A month in Switzerland

by F. Barham Zincke

Having breakfasted—it is pleasant to have lived so much before breakfast—we sallied forth to look at the town and the baths. There are several hotels in the place, and they were all pretty well tenanted. Still the aspect of things was not lively. There was none of the stir you observe among the Alpine people at such places as Chamouni and Zermatt; nor was there any of the obtrusive bigness, and of the staring newness of the hotels almost everywhere, which give you to understand very clearly that, at all events, a great deal of business is being done. Here nothing was new, and everything was faded. The names over the hotels and shops had been there many a day; and the hotels and shops themselves made one think of a dead forest covered with lichens and moss, the lichens and moss being at least half dead also. People moved about so noiselessly that you looked to see if their feet were muffled; saying nothing to each other, and having nothing to say. The place was as dumb as it was faded. We saw an old man washing old bottles, of a by-gone form, at an old fountain, into and out of which the water was feebly dribbling, as if it had nearly done coming and had nowhere to go. He was the only person we saw doing anything, and he did it as if he thought there was no use in doing it. Those who were taking the baths were oppressed with a consciousness that they were getting no good from them; and that they were doing it only because something must be attempted. Their despondency had an air of obstinacy that would not be comforted, deep and silent; like that of people who have just found out that the foundations on which they have long been building great expectations, are all a delusion,—either a figment of their own, or a tradition from times when such things were not understood—and who have not yet come to think that the world may still have something else for them to turn to. At 12 o’clock the voiturier we had engaged to take us to Sierre, came up to the door of the hotel, with his worm-eaten vehicle and his worn-out horses. But he came in so mute and spectral a fashion—anywhere else he would have announced himself with a little final flourish and crack of his whip—that we were not for some time aware of his arrival. It was a relief when he lighted his cigar, for that was the first indication of life we had seen in the place.

On the road to Sierre we passed through dust enough to bury Leukabad—a ceremony which it would be as well should not be deferred any longer. And, if Sierre had been put on the top of it, there would still have been some to spare.

This dusty drive enhanced the pleasantness of recalling our late mountain walks. We had now completed the circuit of the great ice-field of the Bernese Oberland, which is more than 100 square miles in extent, and is supposed to be the largest in Europe. Its boundaries, all of which we had traced, are the Valais, the Grimsel, the Valley of the Aar, and the Gemmi. We had had a near or more distant view of all its chief snowy peaks, but had nowhere crossed any part of the snow-field itself. That, perhaps, may be the work of another day, when the blue boy will be old enough, and the rest of the party not yet too old, for such work; for those who are not up to Peaks, either of the first or second class, may still graduate as Pass-men by crossing the ice-fields between the Peaks.

Another possible arrangement for the work of the two last days would have been to have ascended the Niesen, at the foot of which we had passed yesterday morning. This would have obliged us to have slept at Kandersteg instead of, as we did, at the top of the Gemmi. The ascent of the Niesen, even for such a party as was ours, would have been easy enough; and the views from it are said to be very good. In that case, however, we should have had to do the Gemmi at one stretch. Our loss would have been sleeping at Kandersteg, and not at the Schwarenbach, and the abandonment of our chance of a good sunrise from the summit of the Pass; though that was a chance which, as it happened, was worth nothing to us; for, in such perfectly fine, and singularly clear weather as we had, the sun rises and sets without those glories of colour which require haze and clouds for their reflection.

As to weather, which is the first, the second, and the third requisite in such an expedition, we had scarcely seen a cloud during our three weeks’ tramp. Up to the day before I got on my legs at Visp it had been an unusually wet and cold season. During the night I was at the Simplon Hospice it rained a little. That was the only shower that fell, where I was, during the whole time we were out. The quarter of an hour’s snow on the Riffel was merely the passage of a stray bit of mountain scud. The sun, throughout, had shone so brightly that some of its brightness had been reflected from the world outside upon the world within. Almost every party of travellers in Switzerland, this year, we met with had a very different account to give of the weather they had encountered. When good luck is pleased to come, it must fall to some one; and this year it fell to us.

So ended the second act of our little family excursion. The scene of the first had been the Valleys of Zermatt and Saas, with my intercalated tramp over the Monte Moro, through the Val Anzasca, and over the Simplon. I can, with a safe conscience, recommend the precise route we took to any family party, constituted at all as ours was. The time occupied, from first to last, was exactly three weeks; and three weeks they were, which we look back upon as well spent. It had no difficulties, and enough of interest and variety. As to the cost, I can give no details or items, for I keep no accounts, and never have. But, speaking in the gross, I believe it cost somewhat less than thirty shillings a head a day. Doubtless, it may be done for less. The best rule in such matters, of course, is, if you can afford it, to have what you want, and what will make a pleasure pleasant. As to equipment, what you need actually carry along with you is so little, that the statement of it would appear to people at home ridiculous. But, then, you can send on by the Post from place to place not only your heavy luggage, but such articles as your hat, if you are youthful, or old-fashioned enough to take a hat with you, and your spare pair of walking boots, and every thing else you may wish to have occasionally.

And here I have a suggestion to throw out, which occurred to me while I was on the tramp. What put it into my head was the incongruity of hotel life with excursions amid such scenes. In the Rocky Mountains the great enjoyment of the year is camping out in the fine season. In Syria and in India people travel with their tents. Why should we not camp out, and travel with our tents, in July and August in Switzerland; and so break loose altogether from the hotels? One mule, or horse, would carry the tent and all the tent furniture. If sometimes, but such a necessity would seldom arise, you had to pitch your tent on damp grass land, no inconvenience, I believe, would ensue. I have slept on a damp meadow under a tent on a bare plank, and was none the worse for it. And with the addition of a little hay, or straw, upon the plank, and upon that a waterproof sheet, you would have a luxurious bed for one who had walked five-and-twenty miles, and had not been under a roof during the day. The tent-mule might carry three light planks, each six feet long; for I will suppose that the party consists of two travellers, and a guide who also acts as muleteer. A saucepan, kettle, gridiron, and a few stores, to be renewed as required, would be necessary. Were the weather to prove unaccommodating there would always be the hotels at hand to take refuge in. A month of such campaigning would be very independent; and, I believe, very healthful and enjoyable.

At Sierre we took the rail for Aigle. There were a great many tedious delays on the way: one at almost every station. But to complain would be unreasonable, for, of course, the natives like to get as much as they can for the fares they have paid; and the lower the fare the greater the gain, if they get much of the rail for it. It was near 6 o’clock when we reached Aigle, where we intended to set up our head-quarters for some days, while looking out for a winter residence for my wife and the little man.

The night was still, and clear. In that unpolluted atmosphere, and among the mountains, the bright, soft, gleaming of the moon—it was now a little beyond the full—as it brings out the silvered peaks, and seems to darken the ravines, casts, as old Homer[^[2]] noted long ago, a pleasing spell over you; and you become indisposed to mar the silence of nature with a word. The spell, however, on this occasion was somewhat broken by the disturbing effect of continuous lightning, in the direction of the head of the valley, though the horizon was undimmed, throughout its whole circumference, by so much as a trace of haziness.

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