STANLEY HOPE.
[They who would see Swiss scenery at its best will not fail to visit Zermatt, and thither went the traveller from whom we now quote. What he saw there, and what makes Zermatt worth visiting, we leave it to him to relate.]
It has been said that one may ascend the Gorner Grat a hundred times and yet not obtain a clear view of the mountains. If this be true, I was exceptionally fortunate in the day I selected for the ascent. Four days of perfectly unclouded weather followed my advent in the marvellous valley of Zermatt, and as the district is somewhat removed from the more frequented tracks, and has, perhaps, been less often described, I venture on a slight record of what I saw in the short time at my disposal.
For, in spite of the facilities of travel in these days of railways and steamboats, in spite of all that has been written on the subject, Switzerland is still a terra incognita to the great mass of English people. The majesty of its mountains, the fragrance of its pine forests, the richness of its valleys, are still as a sealed book to the multitude. A great proportion even of those who have the means are content to live and die without gazing on these most marvellous works of God’s hand, although they may become acquainted with them for a sum which a man would willingly pay for a quarter cask of dinner sherry, or a woman for a new silk dress.
Zermatt, the crowning glory of the Alps, is somewhat difficult of access. Coming from England, it is best to go by rail straight to Sierre, and thence by diligence or private conveyance to Visp, some seventeen miles farther up the Rhone valley. Here it is better to shoulder one’s knapsack, for there is no carriage road for the first twelve miles of the Visp-Thal, which leads to Zermatt, though the mule-path is exceptionally good.
Visp itself is an interesting spot. It is beautifully situated in the Rhone valley at the point where the river, bearing the same name, comes foaming down from the Gorner glacier, twenty-seven miles away. The river flows into the Rhone near this point with a volume almost as great as the Rhone itself. The little town was once a place of great importance. The houses on the heights, which still bear traces of the earthquake of 1855, were formerly the palaces of the princes of the Valais. The church, which stands on an eminence above the river, is a most interesting building, sadly neglected by guide-books, and, consequently, by tourists. It is built on the remains of a Roman temple. There is a picturesque Roman gate-way, with time-worn marble columns, which certainly ought not to be passed over; and in the charnel-house, exposed to the church-yard, is a ghastly array of many hundred human skulls ranged in tiers against the inner wall.
In company with a friend who had been my companion in many previous mountain rambles, I trudged up to St. Nicolaus in the cool of the afternoon. It is a walk of four and a half hours from Visp. The path skirts the mountain-side, with the river foaming in its rocky bed many hundred feet below. St. Nicolaus is a village, with a huge hotel situated in the midst of pastures where the valley widens, with a church whose metallic steeple shines miles and miles away like silver, and whose bells jingle out the quaintest chimes it was ever my lot to hear. We arrived at sunset, and were rejoiced to find we could get beds, for the valley was undergoing a perfect invasion of tourists, and the pedestrian was likely to fare badly who had not previously telegraphed to secure quarters in advance.
All that night the summer lightning flashed among the crags, and the thunder boomed far down the sleeping valley; but the clouds lifted a little in the morning, and at an early hour we were wending our way along the excellent carriage-road which exists between St. Nicolaus and Zermatt. Our hearts were elated with anticipation, for we knew we were within a few miles of that most majestic, and, from association, most melancholy, of all Swiss mountains, the Matterhorn. The turn of the road near Zermatt was to reveal it to us, and eagerly we watched the heavy masses of vapor as they swept down the mountain-side, shutting out the Weisshorn on our right, and even the Bies glacier far below it, fearing, after all, that the glorious spectacle would be denied us, for this day at least, but little anticipating the wondrous effect under which we subsequently obtained our first clear view of the renowned peak.
Denser and denser grew the vapors, and when at length the moment arrived which we had anticipated for so many days, we were destined to be disappointed. The driving mist only revealed to us for one brief moment the rocks at the base of the mighty mountain, though this base is fixed some four thousand feet above the village of Zermatt.
THE LION MONUMENT, LUCERNE
This little village, situated in the midst of lovely green pastures, in an amphitheatre of mighty peaks, and at an altitude of over five thousand feet above the sea, would be one of the most attractive spots on earth but for its dirt. Were it not for the palliatives offered by its two excellent hotels, Monte Rosa and Monte Cervin, both kept by the world-renowned M. Seiler, the dirt and the odors of Zermatt would be unbearable. To our great dismay, we found on our arrival that there was no possible accommodation at either of the hotels. The rain was beginning to fall; we were tired and hungry. To go on to the Riffel Hotel, three thousand one hundred and thirteen feet above Zermatt itself, seemed an absurdity in such weather; for there, at an elevation of over eight thousand feet, we should be enveloped in the denser vapors above, and half frozen into the bargain. We sought the salle-à-manger, and consoled ourselves with cutlets and Beaujolais. There we held serious counsel together, and lit our pipes and sallied forth to inspect the prospect outside. We went first to the little church where, side by side, lie two of the victims of the Matterhorn accident, Hudson and Hadow, and on the other side of the church the remains of poor Michael Croz, the guide. The body of Lord Francis Douglas, who also perished on that occasion, was never found. It is supposed that it is still suspended among the awful and inaccessible crags on the side of the mountain where they fell.
We sauntered on beyond the village, and sat down in a melancholy mood on a broken rail to consider our position. Through a rift in the clouds we could make out the Riffel Hotel on the bare mountain-side, high above the pine-woods on our left. “Should we go on, in spite of wind and weather?” It would be so much gained, at least in the event of a change for the better. We hastened back to the hotel. “Did they think we could get accommodation at the Riffel, if we went up?” “Yes; they were sure we should get mattresses in the salon, at all events.” So on we went, over the first bridge beyond the village, past the little church of Winkelmatten, and then up the steep path through the pine-woods. From the openings between the trees we soon began to look down upon the foot of the Gorner glacier, and the fine waterfall of the Visp rushing out from its icy cradle, which, by some strange freak of nature, occurs at a point many hundred feet above the foot of the glacier, the two torrents flowing side by side, the one flashing, foaming, and leaping, with all the quick impulsiveness of life, the other cold, silent, and irresistible as the advancing footsteps of death.
In due course we reached the chalets on the Augstkummenmatt, and were clear of the pine-woods. Here the rain became sleet, and the bare slopes of short grass around were rapidly putting on a mantle of white. The vapors drove in thick folds over the dreary waste of the Theodule glacier to our right, and for a moment now and then the frowning eastern face of the Matterhorn loomed through the clouds, but only to disappear once more behind still denser masses of vapor.
We were glad at length to reach the broad terrace of the mountain upon which stands the Riffel Hotel, and to receive an assurance from the obliging proprietress—M. Seiler’s sister—that she would do the best she could for us, though bedrooms were out of the question.
The air was intensely keen. The water, when we essayed to wash our hands, was of an icy temperature, and we put on whatever extra clothing we could abstract from our knapsacks. An excellent table-d’hôte, however, soon set us right; and a brisk walk after dark up and down the plateau in front of the hotel, in company with the newly-arrived English clergyman, who had undertaken the duties of chaplain at the hotel for three or four Sundays, brought the day to an agreeable close.
The chaplain, who was anxious to obtain some information as to the usual length and style of service, had made the acquaintance of the King of the Riffel, as he is called, an English gentleman, who passes several months every season in this elevated region, and considers it the most enjoyable spot in Europe. He was somewhat emphatic in his directions to the chaplain to make the service and sermon as short as possible, and on no account to attempt any singing. “For,” he continued, “there being no instrument of any kind, everybody sings a different tune, and sings out of tune as well, the effect being disastrous. Last Sunday a man, with a perversity of judgment I never saw equalled, produced a flute, and as he played at a pitch which no human voice could sustain, and as everybody tried to follow, you may imagine what the din was like.”
We had been informed that there were twenty-nine people in the house, including ourselves, unprovided with beds, and that we were to be accommodated on the table in the salle-à-manger. The prospect was not agreeable, and we lingered in the warm salon until half-past ten, by which time the ladies had all retired. Presently a small army of maid-servants marched into the room with folding iron bedsteads, mattresses, blankets, and sheets. To our huge delight, four comfortable beds were made in as many minutes, and we were informed that two other gentlemen and ourselves were to be the only occupants of the room. The tables, with white cloths spread upon them, were converted into wash-stands, and plenty of rugs were brought to do duty as counterpanes. Nothing could be more comfortable. We went to bed in perfect luxury, not, however, before taking a last look from the front door in the direction of the Matterhorn, and finding, to our great delight, that the summit of the mountain was at last clearly defined above a line of motionless clouds, and that the stars were twinkling brightly overhead.
Our two companions in the salon were young Americans, who were to depart early the next morning for the Cima di Jazi. They were astir by daybreak, and, roused by their departure, I found it impossible to go to sleep again. After tossing restlessly for an hour, I rose, and, on going to the window, beheld the glorious snows of the Breithorn flushed with the coming sunlight rising just above the shoulder of the mountain near the hotel. Rousing my companion, and dressing as rapidly as possible, I made for the door of the hotel, and stepped out upon the terrace. I had looked upon many scenes of grandeur and beauty in many parts of Switzerland, from the Rigi, from Pilatus, from Mürren, from the Lauberhorn, but never in all my experience had I witnessed a scene like that which lay before me. There was not a speck in all the blue vault of heaven. The frosty air was so clear that distance was annihilated. Right before me, separated only from the steep slope on which I stood by the deep valley in which lie the Gorner and Furggen glaciers, rose the majestic Matterhorn, a silent solitary pinnacle of bare rock, five thousand feet from base to summit, enthroned upon a pinnacle of snow and ice, which is itself ten thousand feet from the ocean level, standing aloof, and seeming to frown defiance on its fellows, which lay grouped around on every side. The rosy glow of sunrise pervaded it now,—an intense liquid light, which revealed its furrowed sides, its seams of snow, its overhanging brow, its ice-bound feet, its treacherous chasms, its awful precipices,—and softened its asperity into a loveliness which held us spell-bound for many minutes.
We knew there were other wonders to be seen around, but it was difficult to withdraw our eyes from this most remarkable of all mountain forms. Slowly we let them wander more to the northward, beyond the valley wherein lies the Z’Mutt glacier which separates the Matterhorn from the Dent Blanche, and the magnificent range of peaks stretching away towards the Rhone Valley. All these were illuminated by the same lovely light, forming a barrier of gold on the west side of the Visp Valley, which stretched before us as far as the distant Bietchhorn. Opposite these, bounding the valley on the east, were the not less majestic ranges of the Mischabel group, over which the sunlight streamed in long level rays, and between—at least a thousand feet below us—lay a vast, silent, undulating mass of pale gray clouds, blotting out the valley beneath with one unbroken sea of vapor twenty-five miles long, upon which the shadows of the eastern mountains were distended as distinctly as upon a solid plain. “Thank heaven that we came up!” we both ejaculated. Zermatt and all the valley below must have been shrouded in semi-darkness, while we, far above the clouds, seemed lifted to another sphere, where the atmosphere was so infinitely pure, the silence so solemn and intense, that we almost feared to speak lest we should break the spell which wrapped this mystic world of wonder and unspeakable delight.
Within half an hour we are en route for the Gorner Grat, a rocky point which still lay eighteen feet above us, and which we attained after an easy walk of an hour and a half. The ground was frozen hard as we mounted slope after slope of short grass and rock, and the miniature lakes which lay here and there in the hollows near the path were coated with ice to the thickness of half an inch. The August sun, however, rising above the ridges in front of us, soon dispelled the frosty breath of night, and before we reached the summit of the Grat we were glad to draw down the broad brims of our hats to shield our faces from the rays, which in the pure dry atmosphere of this altitude—over ten thousand feet—seemed to scorch and blister the skin.
The Gorner Grat is one of the very few spots in the Alps where one can obtain an elevation of over ten thousand feet without the slightest semblance of a difficulty. The path is good and well defined the whole way, and the panorama quite unsurpassed. It is remarkable, from the fact that there is an unbroken range of magnificent snow peaks on every side. There is not a single break in the chain. It is an isolated rocky peak that seems formed by nature to enable one to survey at leisure the marvellous scene around. The huge Gorner glacier winds round its base at a dizzy depth below; beyond, are the snows of that glorious range beginning with Monte Rosa (which seems within a stone’s throw) and ending with the Matterhorn....
We lingered long in this wonderful spot. A batch of morning tourists came and gazed around for ten minutes, and was succeeded by another and another, but as the day wore on they grew few and far between, and we were at length left entirely alone, wrapped in that intense and awful stillness which at times pervades these mighty solitudes, broken only at long intervals by the sudden rush of an avalanche on the steep slopes of Monte Rosa or the low hum of a wild bee, attracted to this far height by the fervid noonday beams. We wandered along the ridge stretching towards the Stockhorn, where the gentian and other exquisite wild flowers which flourish at this elevation grow in the greatest profusion, peering up through patches of snow in shady nooks. Then we returned, and found new beauties in the panorama, which in the fierce sunlight became almost too dazzling for the eye to rest on. At last we turned away reluctantly, with another recollection for a lifetime,—another “joy forever” stored within the cells of memory....
A few days later we resolved on a closer acquaintance with the mountain which had attracted our admiration from so many points of view in the neighborhood. The Matterhorn seems to dominate the whole district of Zermatt like a pervading spirit. It is difficult to lose sight of it. Through rifts in the pine-wood, over grassy bluffs, from the depths of dark ravines, from one’s chamber window, the giant peak is seen piercing the blue air above. The play of light and shadow upon it as the hours roll by is in itself a study. Facing the earliest beams, as the sun rises out of a tossing ocean of Alpine peaks, it stands proudly up, a pinnacle of burnished gold with scarce a speck of shade to dim its lustre. As noon approaches, the gloom gathers on the precipitous northern face until the mid-day shadow falls with a cool blue-black on the white upper snows of the Matterhorn glacier. By and by, when the sun has passed to the west, the great shadowy mass rises in gloomy grandeur against the evening sky, and still later the northwest ridges are fringed with the lustre of sunset, ere they wrap themselves in the dusky robe of night.