The Spell of Switzerland Part 21

Next we arrived at Martigny, the ancient Roman town of Octodurus, near the junction of the Dranse with the Rhone. Octodurus signified the Castle in the Narrows. It was the capital of the Veragri who with the Seduni held possession of the pa.s.s of the Great Saint-Bernard. Caesar makes mention of it in the Third Book of the Gallic War.

Investigations have shown that the Wallisi had the right bank of the Dranse and the Romans the left. Suddenly Galba discovered that all the inhabitants had deserted their houses in one night and that a great body of the Seduni and Veragri were occupying the heights. They knew that the legion was not complete, that two cohorts were at Acaunum and that a good many had gone over the Alps to get provisions and that the fortifications were not finished.

"Galba held a council of war. Some of the men were in favor of fighting their way back; but the majority voted to defend the camp. In the meantime, at a given signal, the Wallisi began to storm down from the heights and fling stones and lances. The Romans defended themselves and every shot told. Wherever there was a rush of the enemy the Romans met them. But the Wallisi had constant reinforcements. After fighting six hours ammunition began to fail.

Breaches were made in the walls; the ditches were filled up and the Romans were in desperate plight. Then Galba had his men rest a while, and at a sudden signal having armed themselves with the lances of the enemy, they made a sudden sortie. The Wallisi were surprised and took to flight. Out of thirty thousand at least a third were killed and the rest threw down their arms. Although the whole country was cleared of the enemy Galba decided to winter elsewhere, and having burnt the town, he led his troops undisturbed down the Rhone through the Nantuati along the lake into that of the Allobrigi."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VALLEY OF THE RHoNE AT MARTIGNY.]

In the years thirty-seven, thirty-six and thirty-four B. C. the Wallisi defeated the Romans, but under Augustus, in the year seven B. C., they were conquered in turn. Augustus treated them humanely and left them to govern themselves though procurators were sent among them to collect tribute. In twenty-two A. D. Octodurus was given the rights of a free city and had the protection of the Roman law: this was a great incentive to trade and it became the capital and flourished.

Claudius made it an imperial market-town and gave it the name of Forum Claudi Vallensium. In forty-seven the pa.s.s over the Great Saint-Bernard was made into a highway and provided with mile-stones clear down to Vevey. Relics of this can still be seen here and there, now high above the pa.s.s, now following the Dranse, and the natives call it still _la route romaine_.

Back of Martigny-ville along the Dranse is a broad field with mora.s.ses; it belonged to the Abbey of the Great Saint-Bernard. It had little value even as pasturage as its surface was covered with all sorts of rubbish and scattered stones. In 1874 the artist, Raphael Ritz, was making excavations near the so-called _tresor de la Deleyse_. There was found the relics of a small amphitheatre with bones and teeth of wild animals which had been slaughtered there "to make a Roman holiday." "Aux Mora.s.ses" gave up the remains of a colossal bronze statue with gilded garment, a huge oxhead, a laurel wreath with fine bronze leaves, smashed with blows from an ax and then sunk into the thick miry soil. It is supposed that early Christians may have treated these objects in such a manner because they regarded them as idols.

In 1895 systematic excavations were inst.i.tuted and a wall sixty-three by thirty-one meters was discovered. It was the remains of a basilica which served as a trading-station or custom-house, while in front of it was the forum where once mingled Roman merchants, citizens, soldiers, officials, priests and natives. It was supported by thirteen large columns. On both sides of the square or piazza were narrow wings, each furnished with stalls for merchants and smiths. In front ran the Roman road, meant to last for all time; it is still here and there visible running up the valley. It was paved with large irregular stones. Along the southwest wing were a row of columns with enormous pedestals. The great building was divided into three halls. One ending in a semicircle, like the letter D, had a place for the statue of a G.o.d. In the north central wall were eight pilasters and in the niches skeletons were found.

Next to this was still another large building and beyond it was a private dwelling with marble floor, marble dado and painted walls. Any number of coins dating from the year one till three hundred and fifty A. D. were picked up. These buildings were covered with hollow tiles; and the hewn stones for the columns, the door-sills, the curb-stones, were all brought from the Jura. Some of the marble came from Italy, some from Greece; there was even porphyry from Egypt. All about Martigny were found these wonderful remains of Roman occupation. One capital of a temple was of colossal dimensions. They had drinking-water piped to the city.

At La Batiaz, where stands the old castle that belonged to the Bishop of Sion, but was dismantled nearly four hundred years ago, stood a Roman watch-tower and not far away the graveyard was found among the vineyards of Ravoire. We saw an inscription which was intensely interesting:--

SALVTI.SACRVM FOROCLAVDIEN SES.VALLENSES CVM T.POMPONIO VICTORE PROC.AVGVSTO RVM

This signified that t.i.tus Pomponius had, with the aid of the inhabitants, erected an altar to the G.o.ddess of Safety. It dated back to the time of Marcus Aurelius, the good emperor. At that day Wallis (which it must be remembered is still preserved in the very name Vaud) was united under the same government with the Graian Alps. The same t.i.tus Pomponius, together with his family, is found mentioned on an altar to the G.o.d Sylva.n.u.s as a thank-offering for the conclusion of his term of service, and it preserves a poem addressing the G.o.d as hiding in the foliage of the sacred ash-tree, as the protector of the lofty green luxuriant forest. It thanks him for having brought them from a far land and over the immovable mountains of the Alps amid the sweet perfumes of the bushes; it says:--"I performed the duties of the office conferred upon me. Lead me and mine back to Rome, and let us under thy protection cultivate Italian fields. I vow that I will plant a thousand mighty trees to thee."

The Bishop Theodorus lived here in 381 A. D. The Theodule pa.s.s is named for him. He built a Christian basilica on the site of the heathen temple. But the Dranse overflowed it and covered it deep with mud and stones. Fire finished it, and now all that is left of it is ashes, broken tiles, melted gla.s.s and bits of metal.

Martigny is another of the towns in which I should like to spend a month. There are so many excursions to be taken from it as a centre--up the Arpille, up to the Pierre a Voir from which one looks down into two river valleys and across to the Bernese and Valaisian Alps--a splendid view; to La Dent de Morcles, the p.i.s.sevache cascade and dozens of other trips for pleasant days.

The geology here also is particularly interesting. Here the Rhone once more proved that might made right. He turned at almost right angles and stole into the valley belonging to the Dranse. Here the glaciers of the ice-age polished the rock wall--"the most remarkable example of ice-action in the Alps."

Above Martigny we find the real and only genuine valley of the Rhone: elsewhere it is a robber.

Still ascending the Rhone valley we reached Saxon with its picturesque ruined castle, and then crossing the Ardon and the Morge beyond Riddes reached the medieval city of Sion just at sunset. Approaching the famous old city it was like a dream--the castles on the hills so kindly left by the river; high up, the Chateau de Tourbillon, where for five hundred years the princely bishops used to luxuriate, looking down on a world of beauty.

Across a valley on a hill only twenty meters lower stands the old castle of Valeria taking the place of an earlier Roman fort; its towers glittered in the sunlight's last rays. We went to it in the morning, and, on paying a fee, were admitted to the Thirteenth-Century church of Notre Dame, with its quaint Romanesque capitals, and Seventeenth-Century choir-stalls elaborately carved. And, of course, being devoted to antiquities, we looked into the cantonal museum next door. We went also into the Fifteenth-Century Gothic cathedral with its tower six hundred years older; and admired the carved ceiling in the splendid hall of the Super-saxo mansion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: p.i.s.sEVACHE CASCADE.]

CHAPTER XIX

A DETOUR TO ZERMATT

Whom should we meet at the hotel at Sion but my friend, Lady Q. She immediately recognized me, and I had the pleasure of presenting to her my niece and her husband. She was on her way to Zermatt and she advised us to leave the car at Visp and take the State Railway over to the region of the Matterhorn. That name amused Will. He asked Lady Q.

if we should not be permitted to see the original Vill of the Visp there. Of course Lady Q., being English, saw his joke in a second and thought it very bad, as we all did. The result of it was that we asked her to join us on this trip. But she was expecting friends from Geneva and therefore was obliged to forego the pleasure. So we started off without her, but we adopted her advice. Just above Sion we had a good view of the gorge through which rushes the turbulent Borgne coming down from the wild Val d'Herens. We crossed the Liene at Saint-Leonard, and just as we reached Sierre we saw a company of pedestrians starting off for the pleasant plateau of Montana. I have seen it since standing up a thousand meters above the Rhone valley, with its charming lakes reflecting the mountains beyond and its splendid view of Mont Blanc and the Weisshorn and the heights between them.

Sierre has its interest to the student of geology; for all around it can be seen the remains of a tremendous rock-fall. It extended from Pfyn almost to the mouth of the Liena. It dammed up the valley and imprisoned the Rhone. But the Rhone, who had learned what he could do with his mighty forces, grew more and more indignant; he swelled his haughty breast, and, when he knew the right moment had come, he put forth his energy and burst his way through. All the forces of the sky helped him; the rains came to his aid, and the tempests and the sun beat down on the snow-fields and contributed to his release. What a sight it must have been when the rus.h.i.+ng flood once more went roaring down the valley! What billows, what sheets of sparkling foam, what cras.h.i.+ng of overturned forests and jangling of monstrous boulders rolled along to be the wonder of succeeding ages!

Perhaps the pretty little ponds near Sierre are the relics of this prehistoric freshet. All these regions too were haunted by the ancient Kelts. Many warriors were killed hereabouts and were buried in graves even now occasionally detected. I saw a beautifully designed bronze sword which was found in one on the hill of Tevent.

Visp has three names: in French it is Viege. We admired the view up the valley with its great snow pyramid, the Balfrin, more than twice as high as Mount Was.h.i.+ngton. From here on Teeth become Horns; there are any number of them: Schwarzhorn and Weisshorn and Rothorn, and Faulhorn, and Spitzhorn and Magenhorn and Trifthorn and Mittaghorn and Hohberghorn and the Brunegghorn and Taschhorn--all of them giants covered with eternal snow.

We left the car at a hotel garage and took the train. Up, up we climbed with the Visp River brawling at our left. Then crossing it we reached Stalden between the two branches of the Visp and with superb views. Here we were told was about the limit of the grape-culture. One would not think that fruit could ripen so high above the sea. The grade now and then becomes so steep that the rack and pinion has to help the engine; there are viaducts--the one over the Muhlebach being fifty meters high--and tunnels and long pa.s.sages close to the precipices, now running straight for a short distance, then winding past sharp corners. The gorges of Kipfen and Selli are cluttered with gigantic blocks of gneiss, over and among which the Visp makes its precipitous way. Saint-Niklaus is almost sixteen hundred feet higher than Visp, and Randa is more than a thousand feet higher than Saint-Niklaus.

From Randa if one wanted to stop there is a convenient approach to the Dom, which is said to be the highest mountain belonging entirely to Switzerland. Its top is four thousand five hundred and fifty-four meters high and it affords one of the grandest views in the Alps.

There are, however, others much more difficult; the Edelspitze on the Gabelhorn, though four thousand feet lower, was not conquered until 1904; Professor Tyndall was the first to climb the Weisshorn. But that was in 1861. He was nearly killed by the bombardment of rocks from above.

Above the little hamlet of Tasch the road, after following the right bank of the Visp, crosses it near the chalets of Zermettje, and, gradually mounting high and higher above the river, it enters an extraordinarily narrow defile, and, though every one is forewarned, at the end of it comes the grand surprise--at the right the first glimpse of the Matterhorn, or, as good Swiss like best to call it, Le Mont Cervin--just a tantalizing glimpse, no more; but who would not recognize it, standing up isolated and solitary like an enormously exaggerated Indian arrow-head, or rather the flint from which it comes?

If there is any one thing I detest in travelling it is tunnels; they are marvellous; the skill of man in digging them, in so calculating their direction and their level that though men start from opposite sides of a high mountain, as they did at Mont-Cenis, at the Loetschberg, at the Simplon, and at all the other great mountain-bores, is beyond all praise; but practically they shut one off from the light and the wide horizons.

We were landed safely at Zermatt and for two days we had most perfect views of that wonderful valley and its king of mountains. Here is the story of its conquest. Until 1858 it was regarded as unapproachable--in every sense of the word. But man is never satisfied with the eternal negative. For seven years the battle was waged, and, at last, in July, 1865, Edward Whymper, Lord Francis Douglas, David Hadow and Charles Hudson, with three guides, succeeded in attaining the top. Whymper related the story of the campaign in a volume.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LE MONT CERVIN.]

A high price was paid for the success. Every one knows that it is easier to climb than it is to descend. This is particularly true of mountain-excursions. There is a buoyant exhilaration in mounting, especially for the first time; but in addition to the physical difficulties of the descent there is the anticlimax which is moral; so that often the last miles of the descent are sheer agony. "While during an enthusiastic ascent the hope of a steadily nearing goal lifts the climber over all difficulties, in descending only the difficulties remain, while the fatigue increases and the interest diminishes."

In descending the Matterhorn Hadow lost his footing, and tumbled against Croz, who, not being prepared, lost his. They took with them Lord Francis and Hudson. Had not the rope to which they were attached broken probably Whymper and the two guides Taugwalder, father and son, would have all lost their lives. The survivors could see the doomed four struggling vainly to stop the terrible glissade. Then they disappeared over the precipice. Three of them fell on the Cervin glacier four thousand feet below; Lord Francis Douglas's body was never recovered. Bringing the tragedy in their hearts the other three safely reached Zermatt.

Three days later Jean Antoine Carrel and Jean Baptiste b.i.+.c.h reached the top from the Italian side and they were followed by Professor Tyndall, who went up by the Breuil route and came down to Zermatt. He also wrote an account of it and one of the _pics_ was named for him.

That was in 1868, and since then, though it is still the most dangerous of the larger peaks, it has been attained by hundreds. In 1867 a young girl, the daughter of J. B. Carrel, reached within less than a hundred meters of the top, and the point where she was blocked has been named for her Le Col de Felicite. Miss Lucy Walker, of England, was the first woman to master the peak. She went up from the Zermatt side, returning the same way, July 22, 1871. Miss Brevoort, an American, was the first woman to make what is called the "traverse"

from Switzerland to Italy; that was also in 1871.

The year before, Javelle, with only one guide, Nicolas Kubel, reached the top by remarkable good fortune, for no other ascent was made that whole year. At the edge of the Gorner glacier they found a bunch of Alpine roses, the highest arborescent vegetation they encountered.

Like many other persons, Javelle supposed that Mont Cervin was "a simple giant pyramid unique in the boldness of its form, the hugeness of its bulk, the pride of its isolation." It is really, as Mr.

Coolidge says, "the b.u.t.t end of a long ridge," and not an isolated ma.s.s rising above a glacial plateau. When they reached the arete connecting the Hornli with the base of the Cervin they rested for an hour.

When they reached the first wall of the pyramid a fierce north wind began to blow, but they scaled the rocks and then had to walk along an icy arete. When they got about half-way "the sound of a dull rumbling"

reached them from above. It was the jealous Spirit of the Mountain who was trying to bombard them with stones. They had just time to flatten themselves against the crag, which, fortunately, hung over them. Great rocks and boulders bounded within a meter of their heads; for half an hour the baffled Spirit kept up his attack and then gave it up.

Visitors like ourselves, looking up to the Cervin, see a long couloir which looks smooth and easy. Javelle says that it is cut up by veritable ravines plowed by avalanches or worn in the strata of the rock, so that the whole surface is far more rugged than it appears.

The adamantine gneiss with strata of serpentine schist wears but slowly; but sometime the proud apex will be undermined and fall with a world-shaking crash.

After they had climbed with much difficulty and fatigue for about an hour they discovered the hut which some enterprising guides had constructed of planks, walled up with stones. For a hundred feet the precipice is perpendicular and to reach it they had to cling with their fingers to the roughness of the rock. It is at a height of more than thirty-eight hundred meters.

They reached it, and, while the guide was preparing supper, Javelle went out to a hump in the crag to enjoy the spectacle:--

"My eyes turned first of all toward the summit of Le Cervin. The tawny head of the colossus rose just above us. Through the crystalline air of those upper regions it seemed scarcely five hundred feet away and the rock stood out in startling ruggedness. The mighty flank of the pyramid, tremendously seamed and naked, lay before me: Below lay the lonely white plains of the Furgg and the Theodule glaciers; in front beyond them Monte Rosa tossed up its magnificent cl.u.s.ter of peaks....

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONTE ROSA.]

"From the hut on Le Cervin no disrespect to Monte Rosa is possible.

The true sovereign is restored to rank and position. The mountain is seen to be vast, mighty, magnificent as it is not from any other point of view; its rivals are humbled, and its summit, gracious and n.o.ble rather than haughty, s.h.i.+nes unquestionably the highest of all in the sky."

Then came the sunset:--