Visp itself is an interesting spot. It is beautifully situated in the Rhone valley at the point where the river, bearing the same name, comes foaming down from the Gorner glacier, twenty-seven miles away. The river flows into the Rhone near this point with a volume almost as great as the Rhone itself. The little town was once a place of great importance. The houses on the heights, which still bear traces of the earthquake of 1855, were formerly the palaces of the princes of the Valais. The church, which stands on an eminence above the river, is a most interesting building, sadly neglected by guide-books, and, consequently, by tourists. It is built on the remains of a Roman temple. There is a picturesque Roman gate-way, with time-worn marble columns, which certainly ought not to be passed over; and in the charnel-house, exposed to the church-yard, is a ghastly array of many hundred human skulls ranged in tiers against the inner wall.
In company with a friend who had been my companion in many previous mountain rambles, I trudged up to St. Nicolaus in the cool of the afternoon. It is a walk of four and a half hours from Visp. The path skirts the mountain-side, with the river foaming in its rocky bed many hundred feet below. St. Nicolaus is a village, with a huge hotel situated in the midst of pastures where the valley widens, with a church whose metallic steeple shines miles and miles away like silver, and whose bells jingle out the quaintest chimes it was ever my lot to hear. We arrived at sunset, and were rejoiced to find we could get beds, for the valley was undergoing a perfect invasion of tourists, and the pedestrian was likely to fare badly who had not previously telegraphed to secure quarters in advance.
All that night the summer lightning flashed among the crags, and the thunder boomed far down the sleeping valley; but the clouds lifted a little in the morning, and at an early hour we were wending our way along the excellent carriage-road which exists between St. Nicolaus and Zermatt. Our hearts were elated with anticipation, for we knew we were within a few miles of that most majestic, and, from association, most melancholy, of all Swiss mountains, the Matterhorn. The turn of the road near Zermatt was to reveal it to us, and eagerly we watched the heavy masses of vapor as they swept down the mountain-side, shutting out the Weisshorn on our right, and even the Bies glacier far below it, fearing, after all, that the glorious spectacle would be denied us, for this day at least, but little anticipating the wondrous effect under which we subsequently obtained our first clear view of the renowned peak.
Denser and denser grew the vapors, and when at length the moment arrived which we had anticipated for so many days, we were destined to be disappointed. The driving mist only revealed to us for one brief moment the rocks at the base of the mighty mountain, though this base is fixed some four thousand feet above the village of Zermatt.
THE LION MONUMENT, LUCERNE
This little village, situated in the midst of lovely green pastures, in an amphitheatre of mighty peaks, and at an altitude of over five thousand feet above the sea, would be one of the most attractive spots on earth but for its dirt. Were it not for the palliatives offered by its two excellent hotels, Monte Rosa and Monte Cervin, both kept by the world-renowned M. Seiler, the dirt and the odors of Zermatt would be unbearable. To our great dismay, we found on our arrival that there was no possible accommodation at either of the hotels. The rain was beginning to fall; we were tired and hungry. To go on to the Riffel Hotel, three thousand one hundred and thirteen feet above Zermatt itself, seemed an absurdity in such weather; for there, at an elevation of over eight thousand feet, we should be enveloped in the denser vapors above, and half frozen into the bargain. We sought the salle-à-manger, and consoled ourselves with cutlets and Beaujolais. There we held serious counsel together, and lit our pipes and sallied forth to inspect the prospect outside. We went first to the little church where, side by side, lie two of the victims of the Matterhorn accident, Hudson and Hadow, and on the other side of the church the remains of poor Michael Croz, the guide. The body of Lord Francis Douglas, who also perished on that occasion, was never found. It is supposed that it is still suspended among the awful and inaccessible crags on the side of the mountain where they fell.
We sauntered on beyond the village, and sat down in a melancholy mood on a broken rail to consider our position. Through a rift in the clouds we could make out the Riffel Hotel on the bare mountain-side, high above the pine-woods on our left. “Should we go on, in spite of wind and weather?” It would be so much gained, at least in the event of a change for the better. We hastened back to the hotel. “Did they think we could get accommodation at the Riffel, if we went up?” “Yes; they were sure we should get mattresses in the salon, at all events.” So on we went, over the first bridge beyond the village, past the little church of Winkelmatten, and then up the steep path through the pine-woods. From the openings between the trees we soon began to look down upon the foot of the Gorner glacier, and the fine waterfall of the Visp rushing out from its icy cradle, which, by some strange freak of nature, occurs at a point many hundred feet above the foot of the glacier, the two torrents flowing side by side, the one flashing, foaming, and leaping, with all the quick impulsiveness of life, the other cold, silent, and irresistible as the advancing footsteps of death.