Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

At the foot of the mountain we found again our company of strawberry girls, with knitting work and goat's milk, lying in wait for us. They knew we should be thirsty and hungry, and wisely turned the circumstance to account. Some of our party would not buy of them, because they said they were sharpers, trying to get all they could out of people; but if every body who tries to do this is to be called a sharper, what is to become of respectable society, I wonder?

On the strength of this reflection, I bought some more goat's milk and strawberries, and verily found them excellent; for, as Shakspeare says, "How many things by season seasoned are."

We returned to our hotel, and after dining and taking a long nap, I began to feel fresh once more, for the air here acts like an elixir, so that one is able to do twice as much as any where else. S. was too much overcome to go with us, but the rest of us started with our guides once more at five o'clock. This time we were to visit the Cascade des Pèlérins, which comes next on the orthodox list of places to be seen.

It was a lovely afternoon; the sun had got over the Mont Blanc side of the world, and threw the broad, cool shadow of the mountains quite across the valley. What a curious kind of thing shadow is,—that invisible veil, falling so evenly and so lightly over all things, bringing with it such thoughts of calmness, of coolness, and of rest. I wonder the old Greeks did not build temples to Shadow, and call her the sister of Thought and Peace. The Hebrew writers speak of the "overshadowing of the Almighty;" they call his protection "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Even as the shadow of Mont Blanc falls like a Sabbath across this valley, so falls the sense of his presence across our weary life-road!

As we rode along under the sides of the mountain every thing seemed so beautiful, so thoughtful, and so calm! All the goats and cows were in motion along the mountain paths, each one tinkling his little bell and filling the rocks with gentle melodies. You can trace the lines of these cattle paths, running like threads all along the sides of the mountains. We went in the same road that we had gone in the morning. How different it seemed, in the soberness of this afternoon light, from its aspect under the clear, crisp, sharp light of morning!

We pass again through the pine woods in the valley, and cross the Arve; then up the mountain side to where a tiny cascade throws up its feathery spray in a brilliant jet d'eau. Every body knows, even in our sober New England, that mountain brooks are a frisky, indiscreet set, rattling, chattering, and capering in defiance of all law and order, tumbling over precipices, and picking themselves up at the bottom, no whit wiser or more disposed to be tranquil than they were at the top; in fact, seeming to grow more mad and frolicsome with every leap. Well, that is just the way brooks do here in the Alps, and the people, taking advantage of it, have built a little shanty, where they show up the capers of this child of the mountain, as if he tumbled for their special profit. Here, of course, in the shanty are the agates, and the carved work, and so forth, and so on, and you must buy something for a souvenir.

I sat down on the rocks to take, not a sketch,—for who can sketch a mountain torrent?—but to note down on paper a kind of diagram, from which afterwards I might reconstruct an image of this feathery, frisky son of Kuhleborn.

And while I was doing this, little G. seemed to be possessed by the spirit of the brook to caper down into the ravine, with a series of leaps far safer for a waterfall than a boy. I was thankful when I saw him safely at the bottom.

After sketching a little while, I rambled off to a point where I looked over towards Mont Blanc, and got a most beautiful view of the Glacier de Boisson. Imagine the sky flushed with a rosy light, a background of purple mountains, with darts of sunlight streaming among them, touching point and cliff with gold. Against this background rises the outline of the glacier like a mountain of the clearest white crystals, tinged with blue; and against their snowy whiteness in the foreground tall forms of pines. I rejoiced in the picture with exceeding joy as long as the guide would let me; but in all these places you have to cut short your raptures at the proper season, or else what becomes of your supper?

I went back to the cottage. A rosy-cheeked girl had held our mules, and set a chair for us to get off, and now brings them up with "Au plaisir, messieurs" to the bearers of our purse. Half a dozen children had been waiting with the rose des Alps, which they wanted to sell us "au plaisir" but which we did not buy.