Part 7 (1/2)
It seems certainly a fine experience--to recall afterwards. But I confess that I never really enjoyed a mountain storm except in the case of one that I saw from above the clouds, fighting out its quarrel in the valleys below Mount Kosciusko. To see a storm from above--that is a spectacle of grandeur; and there is no threat of danger or of discomfort to the spectator.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SCHWARTZHORN FROM THE FLUELA HOSPICE.]
But the idea must not be gathered from the descriptions of the dangers of mountaineering that it is a sport suitable only for the exceptionally st.u.r.dy. Any one with fair physique who has not reached old age can join an Alpine Club and enjoy Alpine climbing, so long as actually dangerous and freak ascents are avoided. Mr. Symonds, who went to the Alps apparently a hopeless invalid, was able to enjoy Alpine climbing, and has given in prose and verse some fine pen-pictures of its joys; this in particular of an ascent of the Schwartzhorn:
'Neath an uncertain moon, in light malign, We trod those rifted granite crags, whereunder, Startling the midnight air with m.u.f.fled thunder, Flowed infant founts of Danube and of Rhine.
Our long-drawn file in slow deliberate line Scaled stair on stair, subdued to silent wonder; Wound among mouldering rocks that rolled asunder, Rattling with hollow roar down death's decline.
Still as we rose, one white transcendent star Steered calmly heavenward through the empurpled gloom, Escaping from the dim reluctant bar Of morning, chill and ashen-pale as doom; Where the day's chargers, champing at his ear, Waited till Sol should quit night's banquet-room.
Pure on the frozen snows, the glacier steep, Slept moonlight with the tense unearthly charm Of spells that have no power to bless or harm; But, when we touched the ridge which tempests sweep, Death o'er the murk vale, yawning wide and deep, Clung to frost-slippery shelves, and sharp alarm, Shuddering in eager air, drove life's blood warm Back to stout hearts and staunch will's fortress-keep.
Upward we clomb; till now the emergent morn, Belting the horror of dim jagged eastern heights, Broadened from green to saffron, primrose-pale, Felt with faint finger-tips of rose each horn, Crept round the Alpine circuit, o'er each dale Dwelt with dumb broodings drearier even than night's.
Thus dawn had come; not yet the day: night's queen And morning's star their state in azure kept: Still on the mountain world weird silence slept; Earth, air, and heaven held back their song serene.
Then from the zenith, fiery-white between Moons.h.i.+ne and dayspring, with swift impulse swept A splendour of the skies that throbbing leapt Down to the core of pa.s.sionate flame terrene-- A star that ruining from yon throne remote, Quenched her celestial yearnings in the pyre Of mortal pangs and pardons. At that sign The orient sun with day's broad arrow smote Black Linard's arrogant brow, while influent fire Slaked the world's thirst for light with joy divine.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ALPINE MEADOW IN BLOOM.]
CHAPTER XII
THE FLOWERS OF THE ALPS
The Swiss Alps have their chief wors.h.i.+ppers in the summer for the climbing, in the winter for the sports. A few insist that the rich colouring of autumn is the best season of all. A larger and a growing number visit the Alps in the spring for the flowers. They are wise, for truly the sight of an Alpine meadow in bloom is the most joyous manifestation of Nature in a sunny mood that man can know. Whether it be that the flowers, fertilised by the detritus which the winter's snow has brought to their roots, are really more luxuriant and brighter in colour than the same flowers in a garden or a woodland dell of the plains; or that the clear air and the contrast with the white snow around make them seem more brilliant--Alpine flowers s.h.i.+ne out with an exquisite and star-like grace that can be noted nowhere else; and the green of Alpine gra.s.s seems of a clear brightness that no other herbage can rival.
The nearness to the snow has certainly an effect in enhancing the charm of these Alpine meadows. The flowers, wearing the colours of the sun, rush bravely to the very edge of the snow-fields as though they were jostling the winter aside. The white has barely disappeared before there is green and gold and red to give cheerful greeting to the spring sky, and declare another foot of territory won from the frost. Indeed, if you will look closely at the line of the retreating snow--not a straight line but a billowy one, here receding into a big bay, here stubbornly holding out a promontory of white--you will note that the crevellated edge of the vanis.h.i.+ng snow ma.s.s is not joined to the earth at all, but forms a little overhanging cliff of ice. The melting warmth is coming up from the ground rather than from the sun in the last stage of the snow-field's flight, and underneath this tiny cliff the vegetation can be seen already pus.h.i.+ng up to life.
The lower Alps in April and May flaunt first the gay banners of the crocus, which ”breaks like fire” over the ground as soon as the chains of the ice are broken. But other flowers are but little in the rear, and the snow has scarce gone before under the pine woods there is a carpet of the mauve-blue hepatica, in the gorges the yellow and white of the snowflakes and the red of the sticky primrose, over the meadows the white and purple of the soldanella and the celestial blue of the spring gentian, while the marshes flaunt their marigolds and the rose-red bird's-eye primrose. It is a blaze of rich colour, and yet (to quote Mr. G. Flemwell's work on Alpine flowers):
The steel-blue of winter is still in the air--indeed, one feels it in the very flowers. Even though no snowy Alp be in sight, and nothing but floral gaiety around, there is yet a sense of austerity. The vegetation, though colourfull, is neither coa.r.s.e nor rank, nor even luxurious, as judged by English standard.
Nature is crisp and brisk; the air is thin and clear; everywhere is great refinement, quite other than that of spring in England. It were as though the severity of the struggle for existence could be read in the sweet face of things, just as we may often read it in the smiling face of some chastened human being--lines of sweetness running side by side with lines of acute capacity; a strong face beautiful; a face in which optimism reigns sovereign over an active pessimism. Nature in the Alps is instinct with the stern necessity for perpetual endeavour, whereas in England, where conditions are not so harsh, we have a sense of a certain indolence and ease of circ.u.mstance of Nature which we call homeliness and repose.
Repose, in this sense, there certainly is not in the Alpine spring. Every suspicion of la.s.situde or _laissez-faire_ is unknown; all is keen and buoyant, quick with an earnest _joie de vivre_ which is as exquisite in its way as anything more voluptuously sentimental that England can produce.
Following fast upon the earlier flowers come the anemones, the rhododendrons, the ranunculi, the forget-me-nots, the Alpine roses, the saxifrages, the violets, the pinks, the heaths, the orchids, St.
Bruno's lily, the daffodils, and a score of other blossoms. The feast of colour is spread, day after day, in varying shades, but with unvarying richness, until there comes the time when with another riot of colour the herdsmen enter into the field with their cattle, or the scythes lay all prostrate for the winter hay.
Whilst the best of the Alpine spring shows of flowers are in April and May on the lower and richer Alpine meadows, one may follow the banners of _primavera_ up the mountains, almost until August, encountering on the higher levels later seasons. Writing from Zermatt as late as the end of July, a correspondent to the _Morning Post_ chronicled:
[Ill.u.s.tration: HEPATICA IN THE WOODS AT BEX.]
The dog roses, the brilliantly pink sweet briar, the willow herb, also of a praeternatural brilliance owing to the alt.i.tude, still make gay the Zermatt Valley, while the last of the martagon lilies are being mown ruthlessly down by the peasants in their hayfields. Everywhere on the rocks the red house leeks and other plants of the stonecrop, saxifrage, and sedum varieties are appearing; while the mountain pinks, arnica, and Alpine asters grow almost down into the village itself. For some reason the flower-plunderer has either stayed his hand in this valley or has pa.s.sed it by, for here several of the rarer and choicer sorts of Alpine blossoms, almost extinct, or at least very rare in most parts of Switzerland, are still flouris.h.i.+ng. Martagon lilies, for instance, are common, though how long they will remain so I cannot say. The paths are often literally bordered with the true Alpine rose, deepest crimson in hue. Many a meadow is purple and gold with the starry flowers of the Alpine aster, common here as a field daisy; many a rock slope is overgrown with mountain pinks; while as for the _arnica montana_, the rhododendrons, and the creeping gypsophila, I have never seen anything like them elsewhere. The arnica covers whole slopes and carpets woods until the ground is oranged completely over with its blossoms; the creeping gypsophila clothes the bare rocks and borders the paths with its tufts of white and pale pink flowers; and the rhododendrons make the semi-shaded slopes beneath the larches almost a sheet of rosy-red. Somewhere, too, the true Alpine columbine must be growing plentifully. I have not discovered it, but I have, I am sorry to say, seen great handfuls of this loveliest of Alpine flowers being brought down from the Zermatt slopes.
At one alt.i.tude or another, indeed, there are few Alpine flowers which are not to be found somewhere in the Zermatt range during this month of July. Certain damp-loving species, such as campanulas and orchis and the whole primula family, are certainly less well represented here than in the rainier Bernese Oberland, yet still there are entire slopes pale blue with the bearded campanula, and more than one kind of primula is to be found still in bloom high up or in the crevices of rocks, while the slopes at the head of the Zermatt valley are even now covered with Alpine and sub-Alpine blossoms of a variety and brilliance which I have never seen excelled and seldom equalled. The short gra.s.s above eight thousand feet or thereabouts is blue with Alpine forget-me-nots or mauve with pansies, starred with the small gentian, or patched with the pink of the ”marmot's bread” (_silene_); higher up, to 11,000 feet and more, _ranunculus glacialis_ and the hardiest and lowest-growing flowers are still blooming; while slightly lower down, especially where there is the moisture of streams and the shelter of rocks, grow fields of _arnica montana_, pinks, asters, geums, rock roses, sweet alyssum, sedums, _semper vivum_, arabis, Alpine toadflax, louseworts, wild thyme, edelweiss, rampions, Alpine clovers in great variety, gypsophila, even stray orchis and primulae, the dominant tones being orange and pale yellow, thrown into relief by the many mauves and the bright pinks and creamy whites.
The Alpine flowers, in addition to their spectacular beauty, have a very definite scientific botanical interest. It has been observed that the magnificence and profusion of flower, in comparison with the size, of the Alpine plants is a trait of beauty with a charming scientific explanation. To the Alpine flowers more urgently than to most races of mortal things, Nature whispers ”Carpe Diem.” Life for them must be very, very short. Its length is inexorably decreed by the snows of winter. The Alpine plant, feeling the renewing warmth of the spring, must rush at once into flower, as brilliant, as attractive, as irresistible flower as it may, so that fertilising bees and b.u.t.terflies will come and ensure the next generation.
On the same principle, at the opposite end of the pole, the desert plants store up their seeds in extraordinarily thick and strong capsules, so that they may rest safely through many seasons of fierce drought, awaiting the coming of water to fertilise them. In Australia the desert flowers, such as Sturt's Desert Pea, will come up after good rains in places where to the knowledge of man they have not grown for many years; and of some wild Australian plants the seeds need to be roasted before they will germinate.