The Alps Part 4

Oftener the climber starts beneath the stars. His first attention is paid to their aspect. If they seem unusually bright and twinkling, he augurs ill of his prospects, but holds on, hoping for the best. Dark sky-islands indicate the presence of clouds here and there. He trusts that the rising sun may clear them away. In due season the dawn breaks, perhaps in unusual and threatening grandeur, the light pouring along "wreathed avenues" of advancing clouds and illuminating with its rich tints the cloud-banners flying from precipitous peaks. Worst of all is it if umbrella clouds seem to float stationary above the tops of rounded snowy summits. Then indeed there is little ground left for hope. These cloud-caps, just lifted off the heads of the mountains to which they belong, consist of vapour in rapid movement and always imply a strong wind. The mist condenses to windward of the summit, blows over it, and dissolves to leeward, thus making the cloud-cap appear stationary, though every particle composing it is in rapid motion. Similar is the internal composition of a cloud-banner, though the movement of its parts is more easily perceived.

Oftenest, however, at the hour of dawn there is little wind, and the mists condense lazily, forming, fading, forming again in the most whimsical fashion. Or they eddy in hollow places, and reach forth over depressions uncanny arms, which grasp and wither away and return again as though in doubt what to attack. An hour may pa.s.s in this weird performance, and then after all the sun may conquer and the misty battalions be swallowed up. But that is unusual. Generally, after some preliminary skirmishing, the moment comes when they gather themselves together, as by word of command, and, coming on in united force, swallow up the mountain world.

This final onrush is often a most magnificent and solemn sight. The gathering squadrons of the sky grow dark and seem to hold the just departed night in their bosoms. Their crests impend. They a.s.sume terrific shapes. They acquire an aspect of solidity. They do not so much seem to blot out as to destroy the mountains. Their motion suggests a great momentum. At first too they act in almost perfect silence. There is little movement in the oppressively warm air, and yet the clouds boil and surge as though violently agitated. They join together, neighbour to neighbour, and every moment they grow more dense and climb higher. To left and right, one sees them, behind also and before. The moments now are precious. We take a last view of our surroundings, note the direction we should follow, and try to fix details in our memories, for sight will soon be impossible. Then the clouds themselves are upon us--a puff of mist first, followed by the dense fog. A crepitating sound arises around us; it is the pattering of hard particles of snow on the ground. Presently the flakes grow bigger and fall more softly, feeling clammy on the face. And now probably the wind rises and the temperature is lowered. Each member of our party is whitened over; icicles form on hair and moustache, and the very aspect of men is changed to match the wild surroundings. Under such circ.u.mstances the high regions of snow are more impressive than under any other, but climbers must be well-nourished, in good hard condition, and not too fatigued, or they will not appreciate the scene. No one can really know the high Alps who has not been out in a storm at some great elevation. The experience may not be, in fact is not, physically pleasant, but it is morally stimulating in a high degree, and aesthetically grand. Now must a climber call up all his reserves of pluck and determination. He may have literally to fight his way down to a place of shelter. There can be no rest, neither can there be any undue haste. The right way must be found and followed. All that can be seen is close at hand and that small circle must serve for guidance. All must keep moving on with grim persistence, hour after hour. Stimulants are unavailing and food is probably inaccessible. All depends upon reserve stores of health and vigour, and upon moral courage. To give in is treason. Each determines that he for his part will not fail his companions. Mutual reliance must be preserved.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 31. THE GROSSER ALETSCH-FIRN FROM CONCORDIA HUT. The Lotschenlucke on the extreme left.]

At first the disagreeable details are most keenly felt by contrast, but, when an hour has pa.s.sed and the conflict is well entered upon, they are forgotten. We become accustomed to our surroundings and can, if we will, observe them with a deliberate interest. How the winds tear the mists about! There is no constant blast of air, but a series of eddying rushes, which come and pa.s.s like the units of an army. Each seems to possess an individuality of its own. Each makes its attack and is gone.

One smites you in the face; another in the back. Some seem not devoid of humour; they sport with the traveller in a grim way. Others are filled with rage. Others come on as it were reluctantly.

The aspect of the foreground rapidly changes. Rocks and stones disappear under a thickening blanket of snow. What was a staircase on the way up is found to be a powdery snow-slope in the forced descent.

The new snow is soft like a liquid. It flows into the footprints and blots them out. Can it be that there are places somewhere where it is warm and dry--places with roofs over them and snug chimney corners and hot things to eat and drink? How strange the idea already seems! We belong to another world and feel as though we had always belonged to it.

Civilised life is like some dream of a bygone night, and this that we are in is the only reality. It, in its turn, we know, will hereafter seem to have been a dream, but now it is the only fact. Here is the world of ice in the making. This is what snow-fields and glaciers come from. Unpleasant is it? Well perhaps! but it is good to have had such experiences. They develop a man's confidence, employ his powers, and enrich his memory.

After all it is the snow regions in their days of storm that I remember best. One tempest that overwhelmed us on the flanks of Mount Sarmiento in Tierra del Fuego--how clearly even its details arise upon the lantern-screen of recollection! We were looking back northward over the Magellan channels towards the southern extremity of the South American continent, and a storm was pouring down thence upon us. "The darkness in the north was truly appalling. It seemed not merely to cover, but to devour the wintry world. The heavens appeared to be falling in solid ma.s.ses, so dense were the skirts of snow and hail that the advancing cloud-phalanx trailed beneath it. Black islands, leaden waters, pallid snows, and splintered peaks disappeared in a night of tempest, which enveloped us also almost before we had realised that it was at hand. A sudden wind shrieked and whirled around us; hail was flung against our faces, and all the elements raged and rioted together. All landmarks vanished; the snow beneath was no longer distinguishable by the eye from the snow-filled air."

Sometimes the wind blows with a fury that is almost irresistible. I have this note of such an experience. "The wind struck us like a solid thing, and we had to lean against it or be overthrown. It lulled for an instant, and we advanced a few yards; then it struck us again, and we gripped the mountain and doubted whether we could hold on. A far milder gale than this would suffice to sweep men from a narrow arete. It was not only strong, but freezing. It dissolved the heat out of us so rapidly that we could almost feel ourselves crystallising like so many Lot's wives. We stood up to it for a minute or two, then rushed back into shelter and took stock of our extremities. My finger-tips had lost all sensation. It was enough."

Such raging tumults of the air are not a very common alpine experience, though most climbers have had to encounter them. Sometimes the air is still, or only gently in motion, while dense clouds envelop peak and glacier. Then a great silence reigns, which yet is not like the silence of night. It seems of a denser, more positive sort. Strange sounds punctuate it in times of heavy snow-fall. There are slidings from rocks, dull sunderings of snow-drifts grown too heavy to retain their unstable positions. There are crackings in deep beds of snow, newly formed. Small avalanches of snow fall with a cat-like, velvety movement, more of a flowing than a fall. Stones plunge with a dim thud into snow-drifts. All these sounds are heard, but the moving objects, though perhaps quite near at hand, remain invisible. We feel ourselves to be in the midst of unseen presences and activities, and instinctively picture them as hostile.

In the midst of such a silence the first boom of thunder breaking on the ear sounds solemn indeed. It may be a distant discharge, and the next will be nearer. But often the very cloud that envelops us is the thunderer, and the first clap is quite close at hand. If so, it will not so much boom as rattle, re-echoing from the rocks amongst or near which it strikes. It has not come unforeseen. The air has been electrical for some time. We have felt cobwebs upon our faces. Perhaps our ice-axes are hissing, and we may have felt a shock or two from them. With the breaking of the storm comes hail that spatters the rocks and p.r.i.c.ks over the snow. The discharges multiply in frequency, and if we are in the heart of the storm we hear them now on one side, now on the other--rattling like the volley-firing of scattered companies. Seldom, at high alt.i.tudes, are the individual discharges very violent, though being near at hand they sound loud enough. The mountain is exchanging electricity with the clouds over all its surface at a number of suitable points. Many climbers have been struck by lightning, but few are known to have been killed, though lightning-stroke may have been the cause of mysterious accidents never accounted for. As a rule there is noise enough to produce a great impression; there is a sense of the power and activity of nature's forces; but there is little absolute danger.

Very different is the sensation of being in the midst of fine weather clouds, such as are often encountered before sunrise, but dissolve and disappear as the power of the sun increases. I well remember a beautiful experience of the kind upon the Rutor. The night had been overcast; when dawn appeared, the mists only seemed to thicken. We reached the summit crest and felt our way over the other side and down. We knew from the map that a great snow-field was sloping away before us in gentle undulations.

"We could not see it, nor indeed could we see anything except a small area of flat ripple-surfaced snow, losing itself in all directions in the delicate sparkling mist, through which the circle of the soaring sun now began to be faintly discerned. With compa.s.s and map we determined the direction to be followed, and down we went over admirably firm snow.

Seldom have I been in lovelier surroundings than those afforded by the rippled _neve_ and the glittering mist. The air was soft. A perfect silence reigned. Nothing in sight had aspect of solidity; we seemed to be in a world of gossamer and fairy webs. Presently there came an indescribable movement and flickering above us, as though our bright chaos were taking form. Vague and changeful shapes trembled into view and disappeared. Low, flowing light-bands striped the white floor. Wisps of mist danced and eddied around. A faint veil was all that remained, and through it we beheld with bewildered delight all the glory of the Mont Blanc range, from end to end and from base to summit, a vision of bridal beauty. Last of all, the veil was withdrawn and utter clearness reigned all around."

Such sudden and unexpected withdrawals of the cloud curtains, such revelations and surprises are amongst the most transcendently beautiful effects that the mountain-climber is privileged to behold. They amply repay hours of fog, and compensate for days of bad weather. But even if the fog remain, blotting out all distant views, it often provides a setting for near objects, which gives them an emphasis amounting to a revelation. Many of my readers must have beheld great serac towers of ice looming out of mist, and magnified by it into excess of grandeur.

Never is an ice-fall so imposing as when traversed in not too dense a fog. What a sense of poise between heaven and earth is received when one is in a steep couloir which vanishes into mist above and below.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 32. THUNDERSTORM BREAKING OVER PALLANZA. Sketch made out of window. Dust of the streets swept before it in clouds.]

I look back with special pleasure to several days of wandering over a series of snow pa.s.ses, which had never been traversed before by any member of our party, when we had to feel our way over, through snow-storms and clouds by help only of map and compa.s.s. They were easy Tirolese pa.s.ses, which might have proved monotonous in fine weather, but the prevailing conditions made them intensely interesting and even exciting, for the easiest pa.s.s may prove difficult if you miss the actual col. How closely we watched the undulations of the glacier, and how keenly we a.n.a.lysed the formation of the rocks. Every hint of structure was important. None could be neglected. No step could be taken without thought. An ordinary creva.s.sed glacier required careful negotiation. Those occasional rifts in the clouds that made manifest now some isolated point of rock, now some icy wall, now some corniced crest of snow, were a series of framed pictures pa.s.sed in review. We enjoyed no panoramas, but the mountain detail that was forced upon our close attention was no whit less beautiful.

As for the low-level bad weather views, it is seldom that a traveller can bring himself into a mood to regard them sympathetically. We are not seals, and water is not our element. The oncoming of bad weather, beheld from below, is a grievance to the holiday-maker. He may admit that it is accompanied by impressive appearances, but he cannot pretend to appreciate them. It is not till days of rain have followed one another, and disgust has given place to resignation, that he is driven to face the elements and seek for consolation in activity. Clouds lie low and rain is pouring from them, but he must sally forth. Before long he loses sense of discomfort and finds himself entering into the spirit of the day. The pouring clouds are a low roof over his head; their margins rest on the pines, defining the tops of some and half-burying others. Every outline is softened, every form vague. Perhaps a glacier snout looms dimly forth, with all the stones upon it glistening with wet. Everything is wet and all local colours are enhanced. The gra.s.s glistens in every blade; so do the flowers, and the pebbles on the foot-path. How sweetly everything smells. All has been washed clean. There are no dusty bushes.

Water drips and tinkles everywhere. Little springs arise every few yards; runlets fall down every bank. An infinite number of little treble voices unite in the chorus, and can be heard near at hand alone. Further off they are lost in the great "whish" that fills the air. Surely the clouds must be draining themselves dry! But, no! They form as fast as they fall. One sees them gathering at the edge by the trees. Long stretches of mist lie on the hills below the general level, or move slowly along,

"Reach out an arm and creep from pine to pine."

Soon he is up amongst them. There it is not so much rain that falls, it is a general dissolution.

From such a walk one returns a happier creature. Next day, perhaps, the weather will clear. The sun will shine on a glistening world and the clouds will melt away. Then we see the low-lying fresh snow shining on the green alps, and all the great rock-peaks glittering aloft in a new-shed glory. The sky is unwontedly clear and so definitely blue; the trees and gra.s.s so green; the snow so white. The early morning moments of such a day are precious indeed. Diamond rain-drops deck gra.s.s and pine-needles. There is radiance upon all the earth and freshness in the air. The discomforts of the past are forgotten. We are rested and eager for movement, and the world summons us forth. Nature, after all, knows best, and he is happiest who yields himself, whether in the mountains or elsewhere, to perfect sympathy with her many moods.

CHAPTER VI

MOUNTAINS ALL THE YEAR ROUND

In the chequer-boards of most men's lives, the squares they can allot to the joys of mountain travel are coincident with summer seasons. Thus most of us cannot know the snow mountains all the year round, but only in their warm-weather garb. It may be claimed that then they are at their best, but such claims, in the case of Nature, are untenable.

Nature is never or always at her best. One star may differ from another star in glory, but not in beauty; for beauty is in the eye that beholds, rather than in the thing that is beheld. A particular effect in nature may be more attractive than another to a particular man, but that is not really a measure of the beauty of the effect, but of the capacity of the man. None of us can discover all beauty; none of us can always behold beauty in everything; but all of us together can find beauty everywhere and always in what Nature makes. He that can oftenest discover beauty, and is most continuously conscious of it, is most richly endowed and most to be envied. How often do we hear people say that in their opinion Niagara, or the view from the Gorner Grat, or Mont Blanc, or some other great sight, is disappointing, that it failed to come up to their expectations, that its reputation is ill-deserved, and so forth. Such persons seem to imagine that their opinions are worth something, and that they, or any one, has a say in the matter; whereas the fact is, that the sights of nature may measure men, but that individual men cannot measure them. If a man thinks little of Niagara, that opinion measures him, but not Niagara. All sights of nature are beautiful. All great natural phenomena are greatly beautiful. That is a fundamental fact. Our business is not to question it, but to see the beauty if and when we can.

The great mountains therefore are not beautiful at one time, or more beautiful at one time than another. They are beautiful always, and all the year round. They may be more comfortable to live or scramble amongst at some seasons, but he that can render his sense of beauty independent of his sense of comfort may be able to grow equally conscious of mountain beauty at all seasons. It is the opportunity that most of us lack, not the power. The fact that the high Alps are beautiful in winter also was not popularly realised till recently. A few men had faith that such would be the case, and they went to see. They brought back lively accounts of the wonders and glories they had beheld, and so incited others to follow in their steps.

The cla.s.sical first account in English of the high Alps in winter was A. W. Moore's paper in the fourth volume of the _Alpine Journal_, describing a visit to Grindelwald in December 1866, and the pa.s.sage of the Strahleck and Finsteraarjoch by full mid-winter moonlight.

Mid-winter moonlight is doubtless one of the great glories that the summer traveller misses. So bright was it "that the faintest pencil memoranda were legible with ease." The landscape beneath it is not the monochrome picture most of us a.s.sociate with moonlight. It is rich with subdued colour, most beautiful to see. The full winter moon in the Alps bears to the summer moon, for brightness, the same relation that the equatorial sun does to the sun of our temperate regions. High planted near the zenith, the winter moon floods mountain and valley with a white light that turns snow to silver and hangs a curtain of velvet on every rock-face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 33. THE WETTERHORN. Grindelwald Chalets, flower-clad slopes and sunlit trees.]

Who that has been to St. Moritz or Davos in winter does not come home with a new conception of what the clearness of the atmosphere can be?

The summer air is like poor gla.s.s beside the crystal transparency of winter. Perhaps the effect is to bring distances nearer and thus decrease apparent scale--an effect which the whitening of the foundations of the hills tends to increase; but in return, by what delicacy of detail, what crispness of form, what glitter and brilliancy we are repaid. In course of time we learn to read scale truthfully anew.

Another winter glory is the snow drapery of the lower slopes and glaciers below the snow-line. All minor asperities of surface are smoothed away. Flowing lines take the place of broken ones, and large surfaces most delicately modelled predominate. In summer you must climb to the high snow-fields to behold the delicate modelling of which snow is capable on a large scale, but in winter such sights are all around you. To watch the play of sunshine upon them from dawn to dusk, and the even more fascinating appearance they a.s.sume under brilliant moonlight, is joy enough for the hungriest eye.

Then there are the frozen cascades by every roadside, glittering cl.u.s.tered columns of ice fit for fairies' palaces. One beholds them at almost every turn, for the veriest trickle of water, so it be persistent, suffices to build them up. Nor must we forget to catalogue amongst the greater glories of Alpine winter the snow-laden forests. One day the trees will be burdened down by loads of snow. Another, every sprig and pine-needle will be frosted over by the most delicate incrustation of tiny ice-crystals--a natural lacework of surpa.s.sing fascination. When the early sun first shines upon such a scene, which night has prepared to be a revelation to the day, so magnificent a vision is provided that even the dullest perceive something of its beauty, and for a moment forget the trifles of their life.

Akin to this glorification of the trees by frost are the glittering "snow-flowers," those charming little groups of crystals that form on the ground in suitable spots under the influence of wind-eddies and other vagaries of the air. They are as pretty as they are short-lived, and possess a quality of rareness that makes them additionally precious.

If in winter we lose the blueness of the lakes and the greenness of the hills, are we not more than repaid? What in its way can be more fair than the absolute flatness and unspotted purity of a frozen lake-surface covered thickly by new-fallen snow? It is no joy to skaters and curlers indeed, but for those who have eyes and have taught themselves how to see with them, little time is left for the distractions of mere games.

The snow-shoe is the true winter implement, and especially the Norwegian _ski_, which provides the most glorious exercise and makes accessible the most delightful spots. An occasional run down-hill is the by-reward of the skilful, but his main prize is the sights he is privileged to behold. He can enter the heart of forests or ascend large slopes without the toil of sinking into the soft snow, to whose presence they owe the quality of their winter charm. Ski, moreover, grant access with relative comfort to the higher regions, and enable them to be crossed in suitable places at a time when the creva.s.ses of the glaciers are deeply buried or soundly bridged, and when the snowy world sweeps in larger and simpler surfaces away. Some climbers have found pleasure in attaining in winter the summits of high peaks, whence they have beheld great panoramas with a distinctness of distant vision that the summer climber seldom attains.

They tell us that the white filling of the valleys and covering of the lower slopes tends to flatten the effect of a mountain scene beheld from above. Whatever the special charm of such expeditions, they cannot be made with frequency. Weather conditions are usually adverse. Short days are a hint to make short expeditions. Thus in winter Nature herself calls attention rather to her own details. She endows with unusual attraction what is near at hand. She sculptures her ornaments on a tiny scale and finishes them with a marvellous elaboration. The wise follow her mood and adapt their eyes to her intentions. The winter months are none too long for them. Indeed they are gone all too soon, and one day, lo! the spring is there and the winter votaries turn and flee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 34. MaRJELEN ALP. Winter snow on ground. Foot of Eggishorn on left, ridges of Strahlhorner on right.]

I have only once spent a portion of the spring in an Alpine region.

It is not a comfortable season, but it has its own beauties as great in their kind as those of summer and winter. Now the snow begins to melt, and all the hillsides trickle and run with water. The great silence of winter is past. Nature whispers with a thousand tiny voices, and sings aloud along the valleys and gorges. The hillsides emerge brown from their snowy blanket, but the fresh green soon shoots through and early flowers are swift to put forth. The sense of young life is felt among the mountains as in the plains, for the awakening of the vegetable world is everywhere the same. But the mountains possess spring-time splendours of their own, depending upon the dissolution of the snow. Spring is the great time for avalanches. They fall indeed all the year round, chiefly at high levels, but it is only in the spring that the great avalanches get adrift. Certain great spring avalanches come down with remarkable regularity in particular places, one every year. An avalanche falls at a recognised spot in the neighbourhood of almost every village, which dates from its advent the opening of the spring. Any one who has beheld the descent of one of these giants will not forget the experience, nor will it occur to him to compare such an avalanche with the relatively small ones that tumble among the highest _neve_ regions in the summer.

These are the veriest snow-b.a.l.l.s compared with those vast discharges.

A great spring avalanche is no sudden freak of Nature, but an inevitable occurrence, slowly engendered. The snow that piles up, flake by flake, during the winter months, on what in summer are the gra.s.s slopes below the snow-line, gradually becomes unstable as spring melting advances. The ma.s.s loses its cohesion, ceases to bind firmly together, and tends to flow downwards. The conformation of the ground decides how it shall fall. If the slopes upon which it lies are narrow, and lead straight to a suitable resting-ground, or if they are of gentle declivity, it may fall in small ma.s.ses and early come to rest; for the distance to which it is projected depends upon the momentum of a fall, and the momentum depends upon the volume and the slope. But if the snow lies upon large concave slopes, or upon a cirque, then, when the discharge begins, all the snow within the cirque may flow together, and pouring down the bottom like a fluid, may form a great cataract; then tumbling over cliffs and rushing down hollows and through gorges, it will continue its descent till it reaches a valley bottom, flat enough to hold it. There it will pile up into a great cone or "fan,"

solidifying as it comes to rest, and strongly bridging over the valley torrent.

An avalanche of this kind does not fall in a few moments, but may occupy hours in its discharge. I saw several of them falling, in the first days of May 1882, in the neighbourhood of the Simplon road. Near Berisal I crossed one which had recently come to rest, traversing the road. By its rugged white surface, broken into great protuberances, its solidity, and its general form, it resembled a small glacier. To climb on to it one had to cut steps, so steep were the sides. Higher up I crossed several more such fallen ma.s.ses, through which gangs of workmen were cutting out the road. Towards the top of the pa.s.s the snow was tumbling in smaller ma.s.ses. Over a hundred little avalanches crossed the road within a couple of hours. Then they stopped. On the Italian side similar conditions obtained, but it was not till I reached Isella that the greatest fall took place, or rather was taking place, for it had begun before I arrived, and it continued after I had pa.s.sed. There, a narrow gorge, with vertical cliff-sides facing one another, debouches on the main valley. It leads upwards to a great cirque in the hills, a cirque that is a gra.s.s-covered alpine pasture in the summer. The avalanche was pouring out through this gorge and piling itself up upon the main valley-floor. How the ma.s.s of it was being renewed from behind I could not see. Doubtless all the hill-sides above were shedding their snow, and it was flowing down and crowding into and through the gorge with a continuous flow. As the pressure was relieved below by the outpouring of the avalanche on to the valley floor, more snow came down--snow mixed with slush, and semi-liquid under the great pressure that must have been developed. As the fan was built up, the snow, relieved of strain, hardened into ice-like consistency.

It is easy to describe the process that was going forward, but it is not easy to suggest to the reader the grandeur of effect that was produced. The volume of noise was terrific--a noise more ma.s.sive and continuous than thunder, and no less deep-toned. A low grey cloud roofed in the view and cast over everything a solemn tone. The avalanche, pouring through the ma.s.sive gateway of the hills and polishing its sides, came forth with an aspect of weight and resistless force that was extraordinarily impressive. Yet Nature did not seem to be acting violently, though her might was plain to see. She appeared to proceed with deliberation. One looked for an end of the snow-stream to come, but it flowed on and on, pulsating but not failing. The pressures that must be developed were easily conceived; correspondingly evident became the strength of the hills that could sustain them as if they had been but the stroking of a hand.

Later in the season the traveller often encounters, in deep-lying valleys, the black and shrunken remnants of these mighty avalanches, melted down by summer heats. Little idea can they give him of the splendour of their birth and the white curdled beauty of their surface when they first come to rest. In the nature of things they travel far and fall low, well into the tree-belt, and even down to the chestnut-level on the Italian side. It is a strange sight to see these vast, new-fallen ma.s.ses lying in their accustomed beds, but surrounded by trees all freshly verdant with the gifts of spring. Yearly each one falls in the same place, falls harmlessly and duly expected. Its coming is welcomed. Its voice is the triumphant shout of the coming season of summer exuberance and fertility. Nature, newly awakened, cries aloud with a great and solemnly joyous cry, and the people dwelling around hear her and arise to their work upon the land. It is not well for a mountain-lover never to have beheld this characteristic awakening, for it is one of the great events of the mountains' year.

For the rest, spring in the Alps has many of the qualities of spring everywhere else, which need not detain us, for to say that is to say enough. Characteristically Alpine alone are the pa.s.sing away of the snow and the phenomena that accompany it. After the avalanches have fallen, steady melting does the rest. Each warm day withdraws the winter blanket somewhat and reveals the earth to the sunshine. Convex slopes melt sooner than concave, steep slopes sooner than flats or gentle inclines.

Thus the large uniform winter covering breaks up into islands and stripes of white. Gullies are defined against slopes, which previously were lost in them. The detailed anatomy of the hills is manifested more clearly from day to day.

It may be claimed that the effect produced is patchy, and so, judged by spring-time photographs, it appears indeed to be. Never, for photography, are mountains less suitable than in the spring; by some ill-luck the camera seizes upon and magnifies the patchiness of the receding snow. In actual vision the margin of the snow bears a less piebald aspect. Indeed patchiness is not the effect that the eye receives from it. The edge is at once perceived to be melting. The white garb is being withdrawn. That fact is apparent. If one watches the changes from day to day, they will be found most entertaining from the manifestations of form they yield. Moreover, the daily alteration of the colouring of the ground from which snow has recently melted is most remarkable. The transition is from brown to green. Hence the edge of the snow is margined with brown, and that in turn by green--a kind of iris effect which ascends the hillside as the snow withdraws.

Finally, spring is the time of spilling waters, of torrents brimful and overflowing, of voluminous cascades, of gurgling brooks everywhere--a time, too, when the waters are bright and crystalline, and when the valleys and lower slopes are as vocal with their song as the upper regions are with the deeper diapason of falling snow. If, amongst all these voices, the winds blow shrilly and the storms not infrequently rage, the effects produced, however uncomfortable they may be to the touch of the comfort-loving body, are essentially harmonious in a grand and glorious fashion.

From spring to summer there is no step in Alpine regions. It is merely that as the year advances the level of spring rises. At the edge of the ever-retreating snow it is always spring. Even in August you have but to climb to find it, but it reigns then over a narrow belt and is not a land-encompa.s.sing mood. What turns spring into summer for the eye is not easy to indicate. Shall we be far wrong if we say that, in the first instance, it is the flowers? The little venturesome plants of spring, that blossom at the very edge of the withdrawing snow, themselves withdraw when they have smiled upon the world. They are followed by the bright carpet of early summer--the June carpet, which few mountaineers ever behold. It is lovely everywhere--loveliest perhaps in the Maritime Alps, or along the sunny Italian face of the Alpine wall. You must see it before the scythes get to work on the first hay crop, and even before the gra.s.s is full grown--a sheet of many colours--not, however, a mere chaos of all kinds of blossoms, but something far more orderly than that. For there is generally some predominant plant at a given spot, luxuriantly blossoming at a particular time, and all the rest do but serve to embroider it. Here indeed may be a sheet of one kind of blossom, there of another. It is as though some one had pa.s.sed by and tossed fair Persian carpets down in different places, carpets of different design, but all in the same general style.