Rollo in Switzerland Part 13

So it was concluded to take but one horse with them, on the understanding that each of the travellers was to walk half the way.

Rollo accordingly, when the horse was brought to the door, climbed up upon his back with the guide's a.s.sistance, and, after adjusting his feet to the stirrup, prepared to set out on the ascent. His heart was bounding with excitement and delight.

When all was ready the party moved on, Rollo on the horse and Mr. George and Henry walking along by his side. They proceeded a short distance along the road, and then turned into a path which led towards the side of the valley opposite to the Staubach. They soon reached the foot of the slope, and then they began to ascend. The path grew more and more steep as they proceeded, until at length it became very precipitous; and in some places the horse was obliged to scramble up, as it were, as if he were going up stairs. Rollo clung to his seat manfully in all these places; and he would have been sometimes afraid were it not that, in every case where there could be even any apparent danger, Henry would come to his side and keep by him, ready to render a.s.sistance at a moment's notice whenever any should be needed. In this way the party moved slowly on up the face of the mountain, making many short turns and windings among the rocks and going back and forth in zigzags on the green declivities. Sometimes for a few minutes they would be lost in a grove of firs, or pines; then they would come out upon some rounded promontory of gra.s.s land or projecting peak of rocks; and a few minutes afterwards they would move along smoothly for a time upon a level, with a steep acclivity, rough with rocks and precipices on one side, and an abrupt descent on the other down which a stone would have rolled a thousand feet into the valley below.

Of course the view of the valley became more commanding and more striking the higher they ascended. Rollo wished at every turn to stop and look at it. He did stop sometimes, the guide saying that it was necessary to do so in order to let the horse get his breath a little; for the toil for such an animal of getting up so steep an ascent was very severe. Rollo would have stopped oftener; but he did not like to be left behind by his uncle George, who, being active and agile, mounted very rapidly. Mr. George would often shorten his road very much by climbing directly up the rocks from one turn of the road to the other; while the horse, with Rollo on his back, was compelled to go round by the zigzag.

At last, after they had been ascending for about half an hour, Mr.

George stopped, at a place where there was a smooth stone for a seat by the side of the path, to wait for Rollo to come up; and, when Rollo came, Mr. George took him off the horse to let him rest a little. The view of the valley from this point was very grand and imposing. Rollo could look down into it as you could look into the bed of a brook in the country, standing upon the top of the bank on one side. The village, the inn, the little cottages along the roadside, the river, the bridges, and a thousand other objects, all of liliputian size, were to be seen below; while on the farther side the streaming Staubach was in full view, pouring over the brink of the precipice and falling in a dense ma.s.s of spray on the rocks at the foot of them.

Rollo could understand now, too, where the fall of the Staubach came from; for above the brink of the precipice, where the water came over, there was now to be seen a vast expanse of mountain country, rising steep, but not precipitously, far above the summit of the precipice, and of course receding as it ascended, so as not to be seen from the valley below. From the elevation, however, to which Rollo had now attained, the whole of this vast region was in view. It was covered with forests, pasturages, chalets, and scattered hamlets; and in the valleys, long, silvery lines of water were to be seen glittering in the sun and twisting and twining down in foaming cascades to the brink of the precipice, where, plunging over, they formed the cataracts which had been seen in the valley below. The Staubach was the largest of these falls; and the stream which produced it could now be traced for many miles as it came dancing along in its shining path down among the ravines of the mountains.

"I see now what makes the fall of the Staubach," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George.

"I should like to be on the brink of the precipice where it falls over,"

said Rollo, "and look down."

"Yes," said Mr. George; "so should I. I don't think that we could get near enough actually to look down, but we could get near enough to see the water where it begins to take the plunge."

After resting a suitable time at this place and greatly admiring and enjoying the view, our party set out again. Rollo proposed that his uncle should ride now a little way and let him walk; but Mr. George preferred that Rollo should mount again. There was still nearly another hour's hard climbing to do and a long and pretty difficult walk of several miles beyond it, and Mr. George was very desirous of saving Rollo's strength. It might perhaps be supposed, from the blunt manner in which Mr. George often threw the responsibility upon Rollo when he was placed in difficult emergencies and left him to act for himself, that he did not think or care much for his nephew's comfort or happiness. But this was by no means the case. Mr. George was very fond of Rollo indeed.

If he had not been fond of him he would not have wished to have him for his companion on his tour. He was very careful, too, never to expose Rollo to any real hardship or suffering; and his apparently blunt manner, in throwing responsibilities upon the boy, only amused him by making it appear that his uncle George considered him almost a man.

Mr. George, knowing that the first part of the way from Lauterbrunnen to the Wengern Alp was by far the most steep and difficult, had accordingly arranged it in his own mind that Rollo should ride until this steep part had been surmounted.

"You may mount again now, Rollo," said he. "I will walk a little longer and take my turn in riding a little farther on."

So Rollo mounted; and there was now another hour of steep climbing. The zigzags were sometimes sharp and short and at others long and winding; but the way was always picturesque and the views became more and more grand and imposing the higher the party ascended. At one time, when Rollo had stopped a moment to let his horse breathe, he saw at a turn of the path a few zigzags below him a little girl coming up, with a basket on her back.

Rollo pointed to her and asked the guide, in French, who that girl was.

Henry said he did not know.

Henry, foolishly enough, supposed that Rollo meant to ask what the girl's name was; and so he said that he did not know. But this was not what Rollo meant at all. He had no particular desire in asking the question to learn the child's name. What he wished to know was, what, according to the customs of the country, would be the probable province and function of such a sort of girl as that, coming alone up the mountain in that way with a burden on her back. Henry, if he had understood the real intent and meaning of the question, could easily have answered it. The girl lived in a little hamlet of shepherds' huts farther up the mountain, and had been down into the village to buy something for her father and mother; and she was now coming home with her purchases in the basket on her back. All this Henry knew very well; but, when Rollo asked who the girl was, Henry thought he meant to ask who she herself was individually; and so, as he did not know her personally, he could not tell.

Travellers often get disappointed in this way in asking questions of the natives of the country in which they are travelling. The people do not understand the nature and bearing of the question, and they themselves are not familiar enough with the language to explain what they do mean.

The guide stood for a minute or two looking intently at the girl as she slowly ascended the path, especially when she pa.s.sed the angles of the zigzag, for there she turned sometimes in such a manner as to show her face more plainly.

"No," said he, at length; "I do not know her. I never saw her before.

But I'll ask her who she is when she comes up."

"Uncle George!" said Rollo, calling out very loudly to his uncle, who was at some distance above.

"Ay, ay," said Mr. George, responding.

Rollo attempted to look up to see where his uncle was standing; but in doing this he had to throw his head back so far as to bring a fear suddenly over him of falling from his horse. So he desisted, and continued his conversation without attempting to look.

"Here is a girl coming up the mountain with a basket on her back. Come down and see her."

"Come up here," said Mr. George, "and we will wait till she comes."

So Rollo chirruped to his horse and started along again. In a few minutes he reached the place where his uncle George was standing, and there they all waited till the little girl came up.

"Good morning," said the girl, as soon as she came near enough to be heard. She spoke the words in the German language and with a very pleasant smile upon her face.

The peasants in Switzerland, when they meet strangers in ascending or descending the mountains, always accost them pleasantly and wish them good morning or good evening. In most other countries, strangers meeting each other on the road pa.s.s in silence. Perhaps it is the loneliness and solitude of the country and the sense of danger and awe that the stupendous mountains inspire that incline people to be more pleased when they meet each other in Switzerland, even if they are strangers, than in the more cheerful and smiling regions of France and England.

The guide said something to the girl, but Rollo could not understand what it was, for he spoke, and the answer was returned, in German.

"She says her name is Ninette," said Henry.

Rollo's attention was immediately attracted to the form of the basket which Ninette wore and to the manner in which it was fastened to her back. The basket was comparatively small at the bottom, being about as wide as the waist of the girl; but it grew larger towards the top, where it opened as wide as the girl's shoulders--being shaped in this respect in conformity with the shape of the back on which it was to be borne.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MOUNTAIN GIRL.]

The side of the basket, too, which lay against the back was flat, so as to fit to it exactly. The outer side was rounded. It was open at the top.

The basket was secured to its place upon the child's back and shoulders by means of two flat strips of wood, which were fastened at the upper ends of them to the back of the basket near the top, and which came round over the shoulders in front, and then, pa.s.sing under the arms, were fastened at the lower ends to the basket near the bottom. The basket was thus supported in its place and carried by means of the pressure of these straps upon the shoulders.

"Uncle George," said Rollo, "I should like to have such a basket as that and such a pair of straps to carry it by."

"What would you do with it," asked Mr. George, "if you had it?"

"Why, it would be very convenient," said Rollo, "in America, when I went a-raspberrying. You see, if I had such a basket as that, I could bring my berries home on my back, and so have my hands free."

"Yes," said Mr. George, "that would be convenient."

"Besides," said Rollo, "it would be a curiosity."

"That's true," replied Mr. George; "but it would be very difficult to carry so bulky a thing home."

After some further conversation it was concluded not to buy the basket, but to ask the girl if she would be willing to sell the straps, or bows, that it was fastened with. These straps were really quite curious. They were made of some very hard and smooth-grained wood, and were nicely carved and bent so as to fit to the girl's shoulders quite precisely.

Accordingly Mr. George, speaking in French, requested Henry to ask the girl whether she would be willing to sell the straps. Henry immediately addressed the girl in the German language, and after talking with her a few minutes he turned again to Mr. George and Rollo and said that the girl would rather not sell them herself, as they belonged to her father, who lived about half a mile farther up the mountain. But she was sure her father would sell them if they would stop at his cottage as they went by. He would either sell them that pair, she said, or a new pair; for he made such things himself, and he had two or three new pairs in his cottage.

"Very well," said Mr. George; "let us go on.

"Which would you rather have," said Mr. George to Rollo, as they resumed their march, "this pair, or some new ones?"

"I would rather have this pair," said Rollo.

"They are somewhat soiled and worn," said Mr. George.

"Yes," said Rollo; "but they are good and strong; and as soon as I get home I shall rub them all off clean with sand paper and then have them varnished, so as to make them look very bright and nice; and then I shall keep them for a curiosity. I would rather have this pair, for then I can tell people that I bought them actually off the shoulders of a little girl who was carrying a burden with them up the Alps."

In due time the party reached the little hamlet where Ninette lived. The hamlet consisted of a scattered group of cabins and cow houses on a shelving green more than a thousand feet above the valley. The girl led the party to the door of her father's hut; and there, through the medium of Henry as interpreter, they purchased the two bows for a very small sum of money. They also bought a drink of excellent milk for the whole party of Ninette's mother and then resumed their journey.