Autres temps, autres mœurs
The next day would produce scorching heat, a clear sky, a rising barometer, and a revival of spirits; diet, as the physicians say, as before. The powdered snow would disappear off the ledges and, melting, distribute itself more uniformly over the rocks, which as a result presented a shining appearance, as the morning face of a schoolboy or the Sunday face of a general servant. At night a clear sky and a sharp frost in the high regions, and the next day the mountain would be more impossible than ever. Still, recognising that another few hours [pg 98]of grateful sunshine would cause the thin film of ice glazing the rocks to melt and evaporate, the energetic climber (and we were very energetic that year) would summon his guides and all his resolution, pack up his traps, and start for a bivouac up aloft, to return, in all probability, at the end of twenty-four hours, in a downfall of rain and in the condition of steamy moisture so tersely described by Mr. Mantalini. Such, during July 1878, was our lot day after day in the glorious Alpine climate. We paced up and down, with the regularity of sentries, between our camp on the Aiguille du Dru and Couttet’s hotel at Chamouni. Occasionally we ascended some distance up the Glacier de la Charpoua and took observations. Once or twice we proceeded far enough on the rocks of the Aiguille du Dru to prove the impossibility of ascending them to any great height. Still we were loth to depart and run the risk of losing a favourable opportunity of assaulting the mountain with any chance of success. It fell out thus that we had good opportunities of observing our fellow creatures and the various types of travellers who, notwithstanding the weather, still crowded into Chamouni; for it was only on rock peaks such as the Aiguille du Dru, or difficult mountains like the Aiguille Verte, that climbing was impossible. This condition of things did not affect to any very appreciable extent the perambulating peasants who constitute the vast majority of the body known as [pg 99]guides in Chamouni. These worthies merely loafed a little more than they were wont to do, if that be possible. Perhaps the gathering invariably to be found, during twenty hours out of the twenty-four, at the cross roads near Tairraz’s shop was still more numerously attended, and there was some slight increase in the number of sunburnt individuals who found intellectual exercise sufficient to apologise for their existence in wearing their hands in their pockets, smoking indifferent tobacco, expectorating indiscriminately, and uttering statements devoid of sense or point to anybody who cared to listen. The weather had no effect on them; whether wet or dry, cold or warm, they still occupied themselves from June to September in the same manner. Once in the early morning, and once again about five o’clock in the evening, were they momentarily galvanised out of their listlessness by the arriving and departing diligences.
The diligence arrives
On the arrival of the caravan the contingent was usually reinforced by some of our own countrymen. The proper attitude for the English visitor at Chamouni to assume, when watching the evening incursion of tourists, consisted in leaning against the wall on the south side of the street, and so to pose himself as to indicate independence of the proceedings and to wear an expression of indifference tinged with a suggestion of cynical humour. This was usually accomplished by wearing the hands in the pockets, [pg 100]tilting the hat a little over the eyes, crossing the legs, and laughing unduly at the remarks of companions, whether audible or not. Some few considered that smoking a wooden pipe assisted the realisation of the effect intended: others apparently held that a heavy object held in the mouth interfered with the expression. I have observed that these same onlookers were bitterly indignant at the ordeal they had to pass through on returning to their native shores viâ Folkestone, when clambering wearily with leaden eyes and sage-green complexions up the pier steps. Yet the diligence travellers, begrimed with dust, stung of horse flies, cramped, choked, and so jolted that they recognised more bony prominences than previous anatomical knowledge had ever led them to expect they possessed, were none the less objects of pity. Still human nature is always worthy of study, and those who arrived, together with those who went to see them arrive, were equally interesting under the depressing climatic influences which so often forbade us to take our pleasure elsewhere.
The Alpine habitue
It was curious to note how, day after day, the diligence on its arrival released from the cramped thraldom of its uncomfortable seats almost exactly the same load. As the great lumbering yellow vehicle came within sight, one or two familiar faces would be seen craning out to catch the first sight of an old guide or mountain friend. These habitués as a rule secured [pg 101]for themselves the corner seats. We knew exactly what their luggage would be. A bundle of axes like Roman “fasces” would be handed out first, with perhaps a little unnecessary ostentation, followed by a coil of rope which might have been packed up in the portmanteau, but usually was not; then a knapsack, with marks on the back like a map of the continent of America if the owner was an old hand, and a spotless minute check if he were only trying to look like one. The owners of the knapsacks would be clad in suits that once were dittos, flannel shirts and the familiar British wide-awake, the new aspirants for mountaineering fame decorating their head gear with snow spectacles purchased in Geneva. Very business-like would they show themselves in collecting their luggage before anybody else; then, with a knowing look at the mountains, they would make their way to Couttet’s. Next, perhaps, would follow a party of some two or three spinsters travelling alone and as uncertain about their destination as they were of their age. To attract such, some of the hotel proprietors, more astute than their fellows, despatched to the scene of action porters of cultivated manners and obsequious demeanour, who seldom failed, by proving themselves to be “such nice polite men, my dear,” to ensnare the victims. Burdened with the numerous parcels and odd little bags this class of traveller greatly affects, the nicely mannered porter would lead [pg 102]the way to the hotel or pension, probably bestowing, as he passed, a wink on some friend among the guides, who recognised at once the type of tourist that would inevitably visit the Montanvert, probably the Chapeau and possibly the Flégère, and recognising too the type in whom judicious compliments were not likely to be invested without satisfactory results. Such people invariably enquired if they could not be taken en pension. Somewhat frugal as regards diet, especially breakfast, but with astounding capacities for swallowing table d’hôte dinners or such romance as the guides might be pleased to invent on the subject of their own prowess and exploits. Charming old ladies these often were, as pleased with the novelty of everything they saw around them as a gutter child in a country meadow. Their nature changes marvellously in the Alps. Scarcely should we recognise in the small wiry traveller in the mountains the same individual whom we might meet in town—say in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury. I have noticed such a one not a hundred miles from there whose energy for sight-seeing when in the Alps surpassed all belief. Yet here she seemed but a little, wrinkled, bent-in-the-back old woman, flat of foot, reckless at crossings, finding difficulty on Sunday mornings in fishing a copper out of her reticule for the crossing sweeper, by reason of the undue length of the finger-tips to her one-buttoned black kid gloves, and accompanied on [pg 103]week days, perhaps for the sake of contrast, by a sprightly little black and tan dog of so arrogant a disposition that it declined to use in walking all the legs which Providence had furnished it. Next, perhaps, the British paterfamilias, who might or might not be a clergyman, most intractable of tourists; ever prone to combine instruction with amusement for the benefit of his bored family, slightly relaxing on week days, but rigid and austere on Sundays beyond conception. And then the foreign sub-Alpine walker or “intrépide,” clad in special garments of local make and highly vaunted efficiency, garrulous, smoky, voracious, a trifle greasy, and dealing habitually in ecstatic hendecasyllables expressive of admiration of everything he saw. Next the family party, possibly with a courier, with whom the younger members were, as a rule, unduly familiar: the boys wearing tailed shooting coats, consorting but ill with Eton turn-down collars, groaning under the burden of green baize bags containing assorted guide books, strange receptacles for the umbrellas of the party, and with leathern wallets slung around their shoulders, stuffed with the useless articles boys cherish and love to carry with them; the girls awkwardly conscious and feeling ill at ease by reason of the practical dresses, boots, and head gear devised for them at home, looking tenderly after a collection of weakly sticks tipped with chamois horns and decorated with a spirally arranged list of [pg 104]localities; the whole party in an excessively bad temper, which the boys exhibited by pummelling and thumping when “pa” was not looking and the girls by little sniffs, head tossings, and pointed remarks at each other that they had no idea what guys they looked. It will be observed that the constant bad weather induced a cynical condition of mind.
A family party
We made up our minds, notwithstanding the attractions of this varied company, to quit them for a while, to seek fresh snow-fields and glaciers new, and to leave the rocks of the Aiguille du Dru for a time unmolested. At the suggestion of Jaun we betook ourselves to the Oberland for a contemplated ascent of the Bietschhorn by a new route. Under a tropical sun we made our way by the interminable zigzags through the Trient valley down to Vernayaz, where we met again, like the witches in “Macbeth,” in thunder and in rain. Our project was to ascend the Bietschhorn from the Visp side and descend it by the usual route to Ried. This form of novelty had become so common in mountaineering that a new word had been coined expressly to describe such expeditions, and the climber, if he succeeded in his endeavour, was said to have “colled” the peak. The phrase, however, was only admissible on the first occasion, and it was subsequently described by any who followed, in more prosaic terms, as going up one side and down the other.
A sepulchral bivouac
We did not experience any unusual difficulty in [pg 105]leaving Visp tolerably early in the morning. The chorus of frogs, who were in remarkably fine voice that night in the neighbouring swamps, kept us awake, and the proper musical contrast was provided by the alto humming of some hungry mosquitoes. Our plan of assault was to camp somewhere at the head of the Baltschieder Thal, which is a dreary stony valley with only a few huts that would scarcely be considered habitable even by a London slum-landlord. The living inhabitants appeared to consist of three unkempt children, two pigs, one imbecile old man, and a dog with a fortuitous family. On the whole, therefore, we came to the conclusion that nature would probably provide better accommodation than the local architectural art, and a short search revealed a most luxurious bivouac, close to the left moraine of the Baltschieder Glacier, under the shelter of the Fäschhorn and a little above the level of the ice fall. A huge, flat slab of rock formed the roof of a wedge-shaped cavity capable of holding at least six persons, if disposed in a horizontal position. The space between the floor and the roof, it is true, was not much more than three feet; but the chamber, though well sheltered, demanded no ventilating tubes to ensure a proper supply of fresh air. Having a little spare time and being luxuriously inclined, we decided to sleep on spring beds. First we swept the stone floor, then covered it with a thick layer of dry rhododendron [pg 106]branches, over which were laid large sods of dried peat grass, and the beds were complete. The pointed ends of the twigs showed rather a tendency to penetrate through the grassy covering during the night, but otherwise the mattresses were all that could be desired. About two in the morning we got up—that is, we would have got up had it not been physically impossible to do so by reason of the lowness of the roof. A more correct expression would be perhaps to say that we turned out, rolling from under the shelter of the slab one after another. By the dim light of an ineffective candle, poked into the neck of a broken bottle, we found it no easy matter to collect all the articles which the guides had of course unpacked and stowed away as if they were going to stay a week; indeed, a certain bottle of seltzer water will probably still be found—at any rate the bottle will—by anyone who seeks repose in the same quarters.