AIROLO--VAL BEDRETTO--ALL’ ACQUA--THE CRUINA ALPE--THE CORNO
GLACIER--THE GRIES GLACIER--DOWN TO ULRICHEN--CONCLUSION.
So build we up the being that we are:
Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things,
We shall be wise perforce.--WORDSWORTH.
_August 25._--The _Parisienne’s_ estimate of the services that had been
rendered to me was nine francs: a low estimate if compared with English
charges; still for some even of it I was indebted to the communist,
as I was also for my not being able to get away before six o’clock.
Our destination was All’ Acqua, at the head of the Val Bedretto. As
we left Altanca I found that many of the goats and cows of the place
were suffering from the foot and mouth disease, that has of late years
been very troublesome here among our own herds. It was sad to find
such a calamity lessening the resources--and their cows and goats are
their chief resource--of these hard-working and scantily provided
people. The view, as we began to descend to the valley of the Ticino,
was very grand, as it had been from Lake Ritom down to Altanca--far
grander, indeed, than anything you can see from the valley itself.
Between the village and the valley the path is all the way over very
steep reclaimed grass land. To reclaim it had been the labour of many
generations. The dusty road of the hot valley was a poor exchange for
the Medelserthal, the Uomo, the Piora, the Ritom, and the Altanca of
yesterday. We had not, however, much of it, for we were to leave it
at Airolo. At Airolo, however, I was provokingly detained for half an
hour by my thirsty and lazy attendant, who could not, after a walk of
only an hour and a half in the early morning, pass a wine-shop without
turning into it. The long main street of Airolo was up, just as if it
had been Cheapside, in order that an iron water-main might be laid down
in it, in anticipation of its coming wants, when the railway beneath
the St. Gothard shall be opened.
A troop of artillery passed through the place. They had been out
somewhere near Andermatt for their summer manœuvres. Yesterday at Piora
we had heard the booming of their guns. I thought of them, and of the
national force to which they belonged, in connection with the railway.
Switzerland was strong when it was self-contained, and when a large
part of the country was almost inaccessible. This was what enabled
it to establish its independence. It could support itself, and its
enemies could not get at it. Now, however, it is not self-contained,
for it is very largely dependent on trade and travellers. It can no
longer produce its own food, but must look to trade and travellers for
the means of purchasing a large portion of its daily bread. If, then,
the railways that bring these travellers, and the cotton, the wool,
and the silk its factories work up, and carry to their markets the
manufactured fabrics, and which, too, bring a considerable proportion
of its daily bread, were held by an enemy, the country would be starved
into submission. This might be done in two or three years without
firing many guns, or much fighting. Nor if an enemy should desire to
invade it, would any part of the country be inaccessible. Railways and
roads have opened the whole of it. Either, then, it might be starved
into submission by having its supplies cut off, or the enemy might take
advantage of the means of communication it has already constructed, and
to which it is still adding, to make himself master of its strongholds,
and chief centres of population. Modern Switzerland, therefore, is
now no stronger than any other part of Europe: indeed, not so strong
as many of its more behindhand districts. All the grand appliances of
modern science, wealth, and organization, such as railways, gas-works,
water-works, large factories, extensive commerce, banking facilities,
must in future wars be so many sources of weakness to the weaker
powers, that is to those who are not strong enough to protect the
costly material mechanism of modern civilization. The strength with
which nature had endowed Switzerland under the old condition of things
has under their existing condition been well-nigh completely cancelled.
This may in proportion be applied generally to the whole Continent,
with the single exception of its strongest nation, for the weaker are
now in a degree and manner peculiar to these times at the mercy of
the strongest. This suggests the question, what will be the eventual
result of the developments of science and wealth having made the weaker
nations almost powerless, and the strongest nation almost omnipotent?
It was pleasant on this sunny morning to get out of the stifling heat
of Airolo. Before we could enter the Val Bedretto we had to cross the
Ticino, close to the mouth of the railway tunnel. Here was presented to
us a very busy scene, which showed how much work was doing, and would
have to be done. No sooner had we entered the Val Bedretto than we were
met by a current of crisply fresh air descending it. There is nothing
to a cursory glance particularly striking in this valley. Still it
has its own features; but if I were to attempt to put them into words
the description would appear to be not unlike that of many another
Alpine valley. This, however, would be an injustice; its pathway, its
forests, its villages, its mountains, the rents in its mountains, some
of them very deep, and from the colour of the rock almost of a pure
white, the main valley itself, its laterals, and its broad pebbly
stream, have each and all their own character, and quite enough to
interest and satisfy the mind; at least I have never found a Swiss
valley, and certainly did not find the Val Bedretto, uninteresting;
even though, as it happened, I had to stop for a quarter of an hour at
Fontana, and again for half an hour at Villa for those ever-craved,
and never-satisfying _chopines_ of wine. This annoyance, however,
even if in some degree it amounted to that, was one of very small
dimensions: it was not, for instance, to be compared in respect of any
inconvenience that attended it, with a high wind, or a smart shower,
or even an overclouded sky, or still less with a battered foot. At all
events, all is well that ends well; and so I thought, as early in the
afternoon we reached our day’s halting place at All’ Acqua, though not
at first knowing the good-fortune that was awaiting me there; for I had
now, without the least anticipation that it would be so, heard the last
of those unconscionable _chopines_ of wine.
Here, then, I am in my last little mountain inn. I have now had my last
dinner of macaroni soup, and of crude beef, and am sitting outside
in the bright sun, very pleasant at this height, and am noting the
composition of the scene. The little house stands some hundreds of
feet above the Ticino, on the left bank. The stream, though lost to
sight, is still heard from down below. Beyond it, on the opposite
side, are steep mountains, clothed on their lower flanks with more
or less detached larch, tufts of dwarf alder, and patches of grass,
to the upper limit of the tree line, and then up to the summit with
open grass and rocks. On my side, around me, the foreground is open
pasture strewn with rocks. It is studded with a few large venerable
larch. A small stream threads its way down it to supply the house with
water. This open, rock-strewn pasture rises into a near line of wooded
mountains, with a few patches of grass. These constitute the middle
distance, beyond the immediate foreground. They are backed by another
quite distinct line of mountains, which are the background of this part
of the panorama. The second range is in complete contrast to the first,
for it is much loftier, and steeper, and absolutely naked. Its summits
are in the forms of pyramids, peaks, and cliffs, and grandly dominate
the interposed green range. It is against the sky line. Down the valley
are the snow-patched finials of the St. Gothard group. Up the valley
are dark scantily-turfed slopes, tipped with snow. In that direction
will lie my path to-morrow.
I returned to the house with three Italians, who had come from
Domo d’Ossola by the Falls of the Tosa. Their coloured scarfs,
patent-leather buskins, and the rest to match, were more elaborate, and
more designed for artistic effects, than would have been considered
appropriate for mountain work by any people from the north of the Alps.
But they were engaged in a great undertaking, and this get-up would
magnify it in their friends’, and, too, in their own, eyes. While they
were at dinner the landlord came in to ask me, if I would give up to
them my guide, who in that case would accompany them as their guide and
porter in the afternoon back to Airolo, adding that he would himself,
to-morrow, take my man’s place with me. I was only too happy to hear
the proposal. I declined, however, to have anything to do with the
pecuniary part of the arrangement: that the two men must settle between
themselves. I would pay my man the whole sum for which he had agreed to
go with me across the Pass to Ulrichen, and he must pay the landlord
for taking his place for the day. This would be a gain in more ways
than one to him, for he would be paid by the Italians for returning
with them this evening to Airolo, and I would give him two days’ pay
for returning, whereas he could return from Airolo to Dissentis in one
day easily, having nothing but himself to carry. He would thus get
home two days sooner, get all I had agreed to give him for the longer
time, and what the Italians would give him for a day, having only, _per
contra_, to pay his substitute for one day. At this proposal he burst
into a storm of wrath, and demanded three days’ pay for returning.
This I told him would be contrary to the contract, even had he gone to
Ulrichen. In his rage he denied that there had ever been any contract.
I produced it. He then took his money; and much to my satisfaction, I
saw no more of ‘the most intelligent, and in every respect the best
guide in Dissentis.’
The family of the inn comprised six little bare-footed, bare-headed
children. The eldest could hardly have been more than eight years old;
the youngest was an infant in arms. Their confidence was readily won
by a distribution of ten cent pieces. The infant clutched his piece
as tenaciously, and appreciated it as highly, as the eldest. The
good-natured signora was pleased to find that her little ones were
regarded with some interest, and not as nuisances. I spent half an hour
in the evening in the dairy to witness the economies of the butter, and
of the cheese making. The good man had a sturdy female assistant, with
broader shoulders than his own, who accompanied him to the alpe to milk
the cows and to bring home the milk, which was immediately curded over
the fire, and set for cheese of the Pioresque kind. The milk that had
been set for cream, was now skimmed for butter. The sturdy assistant
churned the cream, while the good man converted the skimmed milk into
meagre cheese. The whey from both the fat and the meagre curd, was set
to the fire a second time, for the production of the second curd. This
is too soft and poor for cheese. In French Switzerland it is called
serré; here it goes by a name which is pronounced muscarp, but written
_mascarpa_. The thin watery whey expressed from this is given to the
pigs, who stand outside, with their snouts thrust in at the door, to
claim their rights. By the time the whey is ready for them it is almost
dark, only just enough light remaining to enable you to see that,
as they silently absorb gallon after gallon of the liquid, they are
‘visibly swelling before your eyes.’ The muscarp is then carried into
the house in a wooden keeler, and the good man, his prolific wife, the
sturdy female attendant, and the six children, the two eldest of whom
had, to the extent of their capacities assisted at the butter and the
cheese making, sit at the table round the tub, and with wooden spoons
address themselves to its contents. I take a spoonful. I had not tasted
curds and whey since I was a boy in the West Indies, where the mess
goes by I suppose the Scotch name of bonnie clabber. To encourage
the family party, for the junket does not quite equal my fancied
recollections, I pronounce it to be good. ‘But,’ quoth the good man,
‘you would not think so, if it were all your supper every evening.’
_August 26._--At 5 A.M. was off with Clemente Forni. It was as fresh
and bright as could be wished for one’s last morning among the
mountains. The way was over short rock-strewn turf, by the side of
the infant Ticino, with near mountains right and left and before me.
Clemente was of the kind of men you take to at once, and who give you
afterwards no reason--I will suppose this of him--for changing your
opinion. Everything around, and within, promised well for a pleasant
day on the Gries glacier, which both last year, and the year before,
I had looked at over the head of the Valais, from the top of the
Grimsel, with a desire for a nearer acquaintance. From what I had
seen of Clemente yesterday he seemed industrious, thoughtful, gentle,
honest, one who had a head, a heart, and a conscience. Indeed, the
stream of his discursive talk, fed from these fountains, never ran dry.
This made him a man whom it was pleasant to walk and to talk with. His
only scheming was how he might by his own hard labour bring up his six
little folk, and as many more as might come. In about an hour and a
half we reached the cheese _châlet_ of the Cruina alpe, in a little
mountain-locked bay, well sheltered from every wind. The sixty-four
cows kept upon it had all been milked, and with but a few exceptions
here and there, were all again lying down, knowing that they should not
be taken for the day to pasture, till the four herdsmen had made the
cheese, and had their own breakfast.
We entered the _châlet_. The milk of the sixty-four cows was being
curded in a gigantic copper caldron, over a clear smokeless cembra
fire. A man of about six-and-thirty, not tall, but broad and bony,
of iron frame and massive muscles, was in charge of the caldron. At
another fire was another of the party, preparing a pot of polenta
made with cream. The other two were lying on thick gray blankets
at the further end of the single room. The polenta was soon ready,
and was carried, in the pot in which it had been made, outside the
_châlet_--there was no room for the party within--and six one-legged
stools set round it for the four herdsmen, my guide, and myself, and
a round-bowled spoon brought out for each of us. We ranged ourselves
on the one-legged stools around the pot. One who hails from the south
of the Tweed will probably prefer polenta made with cream to oatmeal
porridge. When they had finished the polenta, each dipped with a
miniature wooden keeler, which does duty for dish, plate, and basin,
out of a large wooden tub as much muscarp as he would require for
supplementing his first course of polenta. A great deal of muscarp is
made from sixty-four cows, and it is the work of one of the herdsmen
to take this down daily to All’ Acqua, from whence it is sent on upon
another back to Bedretto. The man who takes it down to All’ Acqua
returns with a load of wood. On leaving the party I had some difficulty
in persuading the broad-shouldered, brawny-muscled cheese-maker to
accept a franc for his hospitality.
As we passed through the herd one of the cows that was on her legs
came up to us, and rubbed her head against my guide. ‘That,’ he said,
‘is my cow.’ While she was thus expressing, in her dumb fashion,
her satisfaction at seeing him--there was no hypocrisy in this
recognition--two dun yearling heifers rose from the ground, and coming
up to him, as the cow had done, began to lick his hand. These also,
I needed not to have been told it, were his. Here was irrefragable
evidence of the gentleness of the good man. What a pleasant sight to
the cow was the familiar form and dress! How often had those yearling
heifers eaten from that hand! They had never been cuffed, or kicked, or
sworn at. The wife and children, too, then, had had, and would continue
to have, done for them all that man could do at All’ Acqua; and so
would all who might come in the good man’s way. Who could help liking
and respecting one, for whom his beasts were showing such confiding
regard, or could fail to be reminded of very different scenes he had
witnessed elsewhere? When a horse shrinks from the man who has charge
of it, you need not be told in words how he is in the habit of treating
it. No further evidence is needed. On this occasion I, too, came in for
some share of attention, for a goat that was kept with the herd ran up
to me, and, rubbing her nose on my hand, begged for a pinch of salt.
How gladly would I have complied with her request! Were I ever again to
visit the alpe of Cruina I would not go without a pinch or two of salt.
We were now near the head of the Pass. The grass was beginning to thin
out. The marmots were abroad for their morning feed. As we disturbed
them, they wriggled home with a slow and awkward movement, for their
bodies are long and their legs short; and when they had reached the
door of their runs, so that they could feel somewhat secure, paused
for a moment or two to make out the designs of the intruders. Just
before us was the Corno glacier to which we were approaching, and on
to which a few more steps would take us. We had ascended about 3,000
feet from All’ Acqua, and were now at an elevation of 8,000 feet. ‘The
little sinuous paths of earthly care’ were far below, and around us
were some of ‘the flowers that embellish’ the pedestrian’s way, and
‘the springs that refresh’ him at these heights. One of the former was
a pale sky-blue gentian, a flower that still embellishes memory, as
it did on that day my path, and from one of the latter I had a rare
draught, at the spot where it welled out of the rock a little below the
glacier. And now we are upon the Corno glacier, itself. It has some
peculiarities. First it is in the form of a saddle, or the segment of
a circle, with the glacier for the arc of the segment, the chord being
underground. In a word it is convex. This double inclination is one
peculiarity. Another is found in its _moraine_. As it has no lateral
glaciers to cause medial _moraines_, you would suppose that it would
have two lateral _moraines_, and nothing more. It has, however, nothing
of the kind on either side, but, instead, one large, well compacted,
wall-like _moraine_ some considerable way from the margin. And now we
are struck with another peculiarity. The glacier on the Gries side is
depressed along the middle in the axis of its length. As, then, the
_moraine_ is not on the margin, we should have expected to find it
following the line of greatest central depression, whereas it runs
along the face of one of the inclines midway between the margin and the
line of greatest depression. These, then, are the questions the sight
suggests to us; Why are there not two _moraines_, one on each margin of
the glacier? How comes it that the single _moraine_, which must have
been formed from the mountains above, seeing that it is not on one of
the margins, is not in the line of the central depression? How comes it
to be so compactly and cleanly built along the middle of the descent
of one side towards the central depression? And what has produced this
central depression? Clemente from his knowledge of the locality was
able to answer all these questions, I think, satisfactorily. In winter
the glacier is buried in snow to a great depth. At that season, and in
the spring, the snow-inclines from the two mountains meet not above
the line of longitudinal greatest depression in summer, but exactly
along the line of the _moraine_. Here in winter and spring is the line
of greatest depression. Every rock, therefore, that falls from either
mountain rolls down to this line, and is added to the _moraine_. As a
general rule rocks only fall in winter and spring. This accounts for
their being nowhere except along this line, that is to say for the
strange position of the _moraine_ along the flank of an incline of
ice. In the early spring, when the snow is beginning to melt, and for
some time longer, the _moraine_ continues to be the line of greatest
depression. At this time, therefore, all the surface melting flows
along it through its open pile of stones: this accounts for their
being washed clean and kept open. As the summer advances, and the
sun becomes more vertical, the snow is melted away to some distance
below the _moraine_, and the line of greatest depression is advanced
considerably, along which, as long as there is any surface snow
melting, there is a stream flowing, which, as long as it lasts, aids in
deepening the central depression. This accounts for the summer line of
depression along the middle of the glacier, far below the _moraine_.
This glacier, then, as we said at first, is, when regarded as a whole,
of a convex form; but a transverse section of it on the Gries side,
and taken at a point alongside of the _moraine_ would be concave. Its
position explains its convexity. It descends on the summit of a gentle
ridge, or if you prefer so to state it, is formed on the summit of a
gentle ridge; it naturally, therefore, flows down each side of this
ridge. I have given Clemente’s explanation of the singular position of
the _moraine_, and of the central concavity of the western limb of the
glacier.
Having left the Corno we got upon the Gries by passing along the flank
of the last spur of the mountain to the north of the Corno glacier. At
its extremity, with the Corno on your left, you command a grand view
of the broad expanse of the Gries. To this we now descended. It here
presents a smooth surface, rising to the south-west. We passed the
line of poles, each fixed in a counterpoise of rock to keep it erect,
which mark the horse track across the glacier from the Upper Valais to
Domo d’Ossola. We spent about an hour upon it, walking up it, in the
direction of the lofty, massive, smooth-faced, umber-coloured mountain,
which protrudes through it to the west of the track to Domo d’Ossola.
We then recovered the path to Ulrichen.
One goes on a glacier, or goes to see anything, for the sake of the
thoughts the sight will awaken. This is as much the case with the man
who is unconscious, as with the man who is conscious, of thinking; as
much with the clod as with the philosopher; with the man who sneers at
thought, that is to say all thought but his own, as with the man who
knows that thought is his life, and himself. Now one of the thoughts
that interest the mind as you stand on this mighty mass of ice, and
know that, as you stand upon it, you and it are being invisibly,
imperceptibly, and regularly moved on together, is what moves it? That
the movement of the Gries is for local reasons unusually slow, even for
a glacier, heightens the interest of the question submitted to your
thought. I had at that time a wound on one of my finger-nails, which
had been caused by the bite of a dog two months back. It had originally
been at the root of the nail. But now it had in the course of those two
months advanced almost to the outer edge of the nail, that is to say
it had with the utmost slowness, but also with the utmost regularity,
travelled from the inner to the outer edge, a journey of an inch in
two months. Now what had caused it to move in this way? It was evident
that the whole nail, which appears to be firmly fixed to the finger,
had moved on with it. Day and night the movement had been going on; but
what was it that had been making it move? I suppose the pressure from
behind caused by the growth of new matter. This growth of new matter at
the root of the nail had caused continuous pressure from behind. This
continuous pressure had been propagated throughout the whole extent
of the nail, and so had obliged it to move on. Is not the growth of
the upper snow-field, and the consequent pressure from it, exactly
analogous? Is it not equally continuous? And is it not similarly
propagated throughout the whole glacier? And, too, with the same
result, that is to say is it not this pressure which obliges the whole
mass to move on in the line of least resistance? The wounded point in
the nail marked the rate of advance, just as a rock on the surface of
the glacier might.
We may see an instance of what continuous pressure will do in the case
of a tree growing near an iron fence. They at last come in contact,
and the pressure being from the direction of the tree bends the iron.
The comparatively soft bark is not cut into: it is the iron that gives
way. If the pressure had been in the reverse direction, that is from
the iron, the tree would have been cut into. So with the root of a tree
in an old wall. The pressure being continuous from the root cracks
the wall, though the root is soft and the wall hard. Some ilexes,
which a few years back I saw growing on the ruins of the Palace of the
Cæsars on the Palatine, supplied good instances of the effect of this
continuous action of soft on hard substances. Their roots had rent and
lifted large masses of what had previously been solid blocks of the
firmest masonry, that had stood uninjured through so long a series of
centuries, and, had it not been for these roots, would still have been
solid and unmoved. So also with the expansion of water when freezing
in the cranny of a rock, the expansion of the soft material burst the
hard one. The propagation then of continuous pressure throughout the
mass of the Gries glacier, although it is four miles long, and one mile
broad, and no one can say how thick, may possibly be sufficient to
account for its being moved on in the line of least resistance. And if
the principle be correct may it not be applied to glaciers of twenty
times the magnitude of the Gries? that is to say to all glaciers? In
the instances referred to, the formation of new matter at the root of
the nail, and of new wood upon the trunk and on the root of a tree, the
pressure comes from what is soft, and is applied effectually to what is
hard: so may it be with the action of the snow-field on the glacier.
We left the Gries by the same mountain by which we had reached it, with
the difference that we now, instead of traversing its southern, had
to descend its northern side. First, however, we had to ascend for a
few hundred yards. When you have reached the highest point of the path,
you look upon a large expanse of the Bernese Oberland. You may find
among the Alps many views that are more extensive, and many that in
some one feature, or other, are more striking than this. What, however,
is before you from this point is in a very high degree impressive. It
is a wondrous scene of Alpine architecture, simple in its elements,
but grand in its simplicity. To your left is one of the exits of the
Gries. The branch glacier in it terminates abruptly, not after a gentle
declivity, such as that of the body of the glacier, but in the mid
descent of a precipitous outfall. The previously smooth surface is
here ruptured with many deep, yawning, transverse seams. Beyond the
glacier--to you its further boundary--is a mountain so steep that you
may suppose, and perhaps rightly, that no human foot could ascend it.
This glacier gorge at your side is a lateral of the transverse valley
below you, a valley of enormous depth, scantily clad with humble Alpine
pasturage. You can just make out the herd that is grazing in it. On
looking over the long steep-sided mountain which forms its opposite
range, at the foot of which the cows are grazing, the south-eastern
region of the Bernese Oberland is spread out before you. It is at
that distance at which the field of vision may comprise many objects,
but every object is still seen distinctly. In this wide, verdureless
field, there is no suggestion of life. The midday sun, which is shining
brightly upon it, brings out nothing but the gray of the summits of
rock, which, when not in the shade, show of a pale ash colour, and the
white of the summits of snow, which gleams and dazzles in its purity.
This dark gray, pale ash, and gleamy white are the only colouring. The
gray and pale ash predominate in an endless variety of forms--mountain
walls, ridges, battlements, bastions, and escarpments. Every here and
there above these is a dome, or a tower, or a pinnacle of gleaming
white, just as the domes, and towers, and pinnacles of a great city
rise above its other buildings. This is a city of the world’s Builder
in which every building is an Alp.
You continue your descent, and soon lose this grand view. But the
mountain side, down which your way lies, is grander than usual, longer,
and steeper. Your path takes you by intrusive dykes of gneiss and of
a black basaltic-looking rock. We here overtook two professors, a
botanist with his cases, and an entomologist with his net. They had
been beaten by the ascent, and were retracing their steps, fagged,
crestfallen, and disappointed. They had our sympathy for their
pursuits, and our condolence for their disappointment. Poor fellows!
they had just made the painful discovery--may it not have been made too
late--that in their mode of life there had been too much desk work,
and not enough field work. When human physiology shall be better
understood these sad mistakes will not be so frequent. You have now
got down into the valley. You look up at the mountain you have been
descending. Its height, its steepness, its mass, its ruggedness, its
hardness, its inexorableness are so overpowering that your eye shrinks
from the effort to aid you in constructing an image of it. At the foot
of that high, overhanging, cloud-cleaving upheaval of adamant, you feel
very small, very feeble; to your present apprehension your bones are no
more than straws, if so much. For a time you allow these impressions
of the locality to run their course. Your way is then along the deep
valley. As you advance down it you give more heed than usual to the
hurrying dashing stream, and you note with more observance than usual
the reappearance of the first trees, and of the first _châlets_, and
even the form and size of the detached rocks, for the thought is in
your mind that these sounds and sights are being presented to you, for
this year at all events, now for the last time. And so about midday you
reach the little flat of Ulrichen, and your Month is ended. Your walk
will have taken you over between 300 and 400 miles, comprising more
than a dozen Passes of one kind or another; and you will have seen much
of nature and of man to awaken thought, and to interest you. Every day
will have been worth living, and not least so the last. But whatever
your capacity for being benefited, or interested, by what you may have
seen, you will be but slightly, if at all, indebted for it to that
eight-parts-of-speech lore, the study of which, though it formed the
chief occupation of all the days of our blessed youth, did not issue in
enabling all of us to know so much, or so little, as the names of those
eight parts of speech.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XIII.
_SOME REMARKS ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS OF OUR POOR LAW IN CONNEXION
WITH PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP._
I relegate this note to the end of the volume, because its introduction
into the body of the work would have been too great an interruption of
the continuity of the narrative.
A little comparative history may add to the interest of the picture
which the Prätigäu presents. In that valley, as in many others in
Switzerland, the peasants are ready to give so high a price for an acre
of land that large properties have become impossible; that is to say,
there cannot be, as the general rule, any proprietors in localities so
circumstanced excepting peasants. In England, however, where an acre
of agricultural land does not sell for more than, or for as much as,
half of what an acre sells for in these valleys, there are no peasant
proprietors. Here, notwithstanding the cheapness of land, it is the
small properties that have become impossible, and the general rule
is that there can be none but large proprietors. The difference is
diametrical. Can it in any way be accounted for?
The question suggested to us is, How has it come about that, while
the peasant proprietors have extinguished the large proprietors in
the Prätigäu, the large proprietors have extinguished the peasant
proprietors in England? As respects the case of the former there can
be no difficulty in seeing that, if the peasant cultivators will give
more for land than those who would buy for investment could afford to
give, then those who would buy for investment must disappear from the
market, and that already existing large properties will gradually melt
away under the action of this solvent. As respects ourselves the answer
usually given is that the land in this country is too dear for peasant
proprietors. This supposition, however, as I have just noticed, is the
very reverse of the fact. In Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, and
in parts of Germany and of Italy peasant proprietors give a great deal
more for land than it would cost them in England. It may, therefore,
be true that in England the cheapness of land has been one of the
conditions that has contributed to the formation of large estates; but
it is quite impossible to maintain that in this country the dearness of
agricultural land has extinguished the class of peasant proprietors,
because here the price of land, so far from being an obstacle to the
existence of the class, has presented, and at this moment presents,
quite exceptionally favourable conditions for its maintenance and
increase.
Can any other reason be alleged? In the Chapter to which this note is
appended I have pointed out that the English agricultural labourer
does not possess the knowledge and the habits of thought and life,
which are indispensable in a peasant proprietor. They are indispensable
in him, because they it is that enable him to live as a peasant
proprietor. This, if it be true, must be a serious impediment to the
re-establishment of the class amongst us, but cannot be regarded as the
primary cause of its extinction, because Englishmen were as capable as
other people of this knowledge and of these habits. What was really and
primarily in fault was not the decay of this knowledge and of these
habits, but that which engendered and brought about this decay amongst
us alone of all people.
If, then, the cause is neither in the present price of land here, nor
in any inherent incapacity in Englishmen, that is to say, if it be
neither in the land, nor in the men, where else can we look for it?
There remains no other direction in which we can look but law, and the
interpretation of law. In the Middle Ages we had the peasant class of
those times fully developed here. There were in this country, as was
perhaps the case everywhere then, variations in the possessions and
rights of the class, but still at that time peasant proprietors pretty
generally, if not quite universally, formed the basis of the English
village community. Why did they cease to do so? I think the answer
is that in this country, from a combination of exceptional causes,
legislation and the interpretation of law and custom became adverse
to the maintenance of the class. The exceptional causes were, first,
the strength of the governing class (locally represented by Lords of
manors), which was a consequence of the Norman conquest; and the great
rise in the money value of cheese, hides, and wool, especially the
last, consequent on the influx of silver from the New World during
the sixteenth century, while for the production of these articles the
climate, and for their export the easily traversed surface of the
country, nowhere far from the coast, and numerous excellent harbours
offered pre-eminent advantages. There was, therefore, both a strong
motive for the extinction of peasant properties, and power sufficient
for effecting it. Peasant properties, which everywhere implied rights
of appurtenant common pasturage, made the formation of large runs for
numerous flocks of sheep, or for a large combination of cattle breeding
with arable culture, impossible. They were, therefore, apparently in
the interests of the community, gradually rendered valueless to their
owners, absorbed, and extinguished. This process, though it commenced
at an earlier date, was chiefly carried out in the reign of Elizabeth.
Events in this matter only took the direction and course which might
have been expected.
But it is clear that if the right of the peasant to maintain himself
from the produce of a piece of land which he himself cultivates for
the support of his family is abrogated, he must either cease to
exist, and then the cultivation of the land would be impossible, or
he must be maintained in some other way. For centuries wages, the
alternative method, were not universally, or even generally, sufficient
for this purpose. The operations of agriculture were not at that
time as continuous as they are now; the demand for any amount of
agricultural produce was not as unfailing as it is now; and the farmer
had not access to such stores of capital as exist now. Under these
circumstances the alternative was insufficient. What then was to be
done? How was the existence of the peasant to be maintained? He could
not be allowed the hide of plough land and the common pasturage rights
of his forefathers, for these were obstacles to the formation of sheep
farms, and to large culture; nor could wages be relied on continuously.
The method hit upon showed the inventiveness of the English mind quite
as much as any one of the many institutions and discoveries for which
the world is indebted to the inhabitants of this island. It was to
give to the dispossessed peasantry, who were henceforth to become
agricultural labourers, a claim on the parishes, in which they resided
and laboured, to the amount requisite for the support of themselves and
of their families, when through failure of work or of wages, through
sickness or age, they became incapable of supporting themselves.
Three centuries ago this was the _rationale_ of the English poor
law, and it is so at this day. It was a substitute for peasant
proprietorship, and it aided in utterly extinguishing it. If a little
bit of land is the only means of supporting the life of a family,
the family will, however great the cost in labour, support itself
by this means. But if you make wages, supplemented by a claim on
the produce of the land, an alternative means; and at the same time
bring into play causes which shall partly dispose, and partly drive,
the peasantry to accept this alternative; they will accept it, and
peasant proprietorship will cease. This I think is in a few words the
explanation of the unique fact that in this country there is no class
of peasant proprietors. Our legislation favoured the consolidation
and accumulation of large estates. It did not favour the maintenance
of peasant properties: with respect to them its action and pressure
were in the opposite direction; while at the same time it gave the
peasants an alternative means of support. The tendency of events, and
the pressure of circumstances were irresistible; and the whole class
either became disposed, or was driven, to accept the alternative; and
so the class of peasant proprietors was utterly extinguished. Had
circumstances, legislation, and the interpretation the law put on the
rights of the class favoured its maintenance in this country, we should
have had here a peasant class similar to that of Switzerland, France,
Belgium, Germany, Italy, and other countries. The existence here of
exceptional conditions had an exceptional issue.
The extinction of the class has been followed by many large and
important consequences. Of these the most obvious is the difference
between the class that has been introduced as the basis of our social
system, that of agricultural labourers, and the class that was
extinguished, that of peasant proprietors. No greater difference can
exist between men. Peasant proprietors in their industry, tenacity,
and stability have just the qualities which might have fitted them
for constituting an useful element in the foundation of so artificial
and ill-balanced a social fabric as that of England, for as to their
narrowness of view, their chief defect of character, that in so rich
a community would have been of little detriment in any way; and
besides, too, in this country we must compare what their narrowness
would have been with the far greater narrowness of our agricultural
labourers. On the other side agricultural labourers are a very poor
foundation for the social fabric, and most especially in a commercial
and manufacturing community, which already from these sources has a
dangerously numerous _prolétariat_. As a class they are improvident,
thriftless, shiftless, have no sense of self-dependence, and not much
of self-respect, their self-acting effectual education having been that
which results from the teaching of wages, supplemented by a poor law.
The question of peasant proprietorship, as now discussed among
ourselves, is generally restricted to economical considerations. It is
asked, as if this contained the whole question, whether the economical
results of peasant culture are as satisfactory, acre for acre, as those
of large farms? This, though an important part of the question, is not
the whole of it: perhaps it is not the chief part of it. The character
of the basis of our social fabric may be a matter of more consequence
to the nation than even the amount of produce per acre. It will
explain what is contained in this remark, if I say that I suppose that
everybody would think that to admit to our parliamentary constituency
a million voters, whose sentiments and ideas were in the main those
of peasant proprietors, would be a less hazardous operation than to
admit a million pauperized agricultural labourers, who, possibly,
might endeavour to use the franchise for the purpose of securing a
more liberal administration of the poor law. And, practically, there
would be some justification for such an attempt, if made by them, for
the poor law may be regarded historically as the compensation given
to their class for the extinction of commonable rights in the land,
and, together with those commonable rights, of peasant properties; for
it is clear that if those common rights, and the associated peasant
properties, had been retained, there would so far have been no occasion
for a poor law.
It is obvious that the improvidence and misery of our agricultural
labourers have for many generations given us a large supply of labour
for building up our manufacturing and commercial establishments, and
for peopling the New World, and our Australian and other colonies.
The same cause may also have enabled us to maintain our military
force by voluntary enlistment. But as the same amount of land in the
hands of peasant proprietors maintains four or five times as large an
agricultural population as it does when cultivated by hired labourers,
it is quite possible that we might have received even a better supply
from the alternative system. At all events, now, in consequence of a
largely increased demand for men, contemporaneously with an actual
decrease of our relatively small agricultural population, which
under existing circumstances is our chief nursery for recruits for
all purposes, we are beginning to be pressed hard for men. We are
now suffering from a want of men, and would be glad if there were
some element in our agrarian system which made that ingredient of
our population far more considerable than it now is. Another evil
consequence, then, of a mistake made three hundred years ago has begun
to manifest itself.
The price of labour is closely connected with its supply, insomuch that
it may be argued that if a system has hitherto produced an abundant
supply it must also have lowered its cost. It is obvious, however,
to remark that the value of labour depends not so much on the amount
of wages that are paid, as on the amount and character of work that
is done. This is so much the case that it has come to be regarded as
a general rule that holds good all over the world, that labour is
least productive where wages are lowest; and there have been some who
have thought that this might have been said in their proportion of
our agricultural labourers. As a matter of fact, however, wages have
been higher in this than in neighbouring countries. Nor, in estimating
the cost of our labour, would it be allowable to leave out of our
calculation the amount of our poor rate. That has for centuries been
raised for the purpose of supplementing wages, and so is practically
a part of the wages of the labouring class, levied on the owners of
land and houses. By the way, we often hear this limitation of the
incidence of the poor rate complained of; but if our account of the
_rationale_ of the origin and action of the poor law be correct, it
may be questioned whether the incidence of the rate ought not, in
rural districts, to have been restricted entirely to land, because
the motive of the law was to enable large estates to be formed, and
to be cultivated by a poorly paid class of labourers, who for many
generations were by the law tied to the land they cultivated.
Another consequence of the obliteration of the class of peasant
proprietors, which is well worthy of notice on account of its wide
and deep effects, is that it has prevented the price of every acre of
agricultural land in the country from rising beyond half the sum it
would now have reached had this class continued to exist amongst us.
In far poorer countries than England peasants will gladly give for
such land twice as much as is its market price here. If we had this
class here, its members would do the same here. But, as this class
has been eliminated here, those, who in this country purchase land as
an investment for capital, have it all their own way. The class who
would bid twice as much for the land as the capitalist now gets it for
does not exist amongst us. The consequence is that he buys his land
cheap, very cheap indeed. This will be seen, if what he gets for his
money is compared with what other people get for theirs when it is
put into consols. The latter get a little more than 3 per cent. with
some prospect of depreciation of the capital, and with a certainty
in these days of depreciation in the purchasing power of the 3 per
cent. interest. The capitalist, however, who invests in land gets
for the present a little less than 3 per cent., but besides this
immediate percentage he gets the safest of all investments, plus the
most improving in the long run of all investments, plus the social and
political status the possession of land confers, plus several minor
advantages. Investors, therefore, in land in this country have no
reason to complain of the price they give for their land, or of what
they get for their money.
For this they are indebted to the extinction amongst us of the class of
peasant proprietors. Just as the people who buy ships are the people
who want ships for the business they understand and are engaged in,
and the people who buy factories are those who want factories for the
business they understand and are engaged in, and those who buy stock
in trade of any kind are those who understand and are engaged in the
trade for which the stock they purchase is necessary, so those who are
most eager to buy land are those who understand how to get a living
out of the land by the application to it of their own labour. They
are the class, who may be regarded as, _par excellence_, the natural
purchasers of land. This class, however, has in this country been
extinguished. The market, therefore, has been completely cleared for
those who would wish to purchase land as an investment, and they, under
the present condition of things amongst us, are limited to those who
are able to invest largely, or who buy with the view of adding their
purchases to properties that are already large. They, therefore, in
buying land have it all their own way; and this is the reason why they
get their land at a price which yields an immediate return of something
less than 3 per cent., plus many other valuable considerations. If
the peasant proprietor class existed here to such an extent as to
effectually compete with them, they would have to give a price that
would not yield 1¹⁄₂ per cent. for agricultural land. They do, then,
get their land very cheap, which is a result, perhaps one that was not
originally foreseen, of the action during three centuries of our poor
law. The extinction of the class of peasant proprietors has thus very
effectively aided the practice of settling and charging estates in
bringing about the large agglomerations of landed property, together
with all the resultant peculiarities, which distinguish our agrarian
system from that of any other country.
But if those who buy land get it at half its value, those who sell it
get for it only half of what they otherwise would. This suggests the
question whether it would be better for the country that the value of
the agricultural land of the United Kingdom should be doubled? This
may be answered by the question whether it is not better for us to
have land at its present price of say 60_l._ an acre, than it would be
to have it at 30_l._? If 60_l._ is better than 30_l._, then I suppose
120_l._ would be better than 60_l._
The facts and considerations that have been now referred to may
throw some light on a question of which a great deal has been heard
lately--that of what is called tenant rights. It may, of course, be
asked whether the progress of time has endowed tenants with any new
rights? How can the tenants of to-day have rights of which the tenants
of yesterday had no conception? Or, to speak broadly, can a tenant,
as a tenant, have any right except that of entering into a contract
with a landowner, and of invoking the law for the enforcement of the
provisions of his contract? But if it were answered that time can
give him no new rights, and that he can have no rights but those for
which he contracts, still what is really meant by the question would
not be settled. By a process of legislation the land of the country
having been formed into estates of such dimensions that their owners
cannot possibly cultivate them, and small proprietors having been
extinguished, the tenants are now presented to us as the only producers
of food for the community. Under these circumstances the question
arises whether it would not be for the advantage of the community
that the position of the tenants should be so improved as to lead to
their investing more money than they can at present with safety in the
cultivation of the soil, that is to say to their producing a great deal
more food for the community? This improvement in the tenants’ position
can be conceded only at the cost of the existing legal rights of the
landowners, and can be refused only at the cost of the imprescriptible
natural rights of the community; for of such a character is the right
of the community to the greatest amount of food the soil of the country
can be made to yield. This is in a sense the highest of all rights, for
it is the right of a community to existence. It was in the name, and
for the sake, of this right that under the conditions of past times
the rights of individual proprietorship, which were not primeval, were
first conceded. They had become necessary for the cultivation of the
soil, and, therefore, were allowed to be established at the expense
of the previously existing common rights. In this view tenant rights
are not rights which the tenants can claim in law, but rights which it
may be supposed belong to the community, and the concession of which
to the tenants the community may demand for the general advantage, it
may be even for the general safety. The two years’ notice which the
present Premier is said to regard with favour is precisely a concession
of this kind. It is a curtailment of the rights of the landowners,
to which the tenants can have no legal, or rightful, claim: it is,
however, a concession which, presumably, would promote the advantage
of the public, and which, therefore, public policy may require. If
improvements of this kind in the position of the tenants would increase
the produce of the country by one half, then that addition of a half
to the produce of the country is exactly the weight of the argument
in favour of the concession of tenant rights so called: to endow the
tenants with these rights would add, every year, one hundred million
pounds’ worth of food to the produce of this country, that is to say to
the subsistence of the community.
This list of the consequences of the working for three centuries of our
English poor law might be greatly increased; for instance, the division
of the people it has helped to bring about into a comparatively small
class who are very rich and a very large class who have not, and never
can have, any real property, accounts for the elsewhere unheard of
demands that are made on the charity of the small class, and which
demands are complied with because of their obvious necessity. Again
also the great bulk of the agricultural land of the kingdom being held
in large estates--a result in part of the working of the same law--the
owners of these large estates can afford to spend no inconsiderable
part of the rent of the whole kingdom in London, which to a very
appreciable extent accounts for the vastness of London. The poorness,
and almost meanness of life in our provincial towns are also to be
accounted for by a reference to the same fact. The rent of the land
around these towns is not spent in them, but in London or elsewhere:
at all events the adjacent landowners rarely live in, or contribute
anything towards the embellishment of the life of, these towns. Enough,
however, has been said to show that the endowment and establishment
of pauperism, as an integral part of the British constitution, as
much so as the Crown, or the Peerage, has had very extensive effects.
It could not have been otherwise, for it was the elimination from
the constitution of society, as far as the mass of the people were
concerned, of the old elements of self-dependence and property, and
the substitution in their place of dependence and of public doles.
These were new conditions to which all the arrangements of society in
their endless ramifications had to accommodate and adjust themselves,
and to which the future progress of society had to conform.
The course of events, then, taking the words in their widest sense, is
what has given to the Prätigäu its ten thousand peasant proprietors,
and it is what has extinguished the class amongst ourselves. If the
course of events affecting each of us had been interchanged their
condition might have been witnessed in this country, and our condition
might have been theirs. Whether it be possible in these days, in
the face of emigration, of high wages, of settled estates, of the
demoralization of the agricultural labourer, and of a poor law, to
recover the lost class may well be doubted. But however that may be, it
cannot be good policy to maintain any artificial, that is to say any
legislative, obstacles in the way of the reappearance amongst us of the
class, if that be possible, any more than it can be to maintain any
arrangements that might be having the effect of hindering capital from
being employed on the largest scale, and to the greatest profitable
amount per acre, in increasing the produce of the soil. Food-factories,
of at least 1,000 acres each, appear to be a natural result of the
combination of capital and science now possible. Let us, therefore,
have a clear stage for these. That, however, is no reason why we should
not at the same time have a clear stage for peasant proprietors also.
Let nothing be done with the view of favouring and nursing either one
or the other, but at the same time let nothing be maintained that is
a hindrance to the existence of either. There appears to be no ground
for supposing that our present land-system favours either; it may not,
however, be equally beyond controversy that it is not a hindrance to
both.
INDEX.
Acletta, 26
All’ Acqua, 333
Family of landlord at, 335
Altanca, 323
Alveneu, 59
Andeer, 94
Andermatt, 17
Animals, domestic, at Dissentis, 27
Atmospheric effects in the Upper Engadin, 157
Aversthal, 97-136
Barons, the old, 66, 73, 257, 283
Blue flowers, abundance of, 246
Bormio, 223
Braulio, Val di, 225
Burial, an early, 59
Buying cheap and selling dear, 82
Campsut, 103
Capital, uses and effects of, 75
What it requires, 79
Carpenter, a, of Altanca, 327
Casaccia, 143
Castles, old feudal, 66
Caterpillars, a colony of, 11
Cembra, what destroys forests of, 107
The Livigno candle, 207
Châlet, the first, 271
The smallest, 307
Church-going in winter, 93
Circumnavigator, a Grison, 37, 164
Clemente Forni, 336
Recognised by his cattle, 338
Accounts for the peculiarities of the Corno glacier, 341
Clemgia, 262
Cloud-effects, 275
Coire, 35, 298
Communism, historical, 73
Communist, a, 301
Parting with, 334
Corno glacier, peculiarities of, 341
Cresta, 104-125
Cristallo, M., 232
Cruina alpe, 337
Cruschetta, 262
Davos am Platz, 53
Davos Dörfli, 271
Dentro, V. di, 222
Dinner at Peist, 46
At Juf, 129
At Tauffers, 250
At Schiersch, 286
Dissentis, 25, 300
Earth-pillars, 43
Electric telegraph at Dissentis, 30
Engadin, Upper, 150
Lower, 266
Etruscan, the Septimer an--trade route, 139
Fauna of the Grisons, 127
Ferrera, Inner, 99
Ausser, 100
Flies, correlation of--to properties, 202
Fluela, the, 268
Forcellina, the, 132
Fountain at Dissentis, 29
Frenchman, the only--met, 308
Gadmenthal, 9
Gatherings of men of different epochs, 166
Geese, live--sent by post, 114
Geologic history, 89
Germans in Switzerland, 81, 110
Exceptional, 193
At Santa Maria, 228
At Tarasp, 265
At Coire, 298
Glacier motion, 343
Glaciers, the Stein, 14
Of Upper Engadin, 159
The Roseg, 173
La Pischa, 181
The Morterasch, 185
The Grialetsch, 267
The Corno, 341
The Gries, 343
Glurns, 245
Göschenen, 17
Grass-cutter, a--at Tauffers, 255
Gries glacier, 343
Grison fortune-seekers, 20, 152, 187
Grüsch, 288
Guest, welcome the coming, 65
Gunpowder, unforeseen uses of, 85
Haymaking in the mountains, 311
Hen proposed for supper, 49
High-level road, 42
Hohen Rhätien, 66
Honesty, connexion of--with property, 241
Hypsometry of the Grisons, 177
Impassivity, English, 299
Inference, a comfortable--from excess, 119
Instinct, an--with a human motive, 116
Italian influences at Casaccia, 144
Tourists, 333
Juf, 128
Kirchet, the, 3
Klosters, 274
Kublis, 284
Lakes of the Upper Engadin, 159
Land, efforts to obtain, 5
Reclamation of, 259, 261
Loss of, 262, 291
Lapland in central Europe, 121
Leuthold, Henri, 13, 17
Life, correlation of vegetable--to human, 34
Livigno, 201-220
Inn at, 205
The host at, 207
Festa at, 211
Lapland at, 215
Lunghino, Monte, 161
Maloja, 149
Marmots, 132, 197, 339
Meienthal, 16
Meiringen, 2
Milk, a tub of, 103
Morterasch, the--glacier, 185
Mummy beef, 47, 117, 216, 286, 309, 325, 332
Nature, love of, 169
Natures, sixteen--to feed, 251
Neve, M. della, 221
Nolla, the, 64
Ober Alpe, 21
Ortler, 238, 260, 261
Parisienne, a, 326
Passes, Susten, 15
Oberalp, 23
Strela, 52
Splügen, 98
Forcellina, 133
Septimer, 136
Maloja, 149
La Pischa, 181
Stretta, 199
Foscagno, 222
Stelvio, 232
Cruchetta, 262
Fluela, 268
Davos Kulm, 274
Lukmanier, 301
Uomo, 317
Gries, 346
Pasteur of Cresta, 105
Peasant, sentiment of a, 204
Proprietors, 278-284
Peat, 23
Peist, 45
Perdatsch, 305
Inn at, 307
Pfäffers, 294
Pigs at Cresta, 123
Pines, adaptation of form in, 86
A large, 292
Piora, 317
Pischa, La, 179
Piz Languard, 175
Polenta, 213, 338
Pontresina, 165
High prices at, 189
Poor Law, an alternative to peasant proprietorship, 351
Has substituted agricultural labourers for an independent
peasantry, 355
Has affected the supply of labour, 357
Has kept down the price of agricultural land, 358
Has made our food-producers a tenantry, 361
Other consequences, 362
Legalized hindrances bad, 363
Porter, a circumnavigator, 19
Post in Aversthal, 112
Prätigäu, 277
Prayer, labour is, 97
Property, connexion of--with honesty, 241
Providence, 11
Race against time for life, 125
Ragatz, 297
Rheinthal, Vorder, 33
Across the, 293
Rhine, 24, 26, 307
Riches, the best, 13
Ritom, Lake of, 319
New hotel at, 321
Road, new--in Scanfiggthal, 41
In Davosthal, 58
Proposed in Aversthal, 112
Across the Foscagno, 244
Swiss roads, 305
Rock-eroding power of running water, 3, 88
Romansch, 33, 110
Roseg glacier, 173
Sabbath, a daily, 96
Saints, the island of, 35
Salt-carriers, 316
Santa Maria on Stelvio, 227
On Lukmanier, 315
S. Moritz, 162
Scanfiggthal, 37-50
Schamsthal, 91
Schiersch, 285
Schools, 92
Of Oberland Aversthal, 110
Schyn, the, 61
Selection in human society, 79
Septimer, the, 136
Snow-way for timber, 62
Soup, 49, 250, 309, 326
Spöl, halt on the, 199
Spy, a Prussian, 314
Stein glacier, 14
Stelvio, 233
Strela, 51
Stretta, 199
Sun in summer life in winter, 95
Süs, 266
Susten, 9
Snow, summer, 109, 203, 233
Tarasp, 263
Tarns, mountain, 198, 317
Taufers, 247-261
Telegraph at Dissentis, 31
Telegrams _v._ letters, 65
Thusis, 63
Tourists, future, 167
Trafoi, 237
Chances of, 243
Trees, the first, 269
Ulrichen, 348
Uomo Pass, 317
Urbach, the valley of, 7
Val Avigna, 259
Bedretto, 331
Di Dentro, 222
Del Fain, 183, 198
Medels, 313
Piora, 317
Via Mala, 83
Vulpera, 263
War and material progress, 329
Wasen, 16
Watersheds, 161
Watersmeet, a mountain, 101
Weather, one day’s, 272
Zillis, 92
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AND PARLIAMENT STREET
Transcriber’s Notes
In the list of other books by the author, “arefully pondered” changed
to “carefully pondered” and “Switzer-and” changed to “Switzerland”
Page 172: “MORTERASCH” changed to “MORTERATSCH”
Page 185: “Morterasch glacier” changed to “Morteratsch glacier”
Page 356: “poor aw” changed to “poor law”