In many parts of the world the grassy belt is absent from the ranges, and its loss is greatly felt. Peaks rising out of slopes of débris and sand have a grandeur of their own, but it is not the normal grandeur of the Alps. In some other ranges the tree-level leads at once to rocks and snow. It is the merit of the Alps that a broad belt of delicately modelled grass-land almost invariably intervenes between forest and snow. This grassy belt covers the wide substructure of the peaks. Above it is the realm of frost, of split rock and jagged forms. But as soon as the grass-level is reached suave outlines and rounded surfaces, broadening as they descend, take the place of the accidented forms above. The value of the contrast will be apparent to all. Small and very correct little models of the Matterhorn in bronze are sold for letter-weights, in which the culminating pyramid alone is given, planted on a rectangular stone plinth. They are interesting mementoes. But compare one of them with a view of the mountain as seen from the Riffelalp, rising above the long bulging grass-covered slopes that descend almost to Zermatt, and you will at once realise how important an element in the general impressiveness of the mountain are those lower slopes, and that not merely for their form but for their rich coloration.
The green of the alps is the true key-note of Swiss colour. To it all the rest are subordinate. By contrast with it, rather than with the remote transparence of the air-submerged rocks, the snows manifest their whiteness and the sky its blue. From season to season of the year it changes its tint, between the shrill green of opening spring and the amber of autumn. It changes likewise from hour to hour beneath the varied slanting of the sunshine. How velvet-dark seems the alpine belt at night when the moon is high! Even in the twilight you cannot tell that these slopes are grass-covered, till
"Under the opening eye-lids of the morn"
"the high lawns appear." At first the sunshine lies upon them in patches, like carpets of gold on a rich green floor. The sunlit area increases as the gold itself changes into green, whilst the dominant note of colour rises in the scale. Long before mid-day the broad belt attains its unity of effect, and divides the dark forests and deep valleys from the radiant heights. Most of us, who delight in mountain scenery, praise this peak or that, this broken glacier, wide-spreading snow-field, or intricacy of splintered ridges, forgetting that it is often the unobtrusive, tenderly modelled alps below, that endow these high eminences with half their charm. The beauty of a scene depends upon the harmony of all its parts. It is well sometimes to fix attention on those that seldom insist upon it for themselves.
CHAPTER XI
THE HUMAN INTEREST
IT has often occurred to me, when travelling over glaciers and among mountains, seldom or never before visited by men, how much the impression they produce upon a first spectator loses by lacking the human interest. Of course some stray huntsman or dumb and forgotten native may have been there before, but if the fact is unknown to us, it is as though he had not existed.
When climbing Illimani, the great Bolivian mountain, the human interest accompanied us up the lower slopes. Here were old fields, old irrigation channels, even ancient ruined huts. Higher up we still had the memory of former adventurers to keep our hearts warm; but when we had forced the great rock-cliff that guards the peak, and were upon the upper snow-field, we were, so far as we knew, in an unvisited world. There did indeed exist an ancient tradition that once, long long ago, an Aymara Indian had gone aloft, seeking the abode of the gods, and that having found it, he was taken by the gods to themselves and never returned to his people; but the tale was too slender a thread to form a sensible connection between us and the world of bygone humanity. The climb took us over one high peak, then across a great snow-field and up the highest peak. We revisited and rested on the lower peak in the descent. While there resting, I dropped my hand on the rock beside me, and snatched it away, feeling something soft and clammy, a kind of texture instinctively perceived to be strange at such a place.
Looking to see what the substance was, I found it to be a fragment of goat-hair rope, such as the Indians of the Bolivian plateau have used from time immemorial. Instantly the old legend was recalled to my remembrance. It was true! The Indian had actually been here where I was sitting. Here he rested. Hence he looked abroad over the country of his birth—probably his last long look on any view in this world; for he never returned, and must presently have lost his life in some hidden crevasse. The thought of that nameless one animated the scene, and enriched the emotions we experienced with a new interest. I thought now of how he had felt with this great prospect spread abroad before him. I wondered whether his gods had appeared to him, whether he had beheld visions and dreamed dreams, and what those visions were like. There beneath him he had perhaps gazed for the last time on his birthplace, and identified the little hut that was his home. Did he know that he would never return? Did he think about his friends so far below and wonder whether they were looking up towards him? Did he promise himself great future fame in his tribe? Did he dream that they would identify him with the very gods? For the remainder of our resting-time the whole view was animated by thoughts of this man. It is the best instance I can cite of the value of a human interest in giving sentiment to a mountain scene.
The same lesson was taught me by the Spitsbergen mountains, amongst which I spent two long summer seasons. The coast of Spitsbergen is rich with the tales and traditions of human achievement and suffering. Few places have been the scene of tragedies so numerous and so long drawn out. In few have more dramatic adventures occurred and more varied enterprises been undertaken. But the interior of Spitsbergen, and especially its mountain ranges, had scarcely been penetrated before. The mountains beyond reach of the shore were unclimbed, with one exception. The landscapes were unknown to man. It was necessary to spend some time in these solitary places to realise how much they lost by this aloofness. No peak possessed name or history. None had ever been the centre of any one's landscape. None had measured mid-day for any toiler, or served as reckoning point for the close of his labour. No villagers had ever imagined those Arctic glaciers as the home of any gods or the paradise of any heroes. They had never found their way into ancient tale or legend. They had never been worshipped or sung by man, historic or pre-historic. They were just elemental lumps of the earth, with no more human sentiment attached to them than to any dozen stones you may gather off a heap and make mountains of in your imagination.