FOOTNOTE:
[3] In any remarks I have ever made which reflect on the Pontresina guides as a body, I need hardly say that those fine old men, the brothers Hans and Christian Grass, were quite outside my subject. They have now given up climbing; but only three years ago Christian made his hundredth ascent of Piz Bernina, which he took by the “Scharte,” reaching the Fuorcla Prievlusa by a new and extremely difficult route from Boval.
CHAPTER IV. MORE ABOUT GUIDES.
It has often been a matter for discussion whether the talent of path-finding, or, more often, of discovering a possible route when no semblance of a path exists, comes from instinct or from training. It seems to me that it usually proceeds from something of both, though especially from the latter. Those who would confine this power to instinct pure and simple, bring forward as an argument on their side the fact that hardly any amateurs possess it to a great degree, and none to the extent exhibited in a first-rate guide. But they forget that people in our own class cannot by any possibility have the early experience of Swiss peasants, many of whom are accustomed from childhood to scramble about in all sorts of difficult and perilous places, and are often taken by their fathers and neighbours for lengthened excursions on mountains and glaciers, either during hunting expeditions, or sometimes, with the kindly permission of a traveller, as porters. I remember, on one occasion, Peter Taugwalder asking me to allow his son, then aged fourteen, to go with us up the Breithorn, and most efficient did the little fellow prove himself, insisting on carrying my camera a good part of the way. Imboden’s eldest son, Roman, had at fifteen made quite a number of first-rate ascents with his father, including the passage of the Ried Pass (twice), of the Alphubel, the ascent of the Balfrinhorn, Brunegghorn, and other big peaks. When, in 1887, I took him up Piz Kesch, I noticed that his “form” had already attained to a point which few amateurs could beat. The manner in which a first-rate guide will find the way in darkness, a thick fog, or a snowstorm is really marvellous. In descending Mont Blanc in January, we were in a thick fog from the moment we turned at the top of the Mur de la Côte, and it was pitch-dark before we were fairly off the Grand Plateau. Yet on the guides went, with a cheery, confident air about them, never hesitating for a moment, and only halting twice, the first time to root out a knapsack of provisions, left on the Grand Plateau that morning, and since buried in the thickly falling snow, and the second time, at my request, to light the lanterns when, within half an hour of the Grands Mulets, I awkwardly walked into one of the crevasses across which we had to pass. Again, in coming down at the end of November from the Aiguille du Tour to the Cabane d’Orny, darkness overtook us. Before beginning the descent of the Glacier d’Orny, I suggested that our lantern should be made use of; but the guides laughed, and breaking into one of the songs of the district, trotted unhesitatingly down the ice, in and out amongst the crevasses, and at last up to the door of the hut, which was so deeply buried in snow as to be hardly distinguishable. Indeed, the little cabin is at all times hard to find, and Chamonix sometimes confidentially whispers how an ex-guide and a friend, after crossing the Col du Tour, entirely failed to discover the hut, and, after much poking about, returned over the pass to Chamonix!
Another example of path-finding which greatly struck me was during a descent in the dark of the Italian side of the Matterhorn. We had the moon a good part of the time, but often, owing to the conformation of the rocks, we were in utter darkness, and Alexander Burgener would rummage about for a bit, then seize on the commencement of one of the fixed ropes, and, with a series of his characteristic grunts and snorts, work his way down it. He never missed the right route for an instant, though the mountain was in a very bad state from the amount of ice and snow on it. One more incident before we pass on to the consideration of the next of the qualities which I have noted. Some years ago, during the month of January, I found myself with Edouard Cupelin (of Chamonix), and a couple of local guides, in the long couloir which leads from the Sella Pass towards the first peak of Piz Roseg. A discussion arose as to the best route to take, the local guides advising our bearing to the left, and Cupelin recommending keeping to the right. The latter’s opinion, as leader, of course prevailed, and though he had never been in the Engadine till the day before, we cheerfully followed him. On reaching the plateau above, it became obvious that we had saved both time and trouble by selecting this route, which, indeed, we afterwards found was the one usually taken.
Pontresina guides have gone rapidly ahead since then, and it would now be hard to beat, say, Martin Schocher as a rising guide.
Now let us travel from the Engadine to the Bernese Oberland, and I will tell you of an occurrence there which made much stir amongst the few who heard of it, but an account of which did not, as far as I know, reach the ears of the Alpine world.
Again Joseph Imboden must come to the front, and never did he more deserve applause than on this occasion.
One morning in August, two parties set out from the Eggischhorn to cross the Mönch Joch to Grindelwald. One of them consisted of an Englishman accustomed to climbing, accompanied by Imboden and a good, steady porter. The second party comprised two Englishmen and a guide and porter, all of whom were more or less lacking in the qualities so conspicuous in party the first. In descending the slopes above the Bergli Hut, the second party was leading, and the position was as follows. Just below was a deep bergschrund, or large crevasse, approached by a slope of ice, down which the guide was cutting steps. Behind him was one of the travellers, then came the other, and last on the rope, and in a desperate state of apprehension at the sight of the horrors beneath, was the porter. The other party, in which, most providentially, Imboden was first on the rope, was close behind—in fact, Imboden himself was only separated by a distance of about a couple of feet from the other party’s porter. At this particularly auspicious moment, it occurred to the gentleman on the ice-slope to stick his axe into a neighbouring patch of snow, nearly out of his reach, and to take off his spectacles for the purpose of wiping them. Hardly had he commenced this operation, than, to his horror, the guide, who was cutting below, slipped. The gentleman of the spectacles followed suit, so did his companion behind, and so, with a wild cry of “Wir sind alle verloren!” (We are all lost!) did the porter. But hardly had he lost his footing when, in calm, clear tones, came the remark from behind him, “Noch nicht!” (Not yet), and he felt himself arrested and held back. What actually occurred was this (I had it from the gentleman whom Imboden was guiding, and who, from his position behind and above him, had the best possible view of the situation). When Imboden saw the spectacle-wiping begin, he instinctively scented danger, and hooked the cutting point of his axe through the rope which was round the porter’s waist. Immediately after, if not simultaneously, the slip took place, and the whole strain of the weight of the foremost party came on Imboden. However, he was firmly placed, and held without difficulty till they recovered their footing. But for Imboden’s coolness and quickness, a very serious, and most likely a fatal accident would have occurred. Two or three days afterwards, while ascending the Eiger with Imboden, I questioned him about this incident. He took his extraordinary performance entirely as a matter of course, and declined to admit any merit in it. I fear that the two Englishmen (or rather the spectacle-man) hardly realised the escape they had. Well, it is not for a mere matter of thanks or reward that men do deeds such as this, though I can vouch for it that a few warm words of gratitude are far more valued than a mere pecuniary manifestation of the same.
A good guide is usually able to turn his hand to most things, and has generally plenty of resource in unforeseen difficulties of all kinds. In short, he is ever ready to rise to the occasion, no matter what it may show of the unexpected. Many a guide with whom I have travelled has combined the qualities of an excellent cook, a lady’s-maid (!), a courier, and a first-rate carpenter, with those of a pleasant companion and the special characteristics of his profession. In proof of the above, I may remark that a little dinner in a hut is often a meal by no means to be despised, the ingenuity displayed in cooking with next to no appliances being really wonderful. As to the packing of one’s garments, I have been more than once informed that the way in which I fold dresses leaves much to be desired, while an incident connected with this subject, which took place some years ago, is still vividly impressed on my mind. When paying my bill at a certain hotel, an item of 150 francs for a broken piano-string had aroused my indignation. In the first place, the string had been broken by the frost; secondly, 150 francs was a preposterous charge. I promptly left the hotel in disgust, and accomplished my departure in a very short space of time, thanks to my guide, who valiantly helped by packing dresses and hats, boots and shoes, with unhesitating rapidity, and, what is more, they were as wearable when they emerged from my trunk as when they went into it. I was much amused, during an ascent some years ago, to see my porter produce a needle and thread and solemnly commence to repair a rent in my climbing skirt. I cannot say that the work was very fine, but it held together as long as ever that garment lasted.
There are several incidents which I should like to mention in connection with that strength of muscle with which nature and training have supplied some guides to a very remarkable extent.
Perhaps one of the most notable instances of great strength being put forth at exactly the right instant was the following, which was described to me by Miss Lucy Walker as having happened to her brother, Mr. Horace Walker.
The latter, accompanied by Peter Anderegg, was ascending a steep wall of ice. The guide went first, cutting steps. The way was barred by a big piece of rock, apparently firmly frozen into the ice-slope. While Mr. Walker stood just below the boulder, Anderegg worked to the side round it. Beaching its upper level, he placed one foot on the great mass, which, to his horror, at once began to move. To cry out and warn his companion below would have been to expend far too much time; there was but one way of saving Mr. Walker’s life, and that he promptly took. In an instant he had stepped back on to his last foothold, and with a terrific jerk had swung Mr. Walker out of his steps and along the slope. Immediately after, the huge stone thundered down the slope, across the place occupied till a moment before by Mr. Walker. This, I think, is the most wonderful thing of the kind I ever heard of.
Another very striking instance of strength promptly put forth took place on Piz Palü, a mountain in the Bernina group, during an ascent by Mrs. Wainwright, Dr. Wainwright, and the guides Christian and Hans Grass. I extract the following from Dr. Ludwig’s capital little book, “Pontresina and its Neighbourhood.”
“In 1879 an accident happened on Piz Palü, which had a similar cause, and nearly had a similar fatal ending, with the accident on the Lyskamm two years before. The middle and the western summits are joined together by a narrow ridge; on the side of the Pers Glacier (the north) the frozen snow (firn) forms, in parts, an overhanging cornice. Mr. W. and his sister-in-law, Mrs. W., with the two veteran guides, Hans and Christian Grass, had ascended the highest summit, and were on their return; Christian Grass leading, then Mr. W., Mrs. W., and last, Hans Grass. There was a thick fog. The first three of the party stepped on to the cornice; it gave way suddenly, and all four would have been dashed down the face of the ice-wall, which there falls sheer some two thousand feet, had not Hans Grass had the presence of mind and the bodily activity and strength to spring at once to the opposite side of the ridge and plant his feet firmly in the snow. Fortunately Mr. W. had not lost his axe; he gave it to Christian Grass, who in this awful situation untied himself from the rope, and cut his way up on to the ridge, where his brother and he, joining forces, were able to bring Mr. and Mrs. W. into safety.”
What a fearful moment of suspense it must have been when Mr. W. dropped his axe to the guide below, who, if he had failed to catch it, would have lost the last chance of saving the party.
An accident very much resembling that on Piz Palü occurred on August 18, 1880, on the Ober-Gabelhorn, near Zermatt. In this case, as on the Palü, no lives were lost, thanks to the prompt action of one of the guides, Ulrich Almer. I extract the following account of the event from Ulrich’s book:—
“We attacked the mountain direct from the Trift Alp, and had scaled the steep rocks and reached the eastern arête, along which, at a distance of about twelve yards from the edge, we were proceeding, when a huge cornice fell, carrying with it the leading guide, Brantschen, and the two voyagers. Almer, who alone remained on terra firma, showed extraordinary strength and presence of mind. Instantly on hearing the crack of the cornice, he leaped a yard backwards, plunged his axe into the snow, and planting himself as firmly as possible, was thus enabled to arrest the fall of the entire party down a precipice of some 2000 feet. Joseph Brantschen, who fell farthest down the precipice, dislocated his right shoulder, and this mischance involved a long, and to him most painful descent, and the return to Zermatt took us eight hours, the injured man being obliged to stop every two or three minutes from pain and exhaustion. It should be mentioned that the mass of cornice which fell measured (as far as we can judge) about forty yards long by thirteen yards broad.
“Mr. C. E. Mathews, president, and other members of the Alpine Club, went carefully into the details of the accident, and gave their verdict that, according to all the hitherto accepted theories of cornices, we were allowing an ample margin, and that no blame attached to the leading guide, Brantschen.... There can be no doubt whatever that it is owing solely to Ulrich Almer’s strength, presence of mind, and lightning-like rapidity of action that this accident on the Gabelhorn did not terminate with the same fatal results as the Lyskamm catastrophe.
(Signed)
H. H. Majendie, A.C.
Richard L. Harrison.”
As a practical proof of their gratitude to Almer, I understand that these gentlemen gave him a cow.
CHAPTER V. FURTHER ANECDOTES OF GUIDES.
Endurance is absolutely necessary in a guide undertaking first-class ascents. It is simply astounding how much fatigue a guide will go through without any symptom of giving in. One one occasion, Alexander Burgener, having returned to Zermatt after fourteen hours’ climbing, left with me the same evening, and put in another forty-three hours’ exertion (relieved by one halt of two hours on an exposed ledge while waiting for the moon), almost “without turning a hair.” The porter, too, had participated in both ascents, and though certainly fatigued on our reaching Zermatt, was still far from prostrate.
I have known Martin Schocher go up Piz Bernina five times in one week, taking an “off day” on Piz Palü on the other two days; and amongst the long excursions which I have made with guides who, on their return, declared that they felt quite fresh, may be mentioned the Dent du Géant, twenty-three hours; Aiguille du Midi (winter), twenty hours; Col d’Argentine (winter), twenty hours; Finsteraarhorn, up and down by Agassiz-joch (following an ascent of the Schreckhorn the day before), twenty-three hours.
It is when a party encounters bad weather or is benighted in an exposed situation that the endurance of a guide is most put to the test. Some years ago a party consisting of Mr. Howard Knox and a German gentleman, with Peter Dangl of Sulden and Martin Schocher of Pontresina, were benighted on the arête of Piz Scerscen. The German was almost unconscious from cold and fatigue, and Mr. Knox, too, was worn-out from want of sleep. The guides during the entire night never ceased rubbing and attending to the German, and from time to time Schocher took Mr. Knox in his arms and allowed him three or four minutes’ sleep, which refreshed him much more than would be expected from the short time during which it was safe for him to indulge in it. At daybreak, Schocher led the party in magnificent style down an entirely new route to the Scerscen glacier, and brought them all safe and sound home to Pontresina the same afternoon. The final splendid piece of guiding of Jean-Antoine Carrel in 1890, when, after two days’ confinement by bad weather in the upper hut on the south side of the Matterhorn, he, after twenty hours’ fearful toil, got his party safely out of all their difficulties, and then laid down and died, is one of the most pathetic incidents in Alpine history.
Referring to this, Mr. Whymper wrote in the Alpine Journal, “It cannot be doubted that Carrel, enfeebled though he was, could have saved himself had he given his attention to self-preservation. He took a nobler course, and, accepting his responsibility, devoted his whole soul to the welfare of his comrades, until, utterly exhausted, he fell staggering on the snow. He was already dying; life was flickering, yet the brave spirit said, ‘It is nothing.’ They placed him in the rear to ease his work; he was no longer able even to support himself; he dropped to the ground, and in a few minutes expired.”
An extraordinary case of endurance came to my notice a short time ago, when turning over the leaves of some old numbers of the Alpine Journal. It is not connected with guides, and thus is perhaps out of place here. Still, as my object in this little work is rather to interest my readers than to aim at a careful classification of subjects, I shall quote the account for their benefit.
“The same number of the same work (i.e., the Bulletino Trimestrale, Nos. x. and xi.) relates an Alpine misadventure so extraordinary as to deserve notice, and so incredible as hardly to seem worthy of it. But it is equally out of the question to suppose that the organ of the Italian Alpine Club is itself guilty of a hoax, or that it could be hoaxed in a matter verified by the signature of three Italian gentlemen of station, by a public subscription, and by an official document. This premised, we give the following narrative, greatly condensed from the Italian.
“A party of young men, who had been employed on the Fell railway over the Mont Cenis, took their way home, about the middle of October 1866, over the Col du Collarin to the Piedmontese valley of Ala. Near the top, still on the Savoy side, one of them, named Angelo Castagneri, slipped, apparently on the edge of the bergschrund, and disappeared. His companions, instead of returning for help to the village of Averolles, little more than an hour distant, seem to have been possessed with the notion that a man down in a glacier was past help, and crossed the col to Balme, the first village where Castagneri’s parents lived. They took it coolly, for it was a week before anybody went to look for him, and then the father, descending by help of a ladder, found him lying on the wet earth beside a clot of blood, which had flowed from a wound in his head, and still alive. It took nine or ten hours to get him home, using the ladder as a litter, and many days elapsed before he was seen by a medical man.” The account goes on to say that it was nine months before he was taken to Turin and placed in a hospital there, where his legs, from which he had lost his feet from frost-bite and subsequent mortification, were healed, apparently without amputation. Castagneri says that he had no recollection of anything from the time of his fall until aroused by his father’s voice and touch. In that case he lay senseless between eight and nine days, and probably owed his life to his insensibility.
The subject of the manifold kindnesses and acts of unselfishness shown by guides, both to their employers and also to each other, is so wide a one that I can only touch on it in a most superficial manner. I well remember, some years ago, hearing of a very kind act of Melchior Anderegg’s. The party had ascended the Dent d’Heréns, and, in returning, Ulrich Almer was struck and badly hurt by a stone. It was impossible to get him down to Zermatt that night, and several hours had to be spent, while waiting for daylight, sitting on the rocks. It was extremely cold, and Melchior took off his coat and wrapped the wounded man in it, remaining all night in his shirt-sleeves.
In my work “The High Alps in Winter,” I have related how my guides, while I was asleep in the Cabane d’Orny (near the Orny Glacier), took off their coats and covered me with them, so that I might not feel cold, while they sat up all night brewing hot tea, and vying with each other in stories of chamois hunts.
Experience every good guide must have. Here is an anecdote showing how one member of the profession acquired it. This guide, now well known and in the first rank, began his career with two Germans as his victims. The party were bound for, I believe, the Cima di Jazzi, and when the ice of the Gorner Glacier gave place to snow, the moment came for putting on the rope. The guide felt greatly puzzled; and he was slow of thought. Meanwhile the two gentlemen, as ignorant of mountain-craft as their guardian, stood by and watched the cord being slowly uncoiled. At last the guide took a sudden resolution, and making a loop at each end of the rope, he slipped it round the necks of his two charges, and taking the cord in the centre, held it in his hand, having just enough native wit not to tie it round his own neck! In this frightfully dangerous condition they remained during the entire ascent. When returning, another party was seen approaching. The guide halted on finding that it was led by a friend of his. He took him aside and said, “Tell me, how ought people to be roped? Have I not done it correctly?” The other guide replied, with inward merriment, “Oh, yes, it’s quite right!” Whereupon his friend exclaimed, “And yet I assure you the gentlemen have sworn at me all day!” So much for that pleasing operation known as “buying experience.”
The guide who has had the greatest amount of experience in the Alps is, I think, Christian Almer, if by experience we mean making a large number of different ascents and excursions. The Oberlanders travel out of their own district more than any other guides; next to them probably the Saas and St. Nicholas men; then some of the Chamonix guides (though not many). Peter Dangl of Sulden, Tyrol, and several of the Valtournanche men are also to be met with en voyage, the former very frequently.
In closing the subject of guides, I will only add that I trust these little details of my experience of them and that of others may have helped some to better realise what a splendid body of men they are, and how much may be learnt in knowing them well, and in the constant intercourse with them which every climber enjoys. I have tried to show that the upper grades of the profession are not a number of self-seeking, ignorant, unprincipled peasants, who regard all travellers as their lawful prey, but a set of courageous, noble-minded men, often conspicuous in intellectual qualities, and in many ways unique as a class.
CHAPTER VI. ALP LIFE.
Do you know, my readers, what an alp is? Perhaps the question seems trivial to you, and you feel inclined to reply indignantly, “Of course!” Well, perhaps you are right; but still I am going to describe an alp, for it is also very possible that you are wrong. As to what an alp is not, I will begin by stating most emphatically that it is not a mountain, that it is not snow-covered in summer, and that it has nothing whatever to do with those incidents of nature spoken of in guide-books as “the Alps.” An alp is written with a small a—this is one distinction. It is a pasture tenanted in summer by cows, goats, and huge black pigs, and young men and maidens to look after the same, consequently it is not snow-covered except in winter, and as it supplies the animals with beautiful and nourishing grass, it presents a very different aspect to the rocky and ice-clad sides of the Alps (with a large A).
During the long winter months, the cows, which are of such value to the Swiss, are kept in hot, often stuffy, stables in the villages, and only taken out every day for water. It is a familiar sight to winter visitors in the Alps to meet these animals in the village street, plunging and galloping about in the enjoyment of a few breaths of fresh air on their way to drink at one of the many troughs with which even the smallest of Alpine hamlets is so liberally supplied.
Towards the beginning of May, the cows are taken from their stables and driven to the lower alps. These alps constitute a great source of wealth to the country. Many owners of large herds of cattle have as many as three, situated at different altitudes on the mountain-side. It is to the lowest that the cows first go, and by the time its rich pasturage has been fully enjoyed and considerably diminished, the snow will have melted from the slopes above, and thither the herd pursues its way. By the middle of June, or later, the highest alp is gained, and there the animals remain till the early autumn approaches. Then they descend, halting for a month or so at the intermediate stations, till the end of October sees them once more established in the valley for the winter.
The day on which the cows depart for the alps is fêted with great rejoicings in most Swiss villages, and doubtless in olden days it must have occurred earlier in the season than is now the case, for the 1st March is still kept as a festival dedicated to the turning out of the cows into the meadows, and if the valley was clear of snow by March 1st, the lower alps must surely have been habitable by April.
An interesting account, by Herr Bavier, of the 1st March rejoicings, appeared in the St. Moritz Post for March 10, 1888, and I think that my readers will wish me to reprint some of it. Herr Bavier, under the heading of “Chalanda Mars,” writes:—
“What is the Chalanda Mars? almost all my readers will ask. Here it is the children’s greatest fête, and in every village, no matter how small, the Chalanda Mars is celebrated with as much splendour as possible. For hundreds of years it has been the custom for heads of families to contribute a certain sum, which is put at the disposal of the schoolmaster, and with it he procures a supply of cream, cakes, sweets, and other things dear to the youthful palate. On March 1st (Chalanda, viz., ‘beginning’), the principal scholars of the village school go about the streets, ringing big cow-bells, cracking whips, and singing—
‘Chalanda Mars, Chaland Avrigl,
Lasché las vaschas our d’nuigl,
Cha l’erva crescha
E la naiv svanescha,’
which means,
Beginning of March, beginning of April,
Bring forth the cows from their stables,
For the grass is growing,
And the snow is going.
“During their procession through the village, the youngsters collect chestnuts, or any other dainty offered by the listeners to their music, and on the Sunday following these treasures are placed on a gorgeous sort of ‘buffet,’ and all the village children, even the babies, are invited to help themselves. After supper, a dance helps to further enliven matters, and to make the little folk look forward impatiently to next year’s ‘Chalanda Mars.’”
The herd, consisting perhaps of animals belonging to twenty or more different persons, on its departure for the mountains, is headed by the largest and finest of the cows. She is decorated with the best and deepest-toned bell, and at every march she never fails to place herself in front of all her companions, and when, through old age or sickness, she loses her superiority, and her bell is transferred to the neck of another animal, she sometimes abandons herself to such lowness of spirits as seriously to impair her health.
Tschudi relates that on one occasion, when the herds were preparing for the descent from the upper alp of Bilters, he noticed a furious combat between two cows, and on his inquiring the reason, the herdsmen told him that one of the cows had borne the great bell during the ascent, but that it had been transferred from her neck to that of a still finer animal during their sojourn on the alp. The first cow, having heard the tones of her old bell, had come from a great distance, and on her arrival had immediately shown fight, in revenge for the loss of her former privilege.
After the leader of the troop follow those of next importance, and it is said that every time the purchase of a new animal adds to the herd, the last arrival engages each of the cows in turn in battle, and the result of the fights determines her position amongst her companions. The bells carried by the cows are sometimes so large as to measure a foot in diameter, and cost in some instances as much as eighty or a hundred francs.
The cows are accompanied to their summer quarters either by a girl, who is known as a Sennerin, or by a cowherd, or Senner. It is often imagined that these peasants enjoy a life of romantic idleness, lying on the emerald-green turf, surrounded by snow-clad glittering peaks, and making the cliffs re-echo to their jodels or the “Ranz des Vaches.”
I may here add, that, according to Dr. Forbes, the name of the “Ranz des Vaches” is derived from the “rang” or range in which the cows stand to be milked, the “Ranz des Vaches” being usually sung by the peasants on their departure for the alps. However, in a work by H. Szadrowsky entitled “Music and the Musical Instruments of the Dwellers in the Alps” (1868), the derivation of Ranz is said to be from ranner, to shout (Swiss-Romansch), and the “Ranz des Vaches” from Reihen or Reigen, a song. In truth, the existence of the peasants who inhabit these alps is by no means a lazy one. Up before break of day—I have often seen them astir by 3 A.M.—they must let their cows out of the shelter in which they have passed the night. If any of the animals are ill, they must be attended to. Twice daily they must be milked, and cheese-making is an important and arduous portion of the day’s routine.
In the Engadine, and, in general, all over the Grisons, the alp huts are built of wood or solid stone, and are comfortable and commodious, and good shelter is provided for the cattle. In many parts of Valais, on the contrary, the rough stone huts of the cowherds, so low that an upright position cannot, in some cases, be maintained, are but miserable, hastily-built hovels, the walls consisting of stones piled one on another, regardless of intervening gaps, and a roof of rocky slabs covering the wretched structure. The cows are entirely unprovided with shelter on many such alps, and often when passing through mountain pastures at night, I have been startled by suddenly stumbling over a warm mass slumbering in the long dewy grass.
The highest pastures are usually to be found at about 7500 feet, but at the Riffel above Zermatt, cows are to be seen grazing above 8000 feet, and on the south slopes of the Italian side of the Alps they go still higher. In several parts of Switzerland, the cows, in order to gain their summer quarters, must cross the ice of the glaciers, and at Montanvert, above Chamonix, they may be seen in June and October traversing the Mer de Glace.
Two distinct kinds of cattle are found in Switzerland. The one is to be seen in the districts between the Lake of Constance and the east boundary of Valais, while the west is occupied by a different sort. The former is easily distinguishable, being of a uniform brown, sometimes dark in shade, sometimes light, while the other is white with black or yellow patches, sometimes being entirely red or black, with only a white mark on the forehead. The first of these two varieties, it has been noticed, is heavier or lighter, according as it inhabits the lowlands or the higher valleys.
The heaviest and finest of these animals are to be found in the Canton of Schweiz, and attain a weight of twenty to twenty-five quintaux. Of the latter sort, the best specimens inhabit Bulle, Romont, and Eastern Switzerland in general. These animals are the heaviest of all.
For further information on “Alp Life,” I refer my readers to Tschudi’s “Monde des Alpes.”
CHAPTER VII. THE CHAMOIS.
Amongst the animals met with in the Alps, there is none so interesting to the traveller as the chamois. The reason for this is not far to seek, for the animal is sufficiently rare to excite both the curiosity and the imagination, while its pursuit is known to be so difficult and often dangerous, that it has frequently been described as “mountaineering without a rope.” Thus a glamour of romance is thrown over the whole subject.
Chamois-shooting in Switzerland is only allowed during one month of the year, September. It is seldom indulged in, in this country, by foreigners, as there is a great deal of difficulty in obtaining a license. Indeed, it can only be had after the stranger has taken out a Niederlassung (which gives many of the rights of naturalisation without loss of those of the free-born Briton), and this is both a troublesome and a tedious process, besides entailing a residence of some time in Switzerland.
There are several other plans, however, by which the ardent sportsman works his will. One of these is simply to go and shoot, and, disregarding all monetary considerations, pay a heavy fine for each chamois secured. At what period, however, the Swiss authorities would pronounce the offender against their laws incorrigible, and introduce him to the interior of one of their prisons, I do not know.
A third course, and the one usually followed, is for the foreigner to accompany a native who is armed with a license and a gun for his own use. I will not affirm that in the excitement of the chase the latter does not sometimes change hands.
Hampered by a rifle, and minus the help of the trusty rope and ice-axe, chamois-hunting calls for exceptional activity and endurance. Most Englishmen who go in for the sport make their headquarters in the Italian Alps, where the Government regulations are less stringent than in this country.
The Engadine contains large herds of chamois, and one can see thirty or forty almost every day in summer feeding on the slopes of Piz Tschierva, opposite the Roseg restaurant. This is no doubt because that part of the Engadine has been strictly preserved for some years.
For the benefit of such of my readers as have never seen a chamois, I extract the following description of one from Mr. Baillie Grohman’s brightly written little work, “Tyrol and the Tyrolese.”
“Somewhat larger than a roedeer, a chamois weighs, when full grown, from forty to seventy pounds. Its colour, in summer of a dusky yellowish brown, changes in autumn to a much darker hue, while in winter it is all but black. The hair on the forehead and that which overhangs the hoofs, remains tawny brown throughout the year, while the hair growing along the backbone is in winter dark brown and of prodigious length; it furnishes the much-prized ‘Gamsbart,’ literally ‘beard of the chamois,’ with tufts of which the hunters love to adorn their hats. The build of the animal exhibits in its construction a wonderful blending of strength and agility. The power of its muscles is rivalled by the extraordinary facility of balancing the body, of instantly finding, as it were, the centre of gravity.”
Most districts of the Alps have their famous chamois-hunters; but, according to Tschudi, the most celebrated of all was Jean-Marie Colani of Pontresina. It is said that he kept about 200 chamois, half-tamed, on the hills near his home. Each year he shot sixty males or so, calculating on about the same number of young ones being born every season. He would not tolerate any strangers in the district, and the Tyrolese especially suffered much at his hands. It was popularly related at Pontresina that he had a room in his châlet decorated with foreign hunting implements, which he had taken from those whom he had killed, the number of his victims being estimated at thirty. Of course this was a gross exaggeration, and A. Cadonau, an old chamois-shooter of Bergün, asserted that Colani only killed one Tyrolese hunter whom he found on Swiss ground near Piz Ot; but he tells that one day he met Colani unexpectedly, and the latter took deliberate aim at him, only lowering his weapon when he recognised his friend.
It is said that on one occasion Colani killed three chamois grouped together with one shot, and many anecdotes are told of him, most of which are by no means to his credit. From the time he was twenty years of age till his death, Colani killed 2600 chamois. This figure has never been reached by any one else. Colani’s death in 1837 was caused by over-exertion, he having undertaken for a bet to mow a piece of land in the same time that it would take a couple of the best Tyrolese mowers to accomplish a like amount.
The Grisons have had other famous chasseurs, amongst whom may be mentioned J. Rüdi of Pontresina and Jacob Spinas of Tinzen. The latter began to hunt at twelve years old, and, in a career of twenty-two years, shot 600 chamois, besides securing every season forty to fifty hares, about sixty marmots, some hundred or more partridges, a dozen foxes or so, and in a single day catching trout to a weight of fifteen to twenty pounds.
The largest herd of chamois Spinas ever saw numbered from sixty-five to sixty-eight head. Spinas contested that he was only surpassed as a hunter by one other man in the canton, namely, B. Cathomen of Brigels.
Other noted chamois-hunters, inhabiting Val Bregaglia and the neighbouring valleys, are Giacomo Scarlazzi of Promontogno, who has shot as many as five chamois in a day and seventeen in a week, and Pietro Soldini of Stampa. The latter, up to 1887, had killed 1200 to 1300 chamois, of which he shot forty-nine in one autumn. J. Saratz of Pontresina was also a famous chasseur, and the three brothers Sutter of Bergün must not be forgotten. Amongst them they shot 1700 head, in addition to which Mathew Sutter has killed a bear, a læmmergeier, and often in a day eight to ten ptarmigan. He has only seen three lynx, but has never shot one.
October 1852 was a fatal time for chamois-hunters, three of whom, including the famous guide Hans Lauener, were killed during that month. The saying that more chamois-hunters are killed while engaged in their favourite sport than die a natural death has, unfortunately, a good deal of truth in it. Sometimes the chasseur, overcome by fatigue, falls asleep in some cold and exposed spot, never to wake again. Sometimes he is mortally wounded by falling stones, or struck by lightning in a thunderstorm. Often he is killed by avalanches, and if, when on difficult ground far from home, he is overtaken by a thick fog, his position becomes most perilous. He may wander for hours without nearing the valley; he may slip down a precipice concealed by the mist; he may give in to utter exhaustion. The diminution of the chamois within the last fifteen or twenty years also makes his task much harder, and he may spend days without being able to approach, or perhaps even without seeing one.
A pretty anecdote of a chamois is told by Dr. John Forbes in his work “A Physician’s Holiday.” He says that in the year 1843 the proprietor of a large flock of goats on the Great Scheideck had rendered a chamois so tame, by training it almost from its birth, as to get it to mingle in the herd with its more civilised cousins, and to come and go with them to and from the mountains with perfect docility and seeming content. Like most of its companions, it was decorated with a bell suspended round its neck. After following for three successive seasons this domestic course, it all at once forgot the lessons it had learnt, and lost its character as a member of civilised society for ever. One fine day, when higher up the mountains than was customary for the flock, it suddenly heard the bleat of its brethren on the cliffs above, and pricking up its ears, off it started, and speedily vanished amid the rocks, whence the magical sounds had come. Never from that hour was the tame chamois seen on the slopes of the Scheideck, but its bell was often heard by the hunters ringing among the wild solitudes of the Wetterhorn.
It is only when the chamois has lost, through disease, that amount of intelligence with which it is gifted by nature that it will abandon its mountain home and seek the haunts of man. Johann Scheuchzer of Zurich tells us that in the year 1699, only four years before the date of his journey, a chamois suddenly descended into the valley of Engelberg in Unterwalden, and not only mixed with the horses and cows, but could not even be driven from them by stones. It was at length shot, and on its body being examined after death by one of the fathers of the neighbouring monastery, a sac containing watery serum and sandy particles was found pressing on the brain. Some ten years ago a chamois appeared in the streets of Bonneville (Haute-Savoie), and walked calmly in at the open door of a restaurant, where it was captured. The Chamonix hunters say that there is a certain herb which, on being eaten by chamois, maddens them, and that they consequently wander down into the valley.
On September 1, 1887, a chamois was seen by an Englishman who was driving on the high-road at Frauenkirch, near Davos-Platz. The coachman also saw it, and the distance from the road to the right bank of the Landwasser, where it was first perceived, was so short that an excellent view of the animal was obtainable. It swam vigorously across the river, and disappeared in the forest beyond. Perhaps as September 1st is the date on which chamois-hunting commences, it had been driven down the valley by terror.
Chamois take freely to the water, and several instances are on record of their having been enabled by swimming to elude their pursuers.
Many hunters look upon one particular animal in the district they inhabit as a pet, and refrain from shooting it themselves, or allowing it to be shot. These favoured beasts are sometimes so tame that they linger round the alps where the chasseurs live, and allow them to approach to within a distance of a few feet.
In common with many other animals, chamois dearly love salt, and in certain districts where the rocks are flavoured with a saline taste, the animals come in flocks to lick them. The hunters sometimes put down salt for the benefit of the chamois, refraining, however, from shooting them when they come to eat it, as they might thus frighten them away from that part of the country.
There are several ways of hunting chamois. Sometimes they are driven, either as in the great preserves of the Duke of Coburg near the Achensee, that of the Archduke Victor near Kufstein, and others in Tyrol and Germany (it is needless to add that there are no private preserves in Switzerland), or in a more sportsmanlike manner, when three or four hunters drive the chamois down from their pastures at dawn, and, later on, remounting the slopes, drive them up again, often imitating the barking of a dog, towards their retreat. Here several chasseurs are lying hidden, and as soon as the animals arrive within range, they shoot. It is, of course, often difficult to drive the chamois in the right direction, but the knowledge of their haunts displayed by the hunters is frequently most astonishing in its exactitude.
The most usual way of hunting chamois is to stalk them, and I think there can be no question as to the infinite superiority of the sport thus obtained. I would here add, in the words of a sportsman, that “the wholesale slaughter of an animal that Nature herself has placed in the most sublime recesses of her creation, and endowed with such noble qualities and wonderful organisation, is a proceeding which a true sportsman ought not to countenance.”
It is supposed that there are as many as 2000 head of chamois in the Grisons alone. The oldest chamois ever shot was believed to have reached the age of forty years. It was killed in the Engadine in 1857, but its age is probably much exaggerated. As for the heaviest chamois, one weighing 125 Swiss pounds was shot on the Tschingel (Bernese Oberland). I can find no record of a chamois of greater weight than this.
It has been estimated, from measurements made on Monte Rose, that a chamois can jump crevasses sixteen to eighteen Swiss feet in width, while it can jump down twenty-four feet or so.
Every year the number of chamois shot in the Grisons exceeds 500, and in December a corresponding number of skins are offered for sale at St. Andrew’s market at Chur.
It has often been a matter for speculation as to whether the chamois will ever become extinct in this country. I cannot think it likely that it will. It is carefully preserved in the closed districts, and as the wild valleys of the Alps are more and more opened up, poaching will become more difficult and the animals consequently freer from molestation. The more, too, that habitations increase in the higher valleys, the wilder will the chamois probably become, and the more difficult, therefore, to shoot; so that I do not think that we need fear the dying out of the race.
CHAPTER VIII. ON GLACIERS.
The Alpine Journal for November 1868 concludes with these words, “If anybody thinks that Alpine science has been already too thoroughly drilled into the public mind, we would refer him to a recent ridiculous letter which the editor of the Times did not think it beneath him to publish, and in which the writer said that a ‘puff of smoke,’ as it appeared on the mountain, ‘raised the cry that the Glacier des Pélérins had burst, carrying with it part of the moraine which kept it within bounds!’”
If any one had told the climbing world in those days that in 1891 the ordinary traveller would be nearly as ignorant of the behaviour of glaciers as was the Times correspondent referred to above, I fancy the prophet would have been received with derision. Such, however, I know to be the case; and only last year, while walking up Piz Languard with a party of friends, I was asked if the medial moraine of the Morteratsch glacier was a carriage road or only a bridle-path! This is my excuse for entering at some length into a subject which has been already written about in so able a manner and in much detail by Professors Tyndall, Forbes, Heim, Forel, and others.
Now, let me tell you something about those great icy masses which, under the name of glaciers, thrust their cold forms far below the region of perpetual snow, and in some cases, as, for instance, that of the Glacier des Bossons at Chamonix, even push down their frozen waves amongst the meadows and forests in the very trough of the valley.
I am constantly asked by those who are only acquainted with the lower end of the glaciers how it is that they are continually and rapidly melting at their lower extremity, and yet their general features are but slightly altered from year to year. The obvious answer is, that they are constantly replenished from above, and that glacier ice has formerly been snow, which, for a considerable period, has been subjected to enormous pressure. The common illustration of a snow-ball, squeezed in the hand till it becomes hard and icy, explains this transition of snow to ice in a manner easily understood by all, and if we remember that the warm hand, in addition to the pressure, also tends to produce the above result, we have a parallel to the heat of the sun acting on the cold, dry snow of the upper regions. Now, every one knows that when it rains in the valleys it snows on the mountains, and that even during the heat of summer it very seldom rains above a height of 11,000 to 12,000 feet. In consequence of this, the accumulation of snow on the higher peaks is very great, and the pressure which is exerted by its weight is enormous.
As a natural result, a portion of the ice-caps or snow-beds gravitates downwards, and where the upper snows are of great extent and the shape of the channel suitable, a large glacier is found, as is the case near Pontresina, where the huge Morteratsch glacier pursues its lengthy course, fed by the snows of the Bernina and Bellavista. The first to speak clearly and positively on the since well-proven theory that a glacier moves like a river was Monseigneur Rendu, a native of Savoy. “Between the Mer de Glace and a river there is a resemblance so complete, that it is impossible to find in the latter a circumstance which does not exist in the former,” he writes, and Professor Tyndall sets forth in an admirable manner the reason why a glacier moves more quickly in the centre than at the sides. I cannot do better than quote his own words.
“A cork, when cast upon a stream near its centre, will move more quickly than when thrown near the side, for the progress of the stream is retarded by its banks. As you and your guide stood together on the solid waves of that Amazon of ice, you were borne resistlessly along. You saw the boulders perched upon their frozen pedestals; these were the spoils of distant hills, quarried from summits far away, and floated to lower levels like timber blocks upon the Rhone. As you advanced towards the centre you were carried down the valley with an ever-augmenting velocity. You felt it not—he felt it not—still you were borne down with a velocity which, if continued, would amount to 1000 feet a year.”
Many glaciers descend in curves, pursuing a sinuous course towards the valley, and the convex side of the curve must, of course, hurry up very considerably in order to keep pace with the rest. Now, as the ice thus moves faster on the one side than on the other, the result is that the convex side is rent and torn asunder, and splits up into those cracks and chasms known as crevasses. Consequently, a glacier which flows downwards in a straight direction and at a gentle incline presents a comparatively unbroken surface, while a glacier which descends in leaps and bounds over a steep bed and dashes round sharp corners will exhibit all the features of an impassable ice-fall.
Striking examples of the former class of glaciers are the Aletsch glacier, the upper portion of the Gorner glacier, the Miage glacier, the Roseg glacier, the Pasterzen glacier, &c., and of the latter the Bies glacier, the Brenva glacier, the Géant glacier, the Pers glacier, and many others. The exact point at which the snow of the heights passes into glacier ice has never been definitely determined, but each winter’s snowfall is distinctly traceable by a band of differently-hued snow wherever above the snow-line a glacier is much split up.
High glacier-clad mountains are covered with what is known as névé—névé being the finely crystallised snow of the upper regions, which remains unmelted all the summer. The glacier ice which is formed by pressure of this névé is quite different to the ice which results from freezing water, and is found to consist of round crystals, varying in size from that of a hen’s egg to that of the head of a pin. Any observant person will have noticed the ice usually supplied at Swiss tables-d’hôtes, and the curious way in which it behaves as compared with ordinary ice; for while the latter melts uniformly from the outside, the former is honeycombed with air and water, and after a time its peculiar structure, composed of numerous particles, is noticeable. These crystals or particles are known as glacier granules or glacier corn.
The whiteness of a glacier, as compared with the blackness of a frozen lake, is a feature which I have known to puzzle many. It is simply owing to the presence of this glacier corn, which allows a great quantity of air to permeate the whole mass of the ice. The beautiful blue veined or ribboned structure, first observed by Forbes on the Unter-Aar glacier, is due to the absence of air-bubbles, and represents bruises in the ice where, by melting, strain, and pressure, certain parts have had the air driven out.
We will now notice several of the peculiarities which are conspicuous on the surface of one of these great rivers of ice. As we walk up from, say, the Morteratsch restaurant towards the glacier of that name, we must cross part of the stony and earthy mass known as the terminal moraine. Now the subject of moraines is a very large one, so much so, that we shall probably devote nearly the whole of a future chapter to it. For the present, we will merely walk over it, and get on to the very dirty ice of which the snout or lower end of the Morteratsch glacier is composed. As one of the party hews out the steps by which you mount, you have time to observe the ice crystals or glacier corn which we have already spoken of.
Before you have gone far on the level surface of the glacier, you will see several boulders which are resting on ice pedestals supported at some height. These are called glacier tables, and result from the presence of a block of stone which protects the ice beneath it from the heat of the sun, thus preventing it from melting. In consequence, while the glacier all round has been dissolving and sinking, the ice under these boulders has but slightly melted, and gradually a pillar of sometimes as much as four feet or more in height is formed under each erratic block. The sun is, of course, able to reach these ice pedestals more freely on the south than on the north side, and thus we observe that the boulder is not balanced evenly on the top, but always inclines downwards towards the south side; it thus has been known to render valuable aid to the mountaineer who has lost his way in a fog or in the dark without a compass on a glacier, as he can, by observing the position of a glacier table, easily inform himself of the direction in which he is walking. Small stones have a different effect, as they sink into the ice, leaving little holes. You will also probably notice a line of sand-covered mounds, about four or five feet high, and culminating in a sharp point or ridge. Scrape off a little of the sand and earth, and you will find that the mound is composed of ice, which looks quite black where you have uncovered it. The reason for the existence of these dirt cones is obvious; the sand has protected the ice, which has thus remained unmelted, and being heaped up thickly in the centre and thinning off towards the sides, has thus taken its sharply-pointed shape.
Continuing our walk up the glacier, we hear, gradually becoming louder and louder as we approach, the roar of falling water, and soon we reach a point where a bright, dancing stream leaps down a shaft in the ice and is lost to sight. Be careful how you approach this deep hole (or, as it is called, moulin), for one false step on your part would take you down far beyond all human aid. Various persons have endeavoured to gauge the thickness of a glacier at a given point by taking soundings down a moulin, and Agassiz found no bottom at 260 metres in one on the Unteraar glacier; he estimated the thickness of the ice to be 1509 feet near the Abschwung. On Piz Roseg, where the hanging glaciers end in abrupt ice-cliffs, a thickness of 250 feet has been observed. You are now at the foot of the lower ice-fall of the Morteratsch glacier. We will not go farther to-day, and we have already learnt how it is that the tottering ice masses and grim crevasses are formed. We know that the glacier on which we are standing is slowly moving downwards (by its weight, and by sliding in its bed, especially facilitated by its granular structure) at, roughly, the same rate as the hour-hand of an ordinary watch. It has been estimated—I believe by Mr. Tuckett—that a grain of snow would take 450 years to travel from the summit of the Jungfrau to the termination of the Aletsch glacier. A most painful illustration of the rate of motion of glaciers was furnished by the descent in the ice of the Glacier des Bossons of the bodies of Dr. Hamel’s three guides, who lost their lives on Mont Blanc in 1820, being carried down the Ancien Passage in an avalanche, and swept into the bergschrund at its base. On August 15, 1861, Ambrose Simond, a Chamonix guide, who was accompanying a party of tourists to the lower extremity of the Bossons glacier, noticed in one of the crevasses torn pieces of clothes and some human bones. He brushed off the sand with which they were covered, and brought them to Chamonix. Five men at once started on hearing what he had found, and they discovered other remains at a distance of some twelve or fifteen metres lower down. From that day, the glacier continued to give back the remains of what it had swallowed up forty-one years before, and what was found was beyond doubt the bodies and belongings of Dr. Hamel’s guides. All that they had carried with them, the scientific instruments, knapsacks, gloves, &c., were gradually set free from their icy fetters. A gauze veil came out untorn and not much faded; and the knapsack of Pierre Carrier contained a leg of mutton perfectly recognisable. More remarkable than anything else was the condition of a cork, which was not only still stained by the wine, but also possessed a perceptible odour of the contents of the bottle in which it had been fixed. (“Le Mont Blanc,” by Charles Durier.)
But it is time to descend, and in the next chapter I will make a few observations on moraines and the power of a glacier in planing down or removing whatever object it meets with; this power, as a matter of fact, being very much more limited than is popularly supposed.
CHAPTER IX. ON MORAINES.
Now, in order clearly to understand the formation of moraines, I must first say a little more about the movement of glaciers and the débris which they bring down.
I have sometimes heard unthinking persons remark that the snowfall of each winter must tend to increase the height of snow-peaks. This observation shows that such people entirely overlook the four great factors in the maintenance of a uniform height on mountain summits, namely, melting, evaporation (which, in the dry air of the heights, is a very powerful factor in causing the disappearance of snow), glaciers, and avalanches. It is to the two latter of these that we must look for the construction of moraines, in which work they are very largely aided by two other factors, frost and rain. The glacier, starting in its infant purity from some white, unsullied peak, loses, before many years have past, its spotless character. The wintry frosts, gathering into iron bonds the streams which trickle down the mountain-sides, expand the water in freezing, and shatter the rocks with a force that the most solid cliffs cannot resist. Broken and weathered fragments are washed down from the slopes on every fall of rain, and dropping on to the once unspotted bosom of the glacier, swell the burden which is gradually laid upon it with advancing years. Spring after spring, furious avalanches rush down, laden with earth and stones, which they fling recklessly upon the now begrimed edges of the icy stream. The winds and storms, too, contribute their share of dust and sand, and as the glacier still flows on, shrunken in size and laden with heaps of earth and rocks, at length it lays itself to rest, a mass of dirty ice and stones, in the valley towards which it has been ceaselessly progressing.
The glacier of the Alps which comes farthest down into the lower regions is the Grindelwald glacier, which descended to 1080 metres above sea-level in 1870, while that which presents the largest surface is the Aar glacier, and the longest is the Aletsch. Heim gives an estimate, in his valuable work on glaciers, of the number of glaciers existing in Europe, dividing them into those of the first and second order.
The list is as follows:—
| 1st Order. | 2nd Order. | Total. | |
| Switzerland | 138 | 333 | 471 |
| Austria | 71 | 391 | 462 |
| France | 25 | 119 | 144 |
| Italy | 15 | 63 | 78 |
| —— | —— | ——— | |
| 249 | 906 | 1,155 |
Glaciers have regular periods during which they advance or retreat. Many persons who visited the Mer de Glace some twenty or more years ago remember that it then came down nearly to the level of the valley of Chamonix, while the Rhone glacier reached almost to where the lower hotel now stands. In old days, too, the two arms of the Fee glacier united below the Gletscher alp, so that the cows had to pass across the ice in order to reach their summer pastures. A period of advance is always preceded for some years by a noticeable swelling of the upper portions of glaciers; this, of course, is quite what one would expect. A succession of cold, rainy summers and exceptionally snowy winters eventually causes an increase in the glaciers, and the reverse has naturally the contrary effect.
You have learnt that a moraine is a mixture of earth and stones which is borne down by a glacier, and you know how all this débris has accumulated on the ice, chiefly by means of the shattering power of frost on the rocks. Now let us notice the position which moraines assume on a glacier like, say, the Morteratsch. As I have said, persons unaccustomed to the mountain world, and thus unable to estimate the relative sizes of objects seen at a distance, have been known to inquire, when ascending Piz Languard, if the dark streak down the centre of the Morteratsch glacier is a path. They are astonished to learn that it is about fifty feet or more broad, and perhaps twenty feet high in the centre. It is, in fact, neither more nor less than a moraine, and belongs to that class known as medial moraines. Each glacier has a moraine on either side of it, and when two glaciers unite, their lateral moraines join and form a medial moraine. The moraine at the end of a glacier (terminal moraine) is almost entirely formed of the earth and stones which fall off the end of a glacier, and not, as used to be supposed, by any pushing or scooping of the base of the glacier.
In fact, the erosive power of a glacier is infinitesimal as compared with that of water. Dr. Heim cites various examples to show that a glacier leaves undisturbed much of what it finds in its way, and he says that the Forno glacier, which some years ago greatly retreated and left blocks of itself covered with débris behind, rapidly advanced once more in 1884 over the old accumulations at its base, but did not disturb them in any way. Many of our readers will have noticed the many glacier-worn rocks in the Engadine valley; they are especially abundant near Maloja.
Now it will be seen, on near examination, that these rocks have been gently polished by the ice constantly slipping over them, and that they have not those deep smooth hollows which are formed by rushing, eddying water.
The great glaciers which, in the glacier period, flowed down from Mont Blanc to the Jura have left ample proof of their origin in the huge blocks of granite which were transported by the ice, and now lie stranded on the hill-sides at a distance of sixty miles and more from the rocks out of which they were quarried. The size of some of these erratic blocks is very remarkable. The biggest boulder in the Alps is in Val Masino (one of the Italian valleys near the Bernina district). Its dimensions, according to the late Mr. Ball, are—length, 250 feet; breadth, 120 feet; height, 140 feet; in fact, as Mr. Douglas Freshfield remarks, “as tall as an average church tower, and large enough to fill up many a London square.” Many of my readers will remember the great serpentine boulder in front of the little inn at Maltmark, which was no doubt brought down by the glacier which must have originally filled the basin of the lake. The ancient moraines near Aosta are also remarkable evidences of the glacial epoch.
One word here as to the shape of a moraine. It rises, as you know, to a ridge in the centre, and slopes down like the roof of a house at the sides. This is because the heaping together of the earth and stones in the middle has protected the ice from melting as rapidly there as towards the sides; in fact, the same cause brings about the shape of moraines as applies in that of sand cones.
I will close this chapter by a brief explanation of an appearance which many of my readers who have visited Montanvert may have noticed, especially on cloudy, dull days and after sunset. I refer to dirt bands, which are especially noticeable on the Mer de Glace. I observed them under peculiarly favourable circumstances from the summit of the Grandes Jorasses, when a cloudy sky showed them up most distinctly. They are often seen from the Montanvert hotel, however, and take the form of dark bands across the glacier, the convex side of the curve of each being in the direction of the motion of the ice. These dirt bands are very simple in their origin, which is as follows:—At the foot of an ice-fall the tottering blocks reunite and freeze together, presenting a tolerably smooth surface with gentle undulations. The glacier streams sweep dust and small débris into the depressions, which gradually form themselves across the glacier. This dust finally freezes into the ice, and lower down presents the appearance of the famed dirt bands.
Sometimes a photograph will give dirt bands with great distinctness; they are very clearly seen in a view of the Mer de Glace from the Aiguilles Rouge, taken by the late Mr. W. F. Donkin.
CHAPTER X. ON AVALANCHES.
Those who during the summer of 1888 visited Switzerland had very unusual opportunities for studying both the appearance and the effect of avalanches. It is, indeed, rare to see a huge mass of winter snow lying in the Rosegthal in mid-summer, and the remains of numerous other avalanches were that year still unmelted in many high-lying Alpine valleys. I wonder if the crowds who, out of curiosity, visited the snowy débris, knew anything of the various causes which formed the avalanche and launched it down the hill-side, or if they could tell to what class of avalanche it belonged, and at what time of year it is likely to have fallen.
Avalanches vary immensely in their characteristics, and can be classed under three headings according to their peculiarities. The different kinds of avalanches are as follows:—Staublawinen, or dust avalanches; Grundlawinen, or compact avalanches; Eislawinen, or ice avalanches. Dust avalanches are the most to be feared of any, for while the others fall according to certain well-known rules and at particular times of the year, the dust avalanches are erratic in their movements, uncertain in the periods at which they come down, and most terrible in their results. Dust avalanches consist of cold, dry, powdery snow, which falling on a slope of ice or hard snow, or even on a steep slope of grass, slides off on the slightest provocation.
Often, if a bit of overhanging snow falls on the upper part of the hill-side, or if an animal disturbs the newly fallen mass, or perhaps if a gust of wind suddenly detaches it from the surface on which it rests, the whole accumulation begins to move down, gently and quietly at first, and then with ever-increasing power and a deafening roar, uprooting trees, carrying away châlets and whatever happens to be in its course, and leaping like a huge stream of spray-covered water from precipice to precipice, till it makes one final bound across the valley, the impetus of its course frequently carrying it up for some distance on the opposite slope. The wind which accompanies such an avalanche is far more powerful than a raging hurricane, and it often levels trees and buildings, forces in windows and doors, and carries heavy objects to an incredible distance. One of the most remarkable performances I know of in connection with dust avalanches took place in the Engadine, when the wind preceding a huge mass of snow, rushing down the hill-side, blew five telegraph posts flat down, although the snow itself did not come within 500 feet of them.
“Constant readers” of the St. Moritz Post will remember that in an account of the avalanches of the winter of 1887-88 which appeared in the first number of the summer issue, it was stated that, on the occasion of the fall of two great avalanches into Saas-Grund, most of the windows and doors in the village were forced in from the pressure of air. While dealing with the subject of dust avalanches and the effects of the powerful wind which accompanies them, I may mention that Tschudi relates in his “Monde des Alpes” that such avalanches will sweep châlets and trees from the ground, and carry them, whirling like straws in a storm, through the air, dropping them at a distance of 400 feet. Châlets, filled with hay, and quite uninjured, have been found, it is said, some two hundred yards and more from the termination of the débris of an avalanche, the wind preceding which had blown them right across the valley.
In the year 1689 an enormous avalanche, which in the annals of the Grisons is spoken of as the most fearful one on record in the canton, came down from the heights above the village of Saas, in the Prättigau, and demolished 150 houses. Amongst the débris, which had been swept by the avalanche to a considerable distance, a rescue party discovered a baby lying safe and sound in his cradle, while six eggs were found uninjured in a basket close at hand.
Another sort of avalanche which can be roughly classed under the above heading is formed by the sudden descent of an overhanging mass of snow. The slightest movement in the air will often suffice to break the cornice, and it straightway comes rolling down the slope. Such avalanches are not usually much to be feared, though a notable exception to this fact was furnished on the Bernhardino Pass, when the mass of falling snow, overtaking the post in its passage, carried thirteen persons and a number of sledges over the precipice into the gorge beneath.
Dust avalanches are very frequently met with in summer after fresh snow by climbers amongst the higher peaks of the Alps-. It was an avalanche of this kind which caused the Matterhorn accident of 1887, and the account which Herr A. Lorria has given of the event is so realistic, and conveys so exactly to the mind what the nature of such an avalanche is, that I extract the following from the St. Moritz Post of January 28, 1888, for the benefit of my readers:—
“Gently from above an avalanche of snow came sliding down upon us; it carried Lammer away in spite of his efforts, and it projected me with my head against a rock. Lammer was blinded by the powdery snow, and thought that his last hour was come. The thunder of the roaring avalanche was fearful; we were dashed over rocks laid bare in the avalanche track, and leaped over two immense bergschrunds. At every change in the slope we flew into the air, and then were plunged again into the snow, and often dashed against one another. For a long time it seemed to Lammer as if all were over, countless thoughts were thronging through his brain, until at last the avalanche had expended its force, and we were left lying on the Tiefenmatten glacier. The height of our fall was estimated by the engineer Imfeldt at from 550 to 800 feet.”
In winter, when a fall of snow takes place on steep mountain-sides, scores of such avalanches may be seen dropping like shining threads down the cliffs. The face of the Eiger seen from Grindelwald in early spring is often fringed with tiny cascades of snow, while the rocks of the Wetterhorn[4] send down avalanches almost incessantly on the first sunny March morning after a snowfall.
The huge avalanches which, after a severe winter, summer visitors to Switzerland see lying in high Alpine valleys, covered with dust and stones, and with great trunks and branches of trees frozen into them, belong to the class of avalanches known as Grundlawinen, or compact avalanches. They usually fall from year to year in the same track, and come down, according to the warmth or severity of the season, during February and March. One year I saw a very large one fall in the Züge, near Davos-Platz, as late as the 3rd May.
In order for a really large compact avalanche to form, something more than the steep slope which is the birthplace of dust avalanches is necessary. The most dangerous formation of a hill-side, as regards compact avalanches, is the following. First, there must be, high up on the mountain, a collecting basin or valley, sloping somewhat downwards, in which a large amount of snow can accumulate. Secondly, leading from this basin must be a treeless slope, not too steep, on which snow will lie unless urged down by a considerable disturbance from above. In some seasons, when but little snow falls, no avalanche will take place under the conditions described. In others, when storm after storm has piled tons of snow in the upland valley, the warm, dry föhn wind will cause the mass to become detached from the earth on which it rests, and suddenly the entire winter’s store will come dashing down towards the valley, forming an avalanche such as visitors to the Engadine in the summer of 1888 saw in the Rosegthal and Beversthal.
These compact avalanches are composed, by the time they reach the end of their course, of stones, earth, roots and branches of trees, all frozen together by the heavy, wet snow in which they are encased. A story is told of a man who was overtaken on the Splügen by such an avalanche, and though he escaped from death, part of his coat was so firmly frozen into the icy mass, that he could not get it away. It is very remarkable that a person buried at a great depth in an avalanche of this kind can distinctly hear every word that those who are trying to find him may utter, though it is impossible for them to hear his cries.
The snow of an avalanche has the same power as the ice of a glacier in the preservation of whatever animal matter may be embedded in it. On one occasion the bodies of a chamois and her young one were found in an avalanche in Tyrol in a fit condition for food, on its melting two years after it came down, its huge size having prevented its disappearance the first summer.
These huge Grundlawinen come down, as I have already said, in the same track season after season; it is therefore reasonable to suppose that the inhabitants of districts peculiarly exposed to such avalanches would try and control their snowy invaders by every means in their power; and, in truth, this is just what is done to a certain extent, though a neglect of the most obvious precautions prevailed in the country till quite within recent years. Even now one is often astonished at the amount of unnecessary damage which the Swiss will calmly allow an avalanche year after year to do, till they suddenly awake to the fact that a wall or two across the couloir (or avalanche track) may make the whole difference between their being able or not to cultivate a certain sunny meadow in the valley, which has hitherto been plentifully strewn with stones and other débris regularly every spring.
It is a well-known fact that by far the best preservative against avalanches is a thickly wooded slope, and the Swiss authorities, fully recognising this, have of late years caused a very large amount of replanting to be carried out, and are most stringent in their rules regulating the cutting of trees. By great trouble and care being taken concerning the forests, Switzerland could be freed to a large extent from the destruction wrought by avalanches.
In many places travellers will notice avalanche-breakers, in the form of triangular stone walls, which have been erected to protect whole villages, or individual houses or churches. There is an avalanche-breaker of this sort at Frauenkirch, near Davos-Platz, where the north wall of the church is constructed so that, should an avalanche sweep down upon it, the surface exposed to its full fury being pointed in shape, tends to divide and turn aside the snow directly the point comes in contact with the avalanche. Similar breakers may be seen attached to several houses in the same and other neighbourhoods. Fences or stone walls across steep slopes, or stakes driven into the ground at intervals, are also a very efficient hindrance to the descent of avalanches. Visitors at St. Moritz have doubtless noticed the contrivances of this sort on the slope descending from the Alp Laret to the Cresta Fussweg; they are well seen by any one standing on the high-road near the Bär Inn (famed for the quaint caricature fresco portraits on its exterior of the late Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone).
It is marvellous to notice how weak an obstacle will hold back the largest avalanche before the snow is set in motion, and yet once the great mass is launched down on its destructive career, it sweeps all before it.
The balled structure of a compact avalanche, which those who visit it within a few weeks of its fall will have remarked, is caused by the damp snow having rolled over and over till the circular form of its particles resulted. I remember an enormous avalanche of this kind which fell near Bouveret (Vaud) at the end of March 1886. It came from the Gramont, and rushing some 4000 feet down the mountain, dashed across the railway and the road, and ended its course in the lake. It fortunately came down at night—which seems odd, till one remembers that the slope from which it descended faced north—so no accident resulted, and the following afternoon all Montreux flocked across the lake, to wonder at the high walls of the cutting which had been made to allow the trains to pass, and to pelt each other with the snowy balls which had rolled hither and thither amongst the violets and primroses of spring.
Grundlawinen often attain a mass of 100,000 cubic metres (Heim, “Gletscherkunde”). The great “Raschitsch” avalanche near Zernez (Lower Engadine), which fell on April 23, 1876, across the high-road into the river, was 168 metres wide, 12 metres thick, and 300 metres long, 600,000 cubic metres in bulk, and the tunnel cut through to allow the traffic to be carried on was 75 metres long. This avalanche was much exceeded in dimensions by the one which fell in February 1888 near Glarus-Davos, of which the snow-tunnel was upwards of three hundred feet in length, and over twelve feet high. This avalanche is noted throughout Switzerland, and is known as the “Schwabentobellawine.” It only falls in very snowy seasons, but when it does come down, it is of enormous size.
In the year 1888 it carried away a road-mender, whose body was only discovered some three months later; it was found on the right bank of the Landwasser, having evidently been blown across the river by the wind preceding the avalanche.
Avalanches have sometimes caused disastrous floods by falling into the beds of rivers and damming up the water. On January 29, 1827, Süs suffered from a similar occurrence, the Inn being completely blocked up for several hours during the night, and the water flooding the village in consequence. It would be wearying to give more than these few examples of the effects of Grundlawinen, we will therefore pass on to the subject of ice-avalanches. These must be a tolerably familiar sight to most persons who have travelled in Switzerland, judging by the crowds who, day after day throughout the summer, sit outside the little inns of the Wengern Alp or Kleine Scheideck, dividing their attention between their luncheons and the thundering falls of ice from the glaciers of the Jungfrau.
Ice-avalanches are quite different to both the other kinds, inasmuch as they always fall from glaciers.
As my readers doubtless know, a glacier moves downwards day by day, sometimes an inch or two, sometimes as much as two feet. Well, many glaciers, after quitting the snow-beds by which they are fed, suddenly find themselves at the top of a precipice. Under these circumstances, as they are unable to stand still, there is but one thing for them to do, viz., go over; and as ice, though plastic, is by no means so to the extent that treacle—to which glacier ice has so often been likened—is, it is obvious that a slice will break off the advancing tongue of the glacier, and come thundering down the rocks, to form material for another glacier below, or, if the quantity is insufficient, to melt gradually away. Now, this form of an ice-avalanche is known in endless varieties to the mountain-climber, but perhaps the most frequent thing of the kind which he meets with is the fall of séracs (or icy pinnacles) during his passage through an ice-fall.
Those who have visited the upper part of the Morteratsch glacier will recollect ice-falls such as I have referred to; the one, that of the Pers glacier, the other, the so-called Labyrinth, coming down from Piz Bernina; and fine ice-avalanches are often seen falling from the ice-cap of Piz Morteratsch. The séracs passed through in making the passage of the Col du Géant from Chamonix or Courmayeur are also apt to tumble about at inconvenient times, and many other glaciers are conspicuous for these particular features.
Perhaps the best position in Switzerland from which to view ice-avalanches is the Wengern Alp, from whence the glaciers which cling to the Jungfrau can daily be seen dropping tons of ice down the scarred slopes, a white cloud hanging for several minutes over the spot where a great piece of ice has been ground to powder by its fall.
Even the proverbially safe Mont Blanc contrives occasionally to allow one or two of the ice-pillars which fringe the Dôme du Gôuter to overbalance and dash right across the Petit Plateau below, over the very track by which parties make the ascent. It is odd that this bombardment has never hitherto caused an accident on Mont Blanc, though when one bears in mind the hundreds of stones which are annually kicked down the Matterhorn regardless of the number of people on whose heads they may descend, and that there, too, no fatal accident has resulted from that cause, one feels sure that a special providence watches over the inexperienced class of intrépides who throng Mont Blanc and rush in scores up the Cervin.[5]
Ice-avalanches have occasionally done immense damage when large falls have taken place into inhabited valleys, as, for instance, when part of the Bies glacier came down, and the wind preceding it overthrew Randa. This circumstance is so well known, being so often referred to in guide-books, that I will not enter into details here. Full particulars can be found in Dr. Forbes’s work, “A Physician’s Holiday.”