At Oberwald, three and a half miles from the Rhone glacier, the road leaves the grassy valley, and begins to ascend the zig-zags on the mountain-side. We here found the inclination to leave the carriage, and walk, irresistible. This road, which is carried over the Furca Pass to Andermatt, is a grand achievement, for which the country, and those who travel in it, have to thank the modern, more centralised and democratised government. To it also their thanks are due for the new coinage, the most simple in the world, whereas the old cantonal coinages it superseded were the most confusing, and the worst; for the postal arrangements, which are very good; for the telegraph; and even for the railways. And, furthermore it must be credited with many advances, and improvements, that have been made in the Swiss system of education.
The Rhone glacier is a broad and grand river of ice. As it descends from the mountains on a rapid incline you see a great deal of it from below, and are disposed to regard it as worthy to be the parent of a great historic river. The Rhone, however, itself issues from it, at present, in a very feeble and disappointing fashion. It slips out from beneath the ice so quietly, and inconspicuously, that you might pass by it, as doubtless many do, without observing it. It steals off, as if it were ashamed of its parentage; of which, rather, it might well be proud.
A word about the Hôtel du Glacier du Rhône. It has plenty of pretension; but I never passed a night in a house I was so glad to leave in the morning. Nowhere did one ever meet with such a plague of flies, flies so swarming, and so persecuting; and nowhere did one ever meet with such revolting stenches. What produces the stenches is what produces the flies; that is want of drainage, and the non-removal of unclean accumulations. At first, on account of the stench which pervaded the gallery—it was that of the first and chief floor, I refused to take the room I was shown to; and only, after a time, consented on the assurance that this matter could, and should be set right. This assurance was utterly fallacious; for, though I kept my window wide open, from the time I entered the room till I left it, I soon sickened, and was afflicted with uninterrupted nausea throughout the whole night. Want of proper drainage, the cause of these horrors, is very common in Swiss hotels. Their pretentious character, which, with many thoughtless people, atones for much, ought, on the contrary, to intensify one’s sense of such shameful neglect. The larger the house is the larger are the gains of the landlord, and the greater is the number of people exposed to the mischief. I do not at all join in the cry against the rise in the charges of the monster hotels of Southern Switzerland. Landlords, like other people, have a right to charge what they can get, when the commodity they deal in is much in demand. But, as their charges are certainly remunerative, there can be no reason for forbearing to denounce manifest and disgraceful disregard of necessary sanitary arrangements. I heard the next morning from one, who spoke from that day’s personal experience, that matters were no better at the neighbouring hotel of the Grimsel Hospice. Strange is it that man should be so careless about poisoning the very air nature has made so pure!
CHAPTER IX.
WALK OVER THE GRIMSEL BY THE AAR VALLEY, HELLE PLATTE, FALLS OF HANDECK, TO MEIRINGEN
These are Thy glorious works, Parent of good;
Almighty, Thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous, then!
Unspeakable, Who sitt’st above the heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen