Saunterings Part 3

who had been in the war, on the wrong side. They knew no language but American, and were unable to order a cutlet and an omelet for breakfast.

They said they believed they were going over the Tete Noire. They supposed they had four mules waiting for them somewhere, and a guide; but they couldn't understand a word he said, and he couldn't understand them. The day before, they had nearly perished of thirst, because they could n't make their guide comprehend that they wanted water. One of them had slung over his shoulder an Alpine horn, which he blew occasionally, and seemed much to enjoy. All this while we sit on a rock at the foot of the Mauvais Pas, looking out upon the green glacier, which here piles itself up finely, and above to the Aiguilles de Charmoz and the innumerable ice-pinnacles that run up to the clouds, while our muleteer is getting his breakfast. This is his third breakfast this morning.

The day after we reached Chamouny, Monseigneur the bishop arrived there on one of his rare pilgrimages into these wild valleys. Nearly all the way down from Geneva, we had seen signs of his coming, in preparations as for the celebration of a great victory. I did not know at first but the Atlantic cable had been laid; or rather that the decorations were on account of the news of it reaching this region. It was a holiday for all cla.s.ses; and everybody lent a hand to the preparations. First, the little church where the confirmations were to take place was trimmed within and without; and an arch of green spanned the gateway. At Les Pres, the women were sweeping the road, and the men were setting small evergreen-trees on each side. The peasants were in their best clothes; and in front of their wretched hovels were tables set out with flowers.

So cheerful and eager were they about the bishop, that they forgot to beg as we pa.s.sed: the whole valley was in a fever of expectation. At one hamlet on the mulepath over the Tete Noire, where the bishop was that day expected, and the women were sweeping away all dust and litter from the road, I removed my hat, and gravely thanked them for their thoughtful preparation for our coming. But they only stared a little, as if we were not worthy to be even forerunners of Monseigneur.

I do not care to write here how serious a drawback to the pleasures of this region are its inhabitants. You get the impression that half of them are beggars. The other half are watching for a chance to prey upon you in other ways. I heard of a woman in the Zermatt Valley who refused pay for a gla.s.s of milk; but I did not have time to verify the report.

Besides the beggars, who may or may not be horrid-looking creatures, there are the grinning Cretins, the old women with skins of parchment and the goitre, and even young children with the loathsome appendage, the most wretched and filthy hovels, and the dirtiest, ugliest people in them. The poor women are the beasts of burden. They often lead, mowing in the hayfield; they carry heavy baskets on their backs; they balance on their heads and carry large washtubs full of water. The more appropriate load of one was a cradle with a baby in it, which seemed not at all to fear falling. When one sees how the women are treated, he does not wonder that there are so many deformed, hideous children. I think the pretty girl has yet to be born in Switzerland.

This is not much about the Alps? Ah, well, the Alps are there. Go read your guide-book, and find out what your emotions are. As I said, everybody goes to Chamouny. Is it not enough to sit at your window, and watch the clouds when they lift from the Mont Blanc range, disclosing splendor after splendor, from the Aiguille de Goute to the Aiguille Verte,--white needles which pierce the air for twelve thousand feet, until, jubilate! the round summit of the monarch himself is visible, and the vast expanse of white snow-fields, the whiteness of which is rather of heaven than of earth, dazzles the eyes, even at so great a distance?

Everybody who is patient and waits in the cold and inhospitable-looking valley of the Chamouny long enough, sees Mont Blanc; but every one does not see a sunset of the royal order. The clouds breaking up and clearing, after days of bad weather, showed us height after height, and peak after peak, now wreathing the summits, now settling below or hanging in patches on the sides, and again soaring above, until we had the whole range lying, far and brilliant, in the evening light. The clouds took on gorgeous colors, at length, and soon the snow caught the hue, and whole fields were rosy pink, while uplifted peaks glowed red, as with internal fire. Only Mont Blanc, afar off, remained purely white, in a kind of regal inaccessibility. And, afterward, one star came out over it, and a bright light shone from the hut on the Grand Mulets, a rock in the waste of snow, where a Frenchman was pa.s.sing the night on his way to the summit.

Shall I describe the pa.s.sage of the Tete Noire? My friend, it is twenty-four miles, a road somewhat hilly, with splendid views of Mont Blanc in the morning, and of the Bernese Oberland range in the afternoon, when you descend into Martigny,--a hot place in the dusty Rhone Valley, which has a comfortable hotel, with a pleasant garden, in which you sit after dinner and let the mosquitoes eat you.

THE MAN WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH

It was eleven o'clock at night when we reached Sion, a dirty little town at the end of the Rhone Valley Railway, and got into the omnibus for the hotel; and it was also dark and rainy. They speak German in this part of Switzerland, or what is called German. There were two very pleasant Americans, who spoke American, going on in the diligence at half-past five in the morning, on their way over the Simplex. One of them was accustomed to speak good, broad English very distinctly to all races; and he seemed to expect that he must be understood if he repeated his observations in a louder tone, as he always did. I think he would force all this country to speak English in two months. We all desired to secure places in the diligence, which was likely to be full, as is usually the case when a railway discharges itself into a postroad.

We were scarcely in the omnibus, when the gentleman said to the conductor:

"I want two places in the coupe of the diligence in the morning. Can I have them?"

"Yah" replied the good-natured German, who did n't understand a word.

"Two places, diligence, coupe, morning. Is it full?"

"Yah," replied the accommodating fellow. "Hotel man spik English."

I suggested the banquette as desirable, if it could be obtained, and the German was equally willing to give it to us. Descending from the omnibus at the hotel, in a drizzling rain, and amidst a crowd of porters and postilions and runners, the "man who spoke English" immediately presented himself; and upon him the American pounced with a torrent of questions. He was a willing, lively little waiter, with his moony face on the top of his head; and he jumped round in the rain like a parching pea, rolling his head about in the funniest manner.

The American steadied the little man by the collar, and began, "I want to secure two seats in the coupe of the diligence in the morning."

"Yaas," jumping round, and looking from one to another. "Diligence, coupe, morning."

"I--want--two seats--in--coupe. If I can't get them, two--in--banquette."

"Yaas banquette, coupe,--yaas, diligence."

"Do you understand? Two seats, diligence, Simplon, morning. Will you get them?"

"Oh, yaas! morning, diligence. Yaas, sirr."

"Hang the fellow! Where is the office?" And the gentleman left the spry little waiter bobbing about in the middle of the street, speaking English, but probably comprehending nothing that was said to him. I inquired the way to the office of the conductor: it was closed, but would soon be open, and I waited; and at length the official, a stout Frenchman, appeared, and I secured places in the interior, the only ones to be had to Visp. I had seen a diligence at the door with three places in the coupe, and one perched behind; no banquette. The office is brightly lighted; people are waiting to secure places; there is the usual crowd of loafers, men and women, and the Frenchman sits at his desk. Enter the American.

"I want two places in coupe, in the morning. Or banquette. Two places, diligence." The official waves him off, and says something.

"What does he say?"

"He tells you to sit down on that bench till he is ready."

Soon the Frenchman has run over his big waybills, and turns to us.

"I want two places in the diligence, coupe," etc, etc, says the American.

This remark being lost on the official, I explain to him as well as I can what is wanted, at first,--two places in the coupe.

"One is taken," is his reply.

"The gentleman will take two," I said, having in mind the diligence in the yard, with three places in the coupe.

"One is taken," he repeats.

"Then the gentleman will take the other two."

"One is taken!" he cries, jumping up and smiting the table,--"one is taken, I tell you!"

"How many are there in the coupe?"

"TWO."

"Oh! then the gentleman will take the one remaining in the coupe and the one on top."

So it is arranged. When I come back to the hotel, the Americans are explaining to the lively waiter "who speaks English" that they are to go in the diligence at half-past five, and that they are to be called at half-past four and have breakfast. He knows all about it,--"Diligence, half-past four breakfast, Oh, yaas!" While I have been at the diligence-office, my companions have secured room and gone to them; and I ask the waiter to show m to my room. First, however, I tell him that we three two ladies and myself, who came together, are going in the diligence at half-past five, and want to be called and have breakfast.

Did he comprehend?

"Yaas," rolling his face about on the top of his head violently. "You three gentleman want breakfast. What you have?"

I had told him before what we would I have, an now I gave up all hope of keeping our parties separate in his mind; so I said, "Five persons want breakfast at five o'clock. Five persons, five hours. Call all of them at half-past four." And I repeated it, and made him repeat it in English and French. He then insisted on putting me into the room of one of the American gentlemen and then he knocked at the door of a lady, who cried out in indignation at being disturbed; and, finally, I found my room.

At the door I reiterated the instructions for the morning; and he cheerfully bade me good-night. But he almost immediately came back, and poked in his head with,--

"Is you go by de diligence?"

"Yes, you stupid."

In the morning one of our party was called at halfpast three, and saved the rest of us from a like fate; and we were not aroused at all, but woke early enough to get down and find the diligence nearly ready, and no breakfast, but "the man who spoke English" as lively as ever. And we had a breakfast brought out, so filthy in all respects that n.o.body could eat it. Fortunately, there was not time to seriously try; but we paid for it, and departed. The two American gentlemen sat in front of the house, waiting. The lively waiter had called them at half-past three, for the railway train, instead of the diligence; and they had their wretched breakfast early. They will remember the funny adventure with "the man who speaks English," and, no doubt, unite with us in warmly commending the Hotel Lion d'Or at Sion as the nastiest inn in Switzerland.

A WALK TO THE GORNER GRAT

When one leaves the dusty Rhone Valley, and turns southward from Visp, he plunges into the wildest and most savage part of Switzerland, and penetrates the heart of the Alps. The valley is scarcely more than a narrow gorge, with high precipices on either side, through which the turbid and rapid Visp tears along at a furious rate, boiling and leaping in foam over its rocky bed, and nearly as large as the Rhone at the junction. From Visp to St. Nicolaus, twelve miles, there is only a mule-path, but a very good one, winding along on the slope, sometimes high up, and again descending to cross the stream, at first by vineyards and high stone walls, and then on the edges of precipices, but always romantic and wild. It is noon when we set out from Visp, in true pilgrim fashion, and the sun is at first hot; but as we slowly rise up the easy ascent, we get a breeze, and forget the heat in the varied charms of the walk.

Everything for the use of the upper valley and Zermatt, now a place of considerable resort, must be carried by porters, or on horseback; and we pa.s.s or meet men and women, sometimes a dozen of them together, laboring along under the long, heavy baskets, broad at the top and coming nearly to a point below, which are universally used here for carrying everything. The tubs for transporting water are of the same sort. There is no level ground, but every foot is cultivated. High up on the sides of the precipices, where it seems impossible for a goat to climb, are vineyards and houses, and even villages, hung on slopes, nearly up to the clouds, and with no visible way of communication with the rest of the world.

In two hours' time we are at Stalden, a village perched upon a rocky promontory, at the junction of the valleys of the Saas and the Visp, with a church and white tower conspicuous from afar. We climb up to the terrace in front of it, on our way into the town. A seedy-looking priest is pacing up and down, taking the fresh breeze, his broad-brimmed, shabby hat held down upon the wall by a big stone. His clothes are worn threadbare; and he looks as thin and poor as a Methodist minister in a stony town at home, on three hundred a year. He politely returns our salutation, and we walk on. Nearly all the priests in this region look wretchedly poor,--as poor as the people. Through crooked, narrow streets, with houses overhanging and thrusting out corners and gables, houses with stables below, and quaint carvings and odd little windows above, the panes of gla.s.s hexagons, so that the windows looked like sections of honey-comb,--we found our way to the inn, a many-storied chalet, with stairs on the outside, stone floors in the upper pa.s.sages, and no end of queer rooms; built right in the midst of other houses as odd, decorated with German-text carving, from the windows of which the occupants could look in upon us, if they had cared to do so; but they did not. They seem little interested in anything; and no wonder, with their hard fight with Nature. Below is a wine-shop, with a little side booth, in which some German travelers sit drinking their wine, and sputtering away in harsh gutturals. The inn is very neat inside, and we are well served. Stalden is high; but away above it on the opposite side is a village on the steep slope, with a slender white spire that rivals some of the snowy needles. Stalden is high, but the hill on which it stands is rich in gra.s.s. The secret of the fertile meadows is the most thorough irrigation. Water is carried along the banks from the river, and distributed by numerous sluiceways below; and above, the little mountain streams are brought where they are needed by artificial channels. Old men and women in the fields were constantly changing the direction of the currents. All the inhabitants appeared to be porters: women were transporting on their backs baskets full of soil; hay was being backed to the stables; burden-bearers were coming and going upon the road: we were told that there are only three horses in the place.

There is a pleasant girl who brings us luncheon at the inn; but the inhabitants for the most part are as hideous as those we see all day: some have hardly the shape of human beings, and they all live in the most filthy manner in the dirtiest habitations. A chalet is a sweet thing when you buy a little model of it at home.