Here comes the party, and now we are going down into Martigny. How
tired we were! We had to ride quite through the town, then through a
long, long row of trees, to come to the Hotel de la Tour. How
delightful it seemed, with its stone entries and staircases, its
bedrooms as inviting as cleanliness could make them! The eating saloon
opened on to a beautiful garden filled with roses in full bloom. There
were little tables set about under the trees for people to take their
strawberries and cream, or tea, in the open air if they preferred it,
a very common and pleasant custom of continental hotels.
A trim, tidy young woman in a white cap, with a bunch of keys at her
girdle, ushered us up two flights of stone stairs, into a very clean,
nice apartment, with white muslin window curtains. Now, there is no
feature of a room that speaks to the heart like white muslin window
curtains; they always shed light on the whole scene.
After resting a while we were called down to a supper of strawberries
and cream, and nice little rolls with honey. This honey you find at
every hotel in Switzerland, as one of the inevitables of the breakfast
or tea table.
Here we were to part from our Chamouni guides, and engage new ones to
take us to St. Bernard. I had become so fond of mine that it really
went quite to my heart; we had an affecting leave-taking in the dark
stone entry, at the foot of the staircase. In the earnestness of my
emotion I gave him all the change I had in my pocket, to buy
_souvenirs_ for his little folks at home, for you know I told you
we had compared notes on sundry domestic points. I really flattered
myself that I was doing something quite liberal; but this deceitful
Swiss coin! I found, when I came to tell C. about it, that the whole
stock only amounted to about twenty cents: like a great many things in
this world, it looked more than it was. The good man, however, seemed
as grateful as if I had done something, wished all sorts of happiness
to me and my children, and so we parted. Peace go with him in his
Chamouni cottage.
JOURNAL - (CONTINUED.)
Saturday, July 9. Rose in a blaze of glory. Rode five mortal hours in
a _char-a-banc_, sweltering under a burning sun. But in less than
ten minutes after we mounted the mules and struck into the gorge, the
ladies muffled themselves in thick shawls. We seemed to have passed,
almost in a moment, from the tropics into the frigid zone. A fur cloak
was suggested to me, but as it happened I was adequately calorified
without. Chancing to be the last in the file, my mule suddenly stopped
to eat.
"_Allez_, _allez_!" said I, twitching the bridle.
"I _won't_!" said he, as plainly as ears and legs could speak.
"_Allez_!" thundered I, jumping off and bestowing a kick upon his
ribs which made me suffer if it did not him.
"I _won't_!" said he, stuffily.
"Won't you?" said I, pursuing the same line of inductive argument,
with rhetorical flourishes of the bridle.
"Never!" he replied again, most mulishly.
"Then if words and kicks won't do," said I, "let us see what virtue
there is in stones;" and suiting the action to the word, I showered
him with fragments of granite, as from a catapult. At every concussion
he jumped and kicked, but kept his nose in the same relative position.
I redoubled the logical admonition; he jumped the more perceptibly;
finally, after an unusually affecting appeal from a piece of granite,
he fairly budged, and I seized the bridle to mount.
"Not at all," said he, wheeling round to his first position, like a
true proslavery demagogue.
"Ah," said I; and went over the same line of argument in a more solid
and convincing manner. At length the salutary impression seemed
permanently fastened on his mind; he fairly gave in; and I rode on in
triumph to overtake the party - having no need of a fur coat.
Horeb, Sinai, and Hor! What a wilderness! what a sudden change!
Nothing but savage, awful precipices of naked granite, snowy fields,
and verdureless wastes! In every other place in the Alps, we have
looked upon the snow in the remote distance, to be dazzled with its
sheeny effulgence - ourselves, meanwhile, in the region of verdure and
warmth. Here we march through a horrid desert - not a leaf, not a blade
of grass - over the deep drifts of snow; and we find our admiration
turns to horror. And this is the road that Hannibal trod, and
Charlemagne, and Napoleon! They were fit conquerors of Rome, who could
vanquish the sterner despotism of eternal winter.
After an hour's perilous climbing, we reached, at last, the
_hospice_, and in five minutes were sitting at the supper table,
by a good blazing fire, with a lively company, chatting with a
gentlemanly abbe, discussing figs and fun, cracking filberts and
jokes, and regaling ourselves genially. But ever and anon drawing,
with a half shiver, a little closer to the roaring fagots in the
chimney, I thought to myself, "And this is our midsummer nights'
dream"!
LETTER XXXVI.
Dear: -
During breakfast, we were discussing whether we could get through the
snow to Mont St. Bernard. Some thought we could, and some thought not.
So it goes here: we are gasping and sweltering one hour, and plunging
through snow banks the next.
After breakfast, we entered the _char-a-banc_, a crab-like,
sideway carriage, and were soon on our way.
