The grooves—or deeply worn passage-ways—through which these avalanches descend, seem as if made by human hands. Some of them run as straight as bowling-alleys. Others have easy and graceful curves, as if laid out for a railway. But, almost without an exception, the transit of the avalanche from peak to base is interrupted by narrow rock-gorges. Against these it dashes itself with a fury expressed to my ear by a sound like that of a small cannon, which is heard far above the rest of the racket. The latter generally reminds one of the irregular firing of infantry, and appears to be caused by large fragments of ice and stones which are brought down with the lighter material. It is only an avalanche of the broadest pattern that imitates the deep roll of thunder. And this reminds me to mention that some of the most deafening sounds that one hears in the Alps are not easily explained. As he is gazing intently upon the Jungfrau, he is startled by an ear-splitting report as of a 500-pounder. He expects, as a matter of course, to see some enormous cornice of ice tumbling down. But all is motionless up there. He asks his guide what has happened. The man tells him that probably a big rock has fallen on the other side of the Jungfrau, or in some ravine on the spectator’s side, but out of his sight. I have observed that, wherever there is a glacier, this loudest and most striking of all the mountain sounds is most often heard. At our hotel (de l’Ours), in Grindelwald, from which two glaciers can be seen, these extraordinary noises called the guests to the doors and windows many times on sunny afternoons. But not once did they see anything which served to explain the mystery. In defiance of the guides, I attribute the sounds to the cracking of ice in the glaciers under the influence of heat. There is something strangely uncanny in the occurrence of such appalling noises without any visible cause.
The guides of Grindelwald, and of all the Bernese Oberland, are an aristocracy. I am referring to those who pilot you safely among the real dangers of the Jungfrau, the Wetterhorn, the Schreckhorn, the Finsteraarhorn, and the other first-class peaks. The most distinguished of them are named in all the hand-books. They pose as objects of admiration in the streets. And they are well worth looking at. They are lithe and sinewy, with frank, resolute faces. They mostly dress in corduroy velveteen, with slouch hats of the same. Their yellow beards sweep their breasts. A provokingly slow gait also identifies them. They walk—unless under the spur of necessity—about half as fast as the ordinary American or Englishman. A friend of mine, in tow of a guide, consumed six hours in the ascent of the Wengern Alp from Grindelwald. The usual time is only three hours. But he arrived at the top perfectly unblown, and then appreciated the wisdom of going slowly. These men are very taciturn. They give opinions about the weather with great reluctance, if at all, and will not converse about anything while in the act of climbing. Thus they save their wind, the want of which is so trying to inexperienced Alpine tourists. But, what they lack in affability they make up in essential service. They will stand by their employer in every tight place, and will rescue his remains and bear them back to the valley, if he persists in despising the guide’s advice and perishes in consequence.
These trusty fellows make great friends of members of the Alpine Club, and are sometimes well paid for leaving their beloved Switzerland and aiding in the conquest of high mountains in the antipodes. One of the corps has visited both India and New Zealand for this purpose. He showed as much sagacity in attacking the redoubtable giants of those distant countries as if he had known all about their weakest points from his infancy. In every case he took his patron successfully to the top, by a route which he instinctively chose as the easiest and the best. This guide returned home through London, and, while there, his employer made him the subject of an interesting experiment to test his “bump” of locality. One evening the man was asked to take a ride across London in a cab. He was driven a distance of many miles, and the route was purposely made as tangled and intricate as possible. Arriving at their destination—the house of an Alpine celebrity—the cab was dismissed. After a short detention, the guide was told to return with his employer through the same streets which they had traversed in their roundabout journey. And he did it without making a single mistake, although an entire stranger in the great city. The man had not the faintest suspicion that he would be asked to do this difficult thing. He had almost unconsciously marked down the whole labyrinthine route. He did in London exactly what he would have done without the least effort among the mountains of his native land. His observation and memory of trifles supplied the unerring clews by which he retraced his way through the maze of the metropolis.
CHAPTER XIV. EXCELSIOR AND THE MAIDEN.
The hero of Longfellow’s poem, “Excelsior,” has long been a favorite subject with artists. Among the many full-length fancy portraits of that rash young man, is one which represents him in a loose sack-coat with knee-breeches, a rolling shirt-collar displaying his open throat, and the long ends of a necktie streaming in the winds. The costume was charming, but too airy for the higher Alps, to which he was bound. He had a little kit, presumably of clothes, slung across his shoulder. He held aloft a stick to which was tied a white flag or banner inscribed “Excelsior.” The artist had caught the spirit of Longfellow’s verse, and had stamped enthusiasm and high resolve on the pleasant face of this young fellow.
I had been sitting for some time over an out-door luncheon in front of the Hôtel des Avalanches, with lines of “Excelsior” running in my head. Before me was the Queen of Mountains. The landlord had assured me that the top of the symmetrical peak was fifteen good miles away. It did not seem more than a mile off in the transparent atmosphere of that perfect June morning. It was equally impossible to realize that you could not see, with the naked eye, the figures—showing black against the spotless snow—of persons climbing the Jungfrau by paths directly opposite the house. There was no one so occupied that day, as the season for ascents does not begin till July. So I was obliged to take the landlord’s word for it that the largest parties attacking the mountain were invisible from his hotel, except through the fine telescope which stood there on its tripod with joints greased and ready for use. Then I fell to meditating on the sad fate of the willful young hero of the poem. I amused myself imagining him as he toiled up those awful heights, after dark, floundering through the snow waist-deep, just missing the crevasses by an inch, starting little avalanches of loose rocks and ice (the larger, more overwhelming and dangerous snow-slides occurring only in the hours of full sunshine), and finally succumbing to fatigue and exhaustion and cold, and dying up there, far from human aid, with his banner still gripped in his hand. How much better, I thought, if he had taken a fancy to the maiden of the valley, and remained comfortable and happy down below!
And there was the identical maiden at my elbow! She had just poured out a cup of smoking, fragrant coffee for me, and stood waiting meekly to take another order. A prettier girl never ’tended on travelers. I addressed her in English, and found she spoke it well; and when she added—noticing that I was an American—that she had relatives in the United States, and had spent two years there on a visit, I felt that here was a sort of country-woman in this out-of-the-way place. Surely I had seen few American girls of twenty or thereabout comelier than this true daughter of the Alps. She was a niece of the landlord, she said, and she had the manners of a lady. As the season had but recently opened, and the tide of tourists not yet set in, there was a scarcity of hired help at the inn. She was assisting in the humblest ways to make everybody contented. She served me without any sense of humiliation, such as possibly I might have observed in her had she passed a few more years in America before returning to her dear old Swiss home.