Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland

by G. F. Browne

The cavern was reached in a few minutes, when once we got away from the châlet. Two large pits, formed apparently by the subsidence of the surface, lay in a line about east and west, and there proved to be an underground communication between them. From this tunnel, as it were, a long low archway led to a broad slope of chaotic blocks of stone, down which we scrambled by the aid of such light as our candles afforded. The roof of this inner cave was horizontal for some distance, and then suddenly descended in a grand wall; and in consequence of a series of such inverted steps, the cave never assumed any great height. The whole length of the slope was 190 feet, and its greatest breadth about 140 feet; but the breadth varied very much. Half-way down the slope the ice commenced, fitfully at first, and afterwards in a tolerably continuous sheet. The most careless explorer could not have failed to notice the polygonal figures stamped upon its surface. They were larger and bolder than any I had seen before; and the prismatic nuts into which the ice broke, when cut with the axe, were of course in proportion larger than in the previous caves. The signs of thaw, too, were unmistakeable. Though the upper surface of the earth had seemed to be utterly devoid of moisture of any kind, large drops fell freely from the roof of the cave,[^[97]] and the ice itself was wet. The patron said there was no ice whatever in the winter months, and that from June to September was the time at which alone it could be found. He declined to explain how it was that we found it so evidently in a state of general thaw in the very height of its season. To give us some idea of the climate of the plain in winter, he informed us that the snow lay for long up to the top of the door of his châlet.

There were in all four columns of ice in the cave, only two of which were of any considerable size. One of these was peculiarly striking from the very large grain which its structure displayed; it measured 19 feet across the base, being flat towards the extremity of the cave, and round towards the entrance. Three thermometers in various parts of the glacière gave all the same temperature, namely, a fraction under 33° F.: a rough French thermometer gave 1/2° C. The extreme wall of the cavern was completely covered by a layer of stalagmitic material, and some of the forms the substance assumed were sufficiently striking. In contact with the wall, though standing clear of it in parts where the wall fell inwards, stood a thick round column of the same material, shaped like the ordinary ice-columns of the glacières, with a cavity near the base, and in all ways following the usual laws of such columns. Considering that I had observed a layer of limestone-paste collecting on one of the ice-columns of the Glacière of La Genollière, I could not help imagining that this stalagmitic column had been originally moulded on a norm of that description. It had a girth of 12 feet in the part where we were able to pass the tape round it. Its surface was smooth; but when we drove a hole through this, with much damage to the pic of my axe, we found that the interior was in a crystalline form.

There was, on the whole, very little to be seen in the glacière. Had it been my first experience of an ice-cave, it would doubtless have seemed very remarkable, as it did to Liotir, who, by the way, had steadily disbelieved the possibility of natural ice in summer except in the glaciers; but as I had now seen so many, several of them much more wonderful than this, I did not care to stay longer than was absolutely necessary for measurements and investigation. Besides, the food of Dauphiné rather takes the energy and love of adventure out of an unaccustomed visitor.

Without long delay, then, we bade farewell to the patron, not returning to the inhospitable châlet, and started on our way for Die, each carrying a large block of ice slung in a network of string. Liotir's purpose was to convince some mysterious female friend that he really had seen ice in summer, within five or six hours of Die; and mine, to apply the ice to the butter which I had specially ordered the landlady to have ready for me, that so I might be able to get through the night, and leave Die by the diligence the first thing next morning. It was remarkable how well the ice bore the great heat. For long the bulk of the masses we carried seemed scarcely to diminish; and if it had not been for a course of heavy falls as we descended through the brushwood, we should have succeeded in getting a large proportion of it safely to Die. The precision of the prismatic structure also showed itself in a very marked manner; and when we came to a crisis of thirst, which happened at shorter and shorter intervals as the afternoon wore on, we separated the prisms with our fingers from the edges of the ice without any difficulty, and made ourselves more hot and thirsty by eating them.

When we arrived at the farmhouse at the Col de Vassieux, we reaped full benefit from our ice. The wine, which had been hot and heavy and unpalatable in the morning, when we had tried it unmixed, became delightfully refreshing when disguised with an abundance of water and sugar and ice; and Liotir found that contracting for my keep at a low rate would not, after all, secure him the comfortable income he had before calculated. After this refreshment, he became communicative, and told me he had served seven years in the French army, three of which were spent in working on railways. He had fought the Italian campaign, and was full of details of the battle of Solferino, on which occasion his bataillon was led on by the Emperor in person. According to his account, four bataillons were drawn up for the assault of a tower, and when the first advanced it was swept away to a man. The second met with a like fate, and Liotir was in the third. His officers had all been killed, and a corporal was in command. The Emperor rode up and called to them to advance as far as he advanced. This was about a hundred yards; and then, after halting them for a moment, the Emperor cried, 'Allez, mes enfants! nous ne sommes pas tous perdus!' sending the fourth bataillon close upon their heels. In answer to my question, Liotir said, slowly and solemnly, that he did not think the Emperor was under fire; a few dropping shots reached them while he was yet addressing them, but he believed the Emperor Napoleon was not in the fire at Solferino. I took the opportunity of asking whether he was green on that occasion, as Mr. Kinglake believes that he is in times of personal danger; but my companion utterly scouted the idea, and declared that he saw no man through all that day so cool and capable as the Emperor. Pale he undoubtedly was, but that was his habit. Like all other French soldiers with whom I have had much conversation, Liotir complained of the army arrangements in the matter of food; on all other points he was most amiable, but when he spoke of the extortions of the cantinière he completely lost his temper. At a café, the soldiers could get their cup for 15 centimes, or 20 with liqueur; whereas the cantinière charged a franc, and gave them very bad coffee. Wine, too, which would cost them 60 centimes the kilo in the town, was valued at 2 francs by their grasping enemy. He had an idea that English soldiers are allowed to take their whole pay in money, and spend it as they will; whereas the French foot-soldier, according to his account, gets 25 centimes a day in money, and has everything found except coffee. A young trooper at Besançon was very eloquent on this subject. He represented himself as a man of small appetite and a gay spirit; he could well live on very little solid food, and yet he had as much deducted from his pay on that account as anyone in the army--as much, for instance, he groaned, as a certain stout old warrior who was then reposing on a corn-bin. If he could have drawn all his pay in money, and lived on almost nothing for food, he would have had abundance of sous for cards and tobacco; and what a career would that be!

The blocks of ice were by this time becoming rather small; and as we had now once more reached the region of lavender, we cut a large quantity and wrapped the ice in it, and thus protected it from further thaw. For some time before arriving at the farm where my companion's partner lived, he indulged in praises of the wine which their vineyard produced, and assurances of the safety with which it would perform a journey to England. He urged its excellent bouquet, and gave me a card of prices which certainly seemed marvellously reasonable. Finally, he proposed to join me at a bottle of white muscat, from the farmer's cave, in order that I might have an opportunity of seeing how true was his account of the wine. We seated ourselves accordingly in the farmyard, and drank a bottle of delightful wine at 65 centimes the bottle, clear and sparkling, and with a strong muscat flavour. Liotir combined with it intoxication of a different kind, and showed unmistakeable signs of his determination to take another member of the farmer's household into partnership,--the mysterious friend, in fact, for whose astonishment the ice was intended. The white muscat, they told me, would not keep over the year; but they had a wine at the same price which they highly recommended, and warranted to keep for a considerable number of years. Liotir was very anxious that we should have a bottle of this, for he was confident that I should give them an order if I once tasted it; but we had been in at the death of so many bottles that day, that I declined to try the muscat rosat. I have since had a hundred litres sent over by Liotir, and find it very satisfactory. It has a rich, clear, port-wine colour, sparkling, and with the true frontignac flavour.

The effect of the wine on Liotir was peculiar. In the earlier part of the walk, he had never seen Algeria; but after half a bottle of muscat, he had spent six months in that country, and he enlivened the remainder of the way with many details of his experiences there. We reached Die about half-past seven, and the arrival of real ice was hailed as a marvel. Although I had been sent off so unhesitatingly by the landlord in the morning, it seemed that they none of them knew what a glacière meant. They had determined that we should never reach the Foire de Fondeurle, and that if we did, we should find nothing there to repay our toil. As I sat at an open window afterwards, Liotir's voice was to be heard holding forth in a neighbouring café upon the wonders of the day; and among the crowd which is a normal condition of the evening streets of Die, the words Fondeurle, Vassieux, Anglais, glace, &c., showed what the general subject of conversation was.

The landlady had obeyed orders, and was provided with butter and bread. The tea was served in an open earthenware pitcher, with the spout at right angles with the handle. There was no cup; but the woman remarked that if monsieur was particular about that, he could turn out the sugar and use the basin, which he did. The milk had a basin to itself; but it had offered so large and tempting a surface to the flies of the town, that it remained untouched. The knife and spoon were imbued with ineradicable garlic, and my own trusty clasp-knife was the only weapon I could use for all table purposes. If it had not been for the ice and the lavender, I think I should never have got away from Die. The former made it possible to eat some bread-and-butter; and of the latter I made a sort of respirator for nose and mouth, which modified the odour of cocks and hens prevailing in the house.

Next morning the diligence was to start early, and, in preparation for the six hours' drive, I ordered two eggs to be boiled for breakfast. As the first proved to have been boiled in tepid water, I requested the landlady to boil the second afresh, which she did in a manner that may partly account for the observed fact that the very eggs of some towns taste of garlic. There was household soup simmering on the fire, reeking with onion and garlic, and many other abominations; and, as if it was quite the right and usual thing to do, she slipped the unfortunate egg into this, and left it there to be cooked. After all, garlic must be cheap as an article of food, for the whole bill amounted only to 7-1/2 francs.

This was the last glacière on my list. It was quite as well that such was the case; for the trials of Dauphiné had been too great, and I should scarcely have been inclined to face further adventures of a like kind.