not always fair; and an amiable
English family, about to turn back, the extortion of the Italians who
in the morning had asked 500f. for transporting their carriage, now
raising it to 1000. The Americans had determined on going on, though
every one assured them it was wholly impossible, and D—— said we
might follow where they went: so, having given our horses proper
repose, we mounted them again,—our new acquaintances having the start
of us by about half an hour. For some distance the road was good and
smooth, the first awkward-looking portion we approached being where it
bends backward like the coil of a snake, beyond the village. The light
carriage had passed; for close to the edge of the precipice were the
marks left by its wheels, and as we led our horses over we agreed that
the damage had been probably exaggerated, and we should want no guide.
The gallery of Algaby, 115 feet long, conducted us from the more open
space to the gorge of Gondo. In 1814 it was converted to a military
post, and its entrance is half closed by a wall, pierced with loopholes
to defend the pass. It is the most savage of stony glens: no sunshine
in its recesses, for the cliffs rise to a height of more than 2200
feet; no vegetation, except you can call such the broken line of firs
here and there seen on the tops of the bare black crags, so nearly met
overhead, that
“The wanderer’s eye may barely view
The summer heaven’s delicious blue”—
their fragments lying in the stream, which frets against and over them
with a roar so deafening, that we could not hear each other’s voices;
as sometimes (I speak for myself), awed by the silence of all saving
nature, we rode along a narrower road, guarded only by far severed
granite posts, unconnected by pine trunks, advancing like a cornice on
the edge of the rock and over the abyss,—proving, it is true, that the
work of man has been mighty; but also showing, by the masses of crags
scattered like chaff, and the rush of unnumbered waterfalls, which
might bring destruction with them from the mountain top, how easily his
skill may be baffled. Fanny’s sudden fright at one of these had very
nearly closed my journal: while, in consequence of her starts, Grizzle
placed outside as a bulwark, we were walking our horses, a sharp turn
brought us suddenly on one of these cascades, bounding down a cleft in
the rock and crossing the road, she swerved violently behind Grizzle
and towards the edge, which of course she did not see, as her bright
eye was fixed on the waterfall. The curb-stone was slippery with the
spray, and we were within a foot of it; so close that I said, “We are
going over;” but at the same time, from instinct, struck poor Fanny
with all my force, and the pain made her bound forward, and pass the
peril. D—— looked pale and frightened, it being one of the cases in
which aid was impossible: I had not time to be afraid. The Ponte Alto,
a superb bridge, which, with two enormous crags for support, spans the
Doveria, conducts the road to its opposite shore. The still narrowing
gorge is at every step more deep sunken and wild, almost resembling a
cavern. We had passed a break on the road of small consequence, and had
again commenced remarking on Italian exaggeration, when we arrived at a
gap, some forty feet wide, cut by the rise of the Doveria. Hid in it
were a few men, rather examining than repairing what would have
required fifty. To our surprise we saw the marks of the carriage-wheels
on the soft earth,—it had been dragged in and out again. We led our
horses down the steep, the men significantly pointing to some holes
through which we might have sunk too far,—and Fanny, whose rein I
held, pulled me gallantly up on the other side. At the wooden bridge
which, some steps farther, again traversed the torrent, we found our
American acquaintances, tying up their pole which had broken there. We
exchanged a few words: on their side promises of help, if help were
needed, and thanks on ours, and a portion of undamaged road led us to
the gallery of Gondo, 683 feet long, (according to guide-books),
blasted through the rock, whose mass stood forth to bar the way: the
two vast apertures, made towards the torrent, formerly lighted it but
feebly, but this was not the case to-day,—for a part of its rocky roof
and wall had been carried away also. Issuing at its mouth, we came, to
my surprise, and not, considering my late adventure, to my pleasure, on
the bridge, which immediately after crosses the superb waterfall of
Frascinodi thundering down its immense volume from the high glacier,
and along the hollow of the cliff below the arch with a spray which
blinds and a roar which deafens, falling into the deep gulf, where,
struggling among the crags, groans, as if in pain, the Doveria.
Having ridden down the abrupt descent which immediately follows, ere
the bending of the road concealed this view, we turned to look at it
once more. It is that of which we have so often seen drawings, the
noblest in the Simplon: the graceful stone arch—the tall rocks and the
chasm—the fall and the torrent,—and where the foam was not, the water
in the basin it has hollowed in the crag, of that pale clear green seen
in the crevices of a glacier.
Before reaching the village of Gondo we again passed the carriage, but
were soon stopped ourselves by a ruined piece of road which, though
dangerous to horses’ knees only, was exceedingly embarrassing, as D——
could not lead two; and I found that, even without the care of Fanny, I
was fully employed in keeping my footing while scrambling up and down
the mounds of crag and loose stones, and through the stream which,
shrunk and quiet now, had done this damage. I tried my skill
notwithstanding, and arrived at the top of the first heap, whence Fanny
refused either to slide or jump into the water; and we were very much
in the situation of statues on a pedestal, when our kind
fellow-travellers arrived to my aid, altering Fanny’s determination,
and in consequence Grizzle’s, who will not stir a step unless she leads
the way.
The carriage was dragged over with a difficulty which several times
made me fear that our acquaintances and those with them would have been
forced along with it into the Doveria: for it required the united
strength of all to preserve its equilibrium along the narrowed way, now
barely the width of its wheels. It tottered several times on the
slopes, and it made me dizzy to see the men on the verge opposing to
its weight their own, where a false step would have cast them below to
be mangled among the stones of the rapid torrent. Another and worse
obstacle waited us at the entrance of Gondo: for here the stream, which
descended from the mountains, was still three feet deep, and its
violence made the crossing it a work of danger; though with the aid of
our friends we accomplished it, scrambling over piles of smooth rock
and rolling stones, and through the water. The carriage was taken off
its wheels, as no vehicle made with human fingers could have passed
here; and the poor post-horses, who, no care bestowed on them, had
hitherto picked their own way, could go no farther. We therefore
proceeded alone to Gondo, a melancholy village of a few cabins and a
chapel, and a strange building of eight stories, with barred windows,
which I certainly should rather have supposed a prison than an inn
belonging to the family of Stockalper. Could we have imagined that it
boasted common accommodation, as Artaria assures it does, we should
have remained there to pass the night, being wet and weary; but
deceived as to its destination, we applied at an inn some steps
farther, and after screaming at the entrance of the dark corridor till
we had roused every cur in the neighbourhood, a solitary woman
appeared, to say that this was not, as we had fancied, Isella; that she
had neither bed for ourselves, nor food for our horses, and we must go
on, and should do well to make haste as the evening was closing and
there was a “cattivo passo.” Fortunately for us (our friends being no
longer within call) at the frontier of the Valais and Italy, where on
the left to mark it there is a humble chapel on the crag, and on the
right poised above the torrent a colossal fragment of fallen rock, we
found some good-natured douaniers, who assured us of the impossibility
of passing Isella, and the difficulty of even arriving there, and
offered to accompany us, a proposal we gladly accepted as the evening
was growing dusk, and my hand was almost useless in leading Fanny over
such ground as we had been treading.
At this place, between the frontier and Isella, on the 15th, the day of
the storm, a carriage was passing under the torrents of rain, and the
postilion, who, fortunately, was of the mountains and on his guard,
walking at the heads of his horses, saw above, symptoms of the coming
earth avalanche. He had time to shout to the travellers to descend and
to cut the traces, when it came rushing down, the carriage was swept
into the Doveria with its luggage, and instantly shattered to atoms:
for the largest remnant rescued, a portion of the coach-box, was placed
as a memento on a rock by the road-side, and is hardly longer or
broader than a man’s hand.
Our difficulties had now seriously begun. Isella was in sight, but
between it and us a space of the road for about two hundred yards had
been swept away, leaving in its room piled rocks and masses of stone,
which had been its foundation; a torrent, not very deep but furious in
its rapidity, was boiling down, crossing these, and had already
hollowed a bed athwart the ruin. The douaniers came up to assist as we
stopped in dismay and discouragement. How the horses got over, and
without fall or stumble, is to me a matter of wonder; they scrambled
over the rocks and jumped down descents, and struggled through the
water, and up the high mound of loose stones, which yielded beneath
their hoofs, doing honour to their blood and race.
I had been so completely wet before that, but that the force of the
stream was well nigh enough to lift me off my feet, I should have
preferred it to the plank thrown over by some Samaritan.
At Isella, however, we were, passing the custom-house, which I had
hoped might be the inn, being a building of decent exterior, to arrive
at the most miserable auberge ever owned by even Italian masters: a
wretched shed on one side for stable, the sharp air blowing in on our
wet horses, no groom to dry them, and filth for a bed; straw so rare,
that it was sold by the pound, at an inconceivable price. A poste of
“carabinieri reali” joined the inn on the other side, and this was my
consolation, for while D—— was watching our poor four-footed
companions eat such hay and oats as this place afforded, with apparent
satisfaction, I made my entry, mounting a ladder-like stair which
several Italians were descending, one of whom held his candle in my
face, as I passed him on my way to the kitchen, where I found (a red
handkerchief tied above an assassination-looking face) a most furious
Italian woman, distributing spirits, by the light of one tallow candle,
to a band of lawless looking personages, who were shouting and swearing.
As nobody made way for me, I asked mine hostess for a room, to which
she said, “Patienza;” and having assuaged the thirst of all her
dark-faced customers, she set herself to stirring a caldron full of
some ill-scented mixture on her hearth.
On my applying for attention once more, she said, with a toss of her
head and spoon, that I must wait, as she had not time to mind me; and
as I was really afraid of offending her, I took a seat, which a
douanier who was smoking by the fire offered me by his side, and sate
close to him, placing my confidence in his presence, and the vicinity
of the carabinieri.
The turbulent party round my landlady continued to drink and to smoke
till I could hardly see them through the cloud. As my courage rose and
the atmosphere grew stifling, besides that I was weary of the Swiss
Italian of my companion, I got up to see if, till D—— should have
left his horses, I had, by passing through the open door, a chance of
more humanized society, or at least of none. To my extreme pleasure, on
the balcony I found an old French gentleman, with his son and grandson,
who had arrived some hours before ourselves. They hailed the addition
which we and the Americans, who were on their way, would make to their
party, for the old man said they had stopped only because they could
get no further, as he in his own person had doubts of his hostess, and
thought it would be as well that we each should know the other’s
sleeping apartment, to afford help reciprocally, “dans le cas,” he
added, “que nous soyons assassinés!”
His son was complaining bitterly of an Italian vetturino, who, when on
starting he agreed for a certain sum to conduct his passengers to
Milan, already knew the state of the road, as the 13th and 14th the
storm had been raging on the Italian side, though its greatest fury was
on the 15th. Under the Kaltwasser glaciers a sudden gust of wind had
overturned his carriage, absolutely on the verge of the tremendous
precipice. The poor pale boy had shown great courage, and even the
horses and carriage received no injury.
Arrived at the first impediment beyond the Simplon inn, the voiturier
very truly asserted he could go no farther, but also insisted on his
fare as far as Milan. The point had been referred for arbitration to a
juge de paix, whose interference the French gentleman demanded, and the
Italian consented to abide by; but when the former arrived in his
presence, he found him washing dishes! He was an aubergiste, and
unusually busy from the influx of travellers, brought by untrue
accounts of the road, given as far as Vevay by postilions and
innkeepers; of course he gave his verdict in favour of the vetturino.
D—— and the American gentlemen arrived together, the carriage of the
latter left till morning at the other side of the broken road, between
it and Isella, where it had been benighted, so that its imperials and
portmanteaus were carried over in the dark to undergo the inspection of
the douane. The landlady signified to me that it was now her pleasure
to conduct me to my chamber, therefore with due docility I followed
through the kitchen, where the troop drinking at the long table had
been increased by those who aided in the transport of Mr. C——’s
carriage, and up another break-neck flight, at the top of which was a
closet with two beds, over a part of the before-named kitchen,
therefore reaping the full benefit of its merriment, and disputes, and
tobaccoed air.
She first informed me, that one bed only could be placed at my
disposal, as other travellers might arrive; and when I objected to this
arrangement, named with great coolness the price she, as monarch of the
mountain, had assigned to it, it being her best apartment, chosen _per
respetto per me_. I said very politely, being in awe of her, that I
thought her terms high, adding in the most amiable tone I could assume,
that I had seen turn back all the travellers now at the Simplon, and it
was likely the inns would be ruined along the road, as its reparation
would not be commenced till spring.
In reply to this, she said she had no time to listen to my
conversation, and I had better make my mind up; adding, I suppose by
way of aiding me in the effort, “E là il torrento; si prende o si
lascia,”—“Take it or leave it, there is the torrent;” and as this was
very true, I resigned myself, for there indeed was the torrent, roaring
below like a wild beast before his fatal bound, and not only the
torrent, but no bridge, it had been swept away, and there was none,
barring a plank, as an Irishman would say, which had been flung
slopingly across from rock to rock, high above the Doveria, as a
communication between the inn and custom-house and the few hovels on
the opposite shore, which formed the rest of the village of Isella.
There were no stars, and the faint lights which glimmered in a few of
these cottages were all I could distinguish through the darkness, and
the sound of the angry stream almost covered the noise of the company
below. I asked my amiable companion for some hot water, wishing to
neutralize the effect of the cold baths I had undergone to the ancle in
the course of my day’s travel, to which she said, “A chè serve?” and
that she could not attend to whims; and when my patience, long on the
wane, deserted me, sent me some by her squinting brother, in a broken
coffee cup, so that seeing the remedy I had meditated was not
attainable, I drank it.
Our next suffering was supper, and here again we excited our hostess’s
ire by ordering eggs in the shell, as the only incorruptible kind of
food, instead of sharing the greasy liquid and nameless ragouts which
it pleased her to serve up before our companions. Her ill-favoured
brother waited on us, the old French gentleman asserting he looked like
a wretch quite ready to murder when his sister should have robbed; an
opinion which must have flattered him if he understood French, but it
was decided he did not, though I thought he grew a shade more hideous
during the physiognomical study. After regretting that all travelled
without arms, and determining to try any pass in the morning rather
than stay there, we retired to our apartments. To obviate the bad
effects produced by the stifling size and dirt of ours, I tried to
admit the air, but the casement was merely fixed in its place, and had
no hinges, so that having deranged its economy, I had some trouble in
restoring it and keeping it fast by help of the broken chair. To speak
the truth, I had intended to lie awake till day, a design which I
thought the noise and the bad bed rendered easy to accomplish, but
fatigue was stronger than the resolution, and after a few moments I
forgot that the door would not shut, lost the impression of resting my
feet on ground which gave way under them, which had pursued me like the
motion of a ship after a voyage, and slept far more soundly than I
should have done in my own bed and home. The Princess Bacciochi
occupied this same chamber two days before me—I pitied her.
We were on our uncleaned horses at seven, our kind hostess, with “a
laughing devil in her sneer,” asserting she should see us again, and
one or two of the carabiniers smiling confirmation of her hope of
plunder. It was a cold misty morning, and we started without breakfast,
there being nothing at the inn. I believe the beauty of the scenery was
almost lost on us, yet Isella is beautifully situated, and the
uniformity of crag and pine forest is broken by the brighter green of
fruit trees as well as by masses of beech, which here clothe the
mountain. The gallery of Isella, a few paces below the village, is
picturesque in form as in situation, for it is rather a deep archway,
and the jutting rock it traverses is supported by a gigantic and
naturally formed column. Looking back, we could see Isella and our
place of durance through the frame the dark rock made. A bend in the
road the next moment concealed both, exhibiting an obstacle at our feet
which seemed fatal to further progress. It was evident the Americans
had passed, but they had no horses with them, and one of the thousand
streams in which the melted glacier had descended to swell the Doveria
had here brought down an avalanche of stones, and piled them to form
its banks. The broken road before Isella, though of greater extent, was
far less difficult of passage. D—— with his grey got first over, and
one of the men, roused to good nature, advanced to hold her while he
returned for Fanny; but I had half slipped, half jumped the descent in
search of the best mode of bringing her without danger, and the little
creature sprang lightly down after me as if she had been on her native
turf. Grizzle was far less intelligent, and difficult to lead through
the foaming water, but neither even stumbled. I got my first footpath,
increasing the sensation of shivering, perhaps produced by starting in
a mountain fog with fast unbroken.
We proceeded perhaps a hundred yards without obstacle, followed by
several cantonniers, telling us we went in vain, and a sudden turn we
again made proved it was indeed hopeless, showing not now the remnant
of a road, but the place it had occupied, for not a vestige
remained—it was difficult to believe it had been there. The length of
this gap was about half a mile. The Doveria had partly changed her
course, and left some distance from her opposite bank dry; and dashing
against this with doubled violence, had formed a wild bay inclosed,
opposite us, by a far advancing promontory, round whose foot the road
had circled, but which now rose perpendicularly from the water; on this
side, by the same road, broken like a branch, and between both swept
angrily over the ruins, unwilling its trophy should prove its barrier.
Our American friends, whose carriage waited here, about to be carried
over piece-meal, came up to consult with D——, and leaving the horses
in my charge, they set forth together to inspect what might be done;
for the cantonnier en chef offered to take his men there, and construct
a path three feet wide, along which horses might be led before night:
it was now near nine o’clock, we had already lost two hours.
I watched D—— (having taken his first plunge from the high ground we
stood on to the water) scramble through the foam and rocks, clinging
to, or climbing over them, here ten to twelve feet high, and keeping
near as possible to shore on account of the depth and strong current,
crawl up the precipice to a cottage which had been left unharmed, when
the earth cracked and fell from around and under it. This, my companion
the cantonnier said, was easy to accomplish; the difficulties were
beyond, and, the path having traversed the jutting point, they were
henceforth invisible. I sate on my horse employed in fancying their
nature, till I again saw D—— returning by his inconvenient footway,
poising himself on the slippery rocks, and arriving to my surprise
without limbs broken. Some of the men had already gone to cut this
path, which was to be widened ere nightfall, but D—— said it would be
impossible to travel; even supposing there should be a space of three
feet between the upright wall of earth and the precipice, which goes
down to the Doveria, inasmuch as there was a rapid descent, and where
it ceased, a sharp turn, so that a horse hurried down could scarcely
fail to be precipitated into the torrent.
One of the ruined spaces we had already traversed, a German gentleman
with his lady, and a guide leading her mule, had attempted to pass on
the 18th, a day before ourselves. The animal slipped on the verge, and
the guide, in his effort to save the lady, was dragged over also. Her
body, for she was killed on the spot, was recovered and carried to
Isella, that of the unfortunate man was swept away. This was a warning;
we proposed to ford the torrent, thus circling round the base of the
mountain where it was shallow, but the men, whose aid we demanded,
treated the idea as madness, and refused positively, we therefore paid
the cantonnier en chef for his trouble, and turned our horses’ heads
towards the Simplon inn; for, discouraging as it was to seek again
obstacles once surmounted, to do so seemed the one thing possible. As
we turned, disconsolately thinking of the wearisome valley of the
Rhone, and the long detour we must make by Geneva, a young officer of
carabinieri, with whom we had been in conversation before, and a
priest, came up to accost us. There was a way, he said, which might be
just passable, over the Trasquiera, he had gone it once in search of
deserters; but a guide to lead Fanny was indispensable, and none was to
be had. Chance served us well, for as we were looking about with but
faint hope of seeing one, (all the cantonniers being gone to their work
a mile away, and no one walking there for pleasure,) came up a young
man, to whom the kind priest immediately applied, asking him for what
recompense he would accompany us across the mountain, and to Domo
d’Ossola: he said seven francs, but that he did not know the way; and
our embarrassments would have recommenced, but that the Paroco summoned
his young brother, a pretty slight boy of twelve, who knew all the
paths and precipices within five miles round. The Trasquiera almost
hangs over Isella, and the zigzag path up its side commences from the
broken road we had crossed after leaving the village that morning. Over
this our poor horses were led again, and bidding good bye to the priest
and officer, we commenced our ascent, the boy leading the way, Fanny
climbing like a goat and pulling up the guide, who, having never
touched a horse’s rein before, rather hung by it than was of service;
D—— supporting Grizzle, who was very frightened and awkward, and I
bringing up the rear, and though they were obliged to pause every ten
steps for breath, often at a distance; as the weight of my habit
encumbered me, and this path is not even used by mules, and by the
country people rarely to drive their cattle to the pastures, as there
is a better on the other side the mountain. For the first five minutes
we went on trusting it would improve; after the first quarter of hour,
because to turn became almost impossible, the track being at no part
more than two feet broad, and winding in zigzags along the extreme
verge above a torrent, which, though neither so broad nor deep as the
Doveria, would, as Mercutio said, “serve,” and besides formed like an
irregular stair of steps of stone two and three feet high, small and
pointed, broad and smooth. I often used hands as well as feet, catching
at rocks and roots. Poor Grizzle went sorely against her will; only the
boy and Fanny, who were far a-head, seemed to enjoy it.
As the road grew steeper and I found I must have both hands free, I
took off the skirt of my habit and laid it over the latter’s saddle,
thinking at the time I never saw a prettier object than her little
thorough bred form in the guise of a packhorse, but stepping on with a
demeanour as dignified as if she had been at a review in the Champ de
Mars. The path now became absolutely vertical, and the more difficult
from its being over smooth loose ground. As we had dined lightly the
day before and not breakfasted this, even on a cup of water, I have
perhaps an excuse for the giddiness and fear produced by exhaustion,
which took momentary possession of me, and certainly brought with them
my only real danger, for worn out by the scorching heat and harassing
walk, I felt unable to climb higher, too giddy to look back, and unable
to sit down, as the ground from its excessive slope afforded no
support, and I was afraid of slipping in a minute from the height I had
passed three hours in attaining. I believe I was going to scream, but I
thought better of it, and seized a pine branch and arrived at the
stones and safer ground before D——, who had therefore left Grizzle to
her fate, could arrive to help me. Here was the first chalet, but it
was locked, left by its owners, who were gone to the high pastures, and
we were disappointed in our hoped for draught of water. There was a
spring, the boy said, half an hour’s walk farther, so we rested a few
minutes and then went on patiently, though it was twelve o’clock and we
were parched with thirst, and mountain air, renovating as it is, will
not supply the place of all things. We were now in a tract of pine
forest, and at its steepest part found our way barred by half a-dozen
Italian woodcutters, who were felling the trees, one of which lay
across our path. D—— said afterwards he expected a worse adventure
here, for we had a large sum in gold about us, and the odds were in
their favour, besides that the ground was of such nature, that a push
would have been sufficient to settle matters without trouble. The
Italians were, however, better than their countenances; they opened
their dark eyes wider in wonder at the apparition of English horses
there, but dragged aside the pine; and when I, who had struck my foot
against some roots and could get no farther, called to them to give me
“la mano,” good naturedly pulled me up, each consigning me to the broad
black hand of his comrade, so that I arrived at the summit of the mound
with more ease than accompanied my climbings heretofore. After this
followed a few steps of what the guide denominated plain. The direction
of our road had changed, and now too high above the unseen Doveria to
hear its roar, we looked through vistas of pines to those of the
mountains on its opposite bank, seeming a continuation of these forests
without a symptom of the abyss between. We toiled on some time longer,
D—— casting back at me looks of pity, and I trying to smile, though I
should have been puzzled to say for what. We found too juniper berries
and hips and haws, and shared them after the manner of the babes in the
wood, but the delight was the spring, at which we arrived at last,
trickling from a rock. D—— bent the top of his hat into a hollow, and
out of this cup we drank, I do not know how many draughts, but
certainly the best in our lives; for my own part the relief it afforded
seemed to dispel all fatigue, and we went on merrily, though our path
lay across the bed of a torrent, which, though hardly flowing, had
still sufficient water to make slippery its smooth shelving stones,
polished like marble by its passage.
The ascent continued, but it was no longer rapid, and half an hour
brought us on the mountain pastures at the summit, and among the
chalets. We saw nobody; the priest’s brother said it was not the hour
for finding milk, so there was nothing to be done but to lie down on
the short fine grass, irrigated by a hundred rills, and let the horses
drink from them, and drink ourselves out of the palm of our hands. The
guide murmured for the fiftieth time “paese del Diavolo,” and the boy
laughed at me. Though he had knocked at one of these habitations and
found no one, he was fortunately wrong as to the absence of all, and
the wondrous sight we indeed constituted there, attracted some of the
half wild mountain women, good looking and picturesquely attired with
bright kerchiefs on their heads, and cloth leggings instead of
stockings on their feet, coarse brown jackets and blue cloth petticoats
with a deep crimson border.
The first who issued from the dwelling seeing the perseverance with
which I drank out of my hand from the mountain stream, came smiling to
offer a long ladle, which was an admirable substitute. An old woman
seeing, I suppose, that I looked pale and faint, plunged her hand into
a long pocket and drew forth two apples. We accepted them with great
gratitude, and asked if we could get some milk; it really was not the
hour, but several of the good natured creatures set forth different
ways in search, and our first benefactress, who had left us for a
moment, returned, this time her apron quite full of the small sweet
apples, and with her half a dozen companions came close to watch us eat
them, and say “povero” and “poverina” every minute. They asked the
guide and the boy fifty questions without obtaining satisfactory
answers, for they spoke a patois, which neither clearly comprehended.
For my own part, Giuseppe’s Swiss Italian was bad enough; the boy spoke
purely, for he was from the shores of the Lago Maggiore, but of this
not a word in ten was intelligible to me. I understood, however, that
the horses were even more than ourselves the objects of their
curiosity. Their admiration was unwearied; they walked round them and
clapped their hands, and laughed to see them eat and drink, repeating
some of the few Italian words they knew, “Oh la bella bestia, la bella
bestia,” and that they had never seen a horse before. How far this is
possible to people, who, though on a mountain, are but three hours
removed from the most frequented road in Europe, I leave you to decide.
The guide confirmed it; the women, he said, were employed all the
summer on the pastures and in making cheese, which the men carried for
sale below, and in the season when the snows fell, which at this height
happens early, they spun their own wool and lived inclosed in their
mountain village. Certainly the men were less primitive in their
manners than the women, and also less prepossessing in appearance.
Several, when the females gone in search of milk returned, came in
their company inspecting us with less merriment but more attention. We
began to think it would be unwise to be benighted on the mountain, and
paying the good women for our breakfast in a way they thought splendid,
I mounted Fanny for the five minutes during which the plain lasted, and
was hardly on her back, when she thought proper to leap a stream,
through which I should have preferred her walking quietly. Whether or
no the mountain women had ever seen a horse before, I doubt they will
ever see one leap that rivulet again. At the next we reached, for they
are innumerable, Grizzle, whom D—— was still leading, following her
comrade’s example, but as usual in the wrong place, jumped it with
great energy, knocking her master down.
A bad path and steep ascent led hence to another meadow, where Grizzle
was in jeopardy, for her saddle, valise, and all, turning, she was so
frightened as to start away from D——, who had quitted her bridle to
arrange them, and towards the bushes on the verge, where she would have
rolled over, for the meadow was a mere platform, with precipices all
round it. We saved her by an appeal to her greediness: she stopped
short to eat the clover I gathered for the purpose. Met here an old
man, who asked the guide whence we came, and said, in reply, “Non
scenderanno mai,” which was encouraging. Continuing to ascend, we were
on the summit in half an hour more, in presence of the miserable
village and desert inn. No one is there save on fête days, the boy
said. We sate under the shed which is its appurtenance, on the stone
seat which surrounds the stone table. A few steps further, on the
mountain’s very verge, is the small church, painted and ornamented, and
here the priest’s brother left us, delighted with his fee, as the
descent began at this spot, whence the mule-path winds to the valley.
For a few minutes it appeared more promising, but for a few minutes
only, for though cut in broader zigzags and its precipices less
appalling, it was still but four feet wide, and its steep steps of
loose stone made Grizzle groan with fear as she slipped down them, her
head in the air, and her feet thrown forward most helplessly. It would
have been impossible to lead her, but that Fanny was first, hurrying
gaily forward, and picking her steps like a mule,—the guide said, “Va
d’incanto.” The rain had commenced falling as we passed the church, a
circumstance we were too busy to notice: it was at all events
preferable to the overpowering sun, whose heat we had suffered. Arrived
at the bottom, under the shelter of some noble chestnut trees, an
improvement after brushwood and barrenness, there is a hamlet under the
wall of rock, and before it and us, the Querasca, which joined the
Doveria a stone’s throw further. Our guide had sought this spot for the
sake of its wooden bridge, left unharmed when the storm swept away that
of stone.
Arrived at the torrent’s edge, and looking about in vain, he asked a
peasant girl to conduct him thither, but it had disappeared also,
carried down the current the day after its comrade. Giuseppe never
despaired—we had done so during this expedition twenty times
over,—but all he said was “Adesso vedremo;” and now, the wooden bridge
being wholly invisible, we went on to the high road opposite the ruin
of the other and the avalanche of stones occupying the place of a farm
which had been carried away, and stood under the pouring rain on the
brink of the torrent, which this time had changed its course in its
fury, leaving the one arch which remained standing an island. Giuseppe
said the same thing. With the calm blue eye of a northern, he was in
all things a contrast to the Italians we had met hitherto; for his
courage was always quiet and ready, and he never tried to enhance his
services, and in the most difficult moments looked round with an
encouraging smile on his good-natured face. If ever I pass through
Crevola again, I will look for Giuseppe Sala. On our side the gulf, and
on the commencement of the vanished bridge, were standing about a dozen
Italians, not at work, but in contemplation; and Giuseppe, brave fellow
as he was, after looking a moment at the turbid water, intimated his
intention of fording it. We desired him to employ one or two of these
to assist him in crossing. The ill-looking idlers came crowding round
in consequence, talking fast and loud; “they did increase the storm,”
but insisted on it, that if one were hired all must be, and Giuseppe
gently said, “Io solo,” and walked into the water with Fanny. The
torrent was broad, and, though not more than four feet deep, fearfully
rapid, and only by clinging to her he got safe over, though not without
extremely alarming us, for in its very centre, where it rushed most
furiously among the masses of stone, she stopped to drink, and we
almost expected to see both swept away. As they turned the opposite
point of land, we lost sight of them, but were soon reassured by
Fanny’s violent screamings for her comrade, and the sight of Giuseppe,
very wet and triumphant, running back to us along the pine trunk flung
from the high ground to the shore. He had less trouble with Grizzle,
for it had become impossible to hold her, and in her impatience to join
her comrade, she rushed through rocks and water, dragging him along
without any effort of his own. Our turn was now come, and we were to
cross the pine trunk, which, considered an easy comfortable bridge in
the mountains, made me giddy to look at. I believe we both would have
preferred the water, but necessity makes the head steady, and shame
prevented our hesitation, for an old woman crossed it before us,
composedly, as if it had been a meadow, with a pile of faggots on her
back for ballast, and her bare feet clinging to the asperities of the
bark, wherein she had an advantage over us. I called to her from the
other side to hold out her hand, but the poor soul returned the whole
length and then walked it backwards, leading and nodding to me, with
the stream flowing ten feet below, and when I wanted to pay her, ran
away and over it once more. D—— arrived, marshalled by a boy, and we
found the horses waiting: Fanny held by a youth, who complained of
having lost in the water, which he had not entered, shoes never made
for him. The rain had fallen during two hours without interruption, and
now gave place to scorching sun once more. Ere we rode on, we looked up
at the little church on the summit of the Trasquiera, in wonder that
our horses had been there, but our hour of tranquillity was not yet
come, and a very short distance brought us to an obstacle impassable as
at Isella, and resembling it closely, for there was picturesque
confusion in place of the road, of which no vestige remained, and a
tongue of high land, round which foamed the Doveria. Here, however,
Giuseppe knew his road, and led among vineyards, by ways we should have
thought steep and bad at other times, to a picturesque village—it must
have been Dovedro—and thence across the dry bed of a stream, and under
long arcades of the trellised vine. Giuseppe gathered grapes for us,
for which (in poetical justice) we paid a woman carrying a sickly
child, to whom they did not belong.
Further on our way, for we made a round of a mile, Giuseppe and the
horses fording another tributary torrent, and ourselves passing it
partly on a plank, partly by wading through, we arrived at and kept the
high road, crossing breaks innumerable—none so important as to force
us aside, though elsewhere I would have ridden twenty miles to avoid
one of them.
The last gallery was that of Crevola, cut for the length of one hundred
and seventy feet, in a straight line, through the solid rock. The
scenery had lost its naked horror, and grown beautiful as well as
grand; trees fringing, far below the road, the banks of the deep
torrent; and, as we ascended the hill, we passed on our right hand,
prostrate on our way, and expressive in its silence, a broken column,
once on its road to be a monument of Napoleon’s glory. From the summit
of this hill we had a noble view of the high bridge of Crevola, over
which we were to pass, and to which the road descends gradually; its
two arches rest on a pillar one hundred feet high, and beneath them the
Doveria utters its dying roar, and spends its last fury in its
encounter with the Tosa.
Having crossed this bridge, we were out of the Val Doveria and in that
of the Tosa, trellised vineyards covering the slopes to the right, the
broad river flowing along its centre, and on the left, gentler
mountains, with green woods dotted with villas, and the high white
campanile rising each above its village. Still, after the descriptions
I have read of this valley, its aspect disappointed me. It was a relief
from contrast certainly, to ride along a level, and unaccompanied by
the roar of the torrent, and our previous fatigue might perhaps
indispose us to admire what beauty it really possesses, or it might be
saddened by the mists of that dull evening. To me it had a look of
desolation, for the Tosa, which had swollen and now shrunk again, had
left a broad track of sand and stone through the ravaged meadows; and a
short distance from Domo we found a sign and token of its power, for
the fine stone bridge was carried away, and, for the convenience of
foot-passengers, a plank, sloping considerably, had been laid from the
high remnant, on the one side, to the ground, where there was no
vestige, on the other. On the right of this ci-devant bridge, the
ravaged space extended wide and far, the river still flowing in its
centre. Giuseppe said, “Adesso vedremo,” and ran down to seek a fitting
place for crossing with the horses, for it seemed, to the left of the
bridge, so deep and broad as to give little hope of finding a ford. An
Italian lady and gentleman had, however, driven from Crevola before us,
I suppose to see the state of the route, and good-naturedly recalled
our guide, saying, the only possible place was there. The sun had long
been set, and the brief twilight was fading also, so that we had no
time to lose. Giuseppe went in without hesitation, this time above the
waist. I watched him in fear, for though there were now no rocks in his
way, the strength of the current was such as, but for clinging to the
horses, he could not have mastered. This was our last impediment, and
we arrived at dark at Domo d’Ossola; it was well for our vanity that we
made our entry then, D——’s hat, which had served, as I told you, for
tea-cup, and my tattered boots and muddy habit, looking unlike the garb
of conquerors such as we considered ourselves to be. Giuseppe took
leave of us in the yard of la Posta. I had asked him to conduct us to
the best hotel, to which he said, “Son tutti ladri, ma è questo un buon
ladro.” He had not thought of increasing his demand, and looked
surprised at receiving gold and a supper. The horses had a good stable
and wondrous appetite, Fanny rolling ever and anon, and recommencing
with fresh energy.
A knock at the door of our apartment announced our amiable American
friends (whose carriage had been carried over), come to congratulate us
on our safety. Our dinner was served about ten, and very acceptable as
the first meal during the day. We shall remain a day or two, for the
inn is comfortable and, as the hand-book observes, clean as Italian
hotels usually are. I should prefer bright rubbed floors to the matting
which covers these, and seems seldom or never swept, but the cabin at
Isella is a good foil for all that may follow.
21st September.
Rain from dawn to sunset, and now a terrific thunder-storm, more
disconsolate travellers arrived on foot or in _chaises à porteurs_;
carriages left perforce at the Simplon.
22nd.
Prince William of Prussia, the king’s second son, just now driven into
the yard with his princess, and in a cart; they slept last night at
Isella. They have been in an amusing dilemma; for by some mistake he
had no passport, and was in consequence about to be detained, as he is
travelling _incognito_, when being a remarkable looking soldier-like
man, he was recognized by one of the authorities. We were agreeably
surprised by the apparition of our comrade of the Simmenthal, who has
just been to Bex, hoping to find a battle there, and as the Valaisans
are more talkative than terrible, and he heard the Simplon road was
broken, came on to see its damages, and good naturedly to look for us
here. Our friend Mr. H—— and his family are at the Simplon waiting
till the road shall be so far repaired as to render the carrying over
of their heavy carriages possible; we hope to meet them at Florence.
Mr. D—— went to visit Fanny, and after an hour’s stay, started to
walk back to the inn on the Simplon.