leukabad—aigle
the life of man is as the life of leaves,
which, green to-day, to-morrow sears, and then
another race unfolds itself to run
again the course of growth and of decay:
so waxes, and so wanes the race of man.—homer.
at a little after 8 a.m. we entered leukabad, having been out three hours from schwarenbach. i was content that both our personnel and our matériel were safe, plus the ineffaceable impression on our minds of the pass itself.
having breakfasted—it is pleasant to have lived so much before breakfast—we sallied forth to look at the town and the baths. there are several hotels in the place, and they were all pretty well tenanted. still the aspect of things was not lively. there was none of the stir you observe among the alpine people at such places as chamouni and zermatt; nor was there any of the obtrusive bigness, and of the staring newness of the hotels almost everywhere, which give 173you to understand very clearly that, at all events, a great deal of business is being done. here nothing was new, and everything was faded. the names over the hotels and shops had been there many a day; and the hotels and shops themselves made one think of a dead forest covered with lichens and moss, the lichens and moss being at least half dead also. people moved about so noiselessly that you looked to see if their feet were muffled; saying nothing to each other, and having nothing to say. the place was as dumb as it was faded. we saw an old man washing old bottles, of a by-gone form, at an old fountain, into and out of which the water was feebly dribbling, as if it had nearly done coming and had nowhere to go. he was the only person we saw doing anything, and he did it as if he thought there was no use in doing it. those who were taking the baths were oppressed with a consciousness that they were getting no good from them; and that they were doing it only because something must be attempted. their despondency had an air of obstinacy that would not be comforted, deep and silent; like that of people who have just found out that the foundations on which they have long been building great expectations, are all a delusion,—either a figment of their own, or a tradition from times when such things were not understood—and who have not yet come to think that the world may still have something else for them to turn to. at 17412 o’clock the voiturier we had engaged to take us to sierre, came up to the door of the hotel, with his worm-eaten vehicle and his worn-out horses. but he came in so mute and spectral a fashion—anywhere else he would have announced himself with a little final flourish and crack of his whip—that we were not for some time aware of his arrival. it was a relief when he lighted his cigar, for that was the first indication of life we had seen in the place.
on the road to sierre we passed through dust enough to bury leukabad—a ceremony which it would be as well should not be deferred any longer. and, if sierre had been put on the top of it, there would still have been some to spare.
this dusty drive enhanced the pleasantness of recalling our late mountain walks. we had now completed the circuit of the great ice-field of the bernese oberland, which is more than 100 square miles in extent, and is supposed to be the largest in europe. its boundaries, all of which we had traced, are the valais, the grimsel, the valley of the aar, and the gemmi. we had had a near or more distant view of all its chief snowy peaks, but had nowhere crossed any part of the snow-field itself. that, perhaps, may be the work of another day, when the blue boy will be old enough, and the rest of the party not yet too old, for such work; for those who are not up to peaks, either of the first or second class, may still 175graduate as pass-men by crossing the ice-fields between the peaks.
another possible arrangement for the work of the two last days would have been to have ascended the niesen, at the foot of which we had passed yesterday morning. this would have obliged us to have slept at kandersteg instead of, as we did, at the top of the gemmi. the ascent of the niesen, even for such a party as was ours, would have been easy enough; and the views from it are said to be very good. in that case, however, we should have had to do the gemmi at one stretch. our loss would have been sleeping at kandersteg, and not at the schwarenbach, and the abandonment of our chance of a good sunrise from the summit of the pass; though that was a chance which, as it happened, was worth nothing to us; for, in such perfectly fine, and singularly clear weather as we had, the sun rises and sets without those glories of colour which require haze and clouds for their reflection.
as to weather, which is the first, the second, and the third requisite in such an expedition, we had scarcely seen a cloud during our three weeks’ tramp. up to the day before i got on my legs at visp it had been an unusually wet and cold season. during the night i was at the simplon hospice it rained a little. that was the only shower that fell, where i was, during the whole time we were out. the quarter of an 176hour’s snow on the riffel was merely the passage of a stray bit of mountain scud. the sun, throughout, had shone so brightly that some of its brightness had been reflected from the world outside upon the world within. almost every party of travellers in switzerland, this year, we met with had a very different account to give of the weather they had encountered. when good luck is pleased to come, it must fall to some one; and this year it fell to us.
so ended the second act of our little family excursion. the scene of the first had been the valleys of zermatt and saas, with my intercalated tramp over the monte moro, through the val anzasca, and over the simplon. i can, with a safe conscience, recommend the precise route we took to any family party, constituted at all as ours was. the time occupied, from first to last, was exactly three weeks; and three weeks they were, which we look back upon as well spent. it had no difficulties, and enough of interest and variety. as to the cost, i can give no details or items, for i keep no accounts, and never have. but, speaking in the gross, i believe it cost somewhat less than thirty shillings a head a day. doubtless, it may be done for less. the best rule in such matters, of course, is, if you can afford it, to have what you want, and what will make a pleasure pleasant. as to equipment, what you need actually carry along with you is so little, that the statement of it would appear 177to people at home ridiculous. but, then, you can send on by the post from place to place not only your heavy luggage, but such articles as your hat, if you are youthful, or old-fashioned enough to take a hat with you, and your spare pair of walking boots, and every thing else you may wish to have occasionally.
and here i have a suggestion to throw out, which occurred to me while i was on the tramp. what put it into my head was the incongruity of hotel life with excursions amid such scenes. in the rocky mountains the great enjoyment of the year is camping out in the fine season. in syria and in india people travel with their tents. why should we not camp out, and travel with our tents, in july and august in switzerland; and so break loose altogether from the hotels? one mule, or horse, would carry the tent and all the tent furniture. if sometimes, but such a necessity would seldom arise, you had to pitch your tent on damp grass land, no inconvenience, i believe, would ensue. i have slept on a damp meadow under a tent on a bare plank, and was none the worse for it. and with the addition of a little hay, or straw, upon the plank, and upon that a waterproof sheet, you would have a luxurious bed for one who had walked five-and-twenty miles, and had not been under a roof during the day. the tent-mule might carry three light planks, each six feet long; for i will suppose that the party consists of two travellers, and a guide 178who also acts as muleteer. a saucepan, kettle, gridiron, and a few stores, to be renewed as required, would be necessary. were the weather to prove unaccommodating there would always be the hotels at hand to take refuge in. a month of such campaigning would be very independent; and, i believe, very healthful and enjoyable.
at sierre we took the rail for aigle. there were a great many tedious delays on the way: one at almost every station. but to complain would be unreasonable, for, of course, the natives like to get as much as they can for the fares they have paid; and the lower the fare the greater the gain, if they get much of the rail for it. it was near 6 o’clock when we reached aigle, where we intended to set up our head-quarters for some days, while looking out for a winter residence for my wife and the little man.
the night was still, and clear. in that unpolluted atmosphere, and among the mountains, the bright, soft, gleaming of the moon—it was now a little beyond the full—as it brings out the silvered peaks, and seems to darken the ravines, casts, as old homer[2] noted 179long ago, a pleasing spell over you; and you become indisposed to mar the silence of nature with a word. the spell, however, on this occasion was somewhat broken by the disturbing effect of continuous lightning, in the direction of the head of the valley, though the horizon was undimmed, throughout its whole circumference, by so much as a trace of haziness.
2.
as when in heaven the stars
are shining round about the lustrous moon,
exceeding bright; and all the air is still;
and every jutting peak, and beacon point
stands clear, e’en to the wooded slopes below;
and the whole field of ether, opened out
unfathomable, shows each particular star;
and at the sight the shepherd to his heart
is fill’d with gladness.—iliad viii. 551.
i have essayed a rendering of this famous simile, not because i hope to succeed where so many are supposed to have failed, but because, as may be believed of a country parsonage, i have not a single translation of it at hand. it may be objected to the one i am driven to offer that the unfathomableness of the field of ether is a modern idea; and that homer meant immensity in the direction, not of the profundity of the celestial space, but in the direction of its expansion. our idea, however, embraces the whole of homer’s, and goes beyond it.
the double mention of the stars is hardly tautological; for the first mention of them is an indispensable stroke in the sketch, which was intended to convey to our minds the idea of a fine bright night; while the shining of so many particular stars in the immeasurable field of heaven is the point of the simile. as many as are the stars visible in such a sky, so many were the camp fires of the trojan bivouac on the broad plain.
of this witching power of the moon all people appear to be conscious. but how does it come to act upon us in this way? many, doubtless, have tried to analyze, and get to the bottom of the feeling. i would suggest that the effect is produced by an unconscious comparison of the moon with the sun; and, then, by an unconscious inference drawn from 180the comparison. the sun is the lord of our waking hours, and, as respects the moon, is our standard of comparison. whatever we think of we must think of in reference to something else, that something else being the leading and most familiar object of the class the thing, at the moment thought about, belongs to, except it be the leading object itself, when the reverse reference is made. when, then, we look at the moon, there is a reference in the mind to the ideas and feelings, the results of our experience, we have about the sun. we may not be aware of this, but it is so, and cannot be otherwise. the sun is what gives us our conception of a large luminous body, apparently moving, majestically, round our earth. having, then, made this comparison unconsciously—if it were done consciously there would be no spell, or witchery—we note the differences. the light is not the same. it does not penetrate to the recesses of objects. it does not give clear definition. it does not enable us to make out surfaces at a distance. it is not dazzling. it does not enable the beholder to distinguish colours. there is something spectral about it. but, above all, it is light unaccompanied by warmth. the substratum of our thought, as we look at the moon, is the sun: yet everything is different. the inference, again unconsciously arrived at, is that of the wondrous variety, combined with unspeakable magnitude, and other deeply affecting particulars, in 181these the greatest works, as they strike us at the moment, of the dimly-apprehended mystery of the universe. these half-formed thoughts, and their corresponding emotions, are brought home, not so much by the sun, because we are too familiar with it, and the objects we compare it with unconsciously are of inferior grandeur, as they are by the moon, that is, by the contemplation of it on a bright clear night. the moon stands far above all natural objects, indeed, it stands almost alone, in possessing the means for producing, in the way i have supposed, on all minds the effect we are endeavouring to understand. and the effect is deepened by the character of the hour. it is night. all is still. there is nothing to distract attention; nothing to dissipate the effect.
it will help us here, if we see that it is, in part, the same reason, which impels the dog to bay the moon. with him, as with ourselves, the standard of comparison is the sun. the light of the full moon invites him to look out from his kennel. he sees, as he thinks, the sun in heaven. the sun has ever been to him the source of warmth as well as of light. he has come to connect the idea of light emanating from a great luminary in heaven with that of warmth. but this sun, he is looking at now, does not give him any warmth. it even appears to strike him with a chill. the light, too, which it emits has differences, which are very perceptible, but unwonted, and unintelligible. 182it does not enable him to make out familiar objects in the way in which light ought. his nerves are affected by these differences and disappointments. his agitation increases. in the still night there is nothing to divert his thoughts. it becomes insupportable. he gives unconscious expression to his agitation. he bays the moon. it is an expression of deep distress.
these feelings of the dog may also in some respects be compared to the feelings that used to come over all mankind, and still come over the savage, and other untutored people, at the contemplation of an eclipse.
september 18.—the lightning of last night was not an empty threat, for this morning dense masses of cloud were rolling down the valley, and there was much rain. we had been talking of going up the dent du midi; but, as it was, we could not get out till late in the afternoon, and then it still continued to be showery. we managed, however, to see one of the factories for parquetry floors, of which there are several here. their work is beautifully executed, and very cheap. it is sent all over the world. we saw some orders that had just been executed for egypt, and for the united states.
the contrast between aigle and leukabad is complete. here everything is new, and neat, and bright. opposite to us, across the road—we were quite new ourselves—was a house, in its trim grounds, as new, and 183neat, and bright as freshly wrought stone, and fresh paint could make it. there was not a weather-stain upon it. at the bottom of our garden were a party of jabbering italian masons running up what was to be a large pension. but the most conspicuous of the new things in aigle was a grand hotel, a little way off, nearer the mountains: so new that the grounds were not yet laid out. and so it was with almost everything in this flourishing little place, which has secured its full share in the rapidly-growing prosperity of the country. its attractions are that it has a dry soil; a warm, sunny situation; and cheerful views. the baths of leukabad cannot keep it alive. the sunshine of aigle gives it life. if the decay of leukabad, and the prosperity of aigle at all show that people now endeavour to retain health by natural means, whereas the plan formerly was to let it go, and then endeavour to recover it by very doubtful means, we may deem the world has, in this particular, grown somewhat wiser than it was of yore; and so far, to go back once more to our old friend, homer, we may boast that we are better than our fathers.
