A SWISS INTERLUDE
AFTER the hot summer of 1911 I escaped from London in September and
made straight for Interlaken. Thence I was "wafted" by the electric
railway to the "Schynige Platte"--a wonderful hill-side, 4500 feet
above the "Bödeli," the flat meadowland in which Interlaken is placed.
At the Schynige Platte we are separated to the south from the Jungfrau
and the great Oberland range of mountains only by a deep rift in
which rushes the "Black Lütschine," coming down from Grindelwald to
join its "white" brother-torrent close beneath us at Zweilütschinen.
To reach the "Platte" we creep in our train up the northern side
of the mountain--one of whose peaks is known by the curious name
"Gummihorn"--for more than an hour without a glimpse of what is on
the other side. Then, when we are 6000 feet above sea-level, we enter
a short tunnel in the shoulder of the mountain, and all is dark.
When the train emerges every one in it gasps. You hear a cry from
every mouth--for the scene is astounding! Coming through that tunnel
we have stolen surreptitiously upon a band of gigantic snow-white
brethren--the Wetterhörner, the Schreckhörner, the Eiger, the Mönch,
the Jungfrau, the Mittaghorn, the Breithorn, and the Tschingelhorn.
There they are--lying close to us, unaware of our approach--naked and
unashamed, glistening in the sunlight, variously stretched in their
immense repose. One feels on seeing them thus free from every scrap of
cloud and clothing as though one had intruded upon a glorious company
of titanic beings innocently sunning themselves in perfect nudity. It
is with the sense that humble apologies for the intrusion are due to
them, and will be graciously accepted because we hold them in such
profound admiration and reverence, that we venture, little by little,
to let our eyes dwell on their wondrous beauty. There are moments, it
must be confessed, when we feel a qualm of modesty and are unwilling
to take advantage of our rare chance--moments when we should not be
surprised if one of the giants were to hurl a command at us--in terms
of thunder and avalanche--ordering us at once to retire to the other
side of the Gummihorn and leave them to their rightful privacy. There
is no great view of snow mountains at close range--not even that from
the Gornergrat--which is at once so fine and so easily accessible.
In the following year I went early in June in search of another Alpine
delight, the spring flowers--not those of the highest "downs" and
sheltering rocks 8000 or 9000 feet above sea-level, but those of the
higher meadows, where the pine forests are beginning to thin out, and
rich crops are cut before July by the skilful workers of the great
Swiss industry, that of cow-herding and the production of cheese. It is
difficult to define properly the term "Alpine" as applied to flowers.
It is now used by horticulturists very generally for those exquisite
small plants, the Saxifrages, Androsacæ, Gentians, etc., which grow
in the highest regions to which plant-life extends--regions which are
often covered by the winter's snow until June, and even late into that
month. Some of these plants (as, for instance, the Soldanellas--those
little lilac-coloured flowers like pendent foolscaps which are allied
to our primrose--and the crocus and the butterbur (Petasites)) actually
blossom beneath the snow and push their open flowers through it to the
sunlight. Others of these "higher Alpines" have a peculiar mode of
growth related to their special conditions of life. Their stems are
very short and their foliage closely set, so that they form compact
tufts or cushions, on which their short-stalked brilliant little
flowers are dotted. The fact is they have not time in the short summer
of these high regions to grow long stems. Their flowers are produced
on low-lying parts of the plant, which carry small and abundant green
leaves, but never send up long leaf-bearing stems. Not only do they
thus do quickly, and without needless upward growth, what they have
to do--namely, expose green leaves to the sunlight for nutrition and
their flowers to the fertilizing visits of insects so as to ripen their
reproductive seeds--but they benefit by keeping close to the warmth of
the ground, which is heated by the strong sunshine, and is three and a
half degrees higher in temperature than the cold moist air. In similar
positions in low-lying regions the difference between the temperature
of the air and that of the surface of the ground is not as much as one
degree.
The Alpine meadows do not occur above the height of 5000 to 6000 feet,
and are bordered by pine woods, in which are many beautiful plants
not to be found at all or not in such profusion in the lower valleys.
Both the meadows and woods of the Alpine heights graduate into those
of lower level, and it is difficult to draw the line and say these
flowers should be, and these should not be, called "Alpines." Many
rock-loving plants allied to those found at great heights flourish in
comparatively low-lying regions, where the necessary rocky character
exists. The flowers of the high Alpine meadows are not the rock-lovers,
the inhabitants of a surface formed by fragments of broken rock, to
which the name "Alpine" is often limited. The meadow plants grow on
good soil, and cover whole acres, in which there is but little grass.
The fields are coloured of almost uniform blue or white or purple or
yellow as the weeks go on, and various species one after another have
their turn of dominance and maturity.
I paid, first of all, a brief visit to Aix and the lakes of Bourget and
of Annecy, to the gorge of the River Fier, and to the finely-situated
monastery of the Grande Chartreuse--a huge building, devoid of beauty,
which it seems to be difficult to utilize now that the Carthusian
Brothers have been expelled. The richly-coloured Alpine centaury, deep
blue and purple red, was growing in the woods around it abundantly, and
many other handsome plants. Zoology was represented by most excellent
little trout provided for us at the village inn. Then I stayed a
couple of days at Geneva, where, in a pool in a richly-planted rock
garden--that of the well-known horticulturist M. Correvon--I came
across what I have long wished to see, namely, the blue variety of
the edible frog. Six years ago I wrote an account of the little blue
frog of Mentone, the rare variety of the green tree-frog, or rainette,
so abundant in that region (see "Science from an Easy Chair," p.
50: Methuen, 1910). The edible frog (Rana esculenta) is often very
beautifully coloured with blotches of dark brown and pale green, and a
pale yellow stripe down the back. It is easily distinguished from the
brown frog (Rana temporaria), which occurs with it. The latter is the
common frog of our islands, though we also find the edible frog in the
South of England. The blue variety of the edible frog has been seen
in various localities in Germany and along the valley of the Rhone.
It owes its colour, as does the blue tree-frog, to the suppression of
yellow pigment in its skin. The one I found was swimming in a small
clear pool with two other very finely-marked specimens of the more
usual colouring. A blue variety of our common brown frog has not been
observed, although it is occasionally very pale in colour and, on the
other hand, is sometimes of a bright orange-brown tint. Several species
of toads and frogs are found on the Continent which do not occur in
Great Britain.
Years ago (when France and Germany began the great war of 1869-70) I
travelled from Geneva to Chamonix by coach. It took the whole day. Now
I and my companion, avoiding the railway, were driven in a motor-car
past Bonneville, Cluses, and Sallanches (with its famous view of Mont
Blanc), and along the vale of Chamonix to its far end above Argentière
in less than three hours. Here we stayed a few days in the Hôtel du
Planet, at a height of 4500 feet, in order to enjoy the sight of the
meadows and woodland flowers. I may add that in this quiet hotel the
proprietor gave us simple, good food, well cooked, which is more than
I can say of the large hotels on the lakes and popular resorts, such
as Geneva, Montreux, Glion, and Interlaken, where I have carefully
inquired into the kitchen arrangements and food supplies. The latter
barrack-like edifices have of late years become intolerable owing to
the mechanical supply to them (by a group of monopolist financiers who
have acquired the contract) of the nastiest ice-stored fish, meat, and
vegetables. These are heated in their kitchens with bottled sauces in
patent ovens by underpaid scullery-helps, without the superintendence
of a qualified "cook." The result is a sham--pretentious and
inedible--which yields a fine profit to the hotel companies, and is
erroneously believed by the travelling crowds of to-day to be French
cookery! In reality it is a new device for bringing the "catering" in
all hotels in the great holiday centres under a monopolist control. The
scheme is similar to that to which the continental railway companies
have yielded in leasing to a well-known company the restaurant and
sleeping arrangements on their trains, with the result of causing much
misery to travellers and profit to themselves and to the monopolists.
Owing to differences in exposure and soil, the meadowland above
Argentière showed a fascinating variety of colour. Here was an acre
of the large-flowered purple geranium, interspersed with the big
Alpine yellow rattle (a greedy root-parasite); there (near some pine
trees) a mass of the yellow anemone (Anemone sulfurea); farther on a
whole meadow, blue with the abundance of large hairbells and viper's
bugloss. Close by, in the damper parts of the valley descending from
the Col des Montets, three or four acres of meadowland were white, so
thickly were they covered with tall plants of the distinguished-looking
white buttercup (Ranunculus aconitifolius). In some parts, among
these dignified Ranunculi, the plump yellow heads of the globe-flower
(Trollius), also a kind of buttercup, were abundant. Overshadowed
by these larger plants, or growing up between them, were orchids,
plantains, polygonums, and many others. The most beautiful plant in
these meadows was St. Bruno's lily, which we found in abundance on a
steep bank. It is named after the founder of the Carthusian order,
whose monastery (the Grande Chartreuse), first established when William
the Conqueror ruled England, I had visited a week before. St. Bruno's
lily has large, white, funnel-shaped flowers, an inch or more long,
three or four on a stalk. It is known to botanists by the pretty
name "Paradisia liliastrum." It is the lily of the Alps, pure and
unspotted, with a delicious perfume, and six golden stamens guarded by
its beautiful and large white corolla. In the woods we found some of
the larger orchids, and also whole banks covered with the waxy-looking
flowers, variegated in colour, white, yellow, and red, of the large
millwort, the Polygala chamæbuxus--a plant very unlike in appearance to
the little blue and white milkworts of England. It flowers in winter
as well as through the early summer. Another wonderfully waxy-looking
flower which we found is that of the shrub known as the Alpine Daphne.
There is something suggestive of exotic rarity and perfume about a
waxy-looking flower. Of the same character are the flowers of the
little shrubs of the genus Vaccinium known as the bilberry, the
wortleberry, the cow-berry, and the bear-berry, which occur on the open
scrubland. The rusty-leaved Rhododendron, with its crimson flowers, and
the little Azalea (like the Vaccinia--all members of the Heath family)
were abundant--as well as the true dark-red rose of the Alps, the
richly-scented Rosa alpina.
We left Argentière and the constant companionship of the great
glaciers of the vale of Chamonix, and descended by train through
the awe-inspiring valley of the Trient (up which we used to walk
many years ago, on our way to the higher regions) to Martigny, and
then drove for four hours up a rough mountain road to the hotel of
Pierre-à-voir--whence we descended a few days later in sledges, over
grass slopes and torrent beds, 4000 feet in an hour and a quarter, to
Saxon in the Rhone valley, a truly alarming experience. The "luge" or
sledge is supported in front by a strong mountaineer who prevents it
from "hurtling" down at breakneck speed, topsy-turvy. As the avoidance
of such a catastrophe depends on the strength and the sureness of foot
of this individual, travelling by "luges" is not to be recommended in
summer, however agreeable it may be when the mountain side is covered
with snow. In the woods near Pierre-à-voir we found another member
of the Heath family, looking like a lily rather than a heath, the
sweet-scented winter-green with its large single white flower (Pirola
uniflora), and on the rocks on open ground masses of the pink flowers
of the little rock soap-wort (Saponaria ocymoides). The curious tall,
big-leaved composite with only three purple florets to a head, the
Adenostyles albifrons, was here much in evidence. We were too early
for the flowers of the pretty little creeping plant allied to the
honeysuckle which the great Linnæus asked his friend Gronovius to name
after him, the Linnæa borealis, though we had been told that it grows
in this neighbourhood.
Then we spent five days at Glion and on the incomparable Lake of
Geneva, never wearied of gazing at the changing mysterious lights and
colours (sapphire, emerald, and silver) of its vast and restful expanse.
The question often is asked, "Why is it that the same species of flower
is brighter and stronger in colour when growing high up in the Alps
than when growing in the lowlands and in our own country?" The fact
is admitted; the blues of the blue-bells (Campanula), the bugloss,
the forget-me-nots, the crimsons and purples of the geraniums and the
pinks and the campions, and many others, are examples. Careful study
and consideration of the facts have enabled botanists to show, in many
instances, within recent years, that the peculiarities of form and also
of colour of the stems, leaves, and flowers of plants are not mere
unmeaning "accidents," but are definitely of advantage and of "survival
value" to the species. Thus we have seen that the tuft-like cushions
formed by high Alpine plants are explained. The purple and reddish
colour of stalks and leaves like that of the red variety of the common
beech has not always, as in that plant, the purpose of protecting the
chlorophyll from destruction by too vivid sunlight. In Alpine plants it
is often present on the underside of leaves and of the petals, and acts
to the plant's benefit, absorbing light and converting it into heat.
But it also seems in many cases to protect the juices of the plant from
the destructive action of white light.
It is held by some botanists that the bright colour of Alpine (and
Norwegian) samples of a flower elsewhere of a paler colour is due
to the direct action of the greater sunlight of the high regions in
causing the formation of pigment. This is inadmissible. The sunlight
cannot act in that way. It causes increased formation of nutriment by
acting on the chlorophyll, and an Alpine plant thus highly charged with
nutritive matters can afford to form more abundant pigment than a plant
which enjoys less brilliant sunshine. The high-coloured Alpine flowers
are a breed or race; a pale-coloured plant taken to the Alps from
below does not itself become high coloured. It is a matter of natural
selection. The occasional high-coloured "spontaneous" variations
produced from seed have an advantage in the short summer of the high
Alps. They attract the visits of the few insects in the short season
more surely than do the paler individuals, and consequently they are
fertilized and reproduce, whilst the race of the paler individuals dies
out from failure to attract the insects. Thus we get a high-coloured
race established in the mountains, a race that can make haste and seize
the brief opportunities of the short but brilliant summer. There are
many peculiarities of form and colour of plants the life conditions of
which are diverse (e.g., woodland, moorland, aquatic, seashore, dry
air, moist air, etc.), which can be shown by accurate observation to
be specially related to those life conditions. Those conditions allow
the peculiarities to survive and establish a race, in some cases a
species, whilst preventing the maturity or destroying the life of those
individuals not presenting that advantageous peculiarity of variation.