It was a pleasant walk to Perdatsch. The new road has not yet got beyond Platta. But there was nothing to regret in this. The new road was good; but so also was the old paved horseway. This also one was glad to see: it was rudely constructed of blocks and slabs of gneiss, long since worn smooth by many centuries of local traffic, and the passage over them, too, of many armies, which in old times, as we are told, went and returned this way, during the long period when the Lukmanier, because it was the easiest, was the most frequented, of all Alpine Passes. It had been 3.30 when we left Dissentis, and as my companion had stopped at Platta for twenty minutes for a chopine of wine, the last gleams of daylight were dying away as we reached Perdatsch. To be still on the tramp at the close of evening gave rise almost to a new sensation, which, too, was not altogether a pleasant one; for you seemed to be still at work when all nature was either going to rest, or counselling rest. The peasants had returned home, and so had the goats and cows. Those belonging to the little inn had come down from the mountain, and, having now been milked, were taking up their berths for the night on the lee side of the châlet, and contiguous rocks. It was the hour, not for walking, but for talking, at your ease, over what had been seen during the day that was past, and for forming plans for the day that was coming.
The inn of Perdatsch is well situated. You have lately been passing several little villages, which had, successively, been becoming smaller, as the height had increased, and so the means for supporting life had decreased. And now at the point where the stream from the Val Cristallina meets that of the Medelser Rhein, and at the foot of M. Garviel, which rises up before you to divide the V. Cristallina from the Val Medels, stands the little wood-built structure. Your memory of what is behind, and the sight of what is in front, suggest to you that you have now reached the verge of inhabitable altitude. As you approach Perdatsch, you see that the stream, in the leap it there takes of a hundred feet, is of considerable volume; and you find it putting in a claim to be a Rhine, the Mittel, or Medelser, Rhein; on the Splügen you had met a second Rhine, the Hinter Rhein; on the Julier, a third, the Oberhalbstein Rhein; in Aversthal a fourth, the Averser Rhein; and you have seen all these joining a fifth, the Vorder Rhein. Each of the five by assuming the famous name seems to insist on your remembering that it bears an important part in the origination of the great river, or at least is among its first contributories. I believe, however, that the word in its original signification was not so much the proper name as the appellative of a stream, or river. The Rhine may have meant the river, the flowing water. Etymologists will say whether it has any blood relationship with rivus, river, and Rhone, and possibly Eridanus, which appears to have been the name of a river that emptied itself into the Baltic, as well as an alias of the Po. But to propound conjectures without an adequate knowledge of the subject, in etymology as in other matters, is easy, and in both senses of the word endless.
This inn was about the smallest châlet I ever entered. The following were its internal arrangements. The entrance door was at the south-east corner. From the door were two little passages. The one facing the door led to the room occupied by the landlord and his wife. This room might have been nine feet wide and a dozen in length. The second passage turned to the right of the door along the wall. It was about four feet wide. In this passage came first the cooking stove; the passage was in fact the kitchen; and then beyond the cooking stove the door of the reception room. This was about eleven feet square, and so low that a tall man could not stand erect in it. Opposite the door of the landlord’s own room, and rising over the door of the house, was a ladder, by which one ascended to a passage corresponding to that which formed the kitchen. At the further end of this upper passage was a miniature bed, which my guide will occupy to-night. Close to his crib was the door which opened into the guests’ bedroom. This was the largest room in the house. It contained three beds. Its extent, however, was only in area, for it was so low that it required some manœuvring to get into bed, and I could not have attempted to sit up in bed without knocking my head against the ceiling. This was the whole structure, which to-night will shelter thirteen mortals. Absit omen!
On my arrival I found a solitary Frenchman—the only Frenchman I met during this expedition—in possession of the little parlour. He had left Dissentis an hour earlier than I; I had, however, seen him there, and as we were in the same hotel, and bound for the same place, I had addressed a few words to him; but he had then appeared to be indisposed to engage in conversation. I now found him full of conversation, and a pleasant man to talk with. He told me that he was a member of the French Alpine Club; that its members had made so few ascents that he was desirous of doing something, and so that he had come out to get into training for an ascent of Mount Blanc; but that he did not contemplate making the attempt till next year. He was a stout and sturdy but rather short man of about thirty-four years of age. He carried his knapsack himself.
The usual question now arose, What could we have for supper? In so small a house, so far from the world, we did not expect to find much. We, therefore, summoned the landlord, and asked him to give us a list of everything in the way of eatables and drinkables his house contained. He had dried beef, and also dried mutton: the latter was quite a novelty to both of us. His wife could make soup. She could also fry eggs in butter. He had, too, Piora cheese, not of course actual Piora, but equally of course quite as good, wine, white bread, and coffee. He was congratulated on having so many good things, and such a wife; and requested to place every one of the good things on the table as soon as his wife could prepare them. The cembra fire was kindled, and its cooking power got up, as soon as the match was put to it; and so in about half an hour, there being hardly room on the little table for all the viands, supper was served. We found there was no reason why we should desert our old acquaintance, the dried beef, for our new acquaintance, the dried mutton. The soup was an instance of the deceptiveness of words. It had no more resemblance to the Tauffers mess of herbs, spice, and macaroni than chicken broth has to the ambrosia of terrapin or turtle. It had but two ingredients, and those were rice and milk; enough of the latter to float the former. It was an undecided question whether the eggs would not have been better without the butter. The plain butter and the Pioresque cheese were good. The white bread was an old world petrifaction. The wine was acid, if not sour. The coffee was good, as was the milk that accompanied it. On the whole we were content. Things were far better than we might have anticipated. We loitered over them; and it was 10 o’clock—a late hour for such places, and for such work as we were engaged in—before we went up the ladder, and crept into our cribs.
I had not been long in the house before eight peasants arrived for the night. They walked into the reception room. We, however, were already in possession. There was hardly standing space for them all; and it was evident that there was no space for another table, and benches, for so many. The landlord and his wife were equal to the occasion; and the peasants being reasonable people at once recognized the necessities of the situation, and accepted the alternative the host offered them till we might retire to bed. They had, too, come to make a night of it, and would not be disappointed. Besides there was nowhere else to go. The alternative was that they might have for the present our host’s and his wife’s bedroom. To this, then, they withdrew, and forthwith commenced playing at cards and drinking, transferring themselves to the reception room when we left it. There they remained till 3 o’clock in the morning; at which hour they quitted the house, to proceed further up the mountains to make hay. They were Platta men, and the foreman of the party was the Platta schoolmaster, a tall wiry man, with a black bushy beard. At times during the night we were woke by their shouts and laughter, as the fortunes of their game varied. The stakes they were playing for was the wine they were drinking, for which the losers had to pay. When disturbed by their merriment, I cannot say that I was lulled again to sleep—the effect was rather in the opposite direction—by the rude bluster of the stream, which was tumbling down its rocky channel not many yards from my head—still I had no wish that either the merrymakers or the stream were further off.
CHAPTER XV.
VAL MEDELS—THE UOMO PASS—VAL PIORA—RITOM—ALTANCA.
With the imagination be content,
Not wishing more; repining not to tread
The little sinuous path of earthly care,