after doing what the night before he gaily wrote would one day be done: At Zermatt, when the sun is low, How brightly shines th' untrodden snow But yet, I say, a day will come Shall proclaim the deed is done— "We've reached Monte Cervin's head." It is true, and the road we'll pave, Till on high the English flag shall wave Beneath a mound, on which lie wreaths of faded flowers, by the side of the church wall of Zermatt, are buried the remains of those of our countrymen who were found on the Matterhorn after the catastrophe which closed the career of four adventurous spirits last July; but the bones of the young lord remain still in the cold bosom of the mountain, whose virgin snows he was among the first to tread. Nor could he have a fitter burial-place; we almost rejoiced when, on the day after we reached Zermatt, we saw returning from the mountain a tired party, consisting of the curé of the village and eight Swiss guides, who had spent many weary hours in an unsuccessful search after the remains of Lord Francis Douglas. Leaving Liza and her attendants to follow us, we started after breakfast for the Riffelberg, passing through the brown wooden châlets of Zermatt, crossing by a plank bridge the blue sparkling Visp, and gaining, as we walked, constant views of the great Görner glacier, whose sharp irregular peaks of ice sweep down like a petrified sea from the base of Monte Rosa into the valley of the Visp. Beneath the welcome shade of trees, along a path continually becoming more steep, we walked or rode for a couple of hours; our road was then over an open grassy tract literally alive with grasshoppers, and bedecked with many a sweet wild flower; beneath us stretched far the valley of the Visp, and to our right the mighty Matterhorn was continually visible, while above us, looking, when we first caught a glimpse of it, no larger than a child's baby-house, stood the inn on the Riffelberg, in which we hoped to sleep that night. Soon we reached the High Alp region, and found ourselves amid the rough châlets that had been occupied during the summer months by the people and their flocks whom we had met between Kandersteg and Thun; every door was now fastened with a padlock, and every shed untenanted; not a sound, save the grasshopper's chirp and the sharp snap of its wing, disturbed the silence of these so lately gay and busy heights. Up still to a wilder, more barren region, and at last we reach the top of the Riffel, and, passing through a group of horse-leaders, porters, inn-servants, and idlers, we find ourselves in the low long room, which forms the Speisesaal of the hotel. Look out of the little square window in my bedroom a few hours later with me, and you will see the moon, that has just entered its last quarter, shedding its cold rays on the Matterhorn, giving a curious light to the glacier at its feet, and bringing out in purest white the great snow-summit of Monte Rosa: A dewy freshness fills the silent air, No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, In half-orbed glory yonder moon divine, Rolls through the dark-blue depths. Once more we mounted, and now our path was over a slaty, sandy hill, almost bare of vegetation, though even here a blue-eyed gentian or a yellow pansy peeped up at intervals from the barren bed in which their roots had fixed themselves. On either side we gained occasional glimpses of the snowy peaks that surrounded us, and the Matterhorn was continually visible; but it was not until we had clambered to the very summit of the hill and stood on the Görner Grat itself that the grand snow panorama we had travelled so far to see burst upon us. Truly it was worth, well worth the journey. We stood on a bare rock, itself nine thousand feet high, surrounded by a chain of mountains loftier still by many thousands, sloping up in rugged terraces from the bright glaciers at their feet, their summits jagged and rounded into gigantic peaks and domes, some graceful, some grotesque, but all, save the Matterhorn, on which but little snow will rest, covered with a mantle of the purest, most dazzling white. To enumerate all the mountains that compose this glorious circle, embracing as they do an area of nearly fifty miles, would be useless; suffice it to say, that from the colossal Monte Rosa on the east and south, peaked on one side by the Cima di Jazi, and on the other by the graceful Castor and Pollux, to the extreme north-west, where rose the range of the Oberland, there appeared scarcely a break in the icy barrier around us. We found them glittering in the sunlight; we watched them as he sank, tinging them with his rosy golden hues; still we gazed, when, falling yet lower, he left them in the cold grey twilight; and then we, too, turned away almost overwhelmed with the grandeur of the scene we had looked upon. Leaving these snowy regions, we retraced our steps to Vispach, sleeping on our road at Randa, whence a magnificent view of the Breithorn and Lesser Matterhorn is seen, and loitering a couple of days on our downward path in admiration of the glorious scenery through which we passed. Not a cloud dimmed the bright blue sky, nor cast a shade upon the pure white of the snow-clad mountains that far and near rose in every variety of shape before us; the laughing river sparkled in the sunlight, innumerable lizards crawled up the warm rocks along its banks, the air was sweet with the perfume of flowers. Liza, with her head homewards, stepped out cheerily; and her leader, worthy old Georges Gebhart, who, though numbering more than sixty years, was, to use his own words, "so münter wie ein Jüngling," let neither his tongue nor his legs show fatigue as he guided her carefully along the steep and rugged paths. The old man and I had grown quite friendly during our five days' companionship, and when at last we shook hands at Visp, he drew from his pocket a golden bunch of maize, tied with a blue satin ribbon, which he hoped the "gnädige Frau" would accept as "ein Andenken aus Schweizerland,” and which now hangs at home amid other pleasant reminders of my autumn trip. Back by carriage along the Rhône road till we reached Zion, a warm, white town, backed by two picturesque hills, on which are the remains of castles dating from the thirteenth century. On either side of the road from Susten ran vineyards ready for the gathering, and near Sierre we passed a large mulberry plantation, in which many silkworms are reared. Groups of vintagers, the women wearing a curious head-dress of ribbon and gold, were met at every turn; some were carrying grapes already gathered in graceful wooden baskets, others leading mules with heavily-laden panniers, and one old man had mounted a large black bull, which he guided with one hand, while with the other he led a mule bearing a heavy weight of purple bunches. From Sion the rail is open to Martigny, and we were quickly whirled along a road bounded on each side by grand mountain peaks to the pretty town which nestles, as it were, at the feet of so many great and beautiful mountain passes. Fain would we linger in Martigny, and tell of walks on grassy meadows beneath cool avenues of walnut-trees-of visits to the Gorge du Trient and the beautiful fall of the Sallenche; but our sketches are already growing too long, and we will, therefore, leave Martigny and the first part of our ride from it by the Tête Noire, giving but a passing mention to the panorama of the valley of the Rhône, as far as Sion, we have gained during our mount, and will suppose we have reached, by the Col de Forclaz, the Hôtel de la Tête Noire at the top of the pass. We have met during our sunny ride several charettes, on which, loosely covered with straw, have lain large transparent blocks of ice; these, we find, have come from the Glacier du Trient, and, on inquiring of my mule-leader how and for what they are obtained, he tells me that an inhabitant of Martigny has for the last five years rented this glacier, and has constructed a good road for the passage of his carts from it to the Col de Forclaz; that the ice is procured by blasting the glacier and cutting the huge masses, which are then thrown up into pieces, the shape and about the size of a sugar-loaf; these are conveyed in the charettes we met to the rail at Martigny, and are thence sent on to Paris, where the produce of the Alpine glacier is now added to that of the American lakes, to increase the luxury of the French cuisine. The approach to the top of the Tête Noire pass is through a pine wood on the edge of a cliff, beneath which the river Trient rushes in speed and turbulence over great masses of fallen rock. As we emerged from the wood, the pretty village of Fin-haut came into view. This hamlet, which stands at an elevation of three thousand eight hundred and eight feet, is the highest spot in the canton Valais that is inhabited during the winter; it is well protected by a range of steep mountains, and its rough wooden châlets look as if they could stand the storms and snow of even an Alpine winter. Turning back from the hotel, we retraced our steps to the point where the roads to the Tête Noire and Col de Balme unite, having determined to gain our first view of Mont Blanc from the latter pass. The Trient glacier shone brightly in the sun-light to our left as we made our way over the loose stones which form the only pavement of the long straggling village of Trient; leaving this, we began to ascend at first over grassy fields, but very soon these changed to the steep stony zig-zag paths of a pine forest, through which we toiled for more than an hour, the tedium of our walk being somewhat lightened by the constant meetings we had with the mountain goats; they came down in troops, and seemed to welcome our arrival on their own Alpine heights, rubbing their cool noses against our hands, and taking in all confidence the pieces of bread we offered them. The weary wood was at length passed, but we had still a rugged sterile way to go before we reached the summit of the mountain, this track being, however, every now and then, beautified by slopes of green and gardens of the Alpine rose; at last, the welcome view of two eminences, on each of which stood a châlet, appeared, and my guide, who had sought to beguile the way by expatiating on the acquisitiveness of the French emperor, whom he described as "un un grand voleur qui prend tout ce qu'il peut," pointed out to me the stone between these two inns which marked the boundaries of Switzerland and Napoleon's new territory of Savoy. And now, just before sunset, our climbing is over, and we stand on the summit of the pass. From its base in the green valley of Chamouni, to the highest peak of its Aiguilles, the chain of Mont Blanc lies before us, its grand snowy slopes intercepted by the frozen rivers of its glaciers, and its two mighty ranges rising on either side of a valley studded with villages, and threaded by the rivers Arve and Averon. Turning round and looking back upon the road we had come, we saw, rising like a bright wall over the darker mountains in front of it, the range of the Oberland, the Jungfrau, and the Grimsel, and our old friend the Gemmi, with its two sharp peaks. While we looked in admiring wonder on the glorious scene, the setting sun began to cast upon it its vermilion hues, and for nearly half an hour the whole panorama glowed with the tint of a fever flush on a maiden's white forehead; then, as the evening deepened, the colours faded, a soft blue shade spread over the snowy masses; this gradually grew greyer, until at last, as the evening star peeped out, a dark purple veil seemed to unfold itself, and to shroud in gloomy richness the whole enormous mass of mountains and the quiet valleys that slept at their feet. We stayed the night on the Col de Balme. The inn was dirty, and the dinner rough; but our discomforts were shared by a pleasant French family, and our evening was enlivened by the brightness of the little daughter, who was believed by her parents to be an accomplished English scholar, but whose conversation in that language consisted almost entirely of three words; she would begin a sentence in French, asking for its translation into English, and, when this was given, would exclaim with delight, 66 Ah! vous avez raison! So do I remember." As she was the only one of the party who knew any English at all, these few words in "an unknown tongue" were looked upon as a great acquisition by her father and mother, and it was charming to see their pleasure, and to hear the gay laugh of the little French maiden, when she understood what we said to her. Bright and glorious was the sunrise over the scene we had seen at his setting the night before. We started in the crisp morning air for Chamouni, descending at first a steep and rugged mountain path, but soon reaching level ground, and finding, close to mighty walls of snow and ice, that rich fertility and flowery luxuriance which, though sung of by Tasso as the work of an enchantress, is so often seen in Switzerland, where an abler finger than that of Armida has produced all that is grand and lovely: Passing by the village of Le Tour, with its gay tin-plated church spire, we reached Argentière, where, not far from its magnificent glacier, the river Arve rushes from beneath a green arch towards Chamouni; following the snow-fed river, we reached ere long the bridge that crosses it, and leads into the village of Chamouni. And here, with but one more sketch, we bring our Swiss wanderings to a close. No need to tell of the view from the Montanvert of the icy sea, where the waves roll not from the cold grasp of the frost that has fixed them; no need to speak of the mutilated "Cascade des Pélerins," nor of the fearful fir-tree planks beyond it, thrown across a torrent which "comes raging from its imprisonment of ice in the glory of disenchanted life," and which one dares to cross to gain a view of the Glacier des Bossons, with its wilderness of sharp pyramids, its broken columns, and pure white slabs of ice; no need, in fact, to add to the many descriptions of all that is to be seen in and about Chamouni; only, therefore, ere we part, |