We crossed over in a boat to St. Gingolph, a little town opposite to
Vevey, and proceeded on the other side of the lake to Martigny, from
which we could pass over either on foot or by the help of mules to
Mont-Blanc. It was a warm day towards the latter end of August, and the
hills before us drew their clear outline, and the more distant Alps
waved their snowy tops (tinged with golden sunshine) in the
gently-undulating surface of the crystal lake. As we approached the
Savoy side, the mountains in front, which from Vevey look like a huge
battery or flat upright wall, opened into woody recesses, or reared
their crests on high; rich streaks of the most exquisite verdure gleamed
at their feet, and St. Gingolph came distinctly in view, with its
dingy-looking houses and smoking chimneys. It is a small manufacturing
town, full of forges and workshops, and the inn is dirty and
disagreeable. The contrast to Vevey was striking. But this side of the
lake is in the dominions of the King of Sardinia, and cleanliness seems
to be in general the virtue of republics, or of free states. There is an
air of desolation, sluttishness, and indifference, the instant you cross
the water, compared with the neatness, activity, regularity, and
cheerfulness of the Pays de Vaud. We walked out to take a view of the
situation, as soon as we had bespoken our room and a supper. It was a
brilliant sunset; nor do I recollect having ever beheld so majestic and
rich a scene, set off to such advantage. A steep pathway led to a
village embayed between two mountains, whose tops towered into the sky:
conical hills rose to about half their height, covered with green
copses: fields and cottages were seen climbing as it were the sides of
others, with cattle feeding; the huge projecting rocks gave new
combinations and a new aspect to the most picturesque objects; tall
branching trees (ash, or beech, or chesnut) hung from green sloping
banks over the road-side, or dipped their foliage in the transparent
wave below: their bold luxuriant forms threw the rocks and mountains
into finer relief, and elevated them into a higher atmosphere, so that
they seemed trembling (another airy world) over our heads. The lake
shone like a broad golden mirror, reflecting the thousand dyes of the
fleecy purple clouds, while Saint Gingolph, with its clustering
habitations, shewed like a dark pitchy spot by its side; and beyond the
glimmering verge of the Jura (almost hid in its own brightness) hovered
gay wreaths of clouds, fair, lovely, visionary, that seemed not of this
world, but brought from some dream of fancy, treasured up from past
years, emblems of hope, of joy and smiling regret, that had come to
grace a scene so heavenly, and to bid it a last, lingering farewell. No
person can describe the effect; but so in Claude’s landscapes the
evening clouds drink up the rosy light, and sink into soft repose! Every
one who travels into Switzerland should visit this secluded spot, and
witness such a sunset, with the heaven stooping its face into the lake
on one side, and the mountains, rocks, and woods, lifting earth to
heaven on the other. We had no power to leave it or to admire it, till
the evening shades stole in upon us, and drew the dusky veil of twilight
over it.
We had a pleasant walk the next morning along the side of the lake under
the grey cliffs, the green hills and azure sky; now passing under the
open gateway of some dilapidated watch-tower that had in former times
connected the rocky barrier with the water, now watching the sails of a
boat slowly making its way among the trees on the banks of the Rhone,
like butterflies expanding their wings in the breeze, or the snowy
ridges that seemed close to us at Vevey receding farther into a kind of
lofty back-ground as we advanced. The speculation of Bishop Berkeley, or
some other philosopher, that distance is measured by motion and not by
the sight, is verified here at every step. After going on for hours, and
perceiving no alteration in the form or appearance of the object before
you, you begin to be convinced that it is out of ordinary calculation,
or, in the language of the _Fancy_, an ‘ugly customer;’ and our
curiosity once excited, is ready to magnify every circumstance relating
to it to an indefinite extent. The literal impression being discarded as
insufficient, the imagination takes out an unlimited letter of credit
for all that is possible or wonderful, and what the eye sees is
considered thenceforward merely as an imperfect hint, to be amplified
and filled up on a colossal scale by the understanding and rules of
proportion. To say the truth, you also suffer a change, feel like
Lilliputians, and can fancy yourselves transported to a different world,
where the dimensions and relations of things are regulated by some
unknown law. The inn where we stopped at Vionnax is bad. Beyond this
place, the hills at the eastern end of the lake form into an irregular
and stupendous amphitheatre; and you pass through long and apparently
endless vistas of tall flourishing trees, without being conscious of
making much progress. There is a glass-manufactory at Vionnax, which I
did not go to see; others who have more curiosity may. It will be there
(I dare say) next year for those who choose to visit it: I liked neither
its glare nor its heat. The cold icy crags that hang suspended over it
have been there a thousand years, and will be there a thousand years to
come. Short-lived as we are, let us attach ourselves to the immortal,
and scale (assisted by earth’s giant brood) the empyrean of pure
thought! But the English abroad turn out of their way to see every
pettifogging, huckstering object that they could see better at home, and
are as _fussy_ and fidgetty, with their smoke-jacks and mechanical
inventions among the Alps, as if they had brought Manchester and
Sheffield in their pockets! The finest effect along this road is the
view of the bridge as you come near St. Maurice. The mountains on either
side here descend nearly to a point, boldly and abruptly; the river
flows rapidly through the tall arch of the bridge, on one side of which
you see an old fantastic turret, and beyond it the hill called the
Sugar-loaf, rising up in the centre of immense ranges of mountains, and
with fertile and variously-marked plains stretching out in the
intervening space. The landscape painter has only to go there, and make
a picture of it. It is already framed by nature to his hand! I mention
this the more, because that kind of _grouping_ of objects which is
essential to the picturesque, is not always to be found in the most
sublime or even beautiful scenes. Nature (so to speak) uses a larger
canvass than man, and where she is greatest and most prodigal of her
wealth, often neglects that principle of concentration and contrast
which is an indispensable preliminary before she can be translated with
effect into the circumscribed language of art. We supped at Martigny, at
the Hotel de la Poste (formerly a convent), and the next morning
proceeded by the Valley of Trie and the Col de Peaume to Chamouni.
We left the great St. Bernard, and the road by which Buonaparte passed
to Marengo, on our left, and Martigny and the Valley of the Simplon
directly behind us. These last were also soon at an immeasurable depth
below us; but the summits of the mountains that environed us on all
sides, seemed to ascend with us, and to add our elevation to their own.
Crags, of which we could only before discern the jutting tops, gradually
reared their full stature at our side; and icy masses, one by one, came
in sight, emerging from their lofty recesses, like clouds floating in
mid-air. All this while a green valley kept us company by the road-side,
watered with gushing rills, interspersed with cottages and well-stocked
farms: fine elms and ash grew on the sides of the hills, under the shade
of one of which we saw an old peasant asleep. The road, however, was
long, rough, and steep; and from the heat of the sun, and the continual
interruption of loose stones and the straggling roots of trees, I felt
myself exceedingly exhausted. We had a mule, a driver, and a guide. I
was advised, by all means, to lessen the fatigue of the ascent by taking
hold of the _queue of Monsieur le Mulet_, a mode of travelling partaking
as little of the sublime as possible, and to which I reluctantly
acceded. We at last reached the top, and looked down on the Valley of
Trie, bedded in rocks, with a few wooden huts in it, a mountain-stream
traversing it from the _Glacier_ at one end, and with an appearance as
if summer could never gain a footing there, before it would be driven
out by winter. In the midst of this almost inaccessible and desolate
spot, we found a little inn or booth, with refreshments of wine, bread,
and fruit, and a whole drove of English travellers, mounted or on foot.
‘Nor Alps nor Apennines can keep them out,
Nor fortified redoubt!’
As we mounted the steep wood on the other side of the valley, we met
several mules returning, with their drivers only, and looking extremely
picturesque, as they were perched above our heads among the jagged
pine-trees, and cautiously felt their perilous way over the edges of
projecting rocks and stumps of trees, down the zigzag pathway. The view
here is precipitous, extensive, and truly appalling, both from the size
of the objects and their rugged wildness. The smell of the pine-trees,
the clear air, and the golden sunshine gleaming through the dark foliage
refreshed me; and the fatigue from which I had suffered in the morning
completely wore off. I had concluded that when we got to the top of the
wood that hung over our heads, we should have mastered our difficulties;
but they only then began. We emerged into a barren heath or morass of a
most toilsome ascent, lengthening as we advanced, with herds of swine,
sheep, and cattle feeding on it, and a bed of half-melted snow marking
the summit over which we had to pass. We turned aside, half-way up this
dreary wilderness, to stop at a _chalet_, where a boy, who tended the
straggling cattle, was fast asleep in the middle of the day; and being
waked up, procured us a draught of most delicious water from a fountain.
We at length reached the Col de Peaume, and saw Mont Blanc, the King of
Mountains, stretching away to the left, with clouds circling round its
sides, and snows forever resting on its head. It was an image of
immensity and eternity. Earth had heaved it from its bosom; the ‘vast
cerulean’ had touched it with its breath. It was a meeting of earth and
sky. Other peaked cliffs rose perpendicularly by its side, and a range
of rocks, of red granite, fronted it to the north; but Mont-Blanc itself
was round, bald, shining, ample, and equal in its swelling proportions—a
huge dumb heap of matter. The valley below was bare, without an
object—no ornament, no contrast to set it off—it reposed in silence and
in solitude, a world within itself.
‘Retire, the world shut out, thy thoughts call home.’
There is an end here of vanity and littleness, and all transitory
jarring interests. You stand, as it were, in the presence of the Spirit
of the Universe, before the majesty of Nature, with her chief elements
about you; cloud and air, and rock, and stream, and mountain are brought
into immediate contact with primeval Chaos and the great First Cause.
The mind hovers over mysteries deeper than the abysses at our feet; its
speculations soar to a height beyond the visible forms it sees around
it. As we descended the path on foot (for our muleteer was obliged to
return at the barrier between the two states of Savoy and Switzerland
marked by a solitary unhewn stone,) we saw before us the shingled roofs
of a hamlet, situated on a patch of verdure near inaccessible columns of
granite, and could hear the tinkling bells of a number of cattle
pasturing below (an image of patriarchal times!)—we also met one or two
peasants returning home with loads of fern, and still farther down,
found the ripe harvests of wheat and barley growing close up to the feet
of the glaciers (those huge masses of ice arrested in their passage from
the mountains, and collected by a thousand winters,) and the violet and
gilliflower nestling in the cliffs of the hardest rocks. There are four
of these glaciers, that pour their solid floods into the valley, with
rivulets issuing from them into the Arbe. The one next to Chamouni is, I
think, the finest. It faces you like a broad sheet of congealed snow and
water about half-way up the lofty precipice, and then spreads out its
arms on each side into seeming batteries and fortifications of
undistinguishable rock and ice, as though winter had here ‘built a
fortress for itself,’ seated in stern state, and amidst frowning
horrors. As we advanced into the plain, and before it became dusk, we
could discern at a distance the dark wood that skirts the glaciers of
Mont-Blanc, the spire of Chamouni, and the bridges that cross the
stream. We also discovered, a little way on before us, stragglers on
mules, and a cabriolet, that was returning from the valley of Trie, by
taking a more circuitous route. As the day closed in and was followed by
the moonlight, the mountains on our right hung over us like a dark pall,
and the glaciers gleamed like gigantic shrouds opposite. We might have
fancied ourselves inclosed in a vast tomb, but for the sounding
cataracts and the light clouds that flitted over our heads. We arrived
at Chamouni at last, and found the three inns crowded with English. The
entrance to that to which we had been recommended, or rather were
conducted by our guide (the Hotel de Londres,) was besieged by English
loungers, like a bazaar, or an hotel at some fashionable watering-place,
and we were glad to secure a small but comfortable room for the night.
We had an excellent supper, the materials of which we understood came
from Geneva. We proceeded the next morning to Saleges, on our way to
this capital. If the entrance to the valley of Chamouni is grand and
simple, the route from it towards Geneva unites the picturesque to the
sublime in the most remarkable degree. For two or three miles you pass
along under Mont-Blanc, looking up at it with awe and wonder, derived
from a knowledge of its height. The interest, the pleasure you take in
it is from conviction and reflection; but turn a corner in the road at a
homely village and a little bridge, and it shoots up into the sky of its
own accord, like a fantastic vision. Its height is incredible, its
brightness dazzling, and you notice the snow crusted upon its surface
into round hillocks, with pellucid shadows like shining pavilions for
the spirits of the upper regions of the air. Why is the effect so
different from its former desolate and lumpish appearance? Tall rocks
rise from the roadside with dark waving pine-trees shooting from them,
over the highest top of which, as you look up, you see Mont-Blanc; a
ruined tower serves as a foil to the serene smiler in the clouds that
mocks at the defences of art, or the encroachments of time. Another
mountain opposite, part bare, part clothed with wood, intercepts the
view to the left, giving effect to what is seen, and leaving more to the
imagination; and the impetuous torrent roars at your feet, a hundred
fathoms below, with the bright red clusters of the mountain-ash and
loose fragments of rock bending over it, and into which a single step
would precipitate you. One of the mightiest objects in nature is set off
by the most appropriate and striking accidents; and the impression is of
the most romantic and enchanting kind. The scene has an intoxicating
effect; you are relieved from the toil of wishing to admire, and the
imagination is delighted to follow the lead of the senses. We passed
this part of the road in a bright morning, incessantly turning back to
admire, and finding fresh cause of pleasure and wonder at every step or
pause, loth to leave it, and yet urged onward by continual displays of
new and endless beauties. Chamouni seems to lie low enough; but we found
that the river and the road along with it winds and tumbles for miles
over steep banks or sloping ground; and as you revert your eye, you find
that which was a flat converted into a _table-land_; the objects which
were lately beneath you now raised above you, and forming an
intermediate stage between the spot where you are and the more distant
elevations; and the last snow-crowned summits reflected in translucent
pools of water by the roadside, with spots of the brightest azure in
them (denoting mineral springs); the luxuriant branches of the ash,
willow, and acacia waving over them, and the scarlet flowers of the
geranium, or the water-lilies, ‘all silver white,’ stuck like gems in
the girdle of old winter, and offering a sparkling foreground to the
retiring range of icebergs and _avalanches_. This rapid and whirling
descent continued almost to Saleges, about twenty miles from Chamouni.
Here we dined, and proceeded that night to Bonneville, on nearly level
ground; but still with the same character the whole way of a road
winding through the most cultivated and smiling country, full of
pastures, orchards, vineyards, cottages, villas, refreshing streams,
long avenues of trees, and every kind of natural and artificial beauty,
flanked with rocks and precipices (on each side) of the most abrupt and
terrific appearance, and on which, from the beginning of time, the hand
of man has made no impression, except that here and there you see a
patch of verdure, a cottage, a flock of sheep, at a height which the eye
can hardly reach, and which you think no foot could tread. I have seen
no country where I have been more tempted to stop and enjoy myself,
where I thought the inhabitants had more reason to be satisfied, and
where, if you could not find happiness, it seemed in vain to seek
farther for it. You have every kind and degree of enjoyment; the
extremes of luxury and wildness, gigantic sublimity at a distance or
over your head, elegance and comfort at your feet; you may gaze at the
air-drawn Alps, or shut out the prospect by a flowering shrub, or by a
well-clipped hedge, or neatly-wainscoted parlour: and you may vary all
these as you please, ‘with kindliest interchange.’ Perhaps one of these
days I may try the experiment, and turn my back on sea-coal fires, and
old English friends! The inn at Bonneville was dirty, ill-provided, and
as it generally happens in such cases, the people were inattentive, and
the charges high. We were, however, indemnified by the reception we met
with at Geneva, where the living was luxurious, and the expence
comparatively trifling. I shall not dwell on this subject, lest I should
be thought an epicure, though indeed I rather ‘live a man forbid,’ being
forced to deny myself almost all those good things which I recommend to
others. Geneva is, I think, a very neat and picturesque town, not equal
to some others we had seen, but very well for a Calvinistic capital. It
stands on a rising ground, at the end of the lake, with the purple Rhone
running by it, and Mont-Blanc and the Savoy Alps seen on one side, and
the Jura on the other. I was struck with the fine forms of many of the
women here. Though I was pleased with my fare, I was not altogether
delighted with the manners and appearance of the inhabitants. Their
looks may be said to be moulded on the republican maxim, that ‘you are
no better than they,’ and on the natural inference from it, that ‘they
are better than you.’ They pass you with that kind of scrutinizing and
captious air, as if some controversy was depending between you as to the
form of religion or government. I here saw Rousseau’s house, and also
read the _Edinburgh Review_ for May. The next day we passed along in the
Diligence through scenery of exquisite beauty and perfect
cultivation—vineyards and farms, and villas and hamlets of the most
enviable description, succeeding each other in uninterrupted connexion,
by the smooth margin of the silver lake. We saw Lausanne by moonlight.
Its situation, as far as I could judge, and the environs were superb. We
arrived that night at Vevey, after a week’s absence and an exceedingly
delightful tour.