PISSEVACHE CASCADE.
[CHAPTER XIX]
A DETOUR TO ZERMATT
WHOM should we meet at the hotel at Sion but my friend, Lady Q. She immediately recognized me, and I had the pleasure of presenting to her my niece and her husband. She was on her way to Zermatt and she advised us to leave the car at Visp and take the State Railway over to the region of the Matterhorn. That name amused Will. He asked Lady Q. if we should not be permitted to see the original Vill of the Visp there. Of course Lady Q., being English, saw his joke in a second and thought it very bad, as we all did. The result of it was that we asked her to join us on this trip. But she was expecting friends from Geneva and therefore was obliged to forego the pleasure. So we started off without her, but we adopted her advice. Just above Sion we had a good view of the gorge through which rushes the turbulent Borgne coming down from the wild Val d’Hérens. We crossed the Liène at Saint-Léonard, and just as we reached Sierre we saw a company of pedestrians starting off for the pleasant plateau of Montana. I have seen it since standing up a thousand meters above the Rhône valley, with its charming lakes reflecting the mountains beyond and its splendid view of Mont Blanc and the Weisshorn and the heights between them.
Sierre has its interest to the student of geology; for all around it can be seen the remains of a tremendous rock-fall. It extended from Pfyn almost to the mouth of the Liena. It dammed up the valley and imprisoned the Rhône. But the Rhône, who had learned what he could do with his mighty forces, grew more and more indignant; he swelled his haughty breast, and, when he knew the right moment had come, he put forth his energy and burst his way through. All the forces of the sky helped him; the rains came to his aid, and the tempests and the sun beat down on the snow-fields and contributed to his release. What a sight it must have been when the rushing flood once more went roaring down the valley! What billows, what sheets of sparkling foam, what crashing of overturned forests and jangling of monstrous boulders rolled along to be the wonder of succeeding ages!
Perhaps the pretty little ponds near Sierre are the relics of this prehistoric freshet. All these regions too were haunted by the ancient Kelts. Many warriors were killed hereabouts and were buried in graves even now occasionally detected. I saw a beautifully designed bronze sword which was found in one on the hill of Tevent.
Visp has three names: in French it is Viège. We admired the view up the valley with its great snow pyramid, the Balfrin, more than twice as high as Mount Washington. From here on Teeth become Horns; there are any number of them: Schwarzhorn and Weisshorn and Rothorn, and Faulhorn, and Spitzhorn and Magenhorn and Trifthorn and Mittaghorn and Hohberghorn and the Brunegghorn and Täschhorn—all of them giants covered with eternal snow.