Part 1 (1/2)

The Alps.

by Martin Conway.

CHAPTER I

THE TREASURES OF THE SNOW

John Ruskin, in a fine and famous pa.s.sage, describes the effect of a first view of the Alps upon a young and sensitive mind. He was at Schaffhausen with his parents. ”We must have spent some time in town-seeing,” he writes, ”for it was drawing towards sunset when we got up to some sort of garden promenade--west of the town, I believe; and high above the Rhine, so as to command the open country across it to the south and west. At which open country of low undulation, far into blue--gazing as at one of our own distances from Malvern of Worcesters.h.i.+re, or Dorking of Kent,--suddenly--behold--beyond! There was no thought in any of us for a moment of their being clouds. They were clear as crystal, sharp on the pure horizon sky, and already tinged with rose by the sinking sun. Infinitely beyond all that we had ever thought or dreamed,--the seen walls of lost Eden could not have been more beautiful to us; not more awful, round heaven, the walls of sacred Death. It is not possible to imagine, in any time of the world, a more blessed entrance into life, for a child of such a temperament as mine.”

Many a lad or man has felt a similar awakening when the snowy Alps first smote upon his vision, though none has ever so n.o.bly expressed the emotion. It is a feeling not to be forgotten in after life. All who love mountains have begun to love them from some remembered moment. We may have known the hills from infancy, but to know is not necessarily to love. It is the day of awakening that counts. To me the hills were early friends. Malvern of Worcesters.h.i.+re was my childish delight. I climbed Snowdon at the age of seven, and felt the delight that arises from standing high and gazing far. But the mountains as beautiful things to look at came later. Well do I remember the year when I was at last going to the Alps. A vague feeling of expectation and suspense pervaded the summer term--the unknown was in the future and hovered there as something large and bright. What would the great snow mountains look like? That was the abiding question. One June day I was idly lying p.r.o.ne upon a gra.s.sy bank, watching piled ma.s.ses of c.u.mulous cloud tower in the east with the afternoon sun s.h.i.+ning splendidly upon them. Could it be that any snow mountains were really as fine as clouds like these? I could not believe it.

[Ill.u.s.tration 2: BERN FROM THE SCHaNZLI. The seat of the Swiss Government. The Rathhaus, a modern ”old Catholic church,” in centre of picture. The Bernese Oberland Mountains in heat-haze at top.]

At last the day came when the sea was crossed and the long railway journey (how long it seemed!) was accomplished. We approached Olten. The Oberland ought to have appeared, but only rain fell. We reached Bern, and drove up to the little country village of Zimmerwald, where my friends were staying; still there was no distant view--nothing but wooded and green hills around, that reminded me of other views, and revealed no such startling novelty as I was awaiting. One day pa.s.sed and then another. On the third morning the sun rose in a sky perfectly clear. When I looked from my window across the green country, and over the deep-lying lake of Thun, I saw them--”suddenly--behold--beyond!”

Jungfrau, Monch, Eiger, and the rest, not yet individuals for me, not for a long time yet, but all together, a great white wall, utterly unlike any dream of them that had visited me before, a new revelation, unimaginable, indescribable, there they stood, and from that moment I also entered into life.

Returned to my school friends in due season, I thought to tell them of this new and splendid joy that had come to me, but a few attempts cured me of any such endeavour. It was impossible. My words fell upon deaf ears, or rather I had no words. What I said failed to raise a picture in their minds, as what had before been said to me had failed. I have never repeated the attempt; I shall not do so now. The prophet who saw the vision of the Almighty could speak only by aid of types and shadows. The great revelations of nature's majesty are not describable. Who that had never seen a thunderstorm could learn its majestic quality from description? Who can enter into the treasures of the snow by way of words? The glory of a great desert must be seen to be realised. The delicate magnificence of the Arctics none can translate into language.

We may speak of that we do know, and testify that we have seen, but no one receives our testimony, because words cannot utter the essential facts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 3. VIEW OF THE BERNESE ALPS FROM THE GURTEN, NEAR BERN.]

In writing about the Alps, therefore, we write and paint primarily to remind those who know; to suggest further visions of a like character to those they possess within themselves. Even the greatest master of descriptive writing can only manifest his masters.h.i.+p by knowing what to omit and where to stop. ”Suddenly--behold--beyond!” That is enough for those who know. For those who do not know, no words can embody and transmit the unfelt emotion.

Since the first day when I saw the snowy mountains, I have seen them again and again in all parts of the world, and have come to know them from above as well as from below. I have penetrated them in all directions and grown to understand the meaning of their smallest details of couloir, creva.s.se, ice-fall, cornice, arete, and bergschrund. It has not been all gain. Gladly would some of us be able to shed our knowledge of detail, if it were but for a moment, and once again behold the great wall of white as ignorantly as we first beheld it--a thing, vast, majestic, and above all mysterious--unapproachable as the clouds--a region not for men but fairies--the rose-clad tops of the mountains where dance the spirits of the dawn. Fairest of all is ever the first vision, not completest. Later we know more, we understand more, we may even come to love more, but the first vision of a young man's love is surpa.s.sed by no future splendour, and the first glory of a mountain view never comes again.

Doubtless there may exist some people who, even if they had been smitten by the glory of the mountains in the age of their own most abounding youthful powers of body, would not have been attracted to climb them; yet such folks must be rare. Those who first see mountains in the years of their solid maturity naturally escape the attraction. But most young and healthy individuals as naturally desire to climb as they do to swim or to wander. The instinct of man is to believe that joy is somewhere else than where he stands. ”Dort wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Gluck.”

It is not true, but life is not long enough to teach us that it is not--and fortunately, else were half our efforts quenched in the impulse.

To see round, over, and beyond--that is the natural desire of all. We want to go everywhere, to behold everything. Who would not rush to visit the other side of the moon, were such journey possible? If Messrs. Cook were to advertise a trip to Mars, who would not be of the party? ”To see round, over, and beyond”--that is a common human instinct, which accounts for the pa.s.sion of historical and scientific investigation, for the eagerness of politicians, for the enthusiasm of explorers and excavators, for the inquisitiveness of psychical societies, for the prosperity of fortune-tellers, and for the energy of mountaineers. What!

There is a height looking down on me and I cannot attain it? There is a mountain wall around me and I cannot look over it? Perish the thought!

There is an historical limit behind which I know nothing about the human race? Give me a spade, that I may dig out some yet earlier ancestor and discover something about him. There is an unmapped region at the south pole? What is my Government made of that it does not send forth an expedition to describe it?

[Ill.u.s.tration: 4. THE PIER AT SCHERZLIGEN, LAKE OF THUN--EVENING. The Niesen on the right.]

In face of the unknown all men are of one mind. They cannot but endeavour to replace ignorance by knowledge. What is true of the ma.s.s is true to some extent of each individual. There exists in the unit the same tendency at all events as in the mult.i.tude. Each man wants to see what he has not seen, to stand where he has not stood, to learn more than he knows. In the presence of mountains this desire urges him upward. He does not start as a mountaineer intending to climb, and climb. He starts for a single expedition, just to see what high peaks and glaciers are like. The snowy regions beheld from a distance puzzle him. Evidently they are not like the places he is familiar with. He will for once go and take a nearer look. He will climb somewhither and get a sight all round. Little does he suspect what the outcome of his venture may be. A week ago he was perhaps laughing at the tattered-faced climbers he met, as mad fools, going up to mountain-tops just to come down again and say they had been there. Of such folly he at any rate will never be guilty. Climbing has no fascinations for him; he is merely going to have a look at the white world, so that he may know what it is that he hears people talking about--their corridors and their couloirs, creva.s.ses, snow-bridges, seracs, and bergschrunds.

So he hires a guide and sets forth for the Breithorn, perhaps, or some such high and safe-reputed peak. He hits upon a day when the weather turns bad. Winds buffet him; rain and snow drench him; he labours through soft snow; he is bewildered by fog. If the sun s.h.i.+nes for a few moments, it is only long enough to scorch the skin off his face and ensure him a few days of great discomfort to follow. He has no view from the summit. He returns wearied out to his inn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 5. MELCHIOR ANDEREGG. Born 1828. A celebrated Alpine guide; with the late Sir Leslie Stephen made many first ascents, including the Rympfischhorn, Alphubel, Oberaarhorn. Also well known for his wood-carving.]

Yes!--and thenceforward the alpine fever masters him. He is caught and makes no effort to escape. His keenest desire is to be off once more into those same high regions--once more to feel the ice beneath his feet--once more to scramble up clean crags fresh from nature's sculpturing and undefiled by soil or vegetation. With each new ascent he becomes eager for more. The summers are all too short for his satisfaction. He goes home to read about other people's climbs, to study maps and guide-books, to lay out schemes for future seasons. Dauphiny, the Graians, the Engadine and Tirol--he must give a season or seasons to each. Thus is the climber fas.h.i.+oned out of an ordinary man.

Each new votary of the peaks in turn experiences the same sudden conversion, expects to be able to explain his new delight to his lowland friends, and in turn discovers the same impossibility. He learns, as we all have learned, that the delight is not translatable into words; that each must experience it for himself and each must win his own entrance into the secret alone. The most we can do is to awaken the inquisitive sense in another, who beholds the visible evidence of our enjoyment and wonders what its source may be. In that fas.h.i.+on the infection can be spread, and is spread with the extraordinary rapidity that the last half-century has witnessed.

What climber does not recall the enthusiasm of his first seasons? the pa.s.sionate expectation of the coming summer, the painful awaiting for the moment when his foot should once again crunch the ice-corn of the glacier beneath its hob-nailed sole? Gradually that enthusiasm pa.s.ses and is replaced by a settled mood of calmer, but no less intense, satisfaction. But does the aesthetic delight in the beauty of the mountains remain through all these experiences undimmed? Not always. In the first view of them it is the beauty of the snowy peaks, of the great white walls, that appeals to the eye. Ignorant of the meaning of every detail, the details are almost unseen. It is the whole that is beheld in the glory of its whiteness. The wonder of the silver snow beyond the green and beneath the sky invades the mind of every new spectator. Small need be our surprise that unsophisticated, semi-civilised peoples have always believed the snowy regions to be part of the other world--the home of ghosts and fairies, or of demons and dragons. ”Not more awful, round heaven, the walls of sacred Death,” says Ruskin in the pa.s.sage above quoted, thereby manifesting how close in its instincts is the sympathy between genius and the purely natural man. Almost universal is the feeling aroused by a first sight of a great snowy range that it is unearthly. Mystery gathers over it. Its s.h.i.+ning majesty in full sunlight, its rosy splendours at dawn and eve, its pallid glimmer under the clear moon, its wreathed and ever-changing drapery of cloud, its terrific experiences in storm, all these elements and aspects strike the imagination and appeal broadly to the aesthetic sense. Nor are they ever quite forgotten even by the most callous of professional mountaineers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 6. STORM COMING UP OVER LAKE OF LUCERNE. Sketch made from Fluelen.]

But with increase of experience on the mountains themselves come knowledge and a whole group of new a.s.sociations. A man does not climb a mountain without bringing some of it away with him and leaving something of himself upon it. Returned to the level and looking back, he does not see his peak as before. Every feature of the road he traversed is remembered, and he instinctively tries to fit the features to the view.

That velvet slope above the trees is the stony tract up which he toiled before dawn and where he stumbled in the fitful lantern-light. That grey band beside the glacier is the moraine, whose big rocks were unstable beneath his tread. That glacier--how slippery it was before the sun smote it! There are the creva.s.ses that made his track so devious; and there began the snowfield so hard and pleasant under foot in the early hours, so toilsome to wade through as the day advanced. In the upper part of the mountain all the little features, that seemed unimportant from below, take on a new meaning. He finds it hard to identify different points. Can that tiny thread of snow be the broad gully up which so many steps had to be cut? He looks at it through a telescope, and the actual traces of his staircase become visible. The mountain judged by the scale of remembered toil grows wonderfully in height. The eye thus trained begins to realise and even to exaggerate the vast scale on which peaks are built. But along with this gain in the truthful sense of scale comes the loss of mystery. The peak which was in heaven is brought down to earth. It was a mere thing of beauty to be adored and wondered at; it has become something to be climbed. Its details have grown intelligible and interesting. The mind regards it from a new aspect, begins to a.n.a.lyse its forms and features, and to consider them mainly in their relation to man as a climber. As knowledge grows this att.i.tude of mind develops. Each fresh peak ascended teaches something.