AVERSTHAL.
Will Fortune never come with both hands full?
She either gives a stomach and no food--
Such are the poor, in health; or else a feast
And takes away the stomach--such are the rich
That have abundance, and enjoy it not.--SHAKESPEARE.
_August 8._--By the stratagem of inviting the circumnavigator to
breakfast with me this morning at 4.40 was enabled to get off at five.
As we passed down the main street of the little town--the hotel Fravi
is at its northern end--I again heard, as I had up to eight yesterday
evening, the blacksmith’s hammer and the wood-river’s axe; for there
was at this early hour too much dew on the grass for their hay-making.
If, as the monkish saying tells us, to labour is to pray, then the life
of these poor peasants, at all events in summer, is both continuous and
earnest prayer. It is prayer in deed, in support of the prayer in word
of their long winters, about which we were told something in the last
chapter. Their prayer in deed must have a good moral effect upon them,
for it is doing their utmost under such conditions as oblige them to
feel that the success of their efforts will after all depend on unseen
causes over which they have no direct control. It is also through a
dumb, yet still a most eloquent appeal to those unseen causes.
Above Andeer our valley, which is now approaching the Splügen, begins
to close in. The Splügen, however, was not my destination. The aspect
of things in, as we are told, the highest inhabited valley in Europe,
and a glimpse of the life of its inhabitants, had more attraction for
me; and so my route to-day was to be up the Aversthal, debouching,
whenever the time might come for that, at Casaccia at the foot of the
Maloja, on the road from Chievenna to the Engadin. My plan was to
get as far as I conveniently could in the first half of the day, and
to spend the remainder of it in looking at whatever there might be
to see at whatever place I might then have reached. I did not expect
much encouragement in my efforts to push on from my companion. Still
I would not begin by anticipating difficulties and disappointments:
at all events I had yesterday given him very little to do, and plenty
of time to rest; and some of that little to do he had shuffled off by
entrusting my _sac_ to a return carriage, and some of that plenty of
time for rest he had turned to account by sleeping through the greater
part of the afternoon in an empty diligence in the coach-house of the
hotel. At about two miles above Andeer the stream of the Aversthal
falls into that of the Hinter Rhein. Immediately beyond the point
of junction the path for the Aversthal starts from the right bank of
the Hinter Rhein, and takes the left bank of the Averser Bach. There
is no mistaking it, for at first, and for some two or three miles up
the valley, as far as an abandoned smelting-house, it is an old cart
track. After this it becomes a horse path. In some places between the
binonymous hamlet of Inner Ferrera or Canicül and Campsut it has of
late been so damaged as to be for the present available for pedestrians
only. But these good people have so much of the wisdom of the ant and
of the bee in repairing damages, that we may be sure that the road will
soon again be made practicable for horse traffic.
As this is undeservedly a not much frequented way, I will give some
particulars of it. It begins in a pine wood with the Averser Bach,
or Averser Rhein as it is more grandiloquently sometimes styled,
blustering by on your left over its rocky bed in no inconsiderable
volume. After a time you cross to its opposite bank. The stream has
now, in correspondence with the increasing grade of the ascent, become
more rapid and noisy. The rocks, too, over which it tumbles having
become larger--some of them are large tables of rock--give occasion for
several small waterfalls. There are lofty mountains by the side of your
path, and others still loftier are at times visible in the distance.
Sometimes your path lies over the outspread rock-fragments brought
down the mountain side by storm torrents. You see that it would be
bad to be caught here while such work was going on, for you would
have but little chance of keeping your feet against the descending
stream of commingled rocks and water. After this the valley widens
into prairies, upon which are a few _châlets_. This is the village
of Ausser Ferrera. Beyond this the path, still on the right bank,
takes you through a stretch of pine wood, which again terminates in
prairies. This time the expanse is larger; and here is Inner Ferrera,
or Canicül. You now have to recross to the left bank, and to ascend
through a pine wood, which continues as far as Campsut. Along this
part of the way the scene is often grandly hard and rugged. The near
and distant mountains are mighty masses. The iron-faced precipices awe
you. The stream is impatient to get away from them. At about a third
of this stage of the way we had to cross, not much above the stream,
some steep inclines of freshly brought down mountain rubbish, which had
in some places buried, in others carried away, the path. This brought
us down quite to the level of the stream, where its course describes
a curve round the end of a lofty precipitous mountain. We were on the
inner side of the curve. Here nature had given no space for a path,
and so it had to be formed partly by excavation, and partly by the
construction of a narrow wooden roadway supported on king-posts and
struts, just out of the reach of floods. On the opposite side of the
Bach, in the precipitous face of the mountain wall, which formed
the outer side of the curve of the stream here described, was a deep
ravine: to form it the mountain wall had been as it were split in two,
or rent asunder. Through this ravine poured the Starlera Bach. As soon
as we had rounded the curve, being still not many yards distant from
the Starlera ravine and its torrent, we came on a corresponding ravine
and torrent on our side--those of the Val de Lei. We crossed them by a
wooden bridge. Beyond the bridge is a little level space of three or
four yards square. Standing here the scene was singularly impressive.
The only sound was that of the three torrents rushing together. The
only sight that of the three deep, steep, ravines they were rushing
down, each torrent between two lofty precipitous mountains. Three
troubled streams, and six iron-faced lines of mountain precipices, and
the little space of unfathomable blue above: these were all. Had I
been alone, or had there been with me one who possessed an inner sense
capable of being touched by such a scene, I would gladly have loitered
at this point for some little time. The feeling that came over me was
that which the desert engenders--that you have intruded on a scene not
meant for man. There it is stillness, desolateness, absence of life;
here it is mountains closing in around you, and torrents blustering
by, and no place for anything else, that warn you off. The iron-faced
precipices will advance a little closer, the torrents will rise a
little higher, to resent your intrusion. I wished to surrender myself
for a little time to the impressions of the moment, to commune a little
with the _genius loci_. As it was, I was hurried through this home of
the spirit of the Brocken, and still wonder the monster did not show
himself, to make me understand that that was no place for such feeble
creatures as the children of men.
Beyond this point we found that the road had again been carried away.
A straight-sided gully had lately been cut through it to the depth of
about eight feet. Four men were here at work making a cutting for the
road down to the bottom of the newly-formed gully. In such a place
it would have been of no use to refill the excavation, because the
incoherent material used for this purpose would be carried away by the
next rain. They had instead of this sunk the road to the bottom of the
gully on the lower side. Up the perpendicular eight feet of the upper
face, which they had not yet begun to make practicable, we had to climb
by the aid of a few projecting roots. If our hold of the roots, or the
roots’ hold of the soil, had failed--of course there was but slight
chance of either of these possibilities occurring--we should have
tumbled down about sixty feet into the Bach, for as the road was along
the edge of a precipice, a fall from the face of the gully would have
been a fall down the precipice also.
The path now in good repair, and on the descent, continued through pine
woods, and in about an hour conducted us to an open grassy space,
where we crossed the stream to the right bank. Here was the village
of Campsut. We were now at an elevation of 5,000 feet, where nothing
could be grown but grass. As we were entering the village, a little
girl, of about ten years of age, a rosy _brunette_, who was running to
join her friends in the hay-fields, almost came into collision with us.
She was so confounded by this sudden rencontre with strangers, that
for some little time she was unable to answer our questions. When we
released her, she started off again like a wild animal that had been
suddenly disturbed by a more than doubtful apparition. At the further
end of Campsut we got a rare draught of milk. It was presented to us
in a little circular wooden tub with two small handles formed by the
projection of two of the staves. This milk was deliciously fresh and
rich; and as to the little wooden tub, that was so spotlessly clean
that it was a pleasure to look at it. The dame to whom we were indebted
for this draught was above the common height, and, like the little
girl, had remarkably good features, and a ruddy brown complexion. Hard
work, rough weather, long winters, and simple fare, had had as yet
their issue only in health and strength. I tarried over the tub of
delicious milk, not only for its sake. A little talk with such a donor
of such a draught was a pleasant interlude. The order and cleanliness
of everything in the _châlet_ showed that she had such ambition as
Campsut admitted of.
Beyond Campsut a charming bit of smooth turf interspersed with large
rocks, and detached larches, some little height above the brawling
stream, with grand mountains right and left, and still grander
mountains in front, brought us to Crot--a village of a few scattered
_châlets_. You have to descend to the stream. Before you lies the
sombre green, treeless Madriserthal, to be entered after crossing the
stream by a bridge. Our way, however, was not across the stream up the
Madriserthal; so just beyond Crot, having crossed the Bach of our own
valley, we turned away from the Madriserthal, and ascended a steep,
grassy slope on our left. This after a time became rocky, with, among
the rocks, larches and cembras. Having reached the summit of this rise,
with our Bach on our left, we advanced for some way, along the flank
of the mountain, through an ancient open forest, and then crossed the
stream, now in a ravine, by the second of two bridges, about a mile
from Cresta. On the Cresta side of the ravine is no wood: at first
only very rocky alpe, and then, when the village is reached, upland
prairie. At about half a mile from the village we met a chubby little
urchin of about ten years of age, with head and feet bare, clad in
strong thick homespun of hemp and coarse woollen. He came up to us
with an easy self-possessed air, knowing very well what we wanted, and
announced that he was the son of the _Pasteur_, and would conduct us to
his father’s house, which is for travellers the recognized inn of the
place, as he is their recognized host.
It had been part of my Machiavelism for this day to take with us
nothing to eat, in order to ensure our getting at all events as
far as Cresta. The stratagem had been quite successful, for having
stopped nowhere by the way, except for the tub of milk at Campsut, we
reached Cresta at 11.30 A.M. And fortunate it was that we had started
early, the result of the other successful little ruse I have already
mentioned, and had had no delays on the road, for we had not been at
Cresta half-an-hour when it began to rain, the rain being diversified
only with snow for twenty-two hours.
During the afternoon there was no going outside the door. But there was
enough within for an afternoon. First there was the _Pasteur_ himself,
a well-built man of about forty years of age. He wore coloured clothes,
in which it was clear that he did much out o’door work. This, from the
situation of Cresta, must have been restricted to cutting, fetching,
and riving wood for fuel, and making hay. On Sundays, of course, his
working clothes are exchanged for the clerical black and white, with
the portentous collar and bands of the Swiss Reformed Church. He kept
himself no cows, only goats. The goats, however, would require hay, and
he could assist his neighbours, too, in making their hay. Cow’s milk,
I suppose, can always be bought in such a place, where the number of
cows must be great in proportion to that of the villagers. He spoke
German, French, and Romansch, and was a man of observation, thought,
and intelligence. He is also the schoolmaster of the Commune, which is
that of Oberland Aversthal, which reaches from Crot to Juf, a place
some way above Cresta. His pastoral duties, I understood, extended
down the valley below Crot as far as Inner Ferrera, or Canicül. To
these employments must be added, as I have already mentioned, that of
entertaining such travellers as would prefer what he has to offer to
what they would find at the little village inn.
The good man’s wife was not now visible. She had for some months been
suffering from a serious illness, and had not yet seen a medical man;
nor, whatever turn her illness might take, was there much chance of
her seeing one, because it would require two days for one to come
and return, St. Moritz in the Engadin being the nearest point from
which assistance of this kind could be had. Here, therefore, medical
advice and medicines can only be received through the post. The poor
woman’s illness threw much of the work of the house upon him, in which,
however, he was aided by a sturdy Romansch-speaking damsel.
Then there was the view from the window. This, from a height above
the stream of about 500 feet, commanded the valley and the opposite
range. The lower half of this range was covered with the open forest
of cembra, a part of which we had passed through in the forenoon.
Above the forest was Alpine pasture. All along the ridge the line that
divided the forest from the pasture was perfectly straight: nowhere
did the forest encroach on the grass, or the grass on the forest. On
entering the forest above Crot we had seen some larch, but there was
none, I believe, opposite to Cresta, nothing but cembra. Nor were there
any young trees in the forest, though the old ones stood at such a
distance from each other as to give sufficient pasturage for a herd of
cows I could just make out as I stood at the window. I could also make
out with a glass a flock of goats in the forest, and that accounted to
me for the absence of young trees. I had often observed that the goat
cannot kill the young spruce, of which the forests generally consist.
Of course they bite off the new terminals of the leader, and of the
laterals, but not quite to the bottom of the new wood. The terminals,
therefore, of the laterals, though bitten back every year, still gain
an inch or two every year; and as this makes the plant grow into a very
compact and bushy form, the time comes when the goat can no longer
reach over the compact mass of laterals to bite off the terminal of the
leader. That was only to be got at so long as its enemy could reach
over to it. Every year the enemy is forced back a little; and so in a
dozen or twenty years it is no longer able to reach it. The terminal
of the leader then advances in safety, and a tree is quickly formed.
All that has happened is, that it was delayed some years in making
its start. But during this period of delay the roots were spreading
far, and establishing themselves with a good hold of the ground; when,
therefore, the start at last is made, the growth is very rapid. You
may always distinguish the trees that had in their early days been
kept back for a time in this way, for the lower part of their trunks,
the three or four feet nearest the ground, are always crooked. This
indicates how they had been maltreated by the goats. So it is with the
ordinary pine of the Swiss forests. Of the cembras, however, I observed
that they could not escape the goats in this way, or in any way; either
because the bite of these animals is at once destructive to them, or
because having been bitten back they have not the power of forming a
compact bush, and so of rising eventually out of harm’s way. At all
events the goats kill the young trees of this species; and this will
account for so many forests of cembra having died out, or now being
in process of dying out. One would suppose that this cause of their
destruction would be guarded against in these lofty Grison valleys,
some of which are rendered habitable only by the supply of wood
furnished by what remains of ancient forests of this species, which is
the only Swiss conifer that grows at such heights. But in this valley
of Oberland Aversthal there is some peat; its inhabitants, therefore,
are not entirely dependent for fuel on their single forest of cembra
opposite to Cresta. Their dependence, however, upon it for material for
the construction of their houses is complete. When, therefore, their
one forest shall have been consumed they must either take to building
with stone, or abandon the valley as a place of residence.
It was interesting to watch the effects of the snow storms, which
throughout this afternoon alternated with showers of rain, and will
continue to do so till 10 A.M. to-morrow. On our side of the valley,
which, as it faced the south, had been heated by the sun of the
forenoon and of yesterday, the snow never lay on the ground. On the
opposite side every fall of snow completely whitened the Alpine pasture
above the forest, but rarely extended any way down into the forest; and
on the few occasions when it did was very soon gone. When we left the
place the following day all the pasture above the forest was white, but
the turf between the trees was free from snow. Of course the ground
beneath the trees is somewhat warmer than in the open, as every animal
knows when it chooses its night’s resting-place; still the visible
difference between the two suggested the questions of whether there is
not what may be roughly regarded as a line for the snow that falls in
summer, and whether it is this supposed line of summer-falling snow
which defines the upper limit of the forest by preventing above that
limit the germination of seeds or by killing the young plants in the
tender stage of their first growth.
Of course there was a great deal of talk with our host. He was,
naturally enough, glad to have some one to talk to--a feeling which his
guest, as might be supposed, was ready to reciprocate. This was his
second year at Cresta. This year, up to the date of my visit, several
Germans, and two Americans, had stopped for a night at his house, but
not one Englishman. His continuance in his present position depended
in equal degrees on his parishioners’ good pleasure and on his own
choice. The liberty of the two contracting parties was equal. They
could bid him go, if so minded; and he, if so minded, could bid them
look out for another _Pasteur_. Romansch he thought was dying out in
the neighbourhood, being hard pressed by German on the north and to
some extent by Italian on the south. As respects the schools there was
a general leaning towards having German taught in them, on account of
its superior utility for business purposes, even in places where the
religious instruction is still given in Romansch.
The school of Oberland Aversthal is held in his house. A large room
on the ground-floor has been fitted up for this purpose. Considering
how poor the peasants are, I was surprised at the excellence of the
fittings. The room had double windows, and an excellent stove, which
was of such dimensions that I was at a loss to imagine how it could
have ever been brought up the valley. There were good desks and
benches, master’s desk and blackboard. In short, the apparatus was as
good as could be wished. All this is accounted for by remembering that,
though it is provided by the peasants, it is provided for their own
children. Every family in the valley has a strong personal interest
in the school; and this concentration of personal interest upon the
school-room issues in its being the best furnished room in the commune.
And as the minister is the master, we may suppose that the teaching
and tone of the school is correspondingly good. Of course here, as
elsewhere in these parts, the school is open only during the winter
months, which, however, at an altitude of 6,400 feet, that of the
schoolroom--Juf is some hundreds of feet higher--must comprise nine
months of the year.
Off the schoolroom was the guests’ chamber, whose wants had been taken
into account in the construction of the house. In this everything was
brightly clean. It contained two beds, and about a dozen volumes in
German. Behind these two rooms was the hall, or store-room, of the
house. Above the school-room was the sitting-room. On either side of
this was a bed-room. Behind these were some small rooms, in one of
which my porter was berthed.
The Canton had been desirous that a road should be constructed through
the valley to connect either the Upper Engadin, or Casaccia, below the
Maloja, with the Splügen road; and with a view to this the preliminary
surveys had been made. The proposal, however, was so distasteful to the
peasants, that it had been withdrawn for the present. This reminded
one of the opposition that was made to the Great Western Railway by
the authorities of a famous University; an opposition which has left
its mark on the railway map of England, for it diverted the railway
from its intended course, both to the cost of the shareholders and to
the inconvenience of the University. The unlettered ignorance of the
peasants of Oberland Aversthal has come to the same conclusion as did
the learned Doctors of Oxford. They both alike argued, we are no part
of the world; the world is wicked, and will invade us; we are no match
for the world. Fortunately not. The result in the case of Overland
Aversthal will be what it was in the case of the famous University.
The wicked world will in the end have its way, and the opponents of
the wicked world will come to acknowledge that it is not a bad way,
and that they are none the worse for accommodating themselves to it:
in fact, that they are themselves a part of the world, and cannot do
without it.
One little matter I noticed this morning cannot but work in the
direction of opening the eyes of these naturally conservative peasants
to their true interests. Some time after we had entered the valley--it
was at about 7 A.M.--we met a walking postman with a bulky bag on his
back. There was much in that bag. It contained the wants, the hopes,
the schemes, the feelings of Unterland and Oberland Aversthal. At
about the corresponding hour in the evening, as I was looking from the
_Pasteur’s_ window at the aspect of things in the rain, I saw the same
man arrive on his return journey. He had on his back the same bag. In
it he had now brought back the reciprocation of that terrible outside
world to the wants, hopes, schemes, and feelings of the valley. All
this only means that these good people have dealings with, and friends
in, that terrible world, dealings without which they could not possibly
exist, and friends who are very dear to them, and affection for whom
constitutes a large ingredient of their inner life. Every family must
every year sell a cow, and a young bullock or two, and so much cheese,
to buy coffee, and brandy, and scythes, and many other things it
cannot do without; and arrangements for these sales and purchases are
made through the post; and every family may have a relative seeking a
livelihood in the outside world, some far enough off in it, and it does
them good to hear of that relative’s welfare. Well, if it is desirable
that these transactions, and this intelligence, should be facilitated
by the walking postman, would it not be desirable that they should
be still further facilitated by a good road? It would, practically,
enhance the price they would get for their young bullocks, and surplus
cows and cheese, and lessen the price of the coffee, the brandy, the
scythes, and their other necessary purchases. It would, too, increase
the value of every _klafter_ of land in the valley. And it would bring
many travellers into the valley, in catering for whom some money might
be made. Some of them would get a better living, than any of them get
now, by acting as guides and porters. They would see more of the world,
and the world would see more of them; and just as the world would be
the better for knowing something of Aversthal, so would its good people
be the better for knowing something of the world. No one of them would
now wish to go back to the ante-post times. The silent, but inevitable
action of the post will lead on to the road; and then no one will wish
to go back to the ante-road times.
But the above-mentioned bag, full of such beneficent magic, for it was
magic that disclosed to every family what their hearts were yearning
to know, and what their business required, was not on this afternoon
the whole of the walking postman’s load. There was also on his back an
osier basket for our host. He had made preparations for its reception;
but the chubby little fellow, who had conducted us to his father’s
house, was the first to announce its arrival. He and his father were
soon out in the rain, opening it carefully so as not either to injure
the basket, or rudely to shake its contents, I should have said its
inmates, for on raising the lid there were revealed to their delighted
eyes three geese--three live geese. A little enclosure had been got
ready for them, to which they were forthwith transferred, the good man
carrying two, and the chubby little fellow the third. They already had
half-a-dozen chickens: the only ones I saw in the village, or, indeed,
in the valley. This, then, was a great and interesting addition to
the live stock of Oberland Aversthal; though now, on recalling the
conditions of the place, I cannot imagine how they were to be kept
through the winter, or, indeed, how they were to be kept at any time
out of harm’s way: for they needs must sooner or later get down to the
Bach, from which there would not be much chance of their coming back
alive, as they would probably, in their first attempt to navigate it,
be dashed to death against the rocks. But whatever might be the issue
of the experiment, the good opinion of our host I was already disposed
to form was further strengthened on my finding that he was fond of
tending animals. It was, too, an experiment that might, I wish I could
say must, add to the companions and the resources--there is a little
jar in that word resources--of his neighbours, whose lives up here
above the clouds are somewhat wanting in objects of ordinary earthly
interest.
The Romansch-speaking damsel was setting the table for supper at
the time when this new form of animal life arrived at Cresta. The
_Pasteur’s_ half dozen fowls hearing the stir outside came forth from
the shed, in which they had taken refuge from the rain, to see what
it was all about. They were of a small breed, for it costs too much
to keep large fowls in a place where their maize has to be brought
a day’s journey on a man’s back. I chipped off a few crumbs from a
roll that had just been placed on the table--they were detached with
difficulty--and threw them down from the window. The proud little
cock--it was a proceeding we must all many a time have observed--took
a piece up with his beak, but instead of swallowing it--what
self-restraint! summoned his seraglio for the delicious morsels,
depositing before the first arrival the one that was in his beak. That
surely, the thought flashed upon me--for at Cresta one sees things in a
new light--is not instinct; or if it is, then the ordinary definition
of instinct ought to be somewhat enlarged. It is self-denial,
politeness, policy, gratitude, affection. Whether it looks to the past,
or to the future, there is something wonderfully human about it. It
is true that all chanticleers do this; but if they do not understand
now, which is what I do not believe, then their progenitors must have
once understood, so this supposition only removes the fact some steps
back, that under the conditions of their position, that is under the
relations in which they were standing to their seraglios, it was the
right thing to do. The conditions and relations of the position must
have been understood, and what under them was profitable and becoming
must have been seen. Either then, for that is our conclusion, reason
is less mechanical in them, or else more mechanical in ourselves, than
is generally supposed; or, to put it in another way, their reason and
ours are more closely akin than is generally supposed.
But the arrival of the geese by the post carries us back to our
argument that the post is a preparation for the at present much dreaded
road. Will not these good people some day come to see that if it is
advantageous to have a path that admits of the postman bringing to them
three geese in a basket, and other such things, that it would be more
advantageous to have a road that would admit of the diligence post,
or the carrier’s cart, bringing them many other things they want, but
which are beyond the carrying power of the postman? This is a question
we may be sure will occur to them, and be discussed, in their long
winters; and, too, we may be sure that the young people, who will have
been brought up by the minister in the well-appointed school the old
people are maintaining, will upon this subject for the most part be of
a different way of thinking from the old people.
As to the supper, (the preparations for which supplied us with those
crumbs, the grateful, or judicious, appropriation of which made us wish
to improve our knowledge of what we call instinct,) it was the same as
our dinner had been with the addition of butter, and the substitution
of coffee for Valtelline wine. The meat was again the mummy beef with
which I had first become acquainted at Peist. To this was now added
mummy ham. The bread had been baked at Silva Plana in the Engadin,
and was a month old. It was the petrified fossil of bread. No traces
of moisture remained in it, and it was as hard to masticate as it
had been to cut. Those who know what are the habits of Swiss swine
in summer, when kept on the mountains about the _châlets_ where the
cows pass the night, will not be able to bring themselves to touch
pig in any form in Switzerland. As therefore I was obliged to reject
the mummy ham, and had not yet discovered the merits of mummy beef,
I dined on bread and cheese and wine, and supped on bread and cheese
and coffee. Not so, however, the circumnavigator. At dinner I had been
somewhat shocked at the vigour of his appetite, for he left nothing on
the table; and now at supper, seeing that the same process was being
repeated, and knowing how hard those comestibles had been to come at
in this part of the world, and seeing also that the good _Pasteur_
had set before us what he must have supposed would have left a large
margin for discretion, I rose from the table in a way to intimate to my
companion that I thought it time for him to do the same. He would not,
however, take the hint. I, therefore, reminded him that these things
were hard to come by up here, and that I had no doubt but that they
were in consequence used frugally, and wound up my little speech with
the dictum that enough was better than too much. My facts, however,
reflections, and platitudes had no other effect than that of extracting
from my voracious attendant the remark, that he always began to suspect
that he was not all right when he found that he could not feed well. I
could not help retorting, ‘Then just now you must have the satisfaction
of feeling that you are unusually well.’ But this, like what had
preceded it, glanced off from his thick skin, for he continued doggedly
at work, till there was not left on the table a crumb of anything,
of beef, ham, cheese, butter, sugar, or bread, wherefrom to draw any
further sanitary inferences. I now poured out on him the last dregs of
my disgust by telling him that it was fortunate for him that he had
not to live up here, for if so he would have few opportunities through
life for ascertaining the state of his health. It would have had a
pleasant flavour of revenge, if I could have made him pay his own shot
for this supper; but from that he knew that he was safe, because if for
any reason--my reason in this case was the wish to save our host some
trouble--you bid your man take his meals with you, you must of course
pay for both.
Besides his experiment in live stock, the good man was making one
in gardening. He had enclosed a little space, about half-a-dozen
yards square, facing to the south, and had sown in it white beet,
the leaf-stalks of which are eaten, cabbages, turnips, and lettuce.
This was his first summer at Cresta, and so he had lost no time in
endeavouring to ascertain how far the sun could help him in this
matter. But on this, the 8th day of August, the prospect of success was
far from encouraging. The turnips showed no tuberous tendencies, and
had formed each but a few small leaves. The foliage of the cabbages
and lettuces was in much the same condition. The peculiarities of
growth in those plants could still be known to his neighbours only by
what they might have seen in that much dreaded outside world. A little
might be expected from the white-stalked beet; but as there was only a
fortnight more for the continuance of the experiment, and it was even
then snowing, I cannot think that it will be repeated next year. Or if
so, it will not be for the sake of any contributions the little garden
may be expected to make to the _Pasteur’s_ table, but for the sake of
his recollections of the world below to which he once belonged. The
thought, however, crossed my mind that this little garden had been made
not so much as an experiment, but in the hope of pleasing his sick wife
by exhibiting to her its products.
The fact is that nothing can be grown here but grass, for Cresta is
some way beyond the last cembra on its side of the valley; and if one
of these highest-climbing of Swiss conifers could be coaxed into living
on such a spot--I saw a stunted oldish-looking dwarf of the kind in the
lower part of the village--it would require a century to overtop the
_châlets_. No human food, therefore, can be produced except what is
supplied by the goats and cows. Here everything is transmuted grass. No
tribe of wandering Tartars ever lived so exclusively on their flocks
and herds. Not a potato, not a stem of hemp, can be grown. Nature has
been far more bountiful to the most hard pressed Kirgishes. Their
steppes are a Paradise of fertility and variety compared to Cresta.
Indeed we must go somewhere near the Arctic zone to find a parallel to
its climate; and even that will not do, for Iceland will not give it,
because there a few turnips and potatoes, of the size of walnuts, may
be grown. For what we are in search of we must go beyond Iceland, and
enter the arctic circle, and perhaps at last the latitude that presents
an equivalent to its altitude may be found in Lapland.
What a life does this imply! What a weary winter! What dreary
confinement to the small comfortless house, with the snow piled up
to the windows of the first floor, month after month! How must the
returning warmth of the sun, and the first glimpses of the green grass
be hailed! How must every hour of the few days of their little summer
be prized! In that brief space they have to provision the garrison of
each home for the ensuing nine months. Their chief care is for their
hay, the one store upon which ultimately the lives of all, both man and
beast, depend. We may be sure they do not lose an hour of daylight. It
is fortunate they cannot cut their grass by moonlight. If they could,
there would be some probability of their working themselves to death.
They could not cut it by moonlight, because, though thick enough on
the ground, much of it is only a few inches long--not longer than what
I have often seen the mowers leaving behind them in English meadows.
You see no waste of that kind here, for these careful people mow very
smooth, and very near the ground. And then they know that their few
days of possible summer are always more or less abridged by summer
snow-storms. How then must they be rejoiced in their hearts when two or
three bright, breezy days come together, and enable them to get up what
had been previously cut! How heavily are they weighted in the race they
have to run for their lives against time!
Where the cow, a little aided by the goat, is the one great means
of support, the humblest family cannot exist with less than five or
six. They ought, indeed, to have not less than seven. Milk and cheese
are their mainstay, with on high days and holidays a shred or two of
mummy beef, or pork. Everything else they eat, or drink, or that they
clothe themselves with, or use in any way, must come indirectly from
the same source; that is to say, every family must every year sell one
cow (the price last year was twenty napoleons), and a young bullock
or two, and what cheese they can spare, to purchase with the proceeds
rye or maize flour, potatoes, brandy, coffee, hemp, wool, tools, and
whatever else they may require. Even the few pigs they keep can be
turned to some account only by the aid of the cow. No kind of grain,
or of roots, can be had for this purpose. When summer, therefore, has
come, piggy must follow the cow up into the high pasture, where the
cheese is to be made. The whey, that will be expressed from the curd,
will be his share. Upon this he will thrive moderately. When he will
descend from the mountains with some little weight of flesh upon him,
he will be taking his last walk. He is about to pass into the mummy
condition. But how will those that are to be retained for stock be kept
during the winter? For several months there will be nothing for them
to graze upon, and not one mouthful of anything convertible into human
food will be available for them. Every pedestrian in Switzerland will
have observed in front of the mountain cheese _châlets_, where the
cows have for generations passed their summer nights, and often, too,
by the side of the cow-houses in the villages, beds of a large-leafed
Alpine dock. Where the accumulations of centuries from the cows have
made the soil too fat and greasy for grass, this plant luxuriates. It
delights in rankness. It also affects moist places, as does in this
country its congener, the water dock. The leaves, and leaf-stalks of
this dock, these careful people collect in summer, and having scalded
them, seasoned with a sprinkling of salt, nettle-tops are sometimes
added, the mess is tubbed or barrelled, for the winter. This is the
pig’s winter food; his sour krout. His daily meal of it is served to
him warm. That the Swiss pigs have to ascend and descend the mountains
together with the cows accounts for their form. They are large-framed,
and clean-limbed; they have a long back, and long, bony legs. If built
at all like our pigs, they would be unable to do their long journeys,
and their climbing. In colour they are generally more or less,
sometimes entirely, of a rusty chesnut.
There had, then, been much to do, and there had not been much time for
doing it. There was the wood for fuel and for repairs that had been
felled in the previous winter, and that had to be brought in before
the hay was made. And there was the turf, too, that had to be stored;
and that also had been dug before the hay was made, that every hour of
sunshine might be utilized for drying it, and for making the hay--the
precious hay, to which everything must be subordinated, for upon it
everything depends. And that, too, after many delays and anxieties,
has at last been won, and is now safe under cover. The whey-fed old
sow, or the full-grown hog in about the condition they would be with
us when put up to fatten, and the old cow now past milk, have returned
home for desiccation. The cows, whose day is not yet done, are being
comfortably housed. The rye and maize flour, the potatoes, the brandy,
the coffee, the hemp and wool for the women to spin and weave, are all
being provided as expeditiously as possible. But time is running these
preparations hard, even if it does not show a-head of them, for the
snow has already fallen so deep that the ground will be no more seen by
the peasants of Ober Aversthal till next year. The long dreadful winter
is again upon them.