Rollo in Switzerland Part 15

"Yes," said Mr. George. "I hope the clouds will clear away by the time we get to the inn."

It was just about sunset when the party reached the inn. Rollo was beginning to get a little tired, though the excitement of the excursion and the effect produced on his mind by the strange aspect of every thing around him inspired him with so much animation and strength that he held on in his walk very well indeed. It is true that a great portion of the mountain scenery around him was concealed from view by the clouds; but there was something in the appearance of the rocks, in the character of the vegetation, and especially in the aspect and expression of the patches of snow which were to be seen here and there in nooks and corners near the path,--the remains of the vast acc.u.mulations of the preceding winter which the sun had not yet dispelled,--that impressed Rollo continually with a sentiment of wonder and awe, and led him to feel that he had attained to a vast elevation, and that he was walking, as he really was, among the clouds.

The inn, when the party first came in sight of it, appeared more like a log cabin in America than like a well-known and much-frequented European hotel. It stood on a very small plot of ground, which formed a sort of projection on a steep mountain side, facing the Jungfrau. In front of the hotel the land descended very rapidly for a considerable distance.

The descent terminated at last on the brink of an enormous ravine which separated the base of the Wengern Alp from that of the Jungfrau. Behind the house the land rose in a broad, green slope, dotted with Alpine flowers and terminating in a smooth, rounded summit far above. The house itself seemed small, and was rudely constructed. There was a sort of piazza in front of it, with a bench and a table before it.

"That is where the people sit, I suppose," said Mr. George, "in pleasant weather to see the Jungfrau."

"Yes," said Rollo.

"For the Jungfrau must be over there," said Mr. George, pointing among the clouds in the southern sky.

All doubt about the position of the mountain was removed at the instant that Mr. George had spoken these words, by another avalanche, which just at that moment commenced its fall. They all stopped to listen. The sound was greatly prolonged, sometimes roaring continuously for a time, like a cataract, and then rumbling and crashing like a peal of thunder.

"What a pity that the clouds are in the way," said Rollo, "so that we can't see! Do you think it will clear up before we go away?"

"Yes," said Mr. George. "I am very sure it will; for I am determined not to go away till it does clear up."

There were one or two buildings attached to the inn which served apparently as barns and sheds. The door of entrance was round in a corner formed by the connection of one of these buildings with the house. Henry led the horse up to this door, and Mr. George dismounted.

The guide led the horse away, and Rollo and Mr. George went into the house. A young and very blooming Swiss girl received them in the hall and opened a door for them which led to the public sitting room.

The sitting room was a large apartment, which extended along the whole front of the house. The windows, of course, looked out towards the Jungfrau. There was a long table in the middle of the room, and one or two smaller ones in the back corners. At these tables two or three parties were seated, eating their dinners. In one of the front corners was a fireplace, with a small fire, made of pine wood, burning on the hearth. A young lady was sitting near this fire, reading. Another was at a small table near it, writing in her journal. Around the walls of the room were a great many engravings and colored lithographs of Swiss scenery; among them were several views of the Jungfrau. On the whole, the room, though perfectly plain and even rude in all its furniture and appointments, had a very comfortable and attractive appearance.

"What a snug and pleasant-looking place!" said Rollo, whispering to Mr.

George as they went in.

"Yes," said Mr. George. "It is just exactly such a place as I wished to find."

Mr. George and Rollo were both of them tired and hungry. They first called for rooms. The maid took them up stairs and gave them two small rooms next each other. The rooms were, in fact, _very_ small. The furniture in them, too was of the plainest description; but every thing was neat and comfortable, and the aspect of the interior of them was, on the whole, quite attractive.

In about fifteen minutes Rollo knocked at Mr. George's door and asked if he was ready to go down.

"Not quite," said Mr. George; "but I wish that you would go down and order dinner."

So Rollo went down again into the public room and asked the maid if she could get them some dinner.

"Yes," said the maid. "What would you like to have?"

Rollo was considerate enough to know that there could be very little to eat in the house except what had been brought up in a very toilsome and difficult manner, from the valleys below, by the zigzag paths which he and his uncle had been climbing. So he said in reply,--

"Whatever you please. It is not important to us."

The maid then told him what they had in the house; and Rollo, selecting from these things, ordered what he thought would make an excellent dinner. The dinner, in fact, when it came to the table, proved to be a very excellent one indeed. It consisted of broiled chicken, some most excellent fried potatoes, eggs, fresh and very nice bread, and some honey. For drink, they had at first water; and at the end of the meal some French coffee, which, being diluted with boiled milk that was very rich and sweet, was truly delicious.

"I have not had so good a dinner," said Mr. George, "since I have been in Europe."

"No," said Rollo; "nor I."

"It is owing in part, I suppose, to the appet.i.te we have got in climbing up the mountain," said Mr. George.

Just as the young gentlemen had finished their dinner and were about to rise from the table, their attention was attracted by an exclamation of delight which came from one of the young ladies who were sitting at the fireplace when Mr. George and Rollo came in.

"O Emma," said she, "come here!"

Mr. George and Rollo looked up, and they saw that the young lady whose voice they had heard was standing at the window. Emma rose from her seat and went to the window in answer to the call. Mr. George and Rollo looked out, too, at another window. They saw a spectacle which filled them with astonishment.

"It is clearing away," said Rollo. "Let us go out in front of the house and look."

"Yes," said Mr. George; "we will."

So they both left their seats, and, putting on their caps, they went out. As soon as they reached the platform where the bench and the table were standing they gazed on the scene which was presented to their view with wonder and delight.

It was, indeed, clearing away. The clouds were "lifting" from the mountains; and the sun, which had been for some hours obscured, was breaking forth in the west and illuminating the whole landscape with his setting beams. Opposite to where Mr. George and Rollo stood, across the valley, they could see the whole mighty ma.s.s of the Jungfrau coming into view beneath the edge of the cloudy curtain which was slowly rising.

The lower portion of the mountain was an immense precipice, the foot of which was hidden from view in the great chasm, or ravine, which separated the Jungfrau from the Wengern Alp. Above this were rocks and great sloping fields of snow formed from avalanches which had fallen down from above. Still higher, there were brought to view vast fields of ice and snow, with ma.s.ses of rock breaking out here and there among them, some in the form of precipices and crags, and others shooting up in jagged pinnacles and peaks, rising to dizzy heights, to the summits of which nothing but the condor or the eagle could ever attain. Still higher were precipices of blue and pellucid ice, and boundless fields of glittering snow, and immense drifts, piled one above the other in vast volumes, and overhanging the cliffs as if just ready to fall.

In a short time the clouds rose so as to clear the summit of the mountain; and then the whole mighty ma.s.s was seen revealed fully to view, glittering in the sunbeams and filling half the sky.

The other guests of the inn came out upon the platform while Rollo and Mr. George were there, having wrapped themselves previously in their coats and shawls, as the evening air was cool. Some other parties of travellers came, too, winding their way slowly up the same pathway where Mr. George and Rollo had come. Mr. George and Rollo paid very little attention to these new comers, their minds being wholly occupied by the mountain.

In a very short time after the face of the Jungfrau came fully into view, the attention of all the company that were looking at the scene was arrested by the commencement of another peal of the same thundering sound that Mr. George and Rollo had heard with so much wonder in coming up the mountain. A great many exclamations immediately broke out from the party.

"There! hark! look!" said they. "An avalanche! An avalanche!"

The sound was loud and almost precisely like thunder. Every one looked in the direction from which it proceeded. There they soon saw, half way up the mountain, a stream of snow, like a cataract, creeping slowly over the brink of a precipice, and falling in a continued torrent upon the rocks below. From this place they could see it slowly creeping down the long slope towards another precipice, and where, when it reached the brink, it fell over in another cataract, producing another long peal of thunder, which, being repeated by the echoes of the mountains and rocks around, filled the whole heavens with its rolling reverberations. In this manner the ma.s.s of ice and snow went down slope after slope and over precipice after precipice, till at length it made its final plunge into the great chasm at the foot of the mountain and disappeared from view.

In the course of an hour several other avalanches were heard and seen; and when at length it grew too dark to see them any longer, the thundering roar of them was heard from time to time all the night long.

Rollo, however, was so tired that, though he went to bed quite early, he did not hear the avalanches or any thing else until Mr. George called him the next morning.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: They are p.r.o.nounced as if spelled Gooten arbend.]

CHAPTER X.

GOING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN.

Mr. George and Rollo met with various adventures and incidents in going down the next day to Grindelwald which are quite characteristic of mountain travelling in Switzerland.

They did not set out very early in the morning, as Mr. George wished to stay as long as possible to gaze on the face of the Jungfrau and watch the avalanches.

"Rollo," said he, as they were standing together in front of the hotel after breakfast, "how would you like to go up with me to the top of that hill?"

So saying, Mr. George pointed to the great rounded summit which was seen rising behind the hotel.