The Spell of Switzerland

by Nathan Haskell Dole

“But the events that happened when life had not as yet appeared in the primeval chaos of these mountains cannot be retold by posterity. Who knows by what terrific throes the breach, to-day so vast and complete, was opened at the place where the Rhône flows and where now stand the houses and meadows of Evionnaz?

“Unquestionably it was narrow at first and the furious waters gradually forced a passage for themselves by unceasing assaults; unquestionably also during the glacial epoch, the tremendous glacier of the Rhône, compelled to be shut in within this gorge, exerted an enormous pressure on the sides of its channel. From La Dent de Morcles to La Dent du Midi what peaks have one after the other been worn down and disappeared! The great glaciers have carried far away all this early détritus, an enormous bulk the secret of which the waters of Lake Leman possibly know more than we do.

“What has taken place since then, from the time when men first appeared in these localities cannot compare with those primal convulsions; still there is enough to overwhelm the imagination of man; it is too much for their feeble dwellings to endure. Terrible events of days long gone by are recorded in the local annals. The catastrophe which swallowed up the little town of Epaune when Mont Taurus fell on it. One of the most ancient of these falls was the catastrophe in which the hot spring was lost, though it has since been rediscovered at Lavey.

“On October 9, 1635, in the middle of the night, a strange and terrific noise alarmed the inhabitants of Evionnaz and the neighboring hamlets; suddenly awakened from sleep they sprang out of their beds in alarm. A rumbling noise, growing ever louder, was heard. The Noviorroz, a mountain near by, fell into the valley with a monstrous crash. The curé of Saint-Maurice was hastily informed of the catastrophe and he had the tocsin rung. As soon as daylight came a band of rescuers went to the scene of the disaster but hardly had it got there, when an even more tremendous downfall compelled a retreat to a neighboring height.

“The noise of it resounded throughout the valley. For more than a quarter of an hour the sun was hidden by a cloud of dust from the Bois Noir down to the lake. The current of the Rhône was blocked; the torrent of the Marre—now Saint-Barthélemy—formed at the foot of the Jorat a lake the overflow of which was a new danger to the valley.

“As popular superstition attributed this catastrophe to demons which haunted the mountain, the Bishop of Sion, Hildebrandt Jost, spent nine days in exorcising the place. His trouble was wasted; the waters went on with their work and at intervals of every few years the same threats were repeated with minor falls and great deposits of mud.

“At last, on August 26, 1835, about eleven o’clock in the morning, there was a sudden noise, like that of many discharges of artillery uninterruptedly following one another. All eyes were turned to the mountain. The eastern peak was surrounded by mist. Thence came the fall. A thick fog filled the glen of Saint-Barthélemy; violent gusts of wind shook the houses of Mex and uprooted whole rows of forest trees.

“An enormous mass of rock detached itself from the Eastern Peak, striking and smashing the front part of the glacier. Ice and boulders rolled with a frightful fracas down two thousand meters of precipice and filled the valley and the gorge with their débris.

“The ice, disintegrated and in a state of thaw, mingling with this débris, formed a barrier of mud thickly strewn with enormous boulders, which overflowed the high banks of the torrent, crossing the Bois Noir, and plunged into the valley of the Rhône. A part of the stream swept over on the right bank and covered the hamlet of La Rasse with mud.