THE RHEINTHAL--PFÄFFERS--RAGATZ--COIRE--DISSENTIS--VAL
MEDELS--PERDATSCH.
He durst upon a truth give doom
He knew no more of than the Pope of Rome.--HUDIBRAS.
_August 22._--Was off at 5 A.M. Just below Grüsch the road passed by a
scene of recent devastation, very similar to what I had seen yesterday
evening just above the town. A late flood of the Lanquart had swept
over some three or four acres of garden ground, from which it had
washed out every particle of soil, leaving behind only a bed of clean
pebbles. Some corners and shreds of potato and corn patches alone
remained to show the passer-by what the poor peasants had lost. One saw
proofs of the efforts they had made to save not only their crops, but
that which was of far more value than the crops of a single season--the
precious land, their only means of living. In the hope of turning the
flood back again into its channel they had constructed a kind of long
_chevaux-de-frise_, first by fastening pieces of timber together at
right angles to each other, each piece being about ten feet long, and
then lashing several of these cross-tied bars, at intervals of about
three feet, to a long pine trunk. These contrivances they had fixed
at points they wished to protect. Faggots had then been laid athwart
the three-feet interstices, in order that the pebbles and rubbish the
flood would bring down might be piled against them. Of course these
fortifications had not been set at right angles to the line of the
flood, but slightly inclined down it, so that when it impinged upon
them, the line of least resistance to the impinging flood would be in
the direction that would take it back to the main channel. I suppose
the plan had been to some extent successful, for the land behind the
second line had been mostly saved. I was reminded of Christian Grass’s
remark on a similar scene in the Scarlthal, that for these poor people
to see a torrent sweeping away their land is a far more dreadful
spectacle than to see the flames devouring their houses.
Just beyond this scene of devastation was the stock of pine trunks,
that had last winter been cut in, and brought down from, the forest
above by the men of Grüsch, for their supply, during the coming winter,
of fuel and of timber for house repairs. The size of the trunks is,
if age be taken into account, an indication of the nature of the soil
and of the climate. These gave good evidence in favour of the soil
and climate of the Prätigäu. I measured the butt end of the largest
of them. It was nearly four feet in diameter without the bark. This
must have been a stately tree. I counted, too, the rings of its annual
growth. It had been one of the patriarchs of the forest, for one
hundred and forty had been the number of its years. Four generations
of Grüschers had withheld their hands from converting it into fuel or
money, and a fifth generation were now to have the benefit of their
educated forbearance.
The exit from the Prätigäu is through a grand portal. The precipices
are high and sheer; the Lanquart is rapid, dashing, and dinning; the
road is tortuous. At the last turn of the road, where the precipices
are highest and sheerest, and the Lanquart most rapid, dashing, and
dinning, you suddenly step out on the long and broad expanse, here two
miles wide, of the Rhine valley. The spirit of the scene is changed.
Some of this broad flat is so poor, all vegetable mould having ages ago
been washed out of it, that it will grow only stunted trees, and some
so low and wet that it will grow only reeds and rushes. Should you be
making for Ragatz, as I was, two roads will be before you; one along
the foot of the right-hand mountain range by Malans and Maienfeld,
the other straight across the valley and the Rhine, which is here on
its further side, and then along the foot of the left-hand range. For
a moment I looked on the scene before me, and then went straight on.
The two miles of dead level would be something new, and would give me
some idea of what the Rhine valley is here. The two next miles beyond
the bridge over the Rhine, and on to Ragatz, with the morning sun full
on the road, and against the side of the overhanging mountain, were
memorably warm.
Ragatz commences on this side with a monster hotel. Between a large
orchard, which you reach first, and this hotel is a road which brings
you in three or four hundred yards to the road from the town to the
gorge of Pfäffers, at the very mouth of which Ragatz stands on the
beginning of the level ground. It was still early, and so, without
stopping at Ragatz, I went straight up the gorge. From Ragatz to the
old baths is a distance of two and a half miles, and an ascent of
somewhat more than five hundred feet. The road is good, though it
must have been very costly to construct, and must be so to maintain.
The side on which it is excavated and built is not so precipitous as
the other, which is generally sheer cliff from five to eight hundred
feet high. All the way along, the Tamina is rushing by and tumbling
down before you. You see that it is wearing away its rocky bed; and
you can see no evidence, nor imagine any reason, why you should not
suppose that it was the same stream that in the same manner cut out
the whole of the ravine. If sufficient time be given, it is as easy
to cut out eight hundred feet as eight. The perpendicular face of the
cliff which looks to the east does not at all stand in the way of this
conclusion. Of course the rapidly descending water was disposed to
take a straight line, and even, if diverted from the straight line,
to work back to it as soon as possible. And then it would naturally
cut down its channel perpendicularly, because, as it would be flowing
rapidly, it would keep its cutting tools, the bits of rock and the sand
it was carrying along, at work in the middle of the stream. If you
throw anything into a confined mill-race, you will see that it does not
grate along the sides, but, as it sinks, is forced into the middle, and
swept along the middle, of the stream, there being a pressure on it
from both sides. The natural tendency, therefore, is that the erosion
of a rapid stream would be both straight and perpendicular. You see
this in all the gorges where the water is now, or has at former times
been, flowing rapidly. Only one point remains, Why is the face of
the gorge which looks to the west less perpendicular than that face
which looks to the east? This also may be explained. The afternoon
sun shines with sufficient force on the western-looking cliff to melt
the snow on its summit, and some little way down. As soon as the sun
is withdrawn the water from the melted snow may be recongealed. These
alternations of thawing and freezing are a cause that is at work every
spring to disintegrate the rock on the side that faces west. This
cause is not at work on the side that faces east; that, therefore,
remains perpendicular. The other side, however, which is acted on by
this cause, has receded a little, and become somewhat inclined. Had
there been no frosts, there would have been no weathering of this side,
which would then have remained throughout, with the exception of the
few places where little lateral streams enter the gorge from this side,
as perpendicular as the other side. The rain also being generally on
the west-looking side, helps to bring down the disintegrated rubble,
and dislodged rocks, to the bottom of the gorge, where the Tamina
immediately, if it cannot sweep them away, begins to wear them away.
As to the Baths of Pfäffers, those I mean near the head of the gorge:
while at a second breakfast there at 9.30 I thought the appearance of
the servants did not say much for the salubrity of the place. They
looked fleshless, bloodless, nerveless. But this was no more than you
might expect to see in people who had been living for two or three
months in so damp and deep a hole. The owner of the establishment ought
to change his servants every Saturday night, otherwise they will, or
at all events they ought to, scare away his visitors; their pale and
emaciated faces are so many finger-posts, on which is written the word
dangerous. No breath of air can reach the house. If the stagnation of
the air is what in ordinary valleys produces _goîtres_, what must its
stagnation in this wet gorge be capable of producing? If the exterior
of the house were not frequently rewhite-washed it would, I suppose, be
covered with the lichens and moss, and such like damp growths as you
may see on the wall by its side. It may, however, be argued that the
actual baths must be a prophylactic against rheumatism, because many of
those who have been here a week are still able to walk away.
I spent four hours at Ragatz. It is a loosely put together place,
consisting very much of large hotels in the style of Interlaken. The
interstices, as it is rapidly increasing in population, will probably
soon be filled up. The water of Pfäffers is brought down to the town in
a wooden pipe two and a half miles long. This water and the gorge are
the sources of the prosperity of Ragatz. As to Pfäffers, it is worth
seeing. As to the water it may possibly do no harm to drink it. It
issues from the rock at a temperature of about a hundred degrees. This
appears to be its only peculiarity; at all events it smells and tastes,
we are told, like any other water. No one seemed to know what, if any,
therapeutic ingredients it possesses, or what are the maladies in the
treatment of which it may be held to be efficacious. These, however,
are not the only ways in which it may be regarded. If it can give any
sufferer an excuse for hope, so far well, unless it should prevent
his having recourse at the same time to some other rational treatment
of his ailment. Or if it give an excuse to some for leaving too fast,
or too slow, a home, and to others for withdrawing themselves from
overwork, for a time, that also may be set down to the credit side of
the account.
In the evening I went by rail to Coire. As I passed along the broad
valley of the Rhine, I saw several mountains cut down almost as
perpendicularly as the gorge at Pfäffers. To the thought, though of
course not to the unthinking eye, the valley is more impressive than
the gorge. Here mountains have been planed down by old world glaciers,
and cut through by still existing streams, to such an extent as to form
a valley in places two miles wide. The face of many of the mountains is
still a precipice. In many the precipice at the top has been slanted
back by the weather, and the chips falling to the bottom have continued
the incline in the form of a long _talus_, which still remains only
because in all the centuries that have passed since the chips began to
accumulate, the stream has never been working on that side. These are
grander operations, and they contain more elements of interest to the
thought, than the narrow ravine of Pfäffers.
_August 23._--At Coire I had got back to a point already passed in
my outward course. Among the guests of the hotel, who were taking an
early breakfast to be in time for the early diligence, was a German
of the Hercynian forest type. There was an item in his bill of which
he did not approve. At the sight of this entry his wrath kindled in a
moment. He was not satisfied with assailing the waiters, he must have
the manager before him. The manager came. The grievance was detailed
with much emphasis. Its enormity was dwelt upon. But the manager was
not taken by surprise. He was as firm as a rock, and with a surface as
incapable of being ruffled. Again the Teuton returned to the assault.
Again the manager received it unmoved. How the conflict ended cannot be
recorded, for at this point I left the room.
This German was not more irascible than two of our young compatriots,
their ages might have been between twenty-five and thirty, whom I had
lately met, were impassive. I sat opposite to them at supper. To each
other they had hardly a word to say. Observing this I addressed to them
an occasional remark or two. Their replies, however, were seldom more
than monosyllabic. They were as indisposed to talk to a stranger as
to each other. The next day I sat for several hours in the diligence
with them. During the whole of that time, the least taciturn of the two
only twice uttered a word. Looking at his watch, which was ostensibly
his chief employment, he announced to his companion that it was nine
o’clock. Some time later, while we were changing horses, he looked out
of the window, and announced in tones expressive of interest suddenly
awakened, that a _supplément_ was being got ready. I heard the sound
of his more taciturn companion’s voice but once. A Swiss gentleman,
who was seated opposite to him, endeavoured to direct his attention
to a very celebrated mountain which happened at the moment to be in
sight. ‘Oh!’ was his reply, but it was addressed not so much to the
gentleman who had just spoken to him as to vacancy, ‘oh! we have had
enough of walking.’ Of course exhibitions of this kind are no evidence
of a national inferiority in natural gifts. They do, however, suggest
a suspicion of the inadequacy of our eight-parts-of-speech system of
education. To these two young gentlemen nature may have been not less
bountiful in her gifts, or, if the German observation that nature has
given to Germans industry, but to Englishmen genius, be true, may have
been even more bountiful, than to most men; and if so, then the fault
may not have been so much in them, as in the system to which they had
presumably been sacrificed: possibly they had not been fairly dealt
with. The improbability of any other conclusion arises from this, that
if their state of mind was not natural, and we can hardly regard it as
natural, it must have been produced artificially.
At Dissentis, too, which I reached this day at 1 P.M., I was still on
old ground. My object in stopping here was to get a porter for a walk
by the Lukmanier road, the Uomo Pass, Altanca, and Val Bedretto to the
Gries glacier, with the descent from which into the Rhone Valley at
Ulrichen my excursion would end. As soon as I had reached Dissentis
I requested the manager of the hotel to get me the best guide in
the place, asking him so to interpret best as to give intelligence
a prominent place in his estimate: because what I wanted was not
merely a two-legged pack-horse, but a man with whom it would also
be pleasant to carry on a conversation of four days’ duration. He
knew, he said, exactly what I wanted, and a man who would completely
meet my requirements--a man in every respect good, but in respect of
intelligence exceptionally good. This was promising; so the possessor
of these good qualities was summoned forthwith, and it was agreed that
we should, at 3 P.M., start for Perdatsch, ten and a half miles on the
way to the Lukmanier, which would be enough for an evening walk. The
man’s get-up was elaborate for a guide; and there was a jauntiness in
his manner, and, as it struck me, an expression of wiliness in his
eye, which suggested to me the thought that it would be as well to put
the agreement between us into black and white; and this I accordingly
did. He returned half an hour later than the time fixed for starting.
We had not got clear of the village before he had informed me that he
regarded priests as _canaille_ of the first class. Such was his form
of the superlative of that already vigorous superlative of contempt.
Why, I asked, did he give them this pre-eminent position? Because, he
replied, they did no work at all, and lived better than he did. The
fact was that he did not recognize, because he could not understand,
that there was any kind of work in the world, except manual labour. He
then passed on to the landlords of hotels, the only well-to-do class
he was acquainted with in his own neighbourhood, and included them in
the same category: they too were _canaille_. In their case, however, he
did not add his superlative suffix. The real reason of his dislike to
them appeared to be that they had more capital than himself; for he had
only enough to keep a small shop, while they had enough to keep hotels.
Of course I could only infer that, as I was unfortunately, or rather
heinously, able to pay him for accompanying me, he was regarding me at
that moment in the same light, and referring me to the same class. All
this was soon explained. He had lately returned from Paris, where he
had been at the time of the siege and of the commune; and if he was not
an actually affiliated member of the _Internationale_, he was at all
events in opinions and sympathy a communist of the first class. This
was not quite the kind of man I should have myself chosen; but still
there he was by my side, and must remain there for some days. There
was, therefore, nothing to be done now but to make the best of a bad
bargain. I had at all events an opportunity for studying at leisure the
kind of stuff of which not of course all communists must be, but of
which it is not unlikely that some are, made.
For the first six miles, that is as far as Platta, our way was along
the new road, which is being made from Dissentis by the Lukmanier
to Olivone. It is a grand piece of mountain road-making, as may be
understood from there being eleven tunnels in the first four miles.
This will also indicate the nature of the ravine, which necessitates
such work for the road that traverses it. The stream below the road is
the Mittel Rhein, which at Dissentis joins the Vorder Rhein--the main
headwater of the Rhine. These new roads, of which so many are being
constructed in Switzerland, are, I was told, made at the cost partly
of the respective cantons, and partly of the Confederation. This is as
it should be, for they are not of local advantage only, but are also
indispensable for the general prosperity of the country. Of course
there can be no internal or external exchange of commodities, and no
human circulation either of natives or of foreigners without roads; and
exactly in proportion as roads are multiplied and improved, are these
advantages extended. No people see this more clearly than the Swiss.
These are questions which their practical lives and practical education
enable them to understand readily and thoroughly. They are, therefore,
always adding to, and improving their means of communication. And,
as far as I know, there is not in the country a road for the use of
which a toll is charged: for to their apprehension a toll would be a
contradiction of the very purpose for which the road was made. It was
made to facilitate communication; and the toll by making communication
dearer, has the same effect in discouraging it that needlessly severe
gradients, or unnecessary circuits of many miles, or a shockingly bad
condition of the roadway itself would have. For this reason, that is to
say, because they see distinctly what is the object of having roads,
they make them as well as they can be made, keep them in as good repair
as possible, and make the use of them perfectly free to all.
The scenery is interesting at first in the ravine, and not the less so
afterwards, when you have emerged from the ravine, and have entered
on something more valley-like, with the mountains standing somewhat
back, and with openings in them to allow you some glimpses of snowy
summits. These, however, were matters about which the communist felt no
interest. All that he would here talk about was the profligacy of the
government in making the roads. The local and the general government
were equally culpable, for each raised its funds by taxation. It was
the people who paid for it all. Roads and everything else, were only
excuses for extracting money from them. It was vain to argue that the
roads were made for the people, and were for them a necessity; that
they increased their resources; enabled many to live well who had
lived miserably before; and increased the opportunities and comforts
of all. Probably it was just in this that the sting of the road lay:
because for those who had land it raised the value of their property,
and enlarged the opportunities of innkeepers and such like folk. The
wound this inflicted on the feelings could not be salved by the fact,
that while the road did hurt to no one, it must in their proportion
have benefited even the smallest tradesmen, for it created a demand for
what they had to sell by bringing buyers, while it also enabled them
to get from a distance, and more cheaply than before, the commodities
in which they dealt. Through such helps and facilities many petty
tradesmen had become far more flourishing than they were formerly. Of
course there would have been no objection to this last effect. Had it
stood by itself it would have been approved of. But, then, the movement
had not stopped at this point, but had also benefited innkeepers, and
some other such Tritons; indeed, had made them Tritons, and that was
intolerable.
It was a pleasant walk to Perdatsch. The new road has not yet got
beyond Platta. But there was nothing to regret in this. The new road
was good; but so also was the old paved horseway. This also one was
glad to see: it was rudely constructed of blocks and slabs of gneiss,
long since worn smooth by many centuries of local traffic, and the
passage over them, too, of many armies, which in old times, as we are
told, went and returned this way, during the long period when the
Lukmanier, because it was the easiest, was the most frequented, of
all Alpine Passes. It had been 3.30 when we left Dissentis, and as my
companion had stopped at Platta for twenty minutes for a _chopine_
of wine, the last gleams of daylight were dying away as we reached
Perdatsch. To be still on the tramp at the close of evening gave rise
almost to a new sensation, which, too, was not altogether a pleasant
one; for you seemed to be still at work when all nature was either
going to rest, or counselling rest. The peasants had returned home,
and so had the goats and cows. Those belonging to the little inn had
come down from the mountain, and, having now been milked, were taking
up their berths for the night on the lee side of the _châlet_, and
contiguous rocks. It was the hour, not for walking, but for talking, at
your ease, over what had been seen during the day that was past, and
for forming plans for the day that was coming.
The inn of Perdatsch is well situated. You have lately been passing
several little villages, which had, successively, been becoming
smaller, as the height had increased, and so the means for supporting
life had decreased. And now at the point where the stream from the Val
Cristallina meets that of the Medelser Rhein, and at the foot of M.
Garviel, which rises up before you to divide the V. Cristallina from
the Val Medels, stands the little wood-built structure. Your memory of
what is behind, and the sight of what is in front, suggest to you that
you have now reached the verge of inhabitable altitude. As you approach
Perdatsch, you see that the stream, in the leap it there takes of a
hundred feet, is of considerable volume; and you find it putting in a
claim to be a Rhine, the Mittel, or Medelser, Rhein; on the Splügen
you had met a second Rhine, the Hinter Rhein; on the Julier, a third,
the Oberhalbstein Rhein; in Aversthal a fourth, the Averser Rhein; and
you have seen all these joining a fifth, the Vorder Rhein. Each of the
five by assuming the famous name seems to insist on your remembering
that it bears an important part in the origination of the great river,
or at least is among its first contributories. I believe, however, that
the word in its original signification was not so much the proper name
as the appellative of a stream, or river. The Rhine may have meant
the river, the flowing water. Etymologists will say whether it has
any blood relationship with _rivus_, river, and Rhone, and possibly
Eridanus, which appears to have been the name of a river that emptied
itself into the Baltic, as well as an alias of the Po. But to propound
conjectures without an adequate knowledge of the subject, in etymology
as in other matters, is easy, and in both senses of the word endless.
This inn was about the smallest _châlet_ I ever entered. The following
were its internal arrangements. The entrance door was at the south-east
corner. From the door were two little passages. The one facing the
door led to the room occupied by the landlord and his wife. This room
might have been nine feet wide and a dozen in length. The second
passage turned to the right of the door along the wall. It was about
four feet wide. In this passage came first the cooking stove; the
passage was in fact the kitchen; and then beyond the cooking stove the
door of the reception room. This was about eleven feet square, and so
low that a tall man could not stand erect in it. Opposite the door of
the landlord’s own room, and rising over the door of the house, was
a ladder, by which one ascended to a passage corresponding to that
which formed the kitchen. At the further end of this upper passage
was a miniature bed, which my guide will occupy to-night. Close to
his crib was the door which opened into the guests’ bedroom. This was
the largest room in the house. It contained three beds. Its extent,
however, was only in area, for it was so low that it required some
manœuvring to get into bed, and I could not have attempted to sit up in
bed without knocking my head against the ceiling. This was the whole
structure, which to-night will shelter thirteen mortals. _Absit omen!_
On my arrival I found a solitary Frenchman--the only Frenchman I met
during this expedition--in possession of the little parlour. He had
left Dissentis an hour earlier than I; I had, however, seen him there,
and as we were in the same hotel, and bound for the same place, I had
addressed a few words to him; but he had then appeared to be indisposed
to engage in conversation. I now found him full of conversation, and
a pleasant man to talk with. He told me that he was a member of the
French Alpine Club; that its members had made so few ascents that
he was desirous of doing something, and so that he had come out to
get into training for an ascent of Mount Blanc; but that he did not
contemplate making the attempt till next year. He was a stout and
sturdy but rather short man of about thirty-four years of age. He
carried his knapsack himself.
The usual question now arose, What could we have for supper? In so
small a house, so far from the world, we did not expect to find much.
We, therefore, summoned the landlord, and asked him to give us a
list of everything in the way of eatables and drinkables his house
contained. He had dried beef, and also dried mutton: the latter was
quite a novelty to both of us. His wife could make soup. She could also
fry eggs in butter. He had, too, Piora cheese, not of course actual
Piora, but equally of course quite as good, wine, white bread, and
coffee. He was congratulated on having so many good things, and such a
wife; and requested to place every one of the good things on the table
as soon as his wife could prepare them. The cembra fire was kindled,
and its cooking power got up, as soon as the match was put to it; and
so in about half an hour, there being hardly room on the little table
for all the viands, supper was served. We found there was no reason
why we should desert our old acquaintance, the dried beef, for our
new acquaintance, the dried mutton. The soup was an instance of the
deceptiveness of words. It had no more resemblance to the Tauffers
mess of herbs, spice, and macaroni than chicken broth has to the
ambrosia of terrapin or turtle. It had but two ingredients, and those
were rice and milk; enough of the latter to float the former. It was an
undecided question whether the eggs would not have been better without
the butter. The plain butter and the Pioresque cheese were good. The
white bread was an old world petrifaction. The wine was acid, if not
sour. The coffee was good, as was the milk that accompanied it. On
the whole we were content. Things were far better than we might have
anticipated. We loitered over them; and it was 10 o’clock--a late hour
for such places, and for such work as we were engaged in--before we
went up the ladder, and crept into our cribs.
I had not been long in the house before eight peasants arrived for the
night. They walked into the reception room. We, however, were already
in possession. There was hardly standing space for them all; and it was
evident that there was no space for another table, and benches, for so
many. The landlord and his wife were equal to the occasion; and the
peasants being reasonable people at once recognized the necessities
of the situation, and accepted the alternative the host offered them
till we might retire to bed. They had, too, come to make a night of it,
and would not be disappointed. Besides there was nowhere else to go.
The alternative was that they might have for the present our host’s
and his wife’s bedroom. To this, then, they withdrew, and forthwith
commenced playing at cards and drinking, transferring themselves to the
reception room when we left it. There they remained till 3 o’clock in
the morning; at which hour they quitted the house, to proceed further
up the mountains to make hay. They were Platta men, and the foreman
of the party was the Platta schoolmaster, a tall wiry man, with a
black bushy beard. At times during the night we were woke by their
shouts and laughter, as the fortunes of their game varied. The stakes
they were playing for was the wine they were drinking, for which the
losers had to pay. When disturbed by their merriment, I cannot say that
I was lulled again to sleep--the effect was rather in the opposite
direction--by the rude bluster of the stream, which was tumbling down
its rocky channel not many yards from my head--still I had no wish that
either the merrymakers or the stream were further off.