The next morning I passed the little lakes, which are the sources of the Po, on my way into France. The weather was stormy, and misinterpreting the patois of some natives—who in reality pointed out the right way—I missed the track, and found myself under the cliffs of Monte Viso. A gap that was occasionally seen, in the ridge connecting it with the mountains to the east, tempted me up; and, after a battle with a snow-slope of excessive steepness, I reached the summit. The scene was extraordinary, and, in my experience, unique. To the north there was [pg 11]not a particle of mist, and the violent wind coming from that direction blew one back staggering. But on the side of Italy, the valleys were completely filled with dense masses of cloud to a certain level; and there—where they felt the influence of the wind—they were cut off as level as the top of a table, the ridges appearing above them.
I raced down to Abries, and went on through the gorge of the Guil to Mont Dauphin. The next day found me at La Bessée, at the junction of the Val Louise with the valley of the Durance, in full view of Mont Pelvoux; and by chance I walked into a cabaret where a Frenchman was breakfasting, who, a few days before, had made an unsuccessful attempt to ascend that mountain with three Englishmen and the guide Michel Croz of Chamounix;[10] a right good fellow, by name Jean Reynaud.
The same night I slept at Briançon, intending to take the courier on the following day to Grenoble; but all places had been secured several days beforehand, so I set out at two P.M. on the next day for a seventy-mile walk. The weather was again bad; and on the summit of the Col de Lautaret I was forced to seek shelter in the wretched little hospice. It was filled with workmen who were employed on the road, and with noxious vapours which proceeded from them. The inclemency of the weather was preferable to the inhospitality of the interior. Outside, it was disagreeable, but grand; inside, it was disagreeable and mean.[11] The walk was continued under a deluge of rain, and I felt the way down—so intense was the darkness—to the village of La Grave, where the people of the inn detained me forcibly. It was perhaps fortunate that they did so; for, during that night, blocks of rock fell at several places from the cliffs on to the road with such force that they made large pits in the macadam. I resumed [pg 12]the walk at half-past five the next morning, and proceeded, under steady rain, through Bourg d’Oysans to Grenoble, arriving at the latter place soon after seven P.M., having accomplished the entire distance from Briançon in about eighteen hours of actual walking.
This was the end of the Alpine portion of my tour of 1860, on which I was introduced to the great peaks, and acquired the passion for mountain-scrambling, the development of which is described in the following chapters.
A BIT OF THE VILLAGE OF ZERMATT.
BRIANÇON.