Part 4

To render the first impression of the Cirque or _oule_ more impressive, a small projecting wall of rock marks the entry to the gigantic amphitheatre. This passed, the end of the world seems gained: a vast semicircle of rocks rises precipitously to the height of between 1000 and 2000 feet. These gigantic walls are divided into three or four steps or ledges, on each of which rests a glacier, from which stream cascades. That to the left is 1266 feet high, and bears the reputation of being the highest waterfall in Europe. The summit of this wondrous amphitheatre is crowned by everlasting ice and snow, resting on the crests of the Cylindre, so called from its shape, and 10,500 feet high. The base of this fine mountain is embedded in a huge glacier, which gives birth to the high fall. Fit companion to the Cylindre rises the Tours de Marboré, forming a part of Mont Perdu. Not a scrap of vegetation breaks the ruggedness of the vast semicircle of rocks. The floor of the Cirque is an irregular heap of rocks, with the exception of a large heap of snow at the base of the precipices, under which the waters of the cascades run, like the torrents beneath the Swiss glaciers.

It was impossible to take in this sublime spectacle at once, so overpowering were its features; and as we gazed tremblingly at the huge Cirque, I felt as if on the eve of being crushed by its impending walls.

Within a few yards of the most western cascade, the ascent to the Brêche is made. Without a guide, however, the precise spot would be exceedingly difficult to find; and from its forbidding nature, few would be bold enough to make the essay. It is literally a rock-ladder, and is the only locality in the wide sweep of the Cirque affording the means of ascent. The rugged strata, which are here vertical, serve as steps in which one can insert the toes and fingers; but as the guidebook truly says: 'It is as abrupt as the ascent of a ladder; and wide spaces of smooth rock often intervene without any notch or projection offering a foothold. To those who cannot look down a sheer precipice many hundred feet deep without a tendency to giddiness, there is danger in this escalade, as well as in passing over some smooth projecting shoulders of rocks.' The climb is, in truth, most arduous--'bien pénible,' as my guide said. My _chaussure_ was sadly against me--thin-soled boots, which doubled under me. Let no one undertake this ascent without being strongly shod.

As we ascended, new wonders were revealed--more precipices, cascades, and glaciers: it was literally alps on alps. The top of the great waterfall was still far above us; and it gave me a very good idea of its altitude, when, after more than an hour's ascent, I found that we were still beneath the level of the glacier from whence it is supplied. About two hours were occupied in ascending the first series of precipices, above which patches of snow are met with. Our course now lay through a kind of vertical gully nearly filled with snow. Up this we scrambled, taking advantage of the hardness of the snow to make it our path. Above us rose tremendous precipices, terminating in jagged peaks, on which my guide with his practised eye discerned a herd of izzards. I saw them remarkably well through my telescope, balanced, like aërial creatures, on the giddy heights, one amongst them evidently acting as sentinel. It was beautiful to witness their wild attitudes, ready, at a moment's warning from their watchful leader, to bound from crag to crag, or descend the awful precipices, where man's foot has never been.

My guide, whose heart was evidently more in the hunting than in his present business, became half wild with excitement at the sight of these izzards. It was the largest herd he had seen that year, and, with many a _sacré_, he bemoaned his fate that he should be without his rifle; though I endeavoured to convince him that there was nothing to regret, as he could not at the same time hunt izzards and conduct me to the Brêche.

We now fairly lost sight of the Cirque, and were in the midst of snow and glaciers which covered a steep, inclined about forty-five degrees. The surmounting of this slope was a most fatiguing affair for me, as the snow was very slippery, and it happened that I retrograded nearly as often as I advanced. This part of the ascent occupied about an hour. My guide now turned to the left, for the purpose of crossing a glacier, the inclination of which is so great that it is the next thing to impossible to ascend it. The passage over this glacier, beyond which lies the Brêche, is by far the most dangerous part of the undertaking. At the place where we encountered it, its breadth may be about four hundred yards; but throughout, its inclination is such that the slightest false step would prove fatal, for beneath are precipices of fearful depth. Here crampons are used. I was fairly exhausted when I came to the edge of this glacier, and despite the protestations of my guide, who declared that there was no time to lose, I threw myself on the snow, and would, had I been left alone, have been asleep in a few moments.

It is customary for the few tourists who visit the Brêche to take two guides, for the purpose of crossing this glacier in safety; and I had cause to regret my ignorance of the practice, for although I trod most cautiously in the notches cut by my guide, yet my limbs were so weak, that when about half-way across, I stumbled, and for a moment gave myself up for lost. Happily, my guide was sufficiently near to grasp my extended arms, and shouting: 'Prenez garde! prenez garde! Courage! courage!' he sustained me until I recovered my balance. Then it was that I became fully aware of the mistake I had committed in making this excursion without previous training; and I admonished Jaques in future, to give those who desired to scale the Brêche fair warning of the dangers and difficulties attendant upon the undertaking.

My escape was not rendered the less interesting by a story which my guide related to me of an unfortunate traveller, who when his crampon, by some accident, caught his trousers, lost his balance, and there being no friendly hand to arrest him, in an instant sped down the sloping ice with the speed of an avalanche, and was almost instantaneously lost for ever.

It was here that Mr Paris, who was rash enough to attempt ascending to the Brêche without a guide, was obliged to give up the task. 'The sight of this glacier,' he observes, 'was too appalling. I could not summon sufficient resolution to attempt the passage, which was in distance about a quarter of a mile, and wisely, I think, abandoned it. To understand all its terrors, the place must be seen. Once slip, and you are gone for ever, past all human aid: the death is too frightful for contemplation.'

Bracing my shattered nerves for the occasion, I resumed my labour, taking care, however, to hold my guide's hand; and thus moving slowly and cautiously, I had at length the inexpressible satisfaction of achieving the formidable passage of this terrible glacier. The rest of the journey was comparatively easy, though the elevation--above 9000 feet--and the steepness were trying enough. But all sense of fatigue forsook me when the huge portal--the tiny notch as seen from Gèdres--yawned in all its stern magnificence before me. It was a fit reward for all my toil, and I felt that I would have willingly endured even greater sufferings to make acquaintance with such a scene as now met my astonished gaze.

Eager to achieve the crowning feat of my undertaking, I hastened onwards; and with beating heart I soon stood within the jaws of the mighty portal, through which swept the howling wind. A step more, and I was in Spain. Glaciers slope away on each side of the wall; but all along the front of the Brêche, on the French side, the glacier is scooped out into a deep fosse or cavity, by the action of the sun's rays pouring from the south through the opening. A wild world of mountains appeared to the south, those in the foreground covered with snow, and the more distant looming hazily over the plains of Saragossa. And this was Spain!--wondrous land, defying description, and in memory resembling, not realities, but fragments of tremendous dreams. Towards France, the scene is softer. Mountains there are, sky-piled, but there are forests too, the home of wolves

Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave! Burning for blood; bony, and gaunt, and grim;

and vales of emerald, and silver streams, and gleaming lakes. But how hope to convey anything like a faithful impression of the panorama seen from the Brêche-de-Roland! I will not attempt it, preferring rather to advise the reader, should he not be stricken in years, to see it himself.

My guide produced the contents of his wallet, which, thanks to Madame Cazean's provident forethought, were good and abundant; and having placed the wine-flasks in the ice--there was enough at hand to ice the great Heidelberg tun--I sat down on the ridge of the Brêche, one leg in Spain, the other in France, and my body in amiable neutrality. Oh, the delight of that repast! there never was so tender a fowl, never wine so good. While thus engaged in refreshing exhausted nature, I even forgot that the terrible glacier had to be recrossed, and the steep snow-slopes to be descended.

The day continued faithful to its early morning promise. A bright sun--unfelt, however, at this great elevation--poured down a flood of light on the far-stretching glaciers and snow-fields, on which we discerned izzards, which seemed, when in motion, like points moving in space. These, and a few eagles, were the only living things that met our eye. Fain would I have spent hours here, but my guide was very properly obdurate; and having done great justice to our meal, we prepared to descend. Before leaving the Brêche, where we remained for about an hour and a half, he conducted me to a small cave on the Spanish side between the Brêche and the glacier, where smugglers pass the night, waiting for the early morning hours to descend into France. Desperate work! and desperate must be the men engaged in it. Being considerably recruited in strength, I found the passage of the glacier much less arduous than it was in ascending; and having passed it in safety, we flew down the snow inclines with delightful rapidity, in five minutes clearing ground which cost us an hour to surmount. We reached Gavarnie at seven o'clock, and pausing for half an hour, rode on to Luz, where we arrived as the night closed.

OUR WILD-FRUITS.

Why is it that the wild _flowers_ of England have attracted so much attention of late years, whilst the wild _fruits_ have been passed over in silence, and allowed to bud and bloom, to ripen their fruit, and to perish, inglorious and unnoticed? It would be difficult to give a reply to this question; I will therefore not attempt it, but rather invite you, my friends, to assist me in removing this reproach from the wild-fruits of our land, and give me a little of your attention whilst we inquire what these are, and where they grow, and examine a little into their structure and uses, as well as into their classification. In doing so, I think we shall find that, though England does not indigenously afford so many or such rich fruits as those which are the products of some other lands, yet that she possesses several kinds which, even in their uncultivated state, are edible, and pleasant to the taste, and some of which form the stocks on which, by budding or grafting, many of the most valuable productions of our gardens and orchards are established. I think that many will be surprised to find, that the list I shall give them of fruits indigenous in England is so long and so respectable. The plum, the cherry, the apple and pear tribes--the raspberry, with its allies--the gooseberry, and currant, red and black--the service-tree, with its pleasant subacid fruit, and the abounding whortleberry and cranberry tribes, which cover immense tracts of our hills with their myrtle-like foliage and pretty heath-like bloom, and produce such harvests of useful fruit freely to whoever will take the trouble of gathering it--are surely treasures not to be despised!

It is true that in the present day, when the constantly increasing importation both of fruit and fruit-trees, together with the wonderful horticultural improvements which are daily taking place, have brought richer and better kinds of fruit more or less within the reach even of our poorest cottagers--when every little valley among the hills is enriched with its beautiful orchards, and every farmhouse and cottage may boast its luscious plum or cherry trees, and its row of bright fruited raspberry or strawberry plants--when all thrifty housewives may, at small expense, have their little store of pleasant jams and jellies made from fruits which used to be beyond the reach of even our island kings, and the 'sedulous bees' located on every homestead present us with their amber sweets--we can perhaps scarcely appreciate the real importance which must have attached to these now comparatively worthless fruits at a time when the land on which our most populous cities stand was covered by woods and brakes, nay, in many places by thick, tangled forests, or wild and deep morasses. But, even now, these fruits are treasures to the cotter and the child, as we shall see in the course of our discussion; and even to persons of more luxurious habits, several of those that I have named are of value and importance. Let us first look at those which rank under the natural order _Rosaceæ_, under which head we shall find the greatest number of our English fruit-bearing plants. We will give a little botanical sketch of the general characteristics of this order, as elucidatory of what we may hereafter have to say before we proceed to the details of any of its members. The chief of these characteristics are, that in the order _Rosaceæ_ the calyx is in most cases formed of five lobes, _with the petals and stamens rising from it_, the latter being generally numerous; the ovaries are several, or solitary, each of one cell, including, in most cases, one ovule or incipient seed--in some cases many--the style being lateral or terminal. Most flowers thus formed produce edible and harmless fruits. Loudon says: 'The ligneous species, which constitute this order, include the finest flowering shrub in the world--the rose--and trees which produce the most useful and agreeable fruit of temperate climates--namely, the apple, pear, plum, cherry, apricot, peach, and nectarine;' and he might have included the medlar and service trees. Now, this vast order is subdivided into several sub-orders or sections, under the first of which are classed all whose fruit is a drupe, of which the plum and cherry are examples. We will then take them first into our consideration, and begin by giving an account of what is the structure of a drupe.

That part of the carpel called the ovary, which encloses the seed, thickens, and changes into a fleshy substance, which, as the fruit matures, softens, and becomes a juicy, and often delicious pulp; this is the part which we eat in the plum, cherry, apricot, peach, and all which we call stone-fruits. The lining of the ovary at the same time extends, and hardens into the stony case which encloses the kernel, which kernel is the young seed enlarged and perfected. All fruits of this formation are called drupes, as those of the apple and pear form are called pomes, and those of the bramble, and some other tribes, berries. Our woods supply us with two sorts of plum, both edible--the sloe, or blackthorn (_Prunus spinosa_), and the wild bullace (_P. institia_.) Every one knows the sloe, at least every one who has spent any part of his youth amidst woodland scenes; but as there are some who, having been 'all their life in populous cities pent,' know but little of country delights, for their benefit we will describe the growth and appearance of our plants, as well as their qualities, obvious or hidden. The sloe is more frequently seen as a spiny shrub than as a tree; but when the suckers are removed, and the strength of the plant is all allowed to go into one stem, it forms a highly characteristic small tree. In hedges, it seldom exceeds twenty feet in height, but in woods and parks, it often attains to thirty. The wood is hard, and takes a fine polish, but is apt to crack, and is therefore seldom used, except for the handles of tools, and other such purposes. It throws up very long upright shoots, which make excellent walking-sticks; indeed, more are made from this tree throughout Europe than from any other. The dry branches are valuable in forming hedges, and protection for young trees, as well as for other agricultural purposes. The bark is black, whence its name of blackthorn; the blossoms appear before the leaves, and beautify our hedges with their delicate whiteness during the cold month of March, when few other shrubs send forth their blossoms; and this season is therefore called by country-people 'blackthorn winter.' The leaves form a better substitute for tea than any other European plant; and they have been, and are abundantly used in the adulteration of that commodity. The fruit is a plum about the size of a small filbert, of a dark purple hue, coated with a most exquisite blue bloom. The flesh is of a sharp, bitter acid, yet not unpleasant even when raw; when fully ripe, it makes a tolerable preserve, or pudding, and the juice, when well fermented, makes a wine not unlike new port. The sloe, as well as the cherry, and all other plants of its tribe, contains in it a portion of prussic acid; but the quantity is so minute, that there can be no injury derived from the use of either the leaves or fruit of most species. The common laurel (_Cerasus laurocerasus_) contains it in greater quantity than any other kind, but even of this the berries may be eaten with impunity, and are freely used by gipsies, who both eat them raw and make them into puddings.

The other plum of our wilds is the bullace (_P. institia_), the fruit of which differs from that of the sloe in being larger and less bitter. It is sometimes black, but oftener yellowish and waxy, beautifully tinted with red, and makes better pies and puddings than the sloe, for which purposes it is often sold in the markets. In Provence, where, as in other parts of France, this plum abounds, it is called 'Prune sibanelle,' because, from its sourness, it is impossible to whistle after eating it! The entire plant is used for much the same purposes as the sloe. Old Gerard says, that its leaves are 'good against the swelling of the uvula, the throat, gums, and kernels under the ears, throat, and jaws.' How far modern physicians might agree in this is doubtful; possibly they might class the prescription, as he does some of those of his predecessors, under the head of 'old wives' fables.' Both the plum and cherry send out from their bark a sort of gum, which exudes freely, particularly in old and diseased trees. It was formerly supposed to be sovereign against some diseases. The number of varieties which have been grafted on these wild stocks is very great. So long ago as 1597, Gerard recounts: 'I have threescore sorts in my garden (at Holborn), all strange and rare: there be in other places many more common, and yet yeerely commeth to our hands others not knowne before.' The bark of both kinds of wild plum was formerly much used in medicine, and considered equal to the Peruvian bark in cases of intermittent fever. But we must not forget, in recounting the _uses_ of these and other fruits, to take into our consideration the important additions that their free growth affords to the sources of enjoyment and amusement of our youthful population in country districts. 'Snagging' (for sloes are called _snags_ in some counties), nutting, blackberry picking, cherry hunting--all in their turn form attractions to the boys and girls in our villages; and many a merry party sallies forth into the woods on a half or whole holiday, with satchel, bag, and basket, to enjoy the fresh air and bright sunshine, and to leap, and jump, and rejoice in all the wild vagaries of youth among the fresh uplands and hills, scrambling over all obstruction--the elder climbing the old trees, and rifling them of their spoil--the younger and less adventurous hooking down the branches, and claiming the right of all they can collect 'by hook or by crook.' But wo to the poor mothers who have to mend the garments in which the onslaught has been made!--wo to the little boy or girl whose mother has not the good sense to discern, in her child's rosy cheeks and bright eyes, a compensation for the rags in the frock or trousers, which is sure to be the consequence of a day spent in harrying the shrubs and briers! But many centuries must our youth have thus 'imbibed both sweet and smart' from yielding to these woodland attractions. May not we fancy whole herds of our little British or Anglo-Saxon ancestors rushing forth into the almost inaccessible woods which in those days clothed our island, their long sunny hair hanging to the waist--for 'no man was allowed to cut his hair until he had slaine an enemy of his country in the field, or at least taken his armes from him'--clothed in linen, their fair skins disfigured by the blue woad with which they were accustomed to paint themselves, and armed with cross-bows, all as merry, as idle, and as reckless as the children of the present century? We may fancy these little Leowulphs and Siegfrieds, with their admiring little Edgithas and Edithas looking on, whilst they climbed the tall trees with the agility of wild-cats and squirrels, most proud when they could attain the richest and ripest fruit, and but spurred on to greater enthusiasm by the knowledge that wolves and bears were by no means rare visitors in those pristine forests. Or we may picture to ourselves their parents and elders, after a long summer-day spent in hunting the wild-boar, the bear, or the more timid deer, rejoicing to slake their thirst, and refresh themselves with the cool and pleasant, though somewhat crude fruit, of the plum and bullace trees; and in doing so, we may perhaps come nearer to having some just idea of their real worth, and be led to see how graciously God adapts his gifts to the wants and circumstances of his creatures.