Part 7

Availing ourselves of the telescope, we watch with ease and comfort the actual climbers on Mont Blanc. By this time they have bound themselves together with a rope, which in positions of peril is the first requisite of safety. For one must always think of safety on these mountains. With all their beauty and grandeur, they have sufficient capability for cruelty to make the blood run cold. They have no mercy in them; no sympathy for the warm hearts beating so near their surfaces. They submit passively to conquest, so long as man preserves a cool head and sure footing. But let him make one false step; let his brain swim, his heart fail, his hand falter, and they will hurl him from their icy slopes, or tear him to pieces on their jagged tusks, while in the roar of the avalanche is heard their demoniac laughter.

But following the tourists still farther up the mountain, we look with dismay at one of the icy crests along which they must presently advance. Not a charming place for a promenade, truly! Here it would seem that one should use an alpen-stock rather as a balancing-pole than as a staff. It is enough to make even a Blondin falter and retire. For, coated with a glare of ice, and bordered on either side by an abyss, the slightest misstep would inevitably send one shooting down this glittering slope to certain death in one of the vast folds of Mont Blanc's royal mantle.

Lifting now the telescope a little higher, we note another difficulty which mountain-climbers frequently encounter. For here they have come face to face with a perpendicular wall of ice which they must climb, or else acknowledge a defeat. The bravest, therefore, or the strongest, cuts with his ax a sort of stairway in this crystal barrier, and, making his way upward by this perilous route, lowers a rope and is rejoined by his companions. Imagine doing this in the teeth of such wind and cold as must often be met with on these crests! Think of it, when a gale is tearing off the upper snow, and driving it straight into the face in freezing spray like a shower of needles; when the gloves are coated with ice, and alpen-stocks slide through them, slippery as eels; and when the ice-bound rocks tear off the skin from the half-frozen fingers of the man who clings to them for life!

I know it is customary now to laugh at any dangers on Mont Blanc; and yet a terrible disaster took place there no longer ago than 1870.

In the month of September of that year, a party of eleven (including two Americans) started to climb the mountain. Near the summit a frightful tempest burst upon them. The guides no longer recognized the way, and, unable to return or find shelter, the entire party perished. The bodies of five were recovered. In the pocket of one of them (an American from Baltimore) were found these words, written to his wife: "7th of September, evening. We have been for two days on Mont Blanc in a terrific hurricane. We have lost our way, and are now at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet. I have no longer any hope. We have nothing to eat. My feet are already frozen, and I have strength enough only to write these words. Perhaps they will be found and given to you. Farewell; I trust that we shall meet in heaven!"

But such a mountain as Mont Blanc can rarely be ascended in a single day. Two days are generally given to the task. On the evening of the first day its would-be conquerors reach, at a height of ten thousand feet, a desolate region called the Grands Mulets. Here on some savage-looking rocks are two small cabins. One is intended for a kitchen, the other for a sleeping-room; that is, if one can sleep in such a place; for what an excitement there must be in passing a night at this great altitude! The distant stars gleam in the frosty air with an unwonted brilliancy and splendor. The wind surges against the cliffs with the full, deep boom of the sea; while the silence in the unmeasurable space above is awe-inspiring.

But, on the morrow, the glorious view repays one for a night of sleeplessness. At first one looks apparently upon a shoreless ocean, whose rolling billows seem now white, now opalescent, in the light of dawn. Then, one by one, the various mountain peaks appear like islands rising from the sea. At last, these waves of vapor sink slowly downward through the valleys, and disappear in full retreat before the god of day. But till they vanish, the traveler could suppose that he had here survived the deluge of the world, and was watching its huge shrouded corpse at his feet.

Between the Grands Mulets and the summit, Mont Blanc makes three tremendous steps, from eight hundred to one thousand feet in height, and between these are several frightful chasms, so perilous that on beholding them we catch our breath. There is something peculiarly horrible in these crevasses, yawning gloomily, day and night, as if with a never-satisfied hunger. A thousand—nay ten thousand—men in their cavernous jaws would not constitute a mouthful. They are even more to be dreaded than the avalanche; for the path of the avalanche is usually known; but these crevasses frequently hide their black abysses under deceitful coverlets of snow, luring unwary travelers to destruction. Nevertheless the avalanche is in certain places an ever-present danger. Mountains of snow stand toppling on the edge of some stupendous cliff, apparently waiting merely for the provocation of a human voice, intruding on their solitude, to start upon their awful plunge. The world well knows the fate of those who have been caught in such a torrent of destruction.

"No breath for words! no time for thought! no play For eager muscle! guides, companions, all O'ermastered in the unconquerable drift, In Nature's grasp held powerless, atoms Of her insensate frame, they fared as leaves In the dark rapid of November gales, Or sands sucked whirling into fell simooms; One gasp for breath, one strangled, bitter cry, And the cold, wild snow closed smothering in, And cast their forms about with icy shrouds, And crushed the life out, and entombed them there,— Nobler than kings Egyptian in their pyramids, Embalmèd in the mountain mausoleum, And part of all its grand unconsciousness Forever. Its still dream resumed the Mount; The sun his brightness kept; for unto them The living men are naught, and naught the dead, No more than snows that slide or stones that roll."

Finally, these and all other dangers being past, the wearied but exultant climbers reach the summit of Mont Blanc,—that strangely silent, white, majestic dome, so pure and spotless in its lofty elevation beneath the stars. To watch this scene from the Vale of Chamonix, when the great sovereign of our solar system sinks from sight, leaving upon Mont Blanc his crown of gold, is an experience that will leave one only with one's life. The concentrated refulgence on that solitary dome is so intense that one is tempted to believe that the glory of a million sunsets, fading from all other summits of the Alps, has been caught and imprisoned here. We know that sun will rise again; but who, in such a place, can contemplate unmoved the death of Day?

"The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies, With the dying sun!

The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies, When love is done."

One singular experience of Alpine travel is indelibly impressed upon my memory. It occurred on my passage of the Gemmi into the valley of the Rhone. The Gemmi Pass is no magnificent highway like the St. Gotthard, macadamized and smooth and carefully walled in by parapets of stone. It is for miles a rough and dangerous bridle-path, the edge of which is sometimes decorated with a flimsy rail, but often has not even that apology for safety. One can thus readily believe that, like the Jordan, the Gemmi is emphatically "a hard road to travel." At all events I found it so, especially as I crossed it early in the season, before the winter's ravages had been repaired. Since I was at the time suffering from a temporary lameness, I could walk but little. With this road dates my first acquaintance with a mule,—an intimacy that will never be forgotten! All day long that memorable beast would never for one instant change his gait, nor was the monotony of his dreadful walk once broken by a trot. My only consolation was in the thought that if the beast did change it, my neck, as well as the monotony, would probably be broken. Thus, hour after hour, I kept moving on and up, my knees forced wide apart by this great, lumbering wedge, until I felt like a colossal wish-bone, and as though I should be bow-legged for the rest of my life.

Nor was this all; for, as the day wore on, the mule took special pains to make my blood run cold by a variety of acrobatic feats, which might have made a chamois faint with vertigo. For example, wherever a rail was lacking in the crazy fence, he would deliberately fill the space with his own body and mine, walking so dangerously near the brink, that half my form would be suspended over the abyss! Of course, the moment it was passed, I laughed or scolded, as most travelers do; yet, after all, in such cases we never know how great the peril may have been. A little stone, a clod of earth, a movement in the nick of time—these are sometimes the only things which lie between one and the great Unknown, and hinder one from prematurely solving the mysterious problem of existence.

Nevertheless, on the fearful precipices for which the Gemmi is noted, one may be pardoned for being a trifle nervous. At certain points the bridle-path so skirts the chasm that one false step would land the fragments of your body on the rocks a thousand feet below; while, on the other side, the mountain towers up abrupt and bare, with scarce a shrub or tree to cling to or console the dizzy traveler. My flesh creeps now to think of some of these places; and in the same space of time I think I never repented of so many sins, as during that passage of the Gemmi. At length, however, the climax seemed reached; for at the brink of one abyss the path appeared to end. I cautiously advanced to the edge and looked over. It was a fearful sight, for here the mountain falls away to a sheer depth of sixteen hundred feet, and the plumb-line might drop to that full length without encountering any obstacle.

When Alexander Dumas came to this place, and (unprepared for what he was to see) looked down from the brink of the stupendous precipice, he fell back unconscious; and afterward, while making the descent, his teeth so chattered with nervousness, that he placed his folded handkerchief between them. Yet when, on reaching the valley, he removed it, he found it had been cut through and through as with a razor. I cannot, certainly, lay claim to nervousness like that; but I could sympathize with one of our fellow-countrymen, against whose name on the hotel register I next day saw these words: "Thank God, we don't raise such hills as these in the State of New York!"

At the other side of the Gemmi, and almost at the base of these gigantic cliffs, there lies a little village. When I stood on the precipice above it, I thought that a pebble hurled thence from my hand would fall directly on its roofs; but in reality their distance from the cliffs was greater than it seemed. This village is the celebrated Leuk, whose baths have now acquired a world-wide reputation. Leuk has, however, this misfortune: so many strangers come here now to bathe, that many of the inhabitants themselves think that they can dispense with the luxury.

I never shall forget the baths of Leuk. Shades of the Mermaids! what a sight they presented. In a somewhat shabby hall, containing great compartments of hot water, I saw a multitude of heads—long-haired and short-haired, light and dark, male and female—bobbing about like buoys adorned with sea-weed. A fine chance this to study physiognomy, pure and simple. In front of these amphibious creatures were floating tables, upon which they could eat, drink, knit, read, and even play cards to pass away the time. As these waters are chiefly used for skin diseases, one might suppose that each bather would prefer a separate room; but no, in this case "misery loves company." The length of time which one must remain soaking in these tanks of hot water makes solitary bathing unendurable.

I asked one of these heads how long it had to float here daily. The mouth opened just above the water's edge and answered: "Eight hours, Monsieur; four before luncheon, and four before dinner; and, as after each bath we have to spend an hour in bed, ten hours a day are thus consumed."

It may seem incredible, but I assure the reader that some of these parboiled bathers actually sleep while in these tanks. I, myself, saw a head drooped backward as though severed from the body. Its eyes were closed; its mouth was slightly open; and from the nose a mournful sound came forth at intervals, which told me that the man was snoring. Before him, half-supported by the little table, half-bedraggled in the flood, was a newspaper. Bending over the rail, I read the title. Poor man! I no longer wondered that he slept. Those who have read the ponderous sheet will understand its soporific effect. It was a copy of the London _Times_.

After the baths of Leuk and the stupendous precipices of the Gemmi, it is a pleasure to approach a less imposing but more beautiful part of Switzerland,—Geneva and its lake. The bright, cream-colored buildings of the one present a beautiful contrast to the other's deep blue waves. Next to Stockholm and Naples, Geneva has, I think, the loveliest situation of any city in Europe. Curved, crescent-like, around the southwest corner of the lake, the river Rhone with arrowy swiftness cleaves it into two parts, thus furnishing the site for all the handsome quays and bridges which unite the various sections of the town.

What a surprising change has taken place in the appearance of the river Rhone since it first poured its waters into Lake Geneva at its other extremity, forty-five miles away! There it is muddy, dark, and travel-stained from its long journey down the valley. But here it has become once more as pure as when it left its cradle in the glaciers. Its sojourn in the lake has given it both beauty and increased vitality; and as it starts again upon its course and darts out from Geneva with renewed strength and speed, its waters are superbly blue and clear as crystal.

As it emerges from the lake, a sharp-pointed island confronts the rapid stream, as if awaiting its advance. Its station here before the city resembles that of some fair maid of honor who precedes a queen. It is called Rousseau's Island, in honor of the famous man whose birth the city claims. Geneva certainly should be grateful to him, for it was he who first made this fair lake renowned in literature, and called to it the attention of the world. In fact, he did almost as much to render famous this enchanting spot, as Scott did for the region of the Trosachs. Appropriately, therefore, a fine bronze statue of Rousseau has been erected on the island, the figure looking up the lake, like the presiding genius of the place.

One can with both pleasure and profit spend a fortnight in Geneva. Its well-kept and luxurious hotels all front upon the quays, and from your windows there (as from the Grand Hotel in Stockholm) you look upon an ever-varying panorama—a charming combination of metropolitan and aquatic life. Boats come and go at frequent intervals, accompanied by the sound of music. The long perspectives of the different bridges, full of animated life, afford perpetual entertainment; while, in dull weather, the attractive shops, in some respects unrivaled in the whole of Europe, tempt you, beyond your power to resist, to purchase music-boxes or enameled jewelry. After all, one's greatest pleasure here is to embark upon the lake itself. This famous body of water forms a beautiful blue crescent, forty-five miles in length and eight in breadth. Tyndall declared that it had the purest natural water ever analyzed; Voltaire called it the "First of Lakes;" Alexander Dumas compared it to the Bay of Naples; while Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and Byron have given it boundless praise in their glowing verse. It has been estimated that should the lake henceforth receive no further increase, while having still the river Rhone for its outlet, it would require ten years to exhaust its volume. It might be likened, therefore, to a little inland sea. In fact, a pretty legend says that the ocean-deity, Neptune, came one day to see Lake Leman, and, enraptured with its fresh young beauty, gave to it, on departing, his likeness in miniature. Moreover, it has another charm—that of historical association. Its shores have been the residence of men of genius. Both history and poetry have adorned its banks with fadeless wreaths of love and fame. Each hill that rises softly from its waves is crowned with some distinguished memory. Byron has often floated on its surface; and here he wrote some portions of "Childe Harold," which will be treasured to the end of time.

The poet Shelley narrowly escaped drowning in its waters. At one point Madame de Staël lived in exile; another saw Voltaire for years maintaining here his intellectual court; while at Lausanne, upon the memorable night which he has well described, Gibbon concluded his immortal work, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." But of all portions of Lake Leman, that which charms one most is the neighborhood of Montreux and Vevey, and the historic Castle of Chillon. A poet's inspiration has made this place familiar to the world. No English-speaking traveler, at least, can look upon these towers, rising from the waves, without recalling Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon," and reciting its well-known lines:

"Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls: A thousand feet in depth below Its massy waters meet and flow; Thus much the fathom-line was sent From Chillon's snow-white battlement."

This time-worn structure boasts a thousand years of story and romance. In fact, more than a thousand years ago, Louis le Débonnaire imprisoned here a traitor to his king. Here, also, five centuries ago, hundreds of Jews were tortured, and then buried alive, on the infamous suspicion of poisoning the wells of Europe. But of all the memories which cluster round its walls the most familiar is that of Bonnivard, the Swiss patriot, who languished for six years in its dark dungeon, till he was released by the efforts of his enthusiastic countrymen. During those gloomy years of captivity his jailers heard from him no cry and no complaint, save when some tempest swept the lake. Then, when the wind moaned, as if in sympathy, around the towers, and waves dashed high against the walls, they could distinguish sobs and cries, proving that, when apparently alone with God, the captive sought to give his burdened soul relief.

"Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar—for 't was trod Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard!—May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God."

When finally his liberators burst into his cell, they found him pale and shadow-like, still chained to the column around which he had walked so many years. A hundred voices cried to him at once: "Bonnivard, you are free!" The prisoner slowly rose, and his first question was: "And Geneva?" "Free, also!" was the answer.

One night, some eighty years ago, a little boat came toward this castle, leaving behind it in its course a furrow silvered by the moon. As it reached the shore, there sprang from it a man enveloped in a long black cloak, which almost hid his feet from view. A close observer would have seen, however, that he limped slightly. He asked to see the historic dungeon, and lingered there an hour alone. When he had gone, they found on the stone column to which Bonnivard had been chained a new name carved. The traveler sees it there to-day. It is the name of Byron.

There is in Switzerland a village superior even to Chamonix in grandeur of location, dominated by a mountain more imposing even than Mont Blanc. The town is Zermatt; the mountain is the Matterhorn. As we approach it, we discern only a tiny part of its environment; but could we soar aloft with the eagle, and take a bird's-eye view of it, the little village would appear to have been caught in a colossal trap of rock and ice. There is, in fact, no path to it, save over dangerous passes, or through a narrow cleft in the encircling mountains, down which a river rushes with impetuous fury; while, watching over it, like some divinely-stationed sentinel, rises the awful Matterhorn, the most unique and imposing mountain of the Alps. No view can possibly do it justice; yet, anticipate what you will, it is here impossible to be disappointed. Though every other object of the world should fail, the Matterhorn must stir the heart of the most unimpressive traveler. Not only does its icy wedge pierce the blue air at a height of fifteen thousand feet above the sea, but its gaunt, tusk-like form emerges from the surrounding glaciers with almost perpendicular sides, four thousand feet in height. It is a manifestation of the power of the Deity, beside which all the works of man dwindle to insignificance. I never grew accustomed to this, as to other mountains. No matter when I gazed upon its sharp-cut edges and its ice-bound rocks, I felt, as when I first beheld it, completely overpowered by its magnitude. The history of this colossal pyramid is as tragic as its grim form is awe-inspiring. The mountain is known as the "Fiend of the Alps." Year after year it had been luring to itself, with fearful fascination, scores of brave men who longed to scale its appalling cliffs. Over its icy pedestal,—up its precipitous sides,—yes, even to its naked shoulders, baffled and wistful mountaineers struggled in vain. Upon its perpendicular rocks several men had all but perished; but the warnings were unheeded. At length, after persistent efforts for eleven years, the famous English mountain-climber, Whymper, gained the summit. But in return for the humiliation of this conquest the Matterhorn exacted speedy vengeance.