At Schiersch, having now done twenty-five miles, I stopped for dinner. It is a place of some size, and has many goodly stone houses; but what attracts you most is the story of the still-honoured heroism of its women. The books told me that the Lion was the chief hotel of the place. Accordingly I entered the Lion, and was shown up to the first floor. It was evident that the room into which I was shown, like the sword of Achilles which could either hack a baron of beef, or carve a Trojan, was used for two purposes. The long table and benches on one side of it showed that it was intended for travellers’ accommodation. The sofa, however, and chairs, a little work-table on the other side, together with the presence of Madame herself and four children, one asleep on the sofa, one suffering from whooping-cough, the third waiting on the invalid, and the fourth in the mother’s arms, indicated that it was also the Lady’s sitting-room, and the nursery. The guests who came and went while I was in the house were waited upon by the husband only. My successive inquiries for mutton, beef, butter, eggs, fruit, cognac, extracted from him only negative replies. What, then, did the good people of Schiersch live upon? He could let me have cheese and dried beef. I had been expecting mutton côtelettes, with a dessert of figs and peaches. In my disappointment I felt disposed to go on further. I could hardly fare worse by doing so. But after I had entered the house I felt a disinclination, by leaving it, to balk the expectations of the good people, and perhaps my own too. And so I spent half an hour at the Lion. As to the dried beef, I had ceased to think it actively bad. The wine was rather sour. Against the cheese nothing could be said.
Together with the above viands there was presented to me this problem. If this is all that Schiersch can set before its guests, what is the usual fare of the Schierschers themselves? Few of us as we pass through a smiling Swiss valley think, or know, how hard its inhabitants live. They, poor souls, or rather their hard-worked bodies, have neither the dried beef, nor the half sour wine, nor yet such cheese as I had. Meagre cheese, the curd that rises, on the second heating, after the first curd for the cheese has been removed, black rye-bread, polenta, and potatoes constitute, with coffee for their chief beverage, the normal fare of the inhabitants of most of these valleys. The greater part of the butter, and of the fresh meat that they produce is sent off to places, where there are hotels with many travellers to be provided for. All the fat of the land of the Prätigäu is in this way forwarded to Davos am Platz, Ragatz, and Coire. Having disposed of this question not quite satisfactorily, for I had rather that its settlement had been more in favour of the good people of Schiersch—the brave women of Schiersch at all events deserve something better; and having, too, disposed of the comestibles which had suggested it, I said my adieux to the members of the family of the Lion, and proceeded on my way, caring little, and not knowing much more, where I was going, except that there was a place two miles further on called Grüsch.
The first mile was through low wet meadows. Beyond these the torrent of the Lanquart had in times of flood, carried away all the soil, leaving behind nothing but rubbly stones. These covered a wide expanse, rather more than a mile in length. The peasants of the locality, like a community of bees, or ants, whose nest, or hive, has been disturbed, had taken in hand the repair of the whole of this damage. They had carried a dozen, or more, dikes across the valley, and crossed these again at right angles by another series of dikes. This had divided the whole of the desolated space into a considerable number of square compartments. Their plan was to fill these in succession with the muddy water of the Lanquart, hoping that the deposit from this, would in time bury the stones, and give them a surface of alluvium, capable of supporting grass. Some of the compartments were already supporting beds of reeds. If, therefore, the dikes should not be washed away by some unusually heavy flood, the time must come when soil enough will be accumulated for grass. May this precious grass one day crown and reward their labours!
At Grüsch I was well repaid for having preferred the ills I knew not of to those of which I had had experience at Schiersch. I found it in many respects an interesting little place. First it is well situated. There are points of view in the village, from which the mountains seem to stand round about it grandly, quite to come down into it. On the north side a bold ravine has been rent from some height up in the mountain just down to the level of the road. Some of the houses are old and large, and were once the residences of local grandees, of the days when Grüsch had grandees. In one of these I found my supper and bed—a supper of veal cutlets, coffee, butter, cheese, and raspberry compote. I give the particulars not only from a sense of what is due to Grüsch, but also for the sake of encouraging Schiersch to greater efforts. As to my berth for the night; I was at first shown up a stone staircase to a spacious room containing three beds. From its ornamented panelling and ceiling it must originally have been intended for a sitting-room. I was more than satisfied with it. When, however, there was no further prospect of the arrival of a family, or party, of distinction, I was informed that there was a better bedroom in the house, that it was at my disposal, and that the few things I had brought with me had been removed to it. Even after this announcement I was quite unprepared for its magnificence. It was a kind of state apartment. It was gorgeously papered. It had muslin window-curtains. The stove cased with white china, and bound with hoops of polished brass, had an imposing effect. The pillows and coverlet were edged with cotton lace. All this was overpowering, coming so close on Schiersch. And, then, the manageress was so good-natured and obliging, so anxious to know what might be wanted, and seemed to have so much pleasure in doing it—almost as much as the good man at Livigno had had, whose regard for his guests had extended even beyond this world. But the crowning grace has still to come. After breakfast to-morrow morning, I shall have to pay for this substantial fare, the splendour of my bedroom, and so much pleasing attention, only 3 francs, 30 cents: the same sum, except the 30 cents, I had paid at Schiersch for the refection of dried beef and sour wine. This will compare, too, very favourably with the bill at Livigno. That had been 30 francs, 60 cents. But then our friend at Livigno had catered for both worlds, for soul as well as for body. At parting I could not but shake hands with the young woman who had waited on me and her satisfaction at finding that her attentions and ministerings had been appreciated was alone quite worth the 3 francs, 30 cents. All this was a great deal to get for so little in this hard world.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE RHEINTHAL—PFÄFFERS—RAGATZ—COIRE—DISSENTIS—VAL MEDELS—PERDATSCH.
He durst upon a truth give doom
He knew no more of than the Pope of Rome.—Hudibras.
August 22.—Was off at 5 A.M. Just below Grüsch the road passed by a scene of recent devastation, very similar to what I had seen yesterday evening just above the town. A late flood of the Lanquart had swept over some three or four acres of garden ground, from which it had washed out every particle of soil, leaving behind only a bed of clean pebbles. Some corners and shreds of potato and corn patches alone remained to show the passer-by what the poor peasants had lost. One saw proofs of the efforts they had made to save not only their crops, but that which was of far more value than the crops of a single season—the precious land, their only means of living. In the hope of turning the flood back again into its channel they had constructed a kind of long chevaux-de-frise, first by fastening pieces of timber together at right angles to each other, each piece being about ten feet long, and then lashing several of these cross-tied bars, at intervals of about three feet, to a long pine trunk. These contrivances they had fixed at points they wished to protect. Faggots had then been laid athwart the three-feet interstices, in order that the pebbles and rubbish the flood would bring down might be piled against them. Of course these fortifications had not been set at right angles to the line of the flood, but slightly inclined down it, so that when it impinged upon them, the line of least resistance to the impinging flood would be in the direction that would take it back to the main channel. I suppose the plan had been to some extent successful, for the land behind the second line had been mostly saved. I was reminded of Christian Grass’s remark on a similar scene in the Scarlthal, that for these poor people to see a torrent sweeping away their land is a far more dreadful spectacle than to see the flames devouring their houses.
Just beyond this scene of devastation was the stock of pine trunks, that had last winter been cut in, and brought down from, the forest above by the men of Grüsch, for their supply, during the coming winter, of fuel and of timber for house repairs. The size of the trunks is, if age be taken into account, an indication of the nature of the soil and of the climate. These gave good evidence in favour of the soil and climate of the Prätigäu. I measured the butt end of the largest of them. It was nearly four feet in diameter without the bark. This must have been a stately tree. I counted, too, the rings of its annual growth. It had been one of the patriarchs of the forest, for one hundred and forty had been the number of its years. Four generations of Grüschers had withheld their hands from converting it into fuel or money, and a fifth generation were now to have the benefit of their educated forbearance.
The exit from the Prätigäu is through a grand portal. The precipices are high and sheer; the Lanquart is rapid, dashing, and dinning; the road is tortuous. At the last turn of the road, where the precipices are highest and sheerest, and the Lanquart most rapid, dashing, and dinning, you suddenly step out on the long and broad expanse, here two miles wide, of the Rhine valley. The spirit of the scene is changed. Some of this broad flat is so poor, all vegetable mould having ages ago been washed out of it, that it will grow only stunted trees, and some so low and wet that it will grow only reeds and rushes. Should you be making for Ragatz, as I was, two roads will be before you; one along the foot of the right-hand mountain range by Malans and Maienfeld, the other straight across the valley and the Rhine, which is here on its further side, and then along the foot of the left-hand range. For a moment I looked on the scene before me, and then went straight on. The two miles of dead level would be something new, and would give me some idea of what the Rhine valley is here. The two next miles beyond the bridge over the Rhine, and on to Ragatz, with the morning sun full on the road, and against the side of the overhanging mountain, were memorably warm.