The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 59

There is a mercenary atmosphere about hotels and steamers on the Rhine, a watering-place, show sort of feeling, that detracts very much from one's enjoyment. The old habit of the robber barons of levying toll on all who sail up and down has not been lost. It is not that one actually pays so much for sightseeing, but the charm of anything vanishes when it is made merchandise. One is almost as reluctant to buy his "views" as he is to sell his opinions. But one ought to be weeks on the Rhine before attempting to say anything about it.

One morning, at Bingen,--I a.s.sure you it was not six o'clock,--we took a big little rowboat, and dropped down the stream, past the Mouse Tower, where the cruel Bishop Hatto was eaten up by rats, under the shattered Castle of Ehrenfels, round the bend to the little village of a.s.smannshausen, on the hills back of which is grown the famous red wine of that name. On the bank walked in line a dozen peasants, men and women, in picturesque dress, towing, by a line pa.s.sed from shoulder to shoulder, a boat filled with marketing for Rudesheim. We were bound up the Niederwald, the mountain opposite Bingen, whose n.o.ble crown of forest attracted us. At the landing, donkeys awaited us; and we began the ascent, a stout, good-natured German girl acting as guide and driver. Behind us, on the opposite sh.o.r.e, set round about with a wealth of foliage, was the Castle of Rheinstein, a fortress more pleasing in its proportions and situation than any other. Our way was through the little town which is jammed into the gorge; and as we clattered up the pavement, past the church, its heavy bell began to ring loudly for matins, the sound reverberating in the narrow way, and following us with its benediction when we were far up the hill, breathing the fresh, inspiring morning air. The top of the Niederwald is a splendid forest of trees, which no impious Frenchman has been allowed to trim, and cut into allees of arches, taking one in thought across the water to the free Adirondacks. We walked for a long time under the welcome shade, approaching the brow of the hill now and then, where some tower or hermitage is erected, for a view of the Rhine and the Nahe, the villages below, and the hills around; and then crossed the mountain, down through cherry orchards, and vine yards, walled up, with images of Christ on the cross on the angles of the walls, down through a hot road where wild flowers grew in great variety, to the quaint village of Rudesheim, with its queer streets and ancient ruins. Is it possible that we can have too many ruins? "Oh dear!"

exclaimed the jung-frau as we sailed along the last day, "if there is n't another castle!"

HEIDELBERG

If you come to Heidelberg, you will never want to go away. To arrive here is to come into a peaceful state of rest and content. The great hills out of which the Neckar flows, infold the town in a sweet security; and yet there is no sense of imprisonment, for the view is always wide open to the great plains where the Neckar goes to join the Rhine, and where the Rhine runs for many a league through a rich and smiling land. One could settle down here to study, without a desire to go farther, nor any wish to change the dingy, shabby old buildings of the university for anything newer and smarter. What the students can find to fight their little duels about I cannot see; but fight they do, as many a scarred cheek attests. The students give life to the town. They go about in little caps of red, green, and blue, many of them embroidered in gold, and stuck so far on the forehead that they require an elastic, like that worn by ladies, under the back hair, to keep them on; and they are also distinguished by colored ribbons across the breast. The majority of them are well-behaved young gentlemen, who carry switch-canes, and try to keep near the fashions, like students at home. Some like to swagger about in their little skull-caps, and now and then one is attended by a bull-dog.

I write in a room which opens out upon a balcony. Below it is a garden, below that foliage, and farther down the town with its old speckled roofs, spires, and queer little squares. Beyond is the Neckar, with the bridge, and white statues on it, and an old city gate at this end, with pointed towers. Beyond that is a white road with a wall on one side, along which I see peasant women walking with large baskets balanced on their heads. The road runs down the river to Neuenheim. Above it on the steep hillside are vineyards; and a winding path goes up to the Philosopher's Walk, which runs along for a mile or more, giving delightful views of the castle and the glorious woods and hills back of it. Above it is the mountain of Heiligenberg, from the other side of which one looks off toward Darmstadt and the famous road, the Bergstra.s.se. If I look down the stream, I see the narrow town, and the Neckar flowing out of it into the vast level plain, rich with grain and trees and gra.s.s, with many spires and villages; Mannheim to the northward, shining when the sun is low; the Rhine gleaming here and there near the horizon; and the Vosges Mountains, purple in the last distance: on my right, and so near that I could throw a stone into them, the ruined tower and battlements of the northwest corner of the castle, half hidden in foliage, with statues framed in ivy, and the garden terrace, built for Elizabeth Stuart when she came here the bride of the Elector Frederick, where giant trees grow. Under the walls a steep path goes down into the town, along which little houses cling to the hillside.

High above the castle rises the n.o.ble Konigstuhl, whence the whole of this part of Germany is visible, and, in a clear day, Strasburg Minster, ninety miles away.

I have only to go a few steps up a narrow, steep street, lined with the queerest houses, where is an ever-running pipe of good water, to which all the neighborhood resorts, and I am within the grounds of the castle. I scarcely know where to take you; for I never know where to go myself, and seldom do go where I intend when I set forth.

We have been here several days; and I have not yet seen the Great Tun, nor the inside of the show-rooms, nor scarcely anything that is set down as a "sight." I do not know whether to wander on through the extensive grounds, with splendid trees, bits of old ruin, overgrown, cozy nooks, and seats where, through the foliage, distant prospects open into quiet retreats that lead to winding walks up the terraced hill, round to the open terrace overlooking the Neckar, and giving the best general view of the great ma.s.s of ruins. If we do, we shall be likely to sit in some delicious place, listening to the band playing in the "Restauration," and to the nightingales, till the moon comes up. Or shall we turn into the garden through the lovely Arch of the Princess Elizabeth, with its stone columns cut to resemble tree-trunks twined with ivy? Or go rather through the great archway, and under the teeth of the portcullis, into the irregular quadrangle, whose buildings mark the changing style and fortune of successive centuries, from 1300 down to the seventeenth century? There is probably no richer quadrangle in Europe: there is certainly no other ruin so vast, so impressive, so ornamented with carving, except the Alhambra. And from here we pa.s.s out upon the broad terrace of masonry, with a splendid flanking octagon tower, its base hidden in trees, a rich facade for a background, and below the town the river, and beyond the plain and floods of golden sunlight. What shall we do? Sit and dream in the Rent Tower under the lindens that grow in its top? The day pa.s.ses while one is deciding how to spend it, and the sun over Heiligenberg goes down on his purpose.

ALPINE NOTES

ENTERING SWITZERLAND BERNE ITS BEAUTIES AND BEARS

If you come to Bale, you should take rooms on the river, or stand on the bridge at evening, and have a sunset of gold and crimson streaming down upon the wide and strong Rhine, where it rushes between the houses built plumb up to it, or you will not care much for the city. And yet it is pleasant on the high ground, where are some stately buildings, and where new gardens are laid out, and where the American consul on the Fourth of July flies our flag over the balcony of a little cottage smothered in vines and gay with flowers.

I had the honor of saluting it that day, though I did not know at the time that gold had risen two or three per cent. under its blessed folds at home. Not being a shipwrecked sailor, or a versatile and accomplished but impoverished naturalized citizen, desirous of quick transit to the land of the free, I did not call upon the consul, but left him under the no doubt correct impression that he was doing a good thing by unfolding the flag on the Fourth.

You have not journeyed far from Bale before you are aware that you are in Switzerland. It was showery the day we went down; but the ride filled us with the most exciting expectations. The country recalled New England, or what New England might be, if it were cultivated and adorned, and had good roads and no fences. Here at last, after the dusty German valleys, we entered among real hills, round which and through which, by enormous tunnels, our train slowly went: rocks looking out of foliage; sweet little valleys, green as in early spring; the dark evergreens in contrast; snug cottages nestled in the hillsides, showing little else than enormous brown roofs that come nearly to the ground, giving the cottages the appearance of huge toadstools; fine harvests of grain; thrifty apple-trees, and cherry-trees purple with luscious fruit. And this shifting panorama continues until, towards evening, behold, on a hill, Berne, shining through showers, the old feudal round tower and buildings overhanging the Aar, and the tower of the cathedral over all. From the balcony of our rooms at the Bellevue, the long range of the Bernese Oberland shows its white summits for a moment in the slant sunshine, and then the clouds shut down, not to lift again for two days. Yet it looks warmer on the snow-peaks than in Berne, for summer sets in in Switzerland with a New England chill and rigor.

The traveler finds no city with more flavor of the picturesque and quaint than Berne; and I think it must have preserved the Swiss characteristics better than any other of the large towns in Helvetia.

It stands upon a peninsula, round which the Aar, a hundred feet below, rapidly flows; and one has on nearly every side very pretty views of the green basin of hills which rise beyond the river. It is a most comfortable town on a rainy day; for all the princ.i.p.al streets have their houses built on arcades, and one walks under the low arches, with the shops on one side and the huge stone pillars on the other. These pillars so stand out toward the street as to give the house-fronts a curved look. Above are balconies, in which, upon red cushions, sit the daughters of Berne, reading and sewing, and watching their neighbors; and in nearly every window are quant.i.ties of flowers of the most brilliant colors. The gray stone of the houses, which are piled up from the streets, harmonizes well with the colors in the windows and balconies, and the scene is quite Oriental as one looks down, especially if it be upon a market morning, when the streets are as thronged as the Strand. Several terraces, with great trees, overlook the river, and command prospects of the Alps.

These are public places; for the city government has a queer notion that trees are not hideous, and that a part of the use of living is the enjoyment of the beautiful. I saw an elegant bank building, with carved figures on the front, and at each side of the entrance door a large stand of flowers,--oleanders, geraniums, and fuchsias; while the windows and balconies above bloomed with a like warmth of floral color. Would you put an American bank president in the Retreat who should so decorate his banking-house? We all admire the tasteful display of flowers in foreign towns: we go home, and carry nothing with us but a recollection. But Berne has also fountains everywhere; some of them grotesque, like the ogre that devours his own children, but all a refreshment and delight. And it has also its clock-tower, with one of those ingenious pieces of mechanism, in which the sober people of this region take pleasure. At the hour, a procession of little bears goes round, a jolly figure strikes the time, a c.o.c.k flaps his wings and crows, and a solemn Turk opens his mouth to announce the flight of the hours. It is more grotesque, but less elaborate, than the equally childish toy in the cathedral at Strasburg.

We went Sunday morning to the cathedral; and the excellent woman who guards the portal--where in ancient stone the Last Judgment is enacted, and the cheerful and conceited wise virgins stand over against the foolish virgins, one of whom has been in the penitential att.i.tude of having a stone finger in her eye now for over three hundred years--refused at first to admit us to the German Lutheran service, which was just beginning. It seems that doors are locked, and no one is allowed to issue forth until after service. There seems to be an impression that strangers go only to hear the organ, which is a sort of rival of that at Freiburg, and do not care much for the well-prepared and protracted discourse in Swiss-German. We agreed to the terms of admission; but it did not speak well for former travelers that the woman should think it necessary to say, "You must sit still, and not talk." It is a barn-like interior. The women all sit on hard, high-backed benches in the center of the church, and the men on hard, higher-backed benches about the sides, inclosing and facing the women, who are more directly under the droppings of the little pulpit, hung on one of the pillars,--a very solemn and devout congregation, who sang very well, and paid strict attention to the sermon.

I noticed that the names of the owners, and sometimes their coats-of-arms, were carved or painted on the backs of the seats, as if the pews were not put up at yearly auction. One would not call it a dressy congregation, though the homely women looked neat in black waists and white puffed sleeves and broadbrimmed hats.

The only concession I have anywhere seen to women in Switzerland, as the more delicate s.e.x, was in this church: they sat during most of the service, but the men stood all the time, except during the delivery of the sermon. The service began at nine o'clock, as it ought to with us in summer. The costume of the peasant women in and about Berne comes nearer to being picturesque than in most other parts of Switzerland, where it is simply ugly. You know the sort of thing in pictures,--the broad hat, short skirt, black, pointed stomacher, with white puffed sleeves, and from each breast a large silver chain hanging, which pa.s.ses under the arm and fastens on the shoulder behind,--a very favorite ornament. This costume would not be unbecoming to a pretty face and figure: whether there are any such native to Switzerland, I trust I may not be put upon the witness-stand to declare. Some of the peasant young men went without coats, and with the shirt sleeves fluted; and others wore b.u.t.ternut-colored suits, the coats of which I can recommend to those who like the swallow-tailed variety. I suppose one would take a man into the opera in London, where he cannot go in anything but that sort. The b.u.t.tons on the backs of these came high up between the shoulders, and the tails did not reach below the waistband. There is a kind of rooster of similar appearance. I saw some of these young men from the country, with their sweethearts, leaning over the stone parapet, and looking into the pit of the bear-garden, where the city bears walk round, or sit on their hind legs for bits of bread thrown to them, or douse themselves in the tanks, or climb the dead trees set up for their gambols. Years ago they ate up a British officer who fell in; and they walk round now ceaselessly, as if looking for another.

But one cannot expect good taste in a bear.

If you would see how charming a farming country can be, drive out on the highway towards Thun. For miles it is well shaded with giant trees of enormous trunks, and a clean sidewalk runs by the fine road.

On either side, at little distances from the road, are picturesque cottages and rambling old farmhouses peeping from the trees and vines and flowers. Everywhere flowers, before the house, in the windows, at the railway stations. But one cannot stay forever even in delightful Berne, with its fountains and terraces, and girls on red cushions in the windows, and n.o.ble trees and flowers, and its stately federal Capitol, and its bears carved everywhere in stone and wood, and its sunrises, when all the Bernese Alps lie like molten silver in the early light, and the clouds drift over them, now hiding, now disclosing, the enchanting heights.

HEARING THE FREIBURG ORGAN--FIRST SIGHT OF LAKE LEMAN

Freiburg, with its aerial suspension-bridges, is also on a peninsula, formed by the Sarine; with its old walls, old watch-towers, its piled-up old houses, and streets that go upstairs, and its delicious cherries, which you can eat while you sit in the square by the famous linden-tree, and wait for the time when the organ will be played in the cathedral. For all the world stops at Freiburg to hear and enjoy the great organ,--all except the self-satisfied English clergyman, who says he does n't care much for it, and would rather go about town and see the old walls; and the young and boorish French couple, whose refined amus.e.m.e.nt in the railway-carriage consisted in the young man's catching his wife's foot in the window-strap, and hauling it up to the level of the window, and who cross themselves and go out after the first tune; and the two bread-and-b.u.t.ter English young ladies, one of whom asks the other in the midst of the performance, if she has thought yet to count the pipes,--a thoughtful verification of Murray, which is very commendable in a young woman traveling for the improvement of her little mind.

One has heard so much of this organ, that he expects impossibilities, and is at first almost disappointed, although it is not long in discovering its vast compa.s.s, and its wonderful imitations, now of a full orchestra, and again of a single instrument. One has not to wait long before he is mastered by its spell. The vox humana stop did not strike me as so perfect as that of the organ in the Rev.

Mr. Hale's church in Boston, though the imitation of choir-voices responding to the organ was very effective. But it is not in tricks of imitation that this organ is so wonderful: it is its power of revealing, by all its compa.s.s, the inmost part of any musical composition.

The last piece we heard was something like this: the sound of a bell, tolling at regular intervals, like the throbbing of a life begun; about it an accompaniment of hopes, inducements, fears, the flute, the violin, the violoncello, promising, urging, entreating, inspiring; the life beset with trials, lured with pleasures, hesitating, doubting, questioning; its purpose at length grows more certain and fixed, the bell tolling becomes a prolonged undertone, the flow of a definite life; the music goes on, twining round it, now one sweet instrument and now many, in strife or accord, all the influences of earth and heaven and the base underworld meeting and warring over the aspiring soul; the struggle becomes more earnest, the undertone is louder and clearer; the accompaniment indicates striving, contesting pa.s.sion, an agony of endeavor and resistance, until at length the steep and rocky way is pa.s.sed, the world and self are conquered, and, in a burst of triumph from a full orchestra, the soul attains the serene summit. But the rest is only for a moment.

Even in the highest places are temptations. The sunshine fails, clouds roll up, growling of low, pedal thunder is heard, while sharp lightning-flashes soon break in clashing peals about the peaks. This is the last Alpine storm and trial. After it the sun bursts out again, the wide, sunny valleys are disclosed, and a sweet evening hymn floats through all the peaceful air. We go out from the cool church into the busy streets of the white, gray town awed and comforted.

And such a ride afterwards! It was as if the organ music still continued. All the world knows the exquisite views southward from Freiburg; but such an atmosphere as we had does not overhang them many times in a season. First the Moleross, and a range of mountains bathed in misty blue light,--rugged peaks, scarred sides, white and tawny at once, rising into the clouds which hung large and soft in the blue; soon Mont Blanc, dim and aerial, in the south; the lovely valley of the River Sense; peasants walking with burdens on the white highway; the quiet and soft-tinted mountains beyond; towns perched on hills, with old castles and towers; the land rich with gra.s.s, grain, fruit, flowers; at Palezieux a magnificent view of the silver, purple, and blue mountains, with their chalky seams and gashed sides, near at hand; and at length, coming through a long tunnel, as if we had been shot out into the air above a country more surprising than any in dreams, the most wonderful sight burst upon us,--the low-lying, deep-blue Lake Leman, and the gigantic mountains rising from its sh.o.r.es, and a sort of mist, translucent, suffused with sunlight, like the liquid of the golden wine the Steinberger poured into the vast basin. We came upon it out of total darkness, without warning; and we seemed, from our great height, to be about to leap into the splendid gulf of tremulous light and color.

This Lake of Geneva is said to combine the robust mountain grandeur of Luzerne with all the softness of atmosphere of Lake Maggiore.

Surely, nothing could exceed the loveliness as we wound down the hillside, through the vineyards, to Lausanne, and farther on, near the foot of the lake, to Montreux, backed by precipitous but tree-clad hills, fronted by the lovely water, and the great mountains which run away south into Savoy, where Velan lifts up its snows.

Below us, round the curving bay, lies white Chillon; and at sunset we row down to it over the bewitched water, and wait under its grim walls till the failing light brings back the romance of castle and prisoner. Our garcon had never heard of the prisoner; but he knew about the gendarmes who now occupy the castle.

OUR ENGLISH FRIENDS

Not the least of the traveler's pleasure in Switzerland is derived from the English people who overrun it: they seem to regard it as a kind of private park or preserve belonging to England; and they establish themselves at hotels, or on steamboats and diligences, with a certain air of ownership that is very pleasant. I am not very fresh in my geology; but it is my impression that Switzerland was created especially for the English, about the year of the Magna Charta, or a little later. The Germans who come here, and who don't care very much what they eat, or how they sleep, provided they do not have any fresh air in diningroom or bedroom, and provided, also, that the bread is a little sour, growl a good deal about the English, and declare that they have spoiled Switzerland. The natives, too, who live off the English, seem to thoroughly hate them; so that one is often compelled, in self-defense, to proclaim his nationality, which is like running from Scylla upon Charybdis; for, while the American is more popular, it is believed that there is no bottom to his pocket.

There was a sprig of the Church of England on the steamboat on Lake Leman, who spread himself upon a center bench, and discoursed very instructively to his friends,--a stout, fat-faced young man in a white cravat, whose voice was at once loud and melodious, and whom our manly Oxford student set down as a man who had just rubbed through the university, and got into a scanty living.

"I met an American on the boat yesterday," the oracle was saying to his friends, "who was really quite a pleasant fellow. He--ah really was, you know, quite a sensible man. I asked him if they had anything like this in America; and he was obliged to say that they had n't anything like it in his country; they really had n't. He was really quite a sensible fellow; said he was over here to do the European tour, as he called it."

Small, sympathetic laugh from the attentive, wiry, red-faced woman on the oracle's left, and also a chuckle, at the expense of the American, from the thin Englishman on his right, who wore a large white waistcoat, a blue veil on his hat, and a face as red as a live coal.

"Quite an admission, was n't it, from an American? But I think they have changed since the wah, you know."

At the next landing, the smooth and beaming churchman was left by his friends; and he soon retired to the cabin, where I saw him self-sacrificingly denying himself the views on deck, and consoling himself with a substantial lunch and a bottle of English ale.

There is one thing to be said about the English abroad: the variety is almost infinite. The best acquaintances one makes will be English,--people with no nonsense and strong individuality; and one gets no end of entertainment from the other sort. Very different from the clergyman on the boat was the old lady at table-d'hote in one of the hotels on the lake. One would not like to call her a delightfully wicked old woman, like the Baroness Bernstein; but she had her own witty and satirical way of regarding the world. She had lived twenty-five years at Geneva, where people, years ago, coming over the dusty and hot roads of France, used to faint away when they first caught sight of the Alps. Believe they don't do it now. She never did; was past the susceptible age when she first came; was tired of the people. Honest? Why, yes, honest, but very fond of money. Fine Swiss wood-carving? Yes. You'll get very sick of it.

It's very nice, but I 'm tired of it. Years ago, I sent some of it home to the folks in England. They thought everything of it; and it was not very nice, either,--a cheap sort. Moral ideas? I don't care for moral ideas: people make such a fuss about them lately (this in reply to her next neighbor, an eccentric, thin man, with bushy hair, s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, and a high, falsetto voice, who rallied the witty old lady all dinner-time about her lack of moral ideas, and accurately described the thin wine on the table as "water-bewitched"). Why did n't the baroness go back to England, if she was so tired of Switzerland? Well, she was too infirm now; and, besides, she did n't like to trust herself on the railroads. And there were so many new inventions nowadays, of which she read. What was this nitroglycerine, that exploded so dreadfully? No: she thought she should stay where she was.

There is little risk of mistaking the Englishman, with or without his family, who has set out to do Switzerland. He wears a brandy-flask, a field-gla.s.s, and a haversack. Whether he has a silk or soft hat, he is certain to wear a veil tied round it. This precaution is adopted when he makes up his mind to come to Switzerland, I think, because he has read that a veil is necessary to protect the eyes from the snow-glare. There is probably not one traveler in a hundred who gets among the ice and snow-fields where he needs a veil or green gla.s.ses: but it is well to have it on the hat; it looks adventurous.

The veil and the spiked alpenstock are the signs of peril.

Everybody--almost everybody--has an alpenstock. It is usually a round pine stick, with an iron spike in one end. That, also, is a sign of peril. We saw a n.o.ble young Briton on the steamer the other day, who was got up in the best Alpine manner. He wore a short sack,--in fact, an entire suit of light gray flannel, which closely fitted his lithe form. His shoes were of undressed leather, with large spikes in the soles; and on his white hat he wore a large quant.i.ty of gauze, which fell in folds down his neck. I am sorry to say that he had a red face, a shaven chin, and long side-whiskers.

He carried a formidable alpenstock; and at the little landing where we first saw him, and afterward on the boat, he leaned on it in a series of the most graceful and daring att.i.tudes that I ever saw the human form a.s.sume. Our Oxford student knew the variety, and guessed rightly that he was an army man. He had his face burned at Malta.

Had he been over the Gemmi? Or up this or that mountain? asked another English officer. "No, I have not." And it turned out that he had n't been anywhere, and did n't seem likely to do anything but show himself at the frequented valley places. And yet I never saw one whose gallant bearing I so much admired. We saw him afterward at Interlaken, enduring all the hardships of that fashionable place.

There was also there another of the same country, got up for the most dangerous Alpine climbing, conspicuous in red woolen stockings that came above his knees. I could not learn that he ever went up anything higher than the top of a diligence.

THE DILIGENCE TO CHAMOUNY

The greatest diligence we have seen, one of the few of the old-fashioned sort, is the one from Geneva to Chamouny. It leaves early in the morning; and there is always a crowd about it to see the mount and start. The great ark stands before the diligence-office, and, for half an hour before the hour of starting, the porters are busy stowing away the baggage, and getting the pa.s.sengers on board.

On top, in the banquette, are seats for eight, besides the postilion and guard; in the coupe, under the postilion's seat and looking upon the horses, seats for three; in the interior, for three; and on top, behind, for six or eight. The baggage is stowed in the capacious bowels of the vehicle. At seven, the six horses are brought out and hitched on, three abreast. We climb up a ladder to the banquette: there is an irascible Frenchman, who gets into the wrong seat; and before he gets right there is a terrible war of words between him and the guard and the porters and the hostlers, everybody joining in with great vivacity; in front of us are three quiet Americans, and a slim Frenchman with a tall hat and one eye-gla.s.s. The postilion gets up to his place. Crack, crack, crack, goes the whip; and, amid "sensation" from the crowd, we are off at a rattling pace, the whip cracking all the time like Chinese fireworks. The great pa.s.sion of the drivers is noise; and they keep the whip going all day. No sooner does a fresh one mount the box than he gives a half-dozen preliminary snaps; to which the horses pay no heed, as they know it is only for the driver's amus.e.m.e.nt. We go at a good gait, changing horses every six miles, till we reach the Baths of St. Gervais, where we dine, from near which we get our first glimpse of Mont Blanc through clouds,--a section of a dazzlingly white glacier, a very exciting thing to the imagination. Thence we go on in small carriages, over a still excellent but more hilly road, and begin to enter the real mountain wonders; until, at length, real glaciers pouring down out of the clouds nearly to the road meet us, and we enter the narrow Valley of Chamouny, through which we drive to the village in a rain.

Everybody goes to Chamouny, and up the Flegere, and to Montanvert, and over the Mer de Glace; and nearly everybody down the Mauvais Pas to the Chapeau, and so back to the village. It is all easy to do; and yet we saw some French people at the Chapeau who seemed to think they had accomplished the most hazardous thing in the world in coming down the rocks of the Mauvais Pas. There is, as might be expected, a great deal of humbug about the difficulty of getting about in the Alps, and the necessity of guides. Most of the dangers vanish on near approach. The Mer de Glace is inferior to many other glaciers, and is not nearly so fine as the Glacier des Bossons: but it has a reputation, and is easy of access; so people are content to walk over the dirty ice. One sees it to better effect from below, or he must ascend it to the Jardin to know that it has deep creva.s.ses, and is as treacherous as it is grand. And yet no one will be disappointed at the view from Montanvert, of the upper glacier, and the needles of rock and snow which rise beyond.