ALPINE PASTURES
It is to be feared that the reader, whose persistence has availed to
carry him thus far through the adventure of this book, may bring an
accusation against me, on the ground that each form and type of scenery,
as in its turn it has come to be discussed, has been described in
language of too superlative praise, as though it and it alone were
pre-eminent above all other Alpine forms and types. Let me forthwith
confess that the accusation is well founded; for the fact is that,
whether the attention be turned upon peaks of rock or domes of snow,
upon cliffs or aiguilles, upon snow-fields or ice-falls, upon passes,
alps, or valleys, the kind under immediate consideration always seems
the finest, the central type and the most beautiful. We quit the valleys
for the high snows in search of beauty. From the heights we return to
the valleys on the same quest. Everywhere we may find it, and to find it
is all we need ask; for it is like pure gold, whereof no fragment is
intrinsically more precious than another. Each new-found nugget seems
for the moment best of all.
[Illustration: 55. THE CASTLE OF ZAeHRINGEN-KYBURG, THUN.]
Beauty is not the prerogative of any zone or level of the mountains more
than of any other. It is of different kinds in different regions, but
not of different degrees. Some kinds may appeal to one man more than
other kinds, but these in their turn will be preferred by a man of
different disposition, and neither can boast that his taste is superior.
Youthful vigour may find the keen consciousness of beauty most readily
arising after difficulties have been overcome. Age may feel its sense of
beauty deadened by toil. In neither case is the power of appreciation to
be regarded as a test of the quality of the beauty perceived; it is
merely an indication of the character of the person perceiving it.
The normal Alpine climber is more sensitive to the beauty of the high
regions than to the beauty of low levels. Nor is the fact surprising. He
values that which he wins by toil, as is the natural habit of man. Yet
he will by no means deny that there are beauties of the valleys and the
middle regions, though he may freely confess that they appeal to him
less powerfully. But even he, lying upon some high pasture or in the
borders of a wood on some off-day, when the sun shines brightly and the
peaks that he knows and loves look down upon him through a clear
atmosphere, will realise consciously enough the fascination of the
scene. The beauty of the middle region, however, stands in need of no
apology, of no lengthy recommendation, for this is the region which the
ordinary traveller most frequents and specially associates with his
Alpine ramblings. The valleys are the home of the tripper; the alpine
pastures, of the tourist; the snows, of the climber. Each class perhaps
looks down upon the one below, but each is well rewarded and may rest
content with what it receives.
The grassy region between the belt of forest and the snows is known in
Switzerland as the alps or high pastures, and it is from these "alps"
that the great mountain range of Central Europe takes its name. An alp
is essentially a summer grazing ground. It is the locality of cattle and
horses, sheep and goats. A high Alpine village without an alp is an
exceptional place. The normal village needs an alp for its equipment as
much as it needs fields and woodland. The fact that there is an alp for
summer grazing enables the grass lands at lower levels to be used as
hay-fields; thus a supply of winter feed for the cattle is procured. Hay
is also cut on some of the lower alps, but that is an exceptional use.
The easily accessible alps are grazed by cattle. Highest alps whither
cattle cannot go, or where frequent precipices surround the beasts with
danger, are reserved for sheep and goats. Goat-alps are sometimes
islands in the midst of glaciers, as, for instance, those at the foot of
the Breithorn and the Twins along the south side of the main Gorner
Glacier. Oftenest the alps grazed by sheep and goats are high up in the
immediate vicinity of the snow-line, little patches of grass in a
wilderness of rocks, or broken up by precipices. Some great grassy
places at the ordinary cattle-alp level are so isolated by rock-walls
that cattle cannot be taken to them with safety. Large flocks of sheep
will then be found there. Such, for example, is the Muttenalp above
Thierfehd in the Toedi district, which is grazed by some 1500 or 2000
sheep. A single shepherd looks after them, and is almost entirely cut
off from the lower world throughout the long summer months. The alp in
question lies in a hollow of the hills, with terraced slopes rising like
an amphitheatre from a grassy hollow, only accessible from below by a
giddy path. There would be grass enough here for many cattle if the path
could be cheaply improved.
Nothing in the Alps is more lonely and forlorn in aspect than are these
high shepherds' huts. They are always wretchedly built. The lads or men
that occupy them are the poorest of their village and the worst clad. In
an alp where cheese is made there is plenty of work to fill every hour
of the day; but a shepherd who lives aloft and does not have to drive
his flock back to the village every day, finds time hanging heavily on
his hands, and acquires a forlorn expression that matches his attire,
his surroundings, and the miserable weather which so often envelops him.
Those of us who climbed among out-of-the-way parts of the Alps in the
seventies or earlier often had to take shelter for the night in
shepherds' huts, and very uncomfortable they were. But modern climbers
hardly know that such refuges exist.
One such hut I well remember at the head of the Ridnaunthal in
Tirol. Now there are no less than three luxurious climbers' huts built
beside or near the glacier further up. The old shepherd's hut has fallen
to decay. Only a fragment of one of its walls was left when I passed the
place recently. Modern comforts, however, are not all clear gain. To
sleep a night in the old upper Agels alp was not a comfortable
experience, but it had its recompenses. The rough stone-built cabin was
perfectly in harmony of aspect with its surroundings, as a club-hut is
not. Built out of the stones that lay around, its crannies stuffed with
moss, its roof formed of slabs and sods, it seemed a part of the
mountain landscape, a natural growth rather than an artificial
structure. A philosopher, ignorant of the conditions of life there,
might have argued that the hut had been invested with an intentional
protective coloration and form. The hut was hard to find, hard even to
see when you were looking straight that way. It stood in a gorge upon a
sloping grassy shelf, clutching a dark rock-cliff, as though it feared
to slide down and tumble over into the roaring torrent. There was
another dark cliff over against it, and the gorge curved round, so that
you could not see far, either up or down. Everywhere the dark
rock-cliffs shut it in, and only the minimum of sky was visible
overhead, as it were poised on cliffs. There was always a bitter wind
blowing when I was there, and always the river roaring, and its spray
rising to the door of the hut like a wet cloud.
The entry was by a low and narrow door, and there was a tiny window
beside it. A little passage or track led from the door down the room to
the fire at the far end, where cheese was made of goat's milk. On one
side of the passage was a bed of hay, retained by a board. On the other
were some shelves fastened against the wall. The door did not fit, and
the walls were full of holes through which the wind whistled. It was
indeed a wretched shelter; but we slept well enough within it, rolled up
in our wraps. The hospitality of the simple peasant was as hearty, his
welcome as warm, as his means were exiguous. No one sleeps in these
goat-herd huts any more. Climbers have provided better accommodation for
themselves, but in so doing they have lost that intimate touch with the
life of the mountain-dwellers which a former generation learned to
enjoy.
When now we speak of alps, it is the cattle alps that are generally
intended and understood. These cattle alps are of all sizes and
descriptions, large and small, relatively high planted or relatively
low. Some, like Moser's alp above Randa, belong to an individual and
afford grazing only for a few beasts; but most are the property of the
commune and are worked co-operatively for the benefit of all the
cattle-owners who may wish to send their cows aloft to graze. Most alps
are divided into two levels, a lower and a higher. The cattle are driven
to the lower alp for the beginning and end of the summer season, to the
higher for the middle weeks. Every such alp must be supplied with the
necessary buildings for the accommodation of the herdsmen and
cheese-makers, and generally for the cattle also, though in some parts
of Switzerland the cattle are left out in the open throughout the whole
summer season. Pigs are usually kept at a cattle alp to consume the
refuse of the whey. An old woman once told me that pigs are "the fourth
child of milk," the other three being butter, serac, and cheese. What
with the coming and going of the cattle, the pigs, and the herdsmen, the
milking at dawn and eve, and the cheese-making that follows, a cattle
alp is a very busy place. Some are better equipped than others, but in
almost all one finds a shake-down on hay, a fire, and good shelter
against all possible inclemencies of the weather. The immediate
neighbourhood of the huts is liable to be dirty, especially when there
are pigs, and at certain seasons there is a plague of flies in the hot
hours of sunshine. But, as a rule, these discomforts infest only a very
small area, and it is enough to pass beyond that to escape them.
Now that the throng of climbers is so great near the fashionable
centres, cattle alps are unsuited to accommodate them, and club-huts or
even hotels have been built for their service. Yet even now a climber
who quits the beaten track often has an opportunity of spending a night
under the conditions which were universal in the days of the Alpine
explorers. To climb the mountains without associating with the folk
whose lives are passed upon their lower slopes is to lose half the
pleasure of mountaineering, as I shall attempt to prove in the next
chapter. Valley-life is not widely different from life in the plains. It
is the life on the alps that is characteristic of the mountain-dweller.
There the peasant learns sureness of foot. There he grows familiar with
the aspect of the high peaks and the glaciers. There, as the years pass
by, he becomes differentiated from the man of the plains. No one can
really acquire the mountain-spirit who has had no contact with the
people of the alps. That spirit does not reside in the club-huts, one of
which is already in telephonic communication with a Stock Exchange--a
foretaste of what the future will bring to others. The great charm and
recreative power of mountain-wandering arose from the fact that the
climber cut himself off from the life of the Cities of the Plain and
exchanged it for the life of the hillside. He came into communication
with another set of men, with other habits, other ideals. Each year that
passes in the Alps makes that change less considerable and by so much
the less salutary.
[Illustration: 56. CHALETS AND CHURCH. RIEDERALP.]
The crowd of holiday visitors to Switzerland tends to settle in the high
pasture region more than was the habit thirty years ago. Formerly hotels
flourished in the valley-bottoms, in villages or close to them. Now they
are built with ever-increasing frequency upon the alps. The Riffel and
Muerren led the way. Such hotels now exist by dozens, and more are built
every year. Round Zermatt there are smaller or larger inns, about 3000
feet higher than the village, in many directions. But to live in one of
these high hotels is yet to live the normal life of hotel-frequenting
man. The scenery is changed, but not the human medium. It is the
inevitable consequence of Alpine vulgarisation which drives the true
lover of nature and of the freedom of simple life further afield.
To know what the high pastures are really like, what kind of a
foreground they naturally provide for an outlook on the world of
mountains, you must not go to the modern Triftalp inn or the Schwarz
See, but rather to such unspoiled places as the alps of Veglia or of By,
both glorious expanses of wide pasturage, which no crowd as yet has
attempted to invade, or is likely to attempt, thanks to their
situations, remote from the great tripping highways. There you may
obtain simple accommodation for a few fine days, and wander as you
please over the undulating meadows, with no sound to break the stillness
save the rustling of the breeze, the laughter of the waters, and the
musical clang of cow-bells more or less remote.
It would be easy to divide the alps into many classes and to
discourse of their characters from many points of view, but there are
two main kinds of high pastures, differentiated from one another by
their situations, which will naturally occur to every lover of
mountains. One kind covers the floor and lower slopes of some
high-planted valley; the other lies on some open shelf or convex curving
mountain-knee. The first sort is recondite; the other displays itself to
the world and commands extensive views. The impression they produce is
very different. One is wild and gloomy; the other gay and brilliant. One
has to be sought; the other summons you from afar.
[Illustration: 57. EVENING IN ZERMATT. The promenade after dinner--a
scene more reminiscent of Earl's Court than the "heart of the Alpine
world."]
The high grassy valleys are not so common as the knees, nor do I at this
moment recall one of them that is likely to be known by the general run
of my readers, though there are plenty scattered about in all sorts of
corners of the Alpine range. Perhaps the Taesch alp will do for type,
though compared with many it is relatively open and accessible. There
are better examples near the Dent du Midi, which may be more widely
known than I imagine. The ascent to such an alp may lie straight up the
valley, first through the forest, afterwards through glades and grassy
openings, often of singular loveliness. At last you come to the stunted
and scattered outliers of the forest, pathetic trees all crooked and
misformed, bending away from the habitual wind and stretching forth
angular arms after it as it hurries by. When these are left behind, the
open grass-land spreads before and around you, seamed with radiating
paths, that start away as with a most definite intention, but soon
divide and subdivide, leading in fact nowhither.
If it is early in the season and you are ahead of the cattle, the grass
may be relatively tall and the flowers countless in number and variety.
You will wade not ankle-but knee-deep in them, and the air will be
filled with delicious perfume. Then indeed it is good to wander at this
level. It is essentially the level for wandering. You may go as well in
one direction as another. The views are in every direction and from
every place. There are no points to ascend, no goals to reach. Now it is
a fold of the ground, some little hollow with a pool, that attracts the
eye; now it is an outcrop of rock; now some gap ahead filled by a
snow-peak; now some downward vista of forest or valley. Anywhere you may
find entertainment. Anywhere you may be tempted to sit down and gaze
around.
[Illustration: 58. BERN FROM THE NORTH-WEST. Spire of Cathedral against
the dimly seen mountains of the Bernese Oberland.]
The higher you go the shorter becomes the grass, but it is all the
more succulent. As the season advances the flowers fade. But the alp
nevertheless retains its charm. The kind of alp now specially under
consideration, the hollow sequestered high pasture, is often round some
corner, cut off from distant and especially from downward views. Perhaps
a portion of a snowy peak can be seen over a shoulder of the surrounding
foreground. Oftenest even the snows are shut out, and the vision is
limited by enclosing slopes or walls of shattered rock, where snow lies
late in chinks and crannies. Such places have a wild and at first sight
a forbidding aspect. But we grow to appreciate them and find delight in
them as the novelty wears off. They have the dignity, the solemnity of
solitude. Such elements of beauty as they possess are simple. They do
not overwhelm the imagination by imposing shapes, nor astonish and
puzzle it by complexities of colouring. Such places are best seen in
dull weather when distant views are not to be had, and the eye has to
take its pleasure in gazing upon what is near at hand. Then the brown
rocks emerging from the grass and embroidered with lichens have their
chance. In some places, where water habitually trickles over them, they
are quite black and glossy. After all, there is variety enough of colour
to be found about them, if one takes the trouble to look. Moreover, how
much entertainment is to be found in the really intricate modelling of
the grass-covered surfaces. Far different are they from mere low level
fields which long ploughing has invested with a continuous curvature
like that of a _neve_ basin. The grassy alps possess a complex
accidentation of form. They bend and curve with an exhaustless variety.
They burst, as it were like a breaking wave, against the rocks that
perforate the grass. How many shelves and islands grass covers among the
rocks! What picturesque corners it makes! What sheltered nooks! What
attractive camping grounds! What charming sites for picnics, aloof from
the ways of the crowd! In these remote and solitary places it is
charming to while away the hours of an idle day, seeing nothing that has
name or fame, following no track, accomplishing no expedition, no walk
even that can be identified, yet finding everywhere something to look
at, some entertainment for the disencumbered mind.
It is, however, the high and open alps, lying on the slopes or laps
of the great hills, that are the favourite places with visitors of all
sorts. Here the variety is so great, the opportunities of enjoyment are
so many, the possible beauties so multitudinous, that it is almost
impossible to indicate them in a brief space. Who that has climbed much,
or merely wandered much, through Alpine regions has not an exhaustless
store of memories of these open, far-commanding alps? What a variety of
reminiscences arise when the thoughts are turned towards this belt of
the mountains! It forms a stage in the ascent and again in the descent
of every peak and pass; and it is the special arena for the "off-day."
[Illustration: 59. LOOKING DOWN THE VAL FORMAZZA FROM TOSA.]
My own keenest enjoyments of the open alps are associated with two
examples, not, I fear, very widely known--the Fontanella alp above
Valtournanche, and the alp over which one descends from Rutor towards La
Thuille. Both may be described as staged or terraced alps. They lie on a
series of shelves, separated from one another by walls or steep
descents. For aught I know, they may be dull to ascend; but to descend
they are of marvellous beauty. This beauty is greatly enhanced by the
waters that fall in cascades from step to step, and lie in pools, or
race along over the successive flats. The waters and the meadows form
foreground to the loveliest distances. There are undulations and slopes
of green in front; green slopes to right and left; and then the sight
leaps across a blue valley to the opposite woods and upper hillsides
crowned with rocky crests, above which other ridges rise and peaks
appear, till far away soars some snowy giant into the serene sky. In the
descent we must turn this way and that--now facing a waterfall, now
going down some recondite gully, now down some outward-looking slope.
And always, presently, comes the flat meadow on a lower shelf, and the
call to tarry upon it and look back at the waterfall, or sit beside the
torrent, or watch the reflections in a quiet pool. There are several
examples of these lovely staged alps in Ticino, as you go down from the
Basodino towards Bignasco. Wherever you find them they are fascinating.
They always seem greener on the flats than any other alp. Their
picturesqueness has in it an element of the scenic. The arrangement
seems to have been made for effect.
There is another kind of far-commanding open alp, that all
mountaineers must often have enjoyed. It is a long, relatively narrow
slope or level of high pasture that lies horizontally between two cliffs
or rocky belts. Such an alp lies above Zermatt to the south-westward,
along the foot of the Unter Gabelhorn, round which it curves, so that as
you walk along it your direction gradually changes from about south to
west. It begins high up on the flank of the Zermatt valley, and it is
carried round into the valley of Z'mutt, always at the same high level.
There is no lovelier walk in that fine neighbourhood than this; for the
foreground is always a slope dropping away to an invisible cliff at your
feet, so that the eye constantly enjoys a delightful visual leap across
the neighbouring valley to the great pyramid of the Matterhorn, or the
more distant snowy range that ends in Monte Rosa.
[Illustration: 60. IN THE VAL BAVONA. River Bed filled by avalanche.
Basodino in the distance.]
The extent and development of the alpine belt vary greatly, not merely
in different regions, but in different parts of the same region. On
descending some mountains, rocky debris are found to cover a large area
of undulating ground, and then the grass slopes plunge steeply to the
forest, and are quickly traversed. On others the grass reaches high and
undulates slowly down, so that you may be walking over it for hours
before you reach the trees. These lazily sloping alps are most charming
when rightly used and approached, though to the climber, eager to gain
the snowy heights, their extent may seem tedious, especially when they
have to be traversed in the dark.
There are some magnificent alps along the north side of the Rhone
valley above Sierre. The slopes that support them rise rapidly from the
valley with an equal and continuous slant. When those are surmounted
there comes a great area of undulating land which begins amongst the
trees but soon opens out to the sky and stretches far back towards
Wildhorn, Wildstrubel, and the rest. On these great alps there lie many
small lakes, and all the alpine region hereabouts is very diversified,
and filled with foregrounds of all characters and kinds of
picturesqueness--and then what distant views they have to set off, for
across the Rhone valley to the southward is all the splendour and extent
of the Pennine range, with Mischabel or Weisshorn standing out in front
in overpowering magnificence.
Perhaps we shall be held justified in claiming that the views from the
region of the high pastures are their chief charm, rather than the
nearer views upon them. Certain it is that most of the great peaks are
best seen from the alpine level, and that the favourite views of them,
the characteristically memorable and popularly best remembered views,
are from alps. Such is the view of Mont Blanc from the Flegere, of the
Matterhorn from the Riffel alp, of the Weisshorn from the Taesch alp, of
the Mischabelhoerner from above Saas-Fee. The spectator stands high
enough and not too high; he can be near enough at this level and yet not
too near. The mountain still retains its individuality, its existence
separate from its neighbours, and yet can be seen as a whole. A little
nearer and it begins to disclose the details of its structure, whilst
its mass fills a larger area than can be embraced at a glance. A little
further away and the mountain is only beheld as one of several, part of
a larger mass, a component element of another effect.
From the alpine level you look down as well as up. The depth beneath
and the height above may be, or appear to be, approximately equal.
Moreover, the distance to which the sight penetrates, the area over
which it ranges, bears some moderate proportion to the size of the
mountain-masses included in it. In the view from a high peak, visible
distances are so great, the area embraced is so vast, the peaks visible
appear to be so countless, that each of them may shrink into individual
insignificance. It is the multitude of peaks rather than the mass of
any, their abundance rather than the form of any, that causes the
overwhelming impression upon the spectator. But in views from the alpine
level there is a greater simplicity and a no less effective moderation.
The mountains in sight are few, and of them one is sure to be most
prominently placed, one will be central if not unique; and that
mountain, in the typical view from an alp, will be seen from base to
summit, not merely its superstructure of rock and snow, but its wide
foundation also, reaching down into the depths of the valley and
spreading broadly with all needful amplitude.
It is not thus that mountains are beheld from the valleys. As you
traverse the whole Vispthal from Visp to Zermatt, you do indeed behold
the summits of most of the great flanking peaks from successive points
on the valley floor, yet it is only the expert who can recognise them,
or tell which white fragment far aloft is the top of a great mountain
and which are the mere shoulders of lower buttressing ridges. The knees
of the hills hide their breasts and generally also their hoary heads
from the view of one who passes along at their feet. If you would behold
a great mountain as a whole, it is from the knees or the grassy lap of
some other that you must look. Foreshortened foundations are then
withdrawn; each component part of the whole vast structure takes its
proper place and is seen to fulfil its own function. Buttresses stand
forward and widen out below; high valleys can be traced into the heart
of the mass; minor peaks are duly subordinated. The mountain, in fact,
can be seen as a whole. It is thus you behold the Mischabel from the alp
at the base of the Weisshorn or the Fletschhorn; thus the Matterhorn
from the Riffelalp; thus the Jungfrau from Muerren. A true instinct has
selected and made such points of view famous.
[Illustration: 61. IN THE VAL D'AOSTA. The Mont Blanc group of mountains
hidden in clouds.]
We have left ourselves little space to discuss the value of the high
pastures as an element in the mountain landscape, parts of the scene to
be looked at, not positions to gaze from. That their value in this
respect also is very great must be obvious enough, for in most mountain
views the grassy belt fills the largest part. Of course it is not the
most impressive. We look at the mountains, or at some mountain, some
glacier, waterfall, or cliff, and make it the centre of our observation.
As a rule, however, except when we stand in the midst of the snowy
world, the mountain that is centrally gazed at does not occupy so large
a part of the field of view as is filled by the grassy expanse at its
foot. The grassy alp, in fact, generally bears to a mountain the
relation that the background does to a Madonna in a picture. Or we may
say that alp and sky are the fabric on which the mountain is
embroidered.
In many parts of the world the grassy belt is absent from the ranges,
and its loss is greatly felt. Peaks rising out of slopes of debris and
sand have a grandeur of their own, but it is not the normal grandeur of
the Alps. In some other ranges the tree-level leads at once to rocks and
snow. It is the merit of the Alps that a broad belt of delicately
modelled grass-land almost invariably intervenes between forest and
snow. This grassy belt covers the wide substructure of the peaks. Above
it is the realm of frost, of split rock and jagged forms. But as soon as
the grass-level is reached suave outlines and rounded surfaces,
broadening as they descend, take the place of the accidented forms
above. The value of the contrast will be apparent to all. Small and very
correct little models of the Matterhorn in bronze are sold for
letter-weights, in which the culminating pyramid alone is given, planted
on a rectangular stone plinth. They are interesting mementoes. But
compare one of them with a view of the mountain as seen from the
Riffelalp, rising above the long bulging grass-covered slopes that
descend almost to Zermatt, and you will at once realise how important an
element in the general impressiveness of the mountain are those lower
slopes, and that not merely for their form but for their rich
coloration.
The green of the alps is the true key-note of Swiss colour. To it all
the rest are subordinate. By contrast with it, rather than with the
remote transparence of the air-submerged rocks, the snows manifest their
whiteness and the sky its blue. From season to season of the year it
changes its tint, between the shrill green of opening spring and the
amber of autumn. It changes likewise from hour to hour beneath the
varied slanting of the sunshine. How velvet-dark seems the alpine belt
at night when the moon is high! Even in the twilight you cannot tell
that these slopes are grass-covered, till
"Under the opening eye-lids of the morn"
"the high lawns appear." At first the sunshine lies upon them in
patches, like carpets of gold on a rich green floor. The sunlit area
increases as the gold itself changes into green, whilst the dominant
note of colour rises in the scale. Long before mid-day the broad belt
attains its unity of effect, and divides the dark forests and deep
valleys from the radiant heights. Most of us, who delight in mountain
scenery, praise this peak or that, this broken glacier, wide-spreading
snow-field, or intricacy of splintered ridges, forgetting that it is
often the unobtrusive, tenderly modelled alps below, that endow these
high eminences with half their charm. The beauty of a scene depends upon
the harmony of all its parts. It is well sometimes to fix attention on
those that seldom insist upon it for themselves.
NOTE TO PAGE 229.--Mr. Coolidge informs me that the Muttenalp
belongs, not to the Thierfehd, but to Brigels in the Grisons,
and is reached over the Kisten Pass. That is why the path down
to the Linththal is so bad.