Before reaching the village of Gondo we again passed the carriage, but were soon stopped ourselves by a ruined piece of road which, though dangerous to horses’ knees only, was exceedingly embarrassing, as D—— could not lead two; and I found that, even without the care of Fanny, I was fully employed in keeping my footing while scrambling up and down the mounds of crag and loose stones, and through the stream which, shrunk and quiet now, had done this damage. I tried my skill notwithstanding, and arrived at the top of the first heap, whence Fanny refused either to slide or jump into the water; and we were very much in the situation of statues on a pedestal, when our kind fellow-travellers arrived to my aid, altering Fanny’s determination, and in consequence Grizzle’s, who will not stir a step unless she leads the way.
The carriage was dragged over with a difficulty which several times made me fear that our acquaintances and those with them would have been forced along with it into the Doveria: for it required the united strength of all to preserve its equilibrium along the narrowed way, now barely the width of its wheels. It tottered several times on the slopes, and it made me dizzy to see the men on the verge opposing to its weight their own, where a false step would have cast them below to be mangled among the stones of the rapid torrent. Another and worse obstacle waited us at the entrance of Gondo: for here the stream, which descended from the mountains, was still three feet deep, and its violence made the crossing it a work of danger; though with the aid of our friends we accomplished it, scrambling over piles of smooth rock and rolling stones, and through the water. The carriage was taken off its wheels, as no vehicle made with human fingers could have passed here; and the poor post-horses, who, no care bestowed on them, had hitherto picked their own way, could go no farther. We therefore proceeded alone to Gondo, a melancholy village of a few cabins and a chapel, and a strange building of eight stories, with barred windows, which I certainly should rather have supposed a prison than an inn belonging to the family of Stockalper. Could we have imagined that it boasted common accommodation, as Artaria assures it does, we should have remained there to pass the night, being wet and weary; but deceived as to its destination, we applied at an inn some steps farther, and after screaming at the entrance of the dark corridor till we had roused every cur in the neighbourhood, a solitary woman appeared, to say that this was not, as we had fancied, Isella; that she had neither bed for ourselves, nor food for our horses, and we must go on, and should do well to make haste as the evening was closing and there was a “cattivo passo.” Fortunately for us (our friends being no longer within call) at the frontier of the Valais and Italy, where on the left to mark it there is a humble chapel on the crag, and on the right poised above the torrent a colossal fragment of fallen rock, we found some good-natured douaniers, who assured us of the impossibility of passing Isella, and the difficulty of even arriving there, and offered to accompany us, a proposal we gladly accepted as the evening was growing dusk, and my hand was almost useless in leading Fanny over such ground as we had been treading.
At this place, between the frontier and Isella, on the 15th, the day of the storm, a carriage was passing under the torrents of rain, and the postilion, who, fortunately, was of the mountains and on his guard, walking at the heads of his horses, saw above, symptoms of the coming earth avalanche. He had time to shout to the travellers to descend and to cut the traces, when it came rushing down, the carriage was swept into the Doveria with its luggage, and instantly shattered to atoms: for the largest remnant rescued, a portion of the coach-box, was placed as a memento on a rock by the road-side, and is hardly longer or broader than a man’s hand.
Our difficulties had now seriously begun. Isella was in sight, but between it and us a space of the road for about two hundred yards had been swept away, leaving in its room piled rocks and masses of stone, which had been its foundation; a torrent, not very deep but furious in its rapidity, was boiling down, crossing these, and had already hollowed a bed athwart the ruin. The douaniers came up to assist as we stopped in dismay and discouragement. How the horses got over, and without fall or stumble, is to me a matter of wonder; they scrambled over the rocks and jumped down descents, and struggled through the water, and up the high mound of loose stones, which yielded beneath their hoofs, doing honour to their blood and race.
I had been so completely wet before that, but that the force of the stream was well nigh enough to lift me off my feet, I should have preferred it to the plank thrown over by some Samaritan.
At Isella, however, we were, passing the custom-house, which I had hoped might be the inn, being a building of decent exterior, to arrive at the most miserable auberge ever owned by even Italian masters: a wretched shed on one side for stable, the sharp air blowing in on our wet horses, no groom to dry them, and filth for a bed; straw so rare, that it was sold by the pound, at an inconceivable price. A poste of “carabinieri reali” joined the inn on the other side, and this was my consolation, for while D—— was watching our poor four-footed companions eat such hay and oats as this place afforded, with apparent satisfaction, I made my entry, mounting a ladder-like stair which several Italians were descending, one of whom held his candle in my face, as I passed him on my way to the kitchen, where I found (a red handkerchief tied above an assassination-looking face) a most furious Italian woman, distributing spirits, by the light of one tallow candle, to a band of lawless looking personages, who were shouting and swearing.
As nobody made way for me, I asked mine hostess for a room, to which she said, “Patienza;” and having assuaged the thirst of all her dark-faced customers, she set herself to stirring a caldron full of some ill-scented mixture on her hearth.
On my applying for attention once more, she said, with a toss of her head and spoon, that I must wait, as she had not time to mind me; and as I was really afraid of offending her, I took a seat, which a douanier who was smoking by the fire offered me by his side, and sate close to him, placing my confidence in his presence, and the vicinity of the carabinieri.
The turbulent party round my landlady continued to drink and to smoke till I could hardly see them through the cloud. As my courage rose and the atmosphere grew stifling, besides that I was weary of the Swiss Italian of my companion, I got up to see if, till D—— should have left his horses, I had, by passing through the open door, a chance of more humanized society, or at least of none. To my extreme pleasure, on the balcony I found an old French gentleman, with his son and grandson, who had arrived some hours before ourselves. They hailed the addition which we and the Americans, who were on their way, would make to their party, for the old man said they had stopped only because they could get no further, as he in his own person had doubts of his hostess, and thought it would be as well that we each should know the other’s sleeping apartment, to afford help reciprocally, “dans le cas,” he added, “que nous soyons assassinés!”
His son was complaining bitterly of an Italian vetturino, who, when on starting he agreed for a certain sum to conduct his passengers to Milan, already knew the state of the road, as the 13th and 14th the storm had been raging on the Italian side, though its greatest fury was on the 15th. Under the Kaltwasser glaciers a sudden gust of wind had overturned his carriage, absolutely on the verge of the tremendous precipice. The poor pale boy had shown great courage, and even the horses and carriage received no injury.