An Oberland Châlet

by Edith Elmer Wood

As always, it was sizzling hot in the Rhone valley, and we were glad as our road lifted us out of it. We went through a fine fruit belt as we rose, and I regret to say we plucked a plum or a pear or an apple quite frequently as we walked along.

At Ayent, about half-past ten, we came to what we knew was the last settlement. Here we fortified ourselves with a second café-au-lait, and laid in a stock of bread, sweet chocolate and hard-boiled eggs. Then we turned our backs on civilization and went on. We knew we had to leave the wagon road soon, but were in great doubt where, till a very intelligent peasant came along who gave us directions we could really follow. He also told us that we were two days’ journey from Lenk—which hardly sounded encouraging.

That day seemed to me about a hundred years long. Would there never be an end to this picking up of one foot and setting down of the other? And I had to keep pushing the old things so to make them move! No wonder I was tired. My head weighed about a ton, and had a red-hot and very tight iron band around it. And every bone in my body ached. Oh, bless the old man at Chamonix! At Ayent I had happened to look in a glass that hung on the dining-room wall, and the reflection I saw fairly frightened me for its ugliness. Did that shiny red nose, those bleary red eyes, that blotchy red face really belong to me?

By lunch-time we were among the high pastures and had opened up a pretty broad view of the Valais mountains, our old friends around Zermatt on the other side of the Rhone. We came upon a spring which had been piped to a trough for the cattle, and, as we were very thirsty, thought we would risk drinking from it, when, fortunately, we looked closer and saw the water was alive with long squirming hair-thin eels! They were the most uncanny-looking beasts I almost ever saw. Antonio suggested picking them out, as they were extremely visible, and drinking the expurgated water, but somebody objected that the water must be full of their eggs and that it would be so unpleasant to have them hatch—afterwards. So we ate our chocolate and hard-boiled eggs and bread, and kept our thirst for future reference.

We felt that we must surely come upon the cattle pretty soon and that then we could buy some milk. The afternoon was half gone, however, before we saw a trace of anything alive, and then it was a very small boy leading a pig way off in the distance. We hailed him and with some difficulty made him understand that we wanted to buy milk. The patois of that region is a fearful and wonderful thing. He agreed to lead us to the cow châlets, but as it was away from our path, and seemed very, very far, we were several times on the point of giving up the quest. However, he kept encouraging us, assuring us we were nearly there, and finally emerging over a grassy shoulder, we came upon the herd of several hundred cows in a sort of pocket.

It was the milking hour, and we could not have struck it better for our wants. The head-man, or Senn, I suppose, escorted us up to the cheese-hut and gave us stools to sit on, while he ladled out foamy warm milk from a bucket in a half gourd and passed it first to one and then another, apologizing for his lack of conveniences. Imagine a dozen men living up there for four months on end with never a cup or a bowl or a ladle among them except this solitary gourd!

There were two huge iron caldrons under which fires were burning and into which the men poured their buckets of milk as they brought them in. This was to make cheese. We asked them to sell us some, but they said they were not allowed to. They gave us, however, a bit of the old, last year’s cheese which they ate themselves and declined any remuneration for it. As it was a present, it would be impolite to say what we thought of it.

All the men crowded into the hut and gazed at us with interest, but only the two intelligent ones in charge did any talking. Perhaps the others spoke only patois, but they were of the utterly stupid heavy type I have already referred to.

We asked about our route, and they told us it was absolutely out of the question for us to get over the pass that day, as we were not more than half way, and it was already four o’clock. We must pass the night at the châlets of Nieder Rawyl, the last pastures on this side of the summit. Would the people there give us shelter, I asked. The man smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “They will have to,” he said.

Very much refreshed by the milk and the little rest, we bade farewell to our friends and made our way back to our path, then onward at a quickened pace, lest darkness come upon us before we reached the huts of Nieder Rawyl. We were getting pretty high now, and the wind that blew down from the snow belt made us feel that a night in the open air would not be a pleasant experience.