[CHAPTER XI.]
Once more we are in sight of the familiar snow-clads and ice-fields; the glaciers are in sight in every direction; there are the mountain peaks, the names all terminating with "horn." Our old friend, the Schneehorn, shoots his peak ten thousand feet into the air, and the Surettahorn lifts its mass of ice nine thousand three hundred feet high into the clear sunlight, and we are again amid the grand Alpine scenery I have so often described. Now we begin our descent, zigzag, as usual, through wild mountain scenery, till at last we whirl through a long gallery, and, with a salute of whip-snappings, enter the village of Splügen; through this, and out again into another grand Alpine landscape, taking in a view of the peaks of the Zapporthorn and Einshorn, each over nine thousand feet high, and away off in the distance, the chalets of a Swiss village, perched in among the mountains. Down we go, at full trot, through the beautiful Roffla Ravine, picturesque in the twilight, with its rocky walls, and its rattling cascades of the River Rhine dashing over the rocky bed. There is one place where there is barely room for the Rhine and the road to pass through the rocky gateway of the pass. The scenery is wild, but at the same time there were trees, with luxuriant foliage, that were pleasant to the eye; beautiful larches, black spruces, and other trees of that kind, softened the rough aspect of the mountains.
We were not sorry to draw rein at dusk at the village of Andeer, where we had only a tolerable lodging, and a very bad breakfast; after which we were once more on the road, and soon reached the valley of six streams, which glide down the mountains, on either side, to the green valley below, with its pretty farm-houses and green pastures. Soon after leaving this, we enter upon the celebrated Via Mala.
This narrow pass seems like a great cleft, cut by a giant's knife, into a huge loaf; the pathway through it, until 1822, was only four feet wide. The carriage-road and the river now seem as if squeezed into the gap, that might at any moment snap together and crush them. Huge perpendicular rocky walls rise to the height of fifteen hundred feet on either side; the River Rhine runs through the gorge three hundred feet below the road, which crosses and recrosses it three or four times by means of bridges; the great walls of rock, in some places, seem almost to meet above, and shut out the full light of day, the space is so narrow; for the river forces its way through a cleft, only fifteen feet wide between the rock, and at one place there is a gallery, two hundred feet long, cut through the solid rock. Although the river is three hundred feet below the road, yet the cleft between the mountain is so narrow that spring freshets will raise it a hundred feet or more. A woman, who, at the highest bridge, drops stones down to the tide below, for tourists to count ten before they strike the water, points out a mark upon one of the bridges, noting a remarkable rise of the river in 1834, when it came up nearly two hundred and fifty feet, to the arch of this bridge, and then solicits a few sous for her services.
This wild, dark, and gloomy gorge, with its huge overhanging curtains of solid rock, the pathway clinging to its sides, the roaring torrent under foot, arched bridges crossing its chasms, and tunnels piercing its granite barricades, is literally a pathway wrenched through the mountain's everlasting wall. It cannot fail to make a profound impression by its gloomy grandeur and wild beauty, especially at one point, where the eye can sweep away through the gorge, as if looking through a vast rocky tube, and rest upon green, sunny slopes, and pleasant, smiling scenery beyond.
We reach the pleasant village of Thusis, where the river Nolla flows into the Rhine; and there is, from the bridge that spans it, a beautiful view of the valley in a ring of mountains and an old castle, the oldest in Switzerland, perched on a crag, high above the river. Here, at the Hotel Adler, rest and an excellent lunch were both obtained, after which the whip cracked good by, and we rattled on, through villages, and now and then over arched bridges, and past picturesque water-wheels, or little Roman Catholic churches, till at last we come to one great bridge of a single arch, crossing the Rhine near Reicehnau—a bridge eighty feet above the river, and two hundred and thirty-seven feet long. We pass the pretty village of Ems, and next reach Coire, where our carriage journey ends, the driver is paid, and we enjoy the novelty of half an hour's ride by rail to Ragatz.
Here, while enjoying a rest at sunset, we had from the hotel balcony a glorious view of a long line of mountains, and a huge, flat wall of rock, upon which the setting sun strikes after streaming between two great mountains, and makes it look like a huge sheet of light bronze—one of those novel had indescribable effects that you see only in the Alps.
The great wonder here, and, in fact, one of the greatest wonders of Switzerland, is the Tamina Gorge and Pfaffers Baths, which next morning we rode to see. A drive of two miles, through a wild, romantic gorge,—the road, a part of the distance, hewn out of the solid ledge, and the river tearing along over its jagged bed of rocks below,—brought us to the hotel of the bath establishment (or, rather, it is the hotel and bath establishment combined), excellently kept and managed, and planted here between two great walls of rock on either side, six hundred feet high. The water is conveyed down to it from the hot springs in the gorge, about a quarter of a mile above, in pipes. Leaving the hotel, we ascend on foot up through this wonderful crack in the mountains. It is a cleft, ranging in width from twenty to forty feet, the pathway a plank walk, five feet wide, affixed by staples to one side of the solid rock.
These walls of rock rise to the height of four or five hundred feet above the path, and, at some points, actually meet together overhead, while the narrow strip, or aperture, for most of the way, lets in light only sufficient to render visible a huge, black, awful chasm, the sides shiny, and dripping with moisture, and a torrent roaring, fifty feet beneath our path, waking a hundred strange echoes. This wild and wondrous passage is "into the bowels of the land" a distance of eighteen hundred and twenty feet; and sometimes the passage brings us to where the action of the waters has hollowed out a huge, rocky dome, and the foaming river whirls round in a great, black pool, as if gathering strength for a fresh rush from its rocky prison.