The Glaciers of Savoy
After a few weeks passed in Geneva, we determined to go on to Chamouni, and for this purpose engaged a guide accustomed for years to the mountain passes, and on whom we were told that we could rely implicitly.
This being arranged, we took a last drive around the environs of the city; the views of the lake and of the mountains in every direction, were enchanting and sublime. From the head of the lake, a greater variety of interesting objects met the eye than can be seen perhaps from any other spot in Europe. At your feet you behold a venerable and populous city; while a vast and beautiful lake spreads its clear waves beyond, amid a landscape rich in all the products a cultivated soil can furnish; while vast and gloomy mountains stretch their giant forms on high. In clear weather, Mont Blanc appears the venerable monarch of the Alps. Below this, Saléve rises to upwards of three thousand feet, with the uninterrupted length of the Jura on the left, whose highest point is over four thousand. Proceeding along the banks of the Arve, we at length alighted at the entrance of a thicket, through which we made our way with difficulty, the path being hilly and very slippery, to a place where we saw at our feet the celebrated junction of the Arve and the Rhone. The Arve has a thick soapy appearance; the Rhone is of a fine dark green, and seems for a while to spurn a connection with its muddy visitor. For two or three miles the Rhone keeps up its reserve, and the rivers roll side by side, without mingling their waters. At length they meet and blend: the distinction is lost, the polluted Arve is absorbed in the haughty and majestic Rhone.
We were to leave Geneva the next morning. Before night our guide came: he was ill, would we take his son? The proposition did not please us; it was a dangerous journey, and many had been lost in the mountain passes.
“Erwald knows as much of the passes as I do,” said the father, “and he is anxious to go; his sister lives at Maglan, and she is down with the fever.”
I saw how it was. Erwald was to go to Maglan to visit his sister; and if the father could arrange for him to go with us, of course he himself would be free to make another engagement.
“Do you feel sure that you can guide us safely?” I asked of Erwald.
“Certainly, monsieur; I have been over the way many times. If I was not quite sure, I would not offer to go.”
“Not if you could gain a good many francs by going?”
“It would not be right to say to you that I knew the way, if I did not.”
The boy’s face was attractive, his voice gentle, and his blue eyes full of tenderness. His look and his answer delighted me.
“No, it would not be right, Erwald; and because you love the right and feel sure that you can serve us, I will take you in your father’s place.”
“I am glad, very glad; and now I must see my mother. Vesta is sick and she will be glad to see any one from home.”
Erwald’s face was glowing; I turned to the father.
“Erwald is a good child,” he said. “At first we felt vexed with him and Vesta for leaving the church, and not a few times did we punish them. But they were so good and patient that it troubled us; and now their mother is a Protestant, and I never go to mass.”
It was explained, the serene calm of the earnest blue eyes: Erwald was a Christian.
Early in the morning our guide made his appearance. His countenance sweet and pleasing as it was the night previous. He was accompanied by a little woman in a black gown and bodice, with a high cap and the whitest of kerchiefs—a mild sweet-faced woman, whom we knew at once as his mother.
“You’ll tell Vesta mother thinks of her all the time, and prays the Father every hour to make her well again.”
On my asking if she was not afraid to have her son go on so dangerous a journey, she answered:
“Our Father will take care of him and bring him back to us.”
The simple faith of the good woman struck me as greatly to be desired. With all her simplicity she had the true Wisdom: and her good motherly face went with me long after I left Erwald in Chamouni.
A few miles from Geneva, we entered Savoy. Here the scenery of the Alps began to open before us. On the right the Arve was seen winding through a cultivated and luxuriant valley; on both sides, hills and rooks rose to a considerable elevation, and behind, the mountains of the Jura range closed in grandeur the delightful view. We passed through a succession of peaceful villages, and at length reached by a long avenue of elms the little town of Bonneville on the Arve. The town is embosomed in the mountains, and watered by the river. It has a fine old bridge over the river from which the country is viewed to great, advantage. On the right the môle is elegantly formed, and terminates in a peak, a complete contrast to Mont Brezon on the left, wild and savage in its aspect, and little more than a bare and rugged rock with occasional pitches of verdure.
From Bonneville the road passes over the bridge to the foot of the môle, and traverses a lovely valley, hemmed in by lofty mountains, and rich in scenes of pastoral beauty. The road is lined on each side with walnut-trees, which afford a grateful shade. Passing the village of Sigony, Erwald pointed to the remains of an old convent far up the mountain, whose inmates were wont to welcome the traveller, when these valleys, destitute of good roads and inns, were explored with difficulty and with danger.
From this place the mountains closed upon us; rocks began to overhang the road, and the Arve was rather heard than seen. At length we crossed a romantic looking bridge and entered the little town of Cluse, enclosed on both sides by rocky ramparts, and sheltered equally from sunbeams and from storms. Following the various windings of the valley, the Arve seemed to spread itself into a series of lakes, each presenting its own peculiar loveliness and majesty. The sides of the mountains were occasionally bare and rugged, but for the most part they were clothed with forests of fir; while above, pointed summits and fantastic crags everywhere met the eye, and filled the beholder with admiration and awe.
A few miles up the valley, Erwald called our attention to the entrance of the cavern of Balme. It is a natural gallery in the rock and well worth a visit. The valley now becomes more spacious; while its boundaries increase in grandeur. The meadows, adorned with groves of beech-trees, rise in gentle swells from the verge of the Arve, and spread their green carpet, dotted with cottages and watered by innumerable streams, to the base of the neighboring heights. At one of these cottages we rested for the night. I never dreamed of a fairer scene; it was too beautiful for sleep; the murmurings of the Arve were the only sounds that broke upon the ear, while all around tremendous precipices rose to heaven, shutting out from us the cares and tumults of the busy world. To pay for my enthusiasm I arose with a headache and a feeling of weariness that sensibly diminished the enjoyment of the morning.
Leaving this enchanted spot, we passed the waterfall D’Orli, and a few miles beyond we paused to admire the cataract of Arpenas. Its height is estimated at eight hundred feet. The water rushes with considerable volume over a tremendous precipice of dark and fantastic rocks. At first it divides into separate streams that in their fall resemble descending rockets, till at length, caught by the rocks beneath, they meet and mingle in one mass of foam.
At the cataract we had an instance of that deception which is produced to the eye by the magnitude of the objects which compose the scenery of these Alpine regions. Viewed from the road the fall did not appear by any means so considerable as it measurement determines; while at its foot there was a little green hillock to the summit of which it seemed a few steps would reach. To this hillock we determined to proceed. But what was our astonishment when we found a mountain before us, and when we reached its top, the cataract loomed up in inconceivable vastness, rushing into a wild abyss beneath, that deafened us with its uproar and bedewed us with its spray.
We now approached the village of Maglan, where Vesta lived. As we drew near, I observed Erwald’s face flush and grow pale; that dear sister he had not seen since his father drove her from the house because of her apostasy. Now she was ill and had sent for him. How great the change! His mother was a Christian and his father did not go to mass. As we entered the village I was struck with the pleasing, intelligent faces of all that we met. Leaving us at the door of the only lodging-house in the place, Erwald went to visit his sister; but not before I had asked that he would return for me provided that he found her comfortable. In an hour or more, he returned, his countenance sad, but still peaceful. Vesta was sicker than he had dreamed of; it was feared that she would not recover.
“Do you think it will not hurt her, for me to see her?” I asked.
“Oh, no, she said that she would like to see you.”
During our short walk few words were said. As we reached the cottage a young man came out to meet us, with a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed child in his arms, and another clinging to his hand. It was Vesta’s husband, and these were her children. Following them into the cottage, I found myself at once in the presence of the dying woman. The sight of a strange face did not disturb her. With a look that seemed to comprehend the Christian bond of union between us she held out her hand.
“I have come with Erwald,” I said, “to see his sister. I am sorry to find you so very ill.”
“Almost home,” she gasped.
“You do not feel that you are alone; there is One to walk with you?”
“Jesus, my Redeemer, my Comforter.”
Erwald was kneeling by the bed, his eyes were full of tears, and his hand trembled as he clasped the pale thin fingers.
“You will get well, Vesta, you will come to the old home once again, mother expects you, and father.” The words were gone. Sobs echoed through the cottage.
“Tell mother, not an hour but I have thought of her. Tell her that I am glad she loves Jesus; and father, ask him for my sake to read the little Bible that I sent him. I would so like to see them, Erwald; but it cannot be. For this, as well as for my husband and children, I would live; but I go to Jesus. Live so as to meet me there.”
There was no excitement, only a weary look stole over the face. Leaving Erwald, I walked back to the inn. Though far away from home, and surrounded by strange scenery and strange people, it was delightful to find the same faith here as in my own home, the same heaven inspired confidence in the Redeemer.
The next morning the sick woman was more comfortable. Erwald did not say it, but I knew that he wanted to stay with her.
“Go with us to Le Prieuré,” I said to him, “and then you shall return. In the valley of Chamouni I feel sure we can procure a guide.”
As we left Maglan, our road, or rather path, led up a deep and fertile valley, watered by the Arve, rich in woods of fir, and bounded by mountains of various forms and of tremendous altitudes; their rugged peaks sometimes lost in the clouds; at others, their heads towered in majesty above them. Bathed in the blue ether of the heavens they looked as if themselves ethereal, oftentimes exhibiting a play of colors, having the appearance of transparent matter, of the purest elements and richest hues, and when seen in the light of the setting sun they were only more glorious. At the upper end of the valley we came upon the cataract of the Chede. It is elegant in form. The scenery that surrounds it is sylvan and sequestered. The torrent that feeds it rushes down a succession of precipices, hurrying dashing along to meet the waters of the Arve.
The path now became extremely difficult, and we continued to ascend, till we reached the lake of Chede, whose water is famed as the purest in the Alps. From this point we saw Mont Blanc—saw the clouds roll off, and leave its rugged head white with the snows of ages—a beautiful contrast with the deep azure of the sky it seemed almost to touch. Looking, our eyes were dazzled by the vast and spotless object before us; pure and fleecy as were the light clouds that lingered round it, they were dark compared with its glittering brightness; while the obscurity in which the lower scenes were wrapt gave it the appearance of a crystal mountain in a sea of clouds. With Erwald standing at my side, it seemed but a step from earth to heaven, through those regions of the purest white, untrodden solitudes, meet only for the visits of celestial beings.
Thus far our way had been comparatively safe. Now, we had need of caution at each step; scrambling along ledges of lofty rocks, with deep ravines beneath; then crossing mountain torrents where a single misstep would have been fatal. Before night we passed the remains of an avalanche, an enormous mass of snow crushing as it fell everything in its path. We were now in the valley of Chamouni. At the sight of the first glacier I felt some little disappointment. It is not itself a mountain of ice, but lies in a deep sloping ravine between two mountains, filling it up, and differing in height according to the base. There are five of these glaciers in the valley. They usually lie in a direction north and south, and thus deeply imbedded in the clefts of the valley the sun rarely visits them.
From Savoy our numbers were greatly increased, and as the daylight vanished we quickened our pace. Le Prieuré was before us. This was the place where I had promised to part with Erwald. There were plenty of guides; but none of them with the sweet calm look of the boy face before me.
“You will think of us sometimes,” he said as I held his hand at parting, “and when you pray to our heavenly Father, ask Him to look upon us in mercy.”
“I will ask Him, Erwald; and I shall always remember the journey from Geneva to Chamouni as the most varied and interesting of my life.”