At La Batiaz, where stands the old castle that belonged to the Bishop of Sion, but was dismantled nearly four hundred years ago, stood a Roman watch-tower and not far away the graveyard was found among the vineyards of Ravoire. We saw an inscription which was intensely interesting:—
SALVTI.SACRVM
FOROCLAVDIEN
SES.VALLENSES
CVM
T.POMPONIO
VICTORE
PROC.AVGVSTO
RVM
This signified that Titus Pomponius had, with the aid of the inhabitants, erected an altar to the Goddess of Safety. It dated back to the time of Marcus Aurelius, the good emperor. At that day Wallis (which it must be remembered is still preserved in the very name Vaud) was united under the same government with the Graian Alps. The same Titus Pomponius, together with his family, is found mentioned on an altar to the god Sylvanus as a thank-offering for the conclusion of his term of service, and it preserves a poem addressing the god as hiding in the foliage of the sacred ash-tree, as the protector of the lofty green luxuriant forest. It thanks him for having brought them from a far land and over the immovable mountains of the Alps amid the sweet perfumes of the bushes; it says:—“I performed the duties of the office conferred upon me. Lead me and mine back to Rome, and let us under thy protection cultivate Italian fields. I vow that I will plant a thousand mighty trees to thee.”
The Bishop Theodorus lived here in 381 a. d. The Théodule pass is named for him. He built a Christian basilica on the site of the heathen temple. But the Dranse overflowed it and covered it deep with mud and stones. Fire finished it, and now all that is left of it is ashes, broken tiles, melted glass and bits of metal.
Martigny is another of the towns in which I should like to spend a month. There are so many excursions to be taken from it as a centre—up the Arpille, up to the Pierre à Voir from which one looks down into two river valleys and across to the Bernese and Valaisian Alps—a splendid view; to La Dent de Morcles, the Pissevache cascade and dozens of other trips for pleasant days.
The geology here also is particularly interesting. Here the Rhône once more proved that might made right. He turned at almost right angles and stole into the valley belonging to the Dranse. Here the glaciers of the ice-age polished the rock wall—“the most remarkable example of ice-action in the Alps.”
Above Martigny we find the real and only genuine valley of the Rhône: elsewhere it is a robber.
Still ascending the Rhône valley we reached Saxon with its picturesque ruined castle, and then crossing the Ardon and the Morge beyond Riddes reached the medieval city of Sion just at sunset. Approaching the famous old city it was like a dream—the castles on the hills so kindly left by the river; high up, the Château de Tourbillon, where for five hundred years the princely bishops used to luxuriate, looking down on a world of beauty.
Across a valley on a hill only twenty meters lower stands the old castle of Valeria taking the place of an earlier Roman fort; its towers glittered in the sunlight’s last rays. We went to it in the morning, and, on paying a fee, were admitted to the Thirteenth-Century church of Notre Dame, with its quaint Romanesque capitals, and Seventeenth-Century choir-stalls elaborately carved. And, of course, being devoted to antiquities, we looked into the cantonal museum next door. We went also into the Fifteenth-Century Gothic cathedral with its tower six hundred years older; and admired the carved ceiling in the splendid hall of the Super-saxo mansion.