To any one accustomed to the rich bird life of English woods and hedgerows, it must be admitted that Swiss woods and Alps seem rather lonely and deserted. Still the Hawk, or even Eagle, soaring high up in the air, the weird cry of the Marmot, and the knowledge that, even if one cannot see Chamois, they may all the time be looking down on us, give the Alps, from this point of view also, a special interest of their own.
Another great charm of mountain districts is the richness of colour. "Consider,[38] first, the difference produced in the whole tone of landscape colour by the introductions of purple, violet, and deep ultra-marine blue which we owe to mountains. In an ordinary lowland landscape we have the blue of the sky; the green of the grass, which I will suppose (and this is an unnecessary concession to the lowlands) entirely fresh and bright; the green of trees; and certain elements of purple, far more rich and beautiful than we generally should think, in their bark and shadows (bare hedges and thickets, or tops of trees, in subdued afternoon sunshine, are nearly perfect purple and of an exquisite tone), as well as in ploughed fields, and dark ground in general. But among mountains, in addition to all this, large unbroken spaces of pure violet and purple are introduced in their distances; and even near, by films of cloud passing over the darkness of ravines or forests, blues are produced of the most subtle tenderness; these azures and purples passing into rose colour of otherwise wholly unattainable delicacy among the upper summits, the blue of the sky being at the same time purer and deeper than in the plains. Nay, in some sense, a person who has never seen the rose colour of the rays of dawn crossing a blue mountain twelve or fifteen miles away can hardly be said to know what tenderness in colour means at all; bright tenderness he may, indeed, see in the sky or in a flower, but this grave tenderness of the far-away hill-purples he cannot conceive."
"I do not know," he says elsewhere, "any district possessing a more pure or uninterrupted fulness of mountain character (and that of the highest order), or which appears to have been less disturbed by foreign agencies, than that which borders the course of the Trient between Valorsine and Martigny. The paths which lead to it, out of the valley of the Rhone, rising at first in steep circles among the walnut trees, like winding stairs among the pillars of a Gothic tower, retire over the shoulders of the hills into a valley almost unknown, but thickly inhabited by an industrious and patient population. Along the ridges of the rocks, smoothed by old glaciers, into long, dark, billowy swellings, like the backs of plunging dolphins, the peasant watches the slow colouring of the tufts of moss and roots of herb, which, little by little, gather a feeble soil over the iron substance; then, supporting the narrow strip of clinging ground with a few stones, he subdues it to the spade, and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving upon the rocky casque."
Tyndall, speaking of the scene from the summit of the Little Scheideck,[39] says: "The upper air exhibited a commotion which we did not experience; clouds were wildly driven against the flanks of the Eiger, the Jungfrau thundered behind, while in front of us a magnificent rainbow, fixing one of its arms in the valley of Grindelwald, and, throwing the other right over the crown of the Wetterhorn, clasped the mountain in its embrace. Through jagged apertures in the clouds floods of golden light were poured down the sides of the mountain. On the slopes were innumerable châlets, glistening in the sunbeams, herds browsing peacefully and shaking their mellow bells; while the blackness of the pine trees, crowded into woods, or scattered in pleasant clusters over alp and valley, contrasted forcibly with the lively green of the fields."
Few men had more experience of mountains than Mr. Whymper, and from him, I will quote one remarkable passage describing the view from the summit of the Matterhorn just before the terrible catastrophe which overshadows the memory of his first ascent.
"The day was one of those superlatively calm and clear ones which usually precede bad weather. The atmosphere was perfectly still and free from all clouds or vapours. Mountains fifty, nay, a hundred miles off looked sharp and near. All their details—ridge and crag, snow and glacier—stood out with faultless definition. Pleasant thoughts of happy days in bygone years came up unbidden as we recognised the old familiar forms. All were revealed, not one of the principal peaks of the Alps was hidden. I see them clearly now, the great inner circle of giants, backed by the ranges, chains, and massifs.... Ten thousand feet beneath us were the green fields of Zermatt, dotted with châlets, from which blue smoke rose lazily. Eight thousand feet below, on the other side, were the pastures of Breuil. There were black and gloomy forests; bright and cheerful meadows, bounding waterfalls and tranquil lakes, fertile lands and savage wastes, sunny plains and frigid plateaux. There were the most rugged forms and the most graceful outlines, bold perpendicular cliffs and gentle undulating slopes; rocky mountains and snowy mountains, sombre and solemn, or glittering and white, with walls, turrets, pinnacles, pyramids, domes, cones, and spires! There was every combination that the world can give, and every contrast that the heart could desire."
These were summer scenes, but the Autumn and Winter again have a grandeur and beauty of their own.
"Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. The leaves twirl round with the wind, and strew the grave of the dead."[40]
Even bad weather often but enhances the beauty and grandeur of mountains. When the lower parts are hidden, and the peaks stand out above the clouds, they look much loftier than if the whole mountain side is visible. The gloom lends a weirdness and mystery to the scene, while the flying clouds give it additional variety.
Rain, moreover, adds vividness to the colouring. The leaves and grass become a brighter green, "every sunburnt rock glows into an agate," and when fine weather returns the new snow gives intense brilliance, and invests the woods especially with the beauty of Fairyland. How often in alpine districts does one long "for the wings of a dove," more thoroughly to enjoy and more completely to explore, the mysteries and recesses of the mountains. The mind, however, can go, even if the body must remain behind.