A THIRD MONTH
IN
SWITZERLAND
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
_THE DUTY and DISCIPLINE of EXTEMPORARY PREACHING._
Second Edition.
New York: C. SCRIBNER & CO.
_A WINTER in the UNITED STATES_;
_Being Table-Talk collected during a Tour through the Southern
Confederation, the Far West, and the Rocky Mountains, &c._
‘We have here a record of the travels of a sagacious and just-minded
man, who saw everything thoroughly, describes it in a perfectly
unprejudiced manner, and refrains from forcing upon us theories of his
own.’
PALL MALL GAZETTE.
London: JOHN MURRAY.
_EGYPT of the PHARAOHS and of the KHEDIVE._
Second Edition.
‘Mr. Zincke speaks like a man of rare powers of perception, with an
intense love of nature in her various moods, and an intellectual
sympathy, broad and deep as the truth itself.’--SATURDAY REVIEW.
_A MONTH IN SWITZERLAND._
‘There is quite enough in this little volume to arrest the attention
of anybody who cares for an hour’s intercourse with the mind of one
who has carefully pondered some of the deepest problems which affect
the physical well-being of his fellow-creatures.’--SPECTATOR.
_SWISS ALLMENDS, and a WALK to SEE THEM_;
_Being a Second Month in Switzerland_.
‘Here is a magician who can actually make the beaten tracks of
Switzerland more interesting than Magdala and Coomassie.’--EXAMINER.
SMITH, ELDER, & CO.: 15 Waterloo Place, London.
_A WALK_
IN THE GRISONS
BEING A
THIRD MONTH IN SWITZERLAND
BY
F. BARHAM ZINCKE
VICAR OF WHERSTEAD
AND CHAPLAIN TO THE QUEEN
_Rerum natura tota est nusquam magis quam in minimis_
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1875
_All rights reserved_
PREFACE.
The sketch contained in this third volume concludes the triptych of my
‘Months in Switzerland.’ The first volume was issued in ’73, the second
last spring. A separate volume has been assigned to each sketch. In the
original forecast of the work it was anticipated that sufficient range
could not be given to it in less than three such sketches. So far,
then, as that goes its design is completed.
My object has been to present a continuous picture of the scene,
endeavouring throughout to give to its human element such prominence
as the occasion might admit. That has now been done for some thousand
miles. Of this continuous picture about four hundred miles, these being
chiefly in the Grisons, are contained in the following pages.
In concluding the work I will ask my readers to recall two conditions
I propounded for their consideration at its commencement, as imposed
upon me by the nature of its subject, for, of course, the method of
treatment must always be that which the subject makes appropriate.
Of these the first is that fulness and minuteness of detail are
here, as in a _tableau de genre_, unavoidable and indispensable. The
character of the scenes and objects to be described, our familiarity
with them, and the nearness of our point of view are the grounds of
this necessity. Fulness and minuteness of detail are, again, required
for the sake of the constantly implied comparison with home scenes,
and with home life, which underlies the whole narrative, and is one
of the sources of whatever interest it may possess, just as it was at
the time with the excursions themselves. To this I will beg permission
to add what also I have said elsewhere, that in these volumes it is a
part of my aim so to take the reader along with me as to enable him
to reconstruct the excursions in his own mind, almost as completely
as if he had himself been one of the party. I, therefore, give the
narrative of all that was seen, and of all that what was seen brought
into my mind, not only from day to day, but almost from hour to hour.
I should have failed in this part of my aim, if the reader had come
to think that more had been seen than really was seen, or that my
opportunities were in any respect greater than they really were, or
that anything was grander, or more enjoyable, or in any way better,
than it really was. If I have succeeded by the method I have followed
in presenting a true picture, and if some, whose judgment I am glad to
find favourable, think the picture worth looking at, then this part
of my purpose is answered. Truth in these matters has a relative as
well as an absolute element: the latter, as it belongs to the objects
themselves, must needs be an unvarying factor, the former, as it is
coloured by the observing eye, cannot but be an ever-varying reflection
of times and persons. There are many things we of this day do not
see as those who were before us saw them; and those who are to come
after us will not see them as we see them. Hence the necessity that
each generation should have on all subjects, into which the varying
element largely enters, its own books; and this brings me to the second
condition of which I am desirous of reminding my readers, which is that
this work belongs to the category of those in which the writer’s own
impressions, feelings, and opinions are really the main part of what he
has, properly, to offer to his readers. He is not engaged in solving
some impersonal problem of science, or in discussing some question of
history, or of criticism, as impersonally as it may be possible to
discuss such questions, but in narrating how the natural scene, about
which all will have their own ideas, and how what he saw of everyday
life, about which every one will feel differently, impressed himself.
* * * * *
In the following pages I have thought it worth while again to invite
attention to the industry, thrift, helpfulness, and honesty of the
Swiss peasant proprietors, who are the basis and main stock of the
Swiss social system. Some study of them may be of use to us, because
we can in them trace up these solid sterling elements of character to
their source in the educative power of property, especially of property
in land; and the perception of the effects in them of this cause may
lead us to inquire whether the character of our own agricultural
labourers would not be raised, if they, too, were brought under the
educative influences of property. Probably nowhere in Europe, it may
be in the world, is the class that cultivates the soil so destitute
of property as in this country. He amongst our agricultural labourers
must be in an exceptionally good position who owns, or ever will own,
anything except his clothes, and a few pounds’ worth of old furniture.
To be in this way cut off from all hope of improving their condition
in life, and from the civilizing influences of property, and of the
pursuit of property, must, one cannot but think, have deteriorating
effects on the class. Should what we see elsewhere confirm us in this
supposition, then we may become disposed to inquire whether there are
not in this country some hindrances, as one cannot but imagine there
must be, to the acquisition of property in land by our agricultural
labourers; and whether the removal of such hindrances, supposing them
to have been discovered, would not have a tendency to engender in the
minds of this long disinherited class the idea of acquiring, and the
desire to acquire, some little property in land, and so to lead on to
their recovering the long-lost mental qualities necessary for enabling
them to live by the cultivation of small holdings. In the note at the
end of this volume I have endeavoured to show how the loss of these
mental qualities was brought about in them.
I said in the first volume of this work, when speaking of peasant
properties, that in these days both the man and the land can be turned
to better account. What I meant by this, as I there explained, was that
an able and energetic man has now opened to him more promising careers
than that of living by the cultivation of three or four acres, and that
these same few acres also might possibly now be made to yield a greater
amount of produce if cultivated scientifically, and with a liberal
application of capital. This may be quite true; still, if things had
their free course, we might come to find that many of our agricultural
labourers were capable of recovering the qualifications needed for
this kind of life, which, if we may judge from what we see in other
countries, is the natural desire and ambition of a peasantry; and, too,
it may be good for a nation so largely commercial and manufacturing as
ourselves to have so sturdy and stable a class among the ingredients of
its population.
And we may, perhaps, some day come to not dissimilar conclusions with
respect to the artizans of our towns. Property, and the pursuit of
property, may be found to be a remedy for much that we regret to see
in them, and it may be proved to be possible by moral and intellectual
training--their wages being already in very many cases sufficient
for this purpose--to qualify a fair proportion of them for attaining
to the possession of some little capital in money for investments of
one kind or another. This appears to be the natural, and, if so, then
the readiest and most generally available means for calling forth,
and strengthening in them, as in all men, some very valuable elements
of character. To this extent, and it is an extent that is far from
inconsiderable, property, and the efforts necessary for attaining
it, may prove in their case great humanizers. But for the initial
desire to acquire property the starting point of a certain moral and
intellectual condition is necessary. Roughs and wife-beaters have
no thoughts about property. And the vast sum that is year by year
squandered by our working classes on intoxicating drinks demonstrates
that, as the general rule, among them the idea of property is dim and
feeble. This, indeed, may be regarded as almost the distinguishing
characteristic of the working classes of this country. Reading,
writing, and arithmetic will not of themselves supply what is wanted.
They supply tools, and some materials; but tools and materials do
not teach us how to build. Training--moral and intellectual training
where what has to be built is a human life--will be requisite still.
With this to inspire and to guide them their efforts to acquire and to
retain property may contribute much towards making them good fathers of
families, and useful citizens, by creating in them habits of industry,
forethought, thrift, self-reliance, self-restraint, self-respect, and
respect for law and order.
F. B. Z.
WHERSTEAD VICARAGE:
_November 24, 1874_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Innertkirchen--The Susten--Andermatt 1
CHAPTER II.
Dissentis--Coire 19
CHAPTER III.
The Schanfiggthal--Peist--The Strela--Davos am Platz 37
CHAPTER IV.
Davosthal--Alveneu--The Schyn--Thusis--Hohen Rhätien 56
CHAPTER V.
The Via Mala--Schamsthal--Andeer 81
CHAPTER VI.
Aversthal 97
CHAPTER VII.
Juf--The Forcellina--The Septimer--Casaccia 126
CHAPTER VIII.
The Maloja--The Upper Engadin--Pontresina 149
CHAPTER IX.
The Roseg Glacier--Piz Languard--La Pischa--The Morterasch
Glacier--Pontresina 172
CHAPTER X.
Exceptional Germans--The Bernina House--The Heuthal--Livigno--Lapland
at Livigno--‘Mine Host’ 193
CHAPTER XI.
M. della Neve--Val di Dentro--Bormio--Val di Braulio--Santa Maria--The
Stelvio--Trafoi--The Ortler 219
CHAPTER XII.
Tauffers--Val Avigna--Cruschetta--Scarlthal--Tarasp 241
CHAPTER XIII.
The Lower Engadin--Süs--The Fluela--Davos Dörfli--The
Prätigäu--Schiersch--Grüsch 266
CHAPTER XIV.
The Rheinthal--Pfäffers--Ragatz--Coire--Dissentis--Val
Medels--Perdatsch 291
CHAPTER XV.
Val Medels--The Uomo Pass--Val Piora--Ritom--Altanca 312
CHAPTER XVI.
Airolo--Val Bedretto--All’ Acqua--The Cruina Alpe--The Corno
Glacier--The Gries Glacier--Down to Ulrichen--Conclusion 328
NOTE TO CHAPTER XIII. 351
INDEX 365
A THIRD MONTH
IN
SWITZERLAND.
CHAPTER I.
INNERTKIRCHEN--THE SUSTEN--ANDERMATT.
To see wide plains, fair trees, and lawny slopes,
The morn, the eve, the light, the shade, the flowers,
Clear streams, smooth lakes, and overlooking towers.--KEATS.
_July 29._--My destination was the Grisons. I wished to see something
of the aspects of nature and of the conditions of human life in that
elevated region of central Europe. I arrived at Interlaken in the
evening. It had been raining heavily all the afternoon. I found people
complaining that the weather had of late been unusually cold and wet.
_July 30._--Went to Meiringen to find a guide; or rather, as the
excursion I was contemplating would not require a guide, one who
might act as a light porter, and at the same time be in some sort a
companion. On the recommendation of the manager of the Reichenbach
Hotel, an acquaintance of the two last summers, to whom I had written
requesting him to secure for me a good and true man possessed of these
qualifications, I engaged Henri Leuthold, at a salary of 7 francs a
day, which was to be raised by whatever amount I might think fair, when
we had reached Pontresina, where living is dear, and guides are not fed
and lodged by the hotel keepers, which is the practice at Meiringen,
and many other places. This is a bad system, for, of course, the wine
and bread and cheese given to the guide on arrival, and the dinner
afterwards, are ultimately given by the traveller. It would be better
for all parties in all respects, as we are now discovering at home,
that all payments should be direct, instead of roundabout, and that
they should be made in money only. Both the payers and the paid will,
then, be making their calculations in one and the same denomination,
and there will be no room for misunderstandings. It rained more or less
all day.
_July 31._--At 12 A.M. the rain ceased, and I at once started for
Innertkirchen. Though so much rain had fallen, no sooner had it cleared
up than, thanks to the natural underdrainage of the land which obtains
throughout the greater part of Switzerland, the surface became clean
and dry. In passing I looked into the structure of the Kirchet, that
I might ascertain to what extent it is composed of old _moraine_
rubbish and of rock _in situ_. As seen from the Innertkirchen side,
it is clear that whatever there may be of the former can be only on
its summit, for just below that you see the undisturbed stratification
of the latter. I also looked at the existing deep and almost
perpendicular-sided channel of the Aare to the right of the Kirchet,
to judge whether it was due to a fissure of the mountain, or to the
cutting action of the stream. I came to the conclusion that, though so
deep and perpendicular, there is no evidence of any action but that of
the latter cause. It is quite clear that the channel in its lower part,
and for some way above the water, is entirely due to the recent erosion
of the stream. This being undoubtedly the case so far, we have only
to suppose that the cutting action of the water, which is now going
on before our eyes at the bottom of the ravine, formerly in remote
times had the same effect. What is now being done at the bottom was
once being done at the top; and so throughout from top to bottom. The
stream did not acquire its rock-excavating power recently. It would be
illogical to ask for some other agent, when we find one quite adequate
for the work that has been done, now doing precisely similar work on
the same spot. Work, too, of a more or less similar kind, together with
the presence of the same agent, is seen in every ravine in Switzerland.
We may, therefore, be sufficiently certain that the whole of this deep
perpendicular-sided channel was cut out by the existing stream. We
need not postulate an earthquake, or rend the mountain by any other
means. On the face of the ravine there are no ruggednesses and no
projections, excepting where pieces of rock have been thrown off by
the action of frost. You know that they have been thrown off because
the face of the rock is in these places less weather-stained, or
wholly unstained. Had the ravine been a rent, there would probably, in
whatever way it had been caused, have been many projections, and much
inequality of surface. On the other side, however, a question may be
suggested at this spot. The face of the mountain on the west side of
the bed of the old lake is cut down very precipitously. How was this
done? It could hardly have been the work of running water, for it is
continued from the top of the mountain down to considerably below what
was the level of the old lake. This may be due somewhat to glacier
action, somewhat to the action of frost, and somewhat to the wash of
the lake as it was subsiding. But whatever might have been the way in
which this was brought about, it does not affect the question of the
channel.
In the afternoon made a call on an old acquaintance at Unter Urbach,
one of the four villages in the old lake bed, which form the commune
of Innertkirchen. I found him, though a porter, yet the proprietor of
nearly four acres of good prairie. This land had been bought out of the
savings of his earnings as porter. First one acre was purchased. That
first acre was the great difficulty, for when it had been obtained,
money could be raised upon it to buy another piece. When that been paid
for partly by the good man’s earnings and partly by the produce of the
first piece, a third piece could be looked out for, and so on up to the
whole of the four acres, every subsequent purchase being more quickly
cleared than its predecessors. I heard the same story of another
acquaintance I had at Wrickel, the village in the north-west corner of
the old lake bed. Indeed this effort to acquire land is the mainspring
of the life of the peasants hereabouts. It is what sets in motion their
whole life. The better sort of men are all making this effort, are all
living for this purpose. It is the root of their industry, of their
painstaking, frugal, saving lives. The opportunities there are under
the Swiss system to acquire land give the land to those who deserve
to have it. The system acts as a winnowing process. It sifts out the
idle and profligate through the natural consequences of their idleness
and profligacy; and rewards the thoughtful, the self-denying, and the
hard-working through the natural consequences of their thoughtfulness,
self-denial, and hard work. It is a self-acting case of social, moral,
and intellectual selection.
It was very pleasing to contemplate how in the scene before me every
little scrap of ground had been turned to the best account. If a few
square yards could have been anywhere made or gained, the requisite
labour had not been grudged. For this purpose everything had been done
which ingenuity could have suggested, or hard work effected. We in very
many places are allowing the sea to gain from us all it can. They gain
from their lakes, and streams, and mountains all they can. Here every
man’s heart is in the land; with us no man’s: not the landlord’s, who
may never have seen it, except when he walked over it with his gun; not
the tenant’s, who regards it with the feelings of a passing occupier;
not the labourer’s, who thinks only of his wages, and regards the land
merely as the scene of his daily toil. For the casual beholder, it
has no suggestions but those of a food-factory. That it should be a
food-factory is certainly the first and most necessary use of the land,
and we should be glad to be assured that we were making the most of it
in this respect. It would, however, be more interesting, and perhaps
the better for us, if it had also some moral suggestions to make to
us. Here you see that men are thinking of it when they are rising up,
and when they are lying down, and while they are walking by the way,
that it shapes their lives, that it makes them what they are. These
facts and considerations are not a demonstration of the preferableness
of peasant proprietorship, but they are, I think, a demonstration of
one advantage, and that not an inconsiderable one, that is secured by
making the land accessible to all, which it never can be while each
generation is permitted so to settle and charge it as practically to
take it out of the market of the generation that will follow.
Having got through my visits I went with Leuthold to see the valley
of the Urbach. For this purpose we ascended the western mountain, and
having reached what to us was the commencement, but in nature the end,
of the valley, we had the upland village of Unterstock on the left. We
advanced up the valley for about an hour with grand mountain scenery
before us. Our object was not only to see the character of the valley,
and of its mountain ranges, but also to look at its winter stabling
for cows, that I might know how they are lodged and kept up here at
that season. For this purpose we went into several. As the stalls are
very low, and the cows closely packed, the temperature, whatever it may
be outside, can never be very severe within. When the cows have been
housed for the season, the men who have charge of them come up from
below every evening to milk them. They sleep in the hayloft; and having
again milked them in the morning, carry down the milk to the villages
of Innertkirchen. Should the weather prove bad, these men remain in
the high valley all day. To enable them to do this whenever requisite,
fuel, potatoes, and cheese are stored in each byre. To the potatoes and
cheese the cows add milk. As this is the arrangement adopted, it must,
doubtless, be under existing circumstances the best, though one would
have supposed that these daily journeys for and with the milk must
require far more labour than would be necessary for bringing down the
hay. What decides the question may be that labour is scarce and dear
in summer, but abundant and cheap in winter. If, however, the existing
mountain footpath could be made available for carts, the cows would
then probably be made in the autumn to bring down themselves and their
winter fodder.
I had had some reasons for looking forward to the little excursion upon
which I am now about to enter, and so I dwell for a moment on these
little incidents of my first afternoon, as one does on the first whiff
of a cigar, or the first sip of a glass of wine. He wishes to taste
to the full, and to assure himself of the good qualities of, what he
had been for some time anticipating. It would be disappointing if he
did not find, or imagine that he had found, the fruition equal to the
anticipation.
_August 1._--Off at 5 A.M. for Wasen by way of the Susten. The books
make it 26¹⁄₂ miles. This I think somewhat beyond the true distance,
though two English ladies assured me--they were the only English people
I found at the hotel at Hof--that on riding across it yesterday they
had found it more than fifty miles. It was a delightful walk, and
offered many elements of interest. As to the culture and vegetation;
they began with much variety. As we ascended, the walnut trees were the
first to disappear from the prairies and the roadside; then the plums
and apples. They were succeeded by the region of conifers with its
gradations; first the spruce, then the larch, last of all the cembra.
They in turn had to make way for the treeless upland pastures. In a
Swiss valley the kind of trees around you, or the absence of trees,
indicate the height to which you have ascended. They are a kind of
natural hypsometer. The thinning out of the villages, and _châlets_,
and prairies keeps pace with the thinning out of the species of trees.
The Gadmenbach was never far from the path. You often cross, or see on
the opposite side of the valley some blustering torrent, or some mere
thread of water, hastening to join it. Cliffs of naked rock appeared
at all elevations: sometimes protruded in the valley bottom below
you; sometimes higher up on its sides; at all events generally on the
summits in sight. At times we had glimpses of distant snowfields.
The soil, which the industry of many generations has accumulated and
preserved on the surface, is good on this, the Gadmen side of the
Pass, and so the predominant colour around us was green of varying
tints, generally the lively green of the prairies; at this time at its
liveliest, for the hay had lately been carried, and the second growth
was again springing up, without bents and seed stalks. There was enough
in all this pleasantly to feed the eye and the mind. With these objects
before you, you cannot but be kindly disposed towards every peasant
you meet, for you see how hard he must be toiling, as his fathers must
have done before him, to extort the means of living from the scene
which is giving you so much pleasure.
At the distance of an hour or two from Hof, a stream--I was told that
its name is Schwazbach--comes tumbling down its rocky course from the
mountain on your left, and, rushing under a bridge you cross, hurries
on to join the Gadmenbach a little below the bridge. It is composed,
in American phrase, of two forks, which unite themselves into a single
stream half-a-dozen yards above the bridge. At the point of the rocky
interposed peninsula grows a willow of many branches, and no main
trunk. The branches form angles with the stream of all dimensions, some
being erect, while some were on that day only just clear of the water.
My attention was first attracted by the little tree itself, which had
managed to establish itself in so conspicuous a situation, and one
so likely to have been undermined from either side. You have done
well, I thought, to hold on there so long. As I looked at it I found
that its branches were peopled with a horde of some hundreds of large
black caterpillars. Each was two or three inches long. If my boyish
entomological recollections are not at fault, we have not in England a
willow-feeding species of this kind. As I observed the colony, thinking
that the perpetual din and spray had done them no harm, I noticed
that all that were there were on the upper half of the tree. On the
lower half the younger leaves of every branch had been eaten off, some
completely, some partially, the oldest only being untouched, just as
was the case with the leaves of the branches of the upper part of the
tree; what, then, had become of those who had eaten them? Down to a
certain level every twig had its residents; below that level not one.
It was evident that the lower twigs, too, had lately been tenanted; but
where were their late tenants? They had not emigrated to the branches
immediately above the deserted ones, for those had no more occupants
than the topmost branches. Nor would any enemy have cleared off in this
regular manner those on the lower branches, and neglected those on the
upper ones. There could, therefore, be but one explanation. There had
lately been two or three days of continuous heavy rain. This must have
swollen our impetuous stream to an additional height of three or four
feet. Up to this height, then, the lower branches had been submerged,
and all that dwelt upon them swept away; just as might have been the
case with the exposed portion of some village of poor peasants, on
which an avalanche had fallen. Whether those who had lived in this
exposed quarter of the village had been better or worse Christians than
others would have had no effect in turning aside, or in bringing down
the avalanche, any more than analogous considerations had to do, as we
are told, either with the fall, or with the effects of the fall, of
the tower of Siloam. With our caterpillars, at all events, no theory of
misdoings, or shortcomings, is available. What, then, we call chance,
or accident, but which may be nothing of the kind--prevails among
caterpillars as well as among Christians. The avalanche falls, and
crushes half a village of Christians; the stream rises, and drowns half
a colony of sociable caterpillars. There is, however, this difference
between the conditions of the two; the caterpillar not having the
power of anticipating and guarding against many of the contingencies
of its lot, will not, probably, die of natural decay. Sooner or later,
in the present, or in the succeeding, stage of its existence, it will
fall a prey to some stronger insect, or to some bird or beast--these
went to feed the fish, or aquatic insects; but the Christian has that
faculty which made him a Christian, and which enables him to foresee
and provide against most of the accidents and chances to which he is
exposed; and so he has, or should, have, a fair chance of dying of
natural decay. The mischief is that he has not been taught to exercise
this faculty as much as he might, and ought; and that, therefore, he is
still liable to be carried off more frequently than need be by polluted
water, polluted air, overwork of body, or of mind, overfeeding, and
many other such, not accidents, but preventible causes, among which
must be reckoned his having placed his dwelling on a site exposed to
avalanches, or floods, or malarious exhalations. Perhaps the time will
come when not to do all that we have been permitted to do in the way
of providing against the action of such causes will be regarded as
irreligious, as a tempting of Providence, as a sinful neglect of the
laws of God.
And so I walked on and on, and up and up, pleasantly contemplating the
objects of the scene around, pleasantly spinning and weaving thought,
and, when tired of that, pleasantly talking to Leuthold. I had already
taken a liking to him. He was a clean-built, well-featured man, with
a gentle voice, and gentle thoughts. His wife had for some time been
in feeble health, and this seemed to be making him still more gentle
and thoughtful. I now recall one of his sayings; ‘If a man has health
and strength for his work, and is satisfied with his family, he has
the best riches.’ His trade was that of furniture-making, by which he
supported himself and his family during the winter. Not much can be
earned in this way at Innertkirchen; and, therefore, and, too, because
like his neighbours he was investing in land all he could save, he had
to live hard. His fare during the long winter was potatoes, milk, and
coffee, with meat only on Sundays. Of land, however, he had enough for
two cows. I was amused at his having brought with him his ice-axe, for
this would lead some of those we met to credit me with the intention
of essaying difficult ascents, though I was not contemplating anything
of the kind. It, however, indicated that he was himself ready for
such undertakings. He confided to me his intention of purchasing on
his return home some English volume, and of endeavouring by its aid
to acquire a knowledge of the language. The following question which,
after a pause of some moments, he put to me this morning will show that
he had already made a beginning in this study; ‘How many clocks will
you dine to-day?’
At last we reached the little inn of Stein, at the foot of the great
Stein glacier. We were here 6,122 feet above the sea, and about
1,300 below the Pass. For some time all that was bright, and soft,
and humanly pleasing in the scene had been dying out. On our left
we had lost the lofty ridge of the Gadmen Fluh, now screened by the
Wendenhorn, behind which, and so out of sight to us, it was rising
into the Titlis, its culminating point. On our right were grand
ravine-torn, and perpendicular-faced precipices. At the little inn
we found ourselves close upon the glacier. As this mighty mass has
been advancing for the last thirty years, you will think that in the
arrangements of inexorable Nature the days of the little inn are
numbered; and so as you sit outside, in the warm sunshine, a rock for
your table and seat, and the green turf for your footstool, with your
bread and cheese and wine before you, and with the herd of kine, some
quietly grazing around you, and some lying down, and meditatively
chewing the cud, you will feel as if the vast icefield beside and
above you were some cold-blooded, remorseless, living monster, that
is leisurely and irresistibly advancing in his own fashion to spread
himself over, and obliterate all around you. The turf, however, and the
little inn will not be unavenged, for the sun, whose warmth you are now
feeling so delightful at this altitude, or a diminution of pressure
from the snowfields above, will some day oblige the monster to recoil
again to his own proper domain of eternal cold and barrenness.
Having finished your bread and cheese, and _chopine_ of wine, and well
sunned yourself, your muscles will have recovered their tone, and you
will begin to make the last ascent along the side of the northern
mountain. The mighty monster is here a little beneath you, on your
right, as it were sleeping with one of his feet resting against the
mountain you are passing along, the other being to the west of the
rocky eminence before you. His vast body and shoulders are spread
out for many an acre between this eminence and the heights of the
Sustenhörner and Thierberg, on which reposes his snowy, shaggy head.
His hugeness, form, and position, make him worthy of far more notice
than he has as yet received. The reason why so few go to see him is,
I believe, that the books overstate the walk that is required for
going. Of this, if taken from the west, an hour may be struck off at
its commencement by starting from Hof instead of from Meiringen, which
reduces it to ten hours of not hard work even for a first walk, as
I found it this day. Or, if this be considered too much, it may be
divided into two easy stages, by sleeping at Stein; and who would not
be glad to sleep more than 6,000 feet above his usual level, and at the
foot of so grand a glacier?
Having reached the summit of the Pass, an entirely different scene
presents itself to your view. The aspects and colouring, and whole
character of the Meienthal are almost the reverse of those of the
Gadmenthal. It is but thinly clad with turf, which, too, is of sombre
tints. There is none of the lively green you have left behind you.
The forest is a long time in reappearing, and nowhere throughout do
the pines grow vigorously. Here on this side man has to struggle
more hardly to maintain himself. The villages are fewer and further
between. Wherever you turn bleakness and barrenness are the predominant
suggestions. This gives you new effects, and by simplifying the
mountain masses, makes them appear grander.
After three hours, or more, you see straight before you a somewhat
steep, half pine-clad ridge. You advance towards it, and at somewhat
over ten hours from Hof, including your halt at Stein, you find
yourself at Wasen in the valley of Uri, on the road to the St. Gothard,
and that the mountain which had lately been before you, and which is a
fine termination to your walk, is the western range of the Valley of
Uri.
_August 2._--Walked to Andermatt for breakfast. The building of the
new hotels I noticed last year at Göschenen, the northern entrance of
the St. Gothard tunnel, was going on as briskly as then. Of course,
before the railway is completed, there will be a post-road across the
Susten, and so that route will have become a feeder to these hotels;
and this new road will itself be fed by another from the Valais
over the Grimsel, and through the Haslithal; and so there will be a
considerable stream of people who, from that direction, will take the
rail at Göschenen. There will also be many who will for this purpose
come to the same point from the Grisons by way of Andermatt. Possibly,
therefore, they may not be building too many hotels. At all events the
tide of travellers in Switzerland is still rising, and probably will
continue to rise, for we cannot at present imagine any reason for its
subsiding, or point to any instances in which hotel building appears to
have been overdone.
At Andermatt a telegram from his wife was awaiting my good guide,
to tell him that if he wished ever again to see her alive, he must
immediately return home. As he showed it to me tears rose to his eyes.
Within five minutes of our arrival at Andermatt he was on his way back
to Hof. Poor fellow! In his solitary walk home he would have reason and
opportunity enough for recalling what he had yesterday said to me of
the place domestic happiness occupied, in his estimation, among the
constituents of the true riches. Though he had been with me only two
days, I had already come to regard him very favourably, and would have
trusted him farther than I could have seen him.