Three quarters of a league beyond Maglan we passed the fine cascade of the Nant d’Arpenas; it struck me less than on our return. The volume of water is small, but springs from a height of eight hundred feet, and is scattered ere it reaches its first fall. When we travelled the same road yesterday, the stream had been considerably increased by rains, and the broad spray floated in a sunbeam, which it seemed to have embodied with itself and to be bearing away.
At St. Martin, in the yard of the inn of Mont Blanc, we found a good-humoured fat landlady, and the cars which were to convey us the remainder of our journey. They have no springs, the road does not allow of them, and are mere benches under canopies, with leather aprons, which will protect from rain or can be tied up out of the way.
The bridge which crosses the Arve, about a hundred yards further, leads to Sallenches, and from it there is a noble view of Mont Blanc, with aiguille and glacier glittering above the nearer mountains, darkly clothed to their summit, a view which every moment increases in splendour as the postilion urges the little mountain horses over the rough roads, and beds of torrents, and bridges of loose planks, which they tread without start or stumble.
We passed what was the lake of Chède, and is converted, by a fall of mud and rubbish from the mountain, into a stony wilderness, and crossed a stream too rapid for a bridge, but which favoured us, as the water was by no means high, and the road is seldom in a good condition for a week.
About Servoz, where the horses rested, is a thin wood of stunted oak and cherry trees, the latter bearing fruit of the size of a wild strawberry, but beyond they yield to pine, and larch, and hazel. We crossed another torrent, the Dioza, and then indeed were in a gorge not to be forgotten. The road skirts the base of the Breven, with the Arve on the right, washing the foot of the mound on which rises the ruined castle of St. Michael; the pont Pelissier, under which it dashes before; the mountains on either side covered with pines: but the bare wild peaks shutting in the valley behind us, and the ridges of shining snow closing it before.
Our way lay over the bridge; for beyond, the Arve raves deep below the road, and rends itself a passage through rocks and darkness. We crossed it on foot, and walked up a part of the steep hill leading to the Motets, the range which divides the valleys of Servoz and Chamouny; mighty barriers, which keep in the mind a local habitation, even when they want a name.
We continued to toil upwards with little space to spare between the narrow car’s wheels and the precipice which hangs over the roaring Arve: an inadvertent driver or unruly horse would ensure destruction, but there is little danger of either. We were assailed by innumerable beggars furnished with various excuses for extorting money—mostly intelligent, bright-eyed children, half-clothed and barefoot,—offering a marigold gathered in the valley, or a crystal found on the mountain, and running fearlessly along the very brink of places my head turned even to look down.
From the ridge of the Motets we obtained the finest view of Mont Blanc, henceforth close to us, but its form, changed at that part called the Dome de Goût, hides its summit; and descending through some fertile meadows to Ouches, the first village in the valley, the glaciers became visible also: their brightness and the purity of the atmosphere making them appear so much nearer than they really were. I thought their size inconsiderable, but found my mistake as the road, which now runs directly beneath the range of this snow-king and his vassals, passed near the Glacier des Bossons, some of whose pinnacles are sixty and eighty feet high. Beyond us, and a league beyond Chamouny, at the head of the valley, we saw the Glacier du Bois, which terminates the Mer de Glace. We crossed numerous torrents on their moving and nervous bridges, the waters of some clear and bright, of others turbid as the Arve, here wilder and muddier than ever, and which we traversed to continue our way along its right bank. The valley seen in the light of the declining sun, with its fresh green meadows, its flax and corn fields, its scattered cottages and shining church spires, and black forests and snows for background, must be the loveliest on earth. You and I have read descriptions of tints on glaciers, probably thinking the enthusiasm of the traveller might slightly exaggerate; yet I was aware they fell far short as we watched all the changes from glittering white to pale gold—from gold to rose-colour, and then to violet; and then the magic hues fading by degrees, but light lingering on the summit even when the glaciers on its side were grey, and the road we were going dusk; as if one sunbeam had been left behind, dedicated to the dome of the mountain.
Arriving at dark, we passed the Union, which appears the best inn and has baths adjoining, on our way to the Hôtel d’Angleterre, which is called so, but I think must have lost its character. The landlord and his wife are civil, and their charges moderate, but the table d’hôte indifferent, and the beds bad. D—— met an army friend whom he had not seen since we left ——, and the conversation became a strange medley of private theatricals and mountain passes. Arriving latest, we were necessarily the worse lodged: the rooms are unceiled, and, having the stables at our backs, we had overhead two pedestrians, who packed at midnight and put on their boots at three in the morning; and very much added to the pleasurable sensations produced by straw bolsters and hair mattresses, which scratch even through coarse sheets. Our party put itself in motion after breakfast; Mrs. —— and her beautiful young daughter in chaises à porteurs; the rest on tall mules, to whose backs we climbed by ladders, and whose motion is certainly the most disagreeable in the world, particularly as, in submission to our guides, we left the reins untouched and their noses as near the ground as they pleased to lay them. My guide Mounier, whose name I wrote down that I might find him on my next visit, has a high claim to the character for civility and intelligence common to his predecessors at Chamouny. When we had crossed the Arve and the meadows on our way to Montanvert, the path grew rough and narrow, and rose abruptly through the pine forest. As its zigzags are cut on the hill side, and there is barely room for the mule and guide, and no defence towards the precipice, it may present some alarm to persons unused to mountain passes, particularly as the mule always chooses the extreme edge from its habit of carrying burthens, and its fear of striking them against the rock, which would precipitate it below. For a considerable distance the path is composed of irregular steps of stone, several feet in height, and up these the mules clamber with an adroitness and safety of which I had formed no idea. Through the dark branches and broken stumps we caught glimpses of the valley, and I thought our party looked very picturesque as it wound along, forming a straggling line; the chaises à porteurs gaining on us, whose mules patiently followed the guides, one by one; a little boy, who carried some spiked sticks, holding by the tail of the last and laziest. From a spot near the Fontaine du Caillet, which is about half way, the vale and the river, the fields and cottages, spread below like a map brightly coloured. The guide pointed out on the opposite mountain the path which leads to the Croix de Flégère, the best spot for seeing Mont Blanc in its splendour, as it is upwards of three thousand feet above Chamouny.
A steep and difficult path leads down the mountain side to the source of the Aveiron. We could plainly distinguish the black arch of the ice cavern, which terminates the Mer de Glace, and through whose mouth it forces its way, and bounds forward to fling itself into the Arve. Passing the fountain and its gay troops of peasant girls assembled there with fruit, milk, and lemonade, very agreeable refreshment at that height, we crossed the track of an avalanche, a broad line of destruction; the firs snapped at the root and carried away, or laid prostrate beneath the weight of stones and portions of rock cast down from above, looking as if some giant scythe had mown an avenue through the pine forest from the mountain top high over our heads down to the valley far beneath.