Roundabout to Moscow: An Epicurean Journey

by John Bell Bouton

What do you say to meadows so thickly set with forget-me-nots that they are unbroken stretches of blue? If pieces of the sky had dropped on the grass, the effect would have been about the same as that which we saw often repeated in the valley of the Rhône. The shade was the faintest of the many blue tints that one sees in Alpine fields. The corn-flower grows rank in June, but is not coupled with the flaming poppy as often as in some other countries of Europe. In the upper pastures are two species of flowers—each as blue as a perfect sapphire. Both grow close to the ground. One is small and star-like. The other is bell-shaped and slender. I have picked it at a height of 7,000 feet. The yellows are in great force. Dandelions and buttercups everywhere remind the American tourist of home. There is a large, graceful anemone of a yellow so delicate as to be almost white. If it does not thrust its exquisite head through the snow, it follows hard upon the disappearance of the icy mantle. A flower of the kind we call “ladies’ delight”—of a pure lemon-color—is profusely distributed. In some parts of Switzerland one comes upon fields all ablaze with buttons of gold. I give the English equivalent of the French and German names by which this showy flower is commonly known here. And the reds of various depths are only less abundant than the yellows. Of these the Alpine rose—as it is just breaking into blossom this month—is most captivating. The bud, as it begins to open, looks like a cutting of coral. Daisies supply the white to this wonderful enameling of Nature. Or, shall I say that it is a carpet so deftly woven as to defy the imitation of its combined hues in any piece of mortal handiwork? “You could not see the grass for flowers.” This extravagance of the poet does not overstate the floral wealth of some of the fields that border the Rhône between Brieg and Viesch. Stay! I must not omit to mention some wild violets of extraordinary size and beauty. These I found in only one place—far above the Rhône glacier—and earned their possession by a hot scramble up a very steep hill while the carriage was taking its long and zigzag way round.

At Viesch we came upon a scene that is interesting everywhere—a wedding-feast. As the carriage rolled through the narrow street of the little village, the driver fired a volley of shots from the end of his whip. He was a fine fellow, and wore, as a badge of his calling, a dashing green hat with a blackcock’s feather stuck in the band. There were three spirited horses, their necks encircled with bells which jingled musically. We were conscious of producing an effect as we rattled up to the door of the only inn, but were hardly prepared for the reception which seemed to await us. There stood not only the landlord and his staff of attendants, but a large number of men and women, evidently dressed in “their best.” They all stepped forward as if to welcome us, and at the same time a brass band inside of the house struck up a joyous air. The situation was really embarrassing; and we were relieved when we discovered that this effusive reception was intended not for ourselves, but for some other people who were very much expected. The faces of the bystanders lengthened when they saw that we were not the persons so anxiously looked for. All but the landlord and his immediate aids went back into the house, and our reception became not more marked than that of all other travelers alighting at these hospitable shelters for man and beast.

Then we learned that we had innocently interrupted the tranquil flow of a wedding-breakfast—having been mistaken for some belated guests of great importance. The bridegroom was the landlord himself. He looked radiant with happiness. The bride, whom we saw later on, was a buxom lass, attired not in the high-colored and fanciful Swiss costume of which one reads in books. Her dress, if not a creation of the great Worth himself, was irreproachable in its Frenchiness. And there was not a single sign of Swiss nationality in the garb of any man or woman present. This was disappointing. But then the wedding-party was composed of the richer and “upper” classes of Viesch and the neighborhood—of twenty miles round.

The landlord, in the fullness of his heart, had spared no expense. In the dining-room were two long tables, from which a hundred guests were just rising as I peeped into it. Long rows of bottles, conscientiously drained to the last drop, were the principal objects in sight, save some Cupids in sugar which the knives of the banqueters had spared. As fast as the guests vacated the room they began dancing in couples. Up and down the hallways they went, waltzing furiously, while the band of twelve brass pieces played selections from Strauss. Every player had before him a bottle, which was replenished by an attentive waiter as fast as emptied. I never before realized the enormous cubic capacity of a brass band! While we were gazing on this mirthful scene, loud cracks of a whip were heard, and up came the delayed guests for whom we had been mistaken. There was another rush to the door, followed by a storm of shouts and kisses. The new-comers entered the house in a whirlwind of excitement. Without even stopping to doff their overcoats and cloaks, they plunged into the mazes of the waltz. A few minutes later the dining-room had been cleared of all obstructions, and the dancing then set in with an earnestness that would shame the languid beaux and belles of a New York ball. We reluctantly left the festivities at their height, and resumed the journey to Münster, where we purposed spending the night.

At the little inn of Münster we were received by a woman who had a handkerchief tied about her face, and looked tired out. She did not seem to care whether we stopped there or not. The house was in a state of fresh paint and repair, and the prospect for the night was not inviting. We were shown into a chamber which had neither carpet nor rug upon the floor. But that floor was scrupulously clean. The sheets on the beds were coarse, but they smelled of lavender. Everything was cheap but reassuringly neat. When the dinner was served—at the exact minute ordered—we could easily have criticised the crockery. But the plates were hot, as well as the soup, the fillet of beef and chicken tender and cooked to a turn, the pudding and cake nice, and the Swiss Muscat as delicate of flavor as it should be. After dinner a roaring fire in a wide-throated chimney and an Argand lamp burning on the table of this same room made the place far more comfortable and home-like than are many of the “Grand Hotels” of which Europe is full. A good night’s rest and a capital breakfast completed the recommendations of this humble inn to the traveler’s confidence and patronage. Its substance is in inverse ratio to its show. Besides all else, its windows on the west command in clear weather perfect views of the Weisshorn. This is about 14,800 feet high, and is the greatest object of interest in the Rhône Valley. As one toils up the ascent, he keeps the splendid white peak in sight mile after mile. He admires it from several view-points, but it never shows up to better advantage than when seen on a fine day from the elevation of Münster.

When you have been following up a river for two days, and seen it dwindle as you rise above the junction of one tributary brook after another, it is a great satisfaction to trace that river to its source. In its narrowest part the Rhône is a powerful stream. Its turbid waters rush along with a noise of thunder. They have cut in places a deep gorge, the bottom of which is far out of sight of the road. They have polished all the stones in their path into a general condition of smoothness. Nowhere is the erosive action of water more strikingly shown. When you stand at the foot of a stupendous glacier and see the beginning of this boisterous river, you no longer wonder at its youthful vigor. There is a great, dark cavern in the side of the glacier. It is now of a triangular shape. From this opening the Rhône issues with a fierce bound, as if straining to be free. Looking into the hole, you can see nothing beyond a distance of twenty feet. But you can hear the young torrent, as it tears its way down to the light, far back in the bowels of the ice-mountains.

Scientific observers have placed rows of stones painted black, in the valley just below the glacier, to show how much it is receding year by year. It is also shrinking in breadth, as you find out for yourself when you notice the old lateral moraines, or deposits of earth and stones, on the two sides of the slowly moving mass. These are many feet higher on the flanks of the channel than the mounds of the same kind which are now accumulating. Nevertheless, as you look up at an angle of about 45° and see this glacier rise for a mile or so until its tooth-like seracs stand out against the blue sky, you feel that the Rhône will not dry up at its fountain-head for many a year to come. This conviction is deepened as your horses struggle up the scientifically perfect road which takes you across the Furca. You keep the glacier under observation for more than an hour as you rise to the height where it bends and is lost in the recesses of the parent snow-field. You understand how frightful a thing is a crevasse, when you look down into one and discover that what seemed from below only a little rift, is a yawning gulf in which your coach and horses might sink to perdition without touching its sides. Individual seracs loom up from thirty to fifty feet high. And behind this awful fringe of ice you see a snow-slope (névé) of thousands of acres stretching far back to the base of a mountain which is itself crowned with a hoary burden. And then, if not before, you discover that the mighty Rhône glacier is but the protruding tongue (which it resembles in outline) of a body of snow and ice whose duration will outlast the arithmetic of puny men.

On the Furca Pass the snow is not deeper than on the Simplon, but there is more of it. Snow-banks higher than the driver’s head line one side of the road at intervals for distances of a thousand feet. On the other side they had been in part pitched down the slope by the laborers who are always on hand. The summit is nearly 8,000 feet above the sea. As we climbed to it the horizon widened to the west and opened up a glorious view of Monte Rosa. As seen from the Furca Pass, this nearest rival of Mont Blanc looks like a pyramid—showing but a single peak in place of the two or three crests which I had made out as I looked across the long level of untrodden snow on the Gorner Grat. Thus it is that mountains, like everything else, look differently when viewed from different standpoints. The Matterhorn could barely be distinguished by reason of a haze in its vicinity. The Weisshorn and other nearer mountains had been so long in sight that we were glutted with them. It was the unseen which we longed to see. And when, as our team pulled up at the door of the Furca Inn, and we found that the great Finsteraarhorn of the Bernese group was not visible from that point, nothing we had seen before made up for the disappointment. I fear that this is only base ingratitude; for the day was an uncommonly good one for June 15th, and unmixed thankfulness should have been the only sentiment.