Wanderings of a Pilgrim in the Shadow of Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau Alp

Preface

BY THE KEV. JOHN STOUGHTON. X.o, in the Vale the mists of evening spread ! The visionary arches are not there, Kor the green Islands, nor the shining Seas ; Yet sacred to me is this Mountain's head, From which I have been lifted on the breeze Of harmony, above all earthly care. LONDON : JAMES BLACKWOOD, PATERNOSTER ROW.

PREFACE.

. There are at least four pleasant uses accomplished by books of travel. They prepare the tourist for his journey. Without entering into any inquiry as to the relative value of expectation, ex perience, and memory, we may venture to say that the prospect of a summer trip to some fair land at home or abroad, is amongst the daintiest pleasures of human life. Sitting by the fire-side, with slippered feet upon the bearth-rug — business over, the gas lamp lighted, tea and toast just finished, maps outspread, or book in hand — right joyous is it for the traveller iufuturo to sketch in his imagination some route among the lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland — or over the Welsh hills — or round about and up the sides ofthe Scotch mountains — or across thejrish Channel to the Vale of Avoca, the Giant's Causeway, or the waters of Killarney — or by the straits to Dover, and on to Paris — thence running down to the chain of the Pyrenees — or dashing along railway speed, to the Valleys of Piedmont or the glorious Alps of Switzerland.

What dreamy visions of blue waters, green meadows, purple heather, red sandstone, sparkling granite, snowy summits touching heaven — with pine forests climbing up the side, and little flowers kissing the icy cheeks of the glacier — and winding zigzag paths overlooking abysses fathoms deep — and fresh cornfields, and vineyards and cherry orchards, and gardens full of plums and peaches, painting and perfuming vale and dell. And with the visions of nature, there come imaginai*y pictures of old towns and cities — with streets full of quaintly gabled houses — and town-halls elaborately bedecked with niches, pinnacles, dormer windows, and tracery — and palaces redolent with the memories of emperors, kings, and counts — and cathedrals, with gorgeous portals, rose windows, sculptured buttresses, crockets, and finials beyond num ber, with nave, choir, side chapel, tabernacle, turret, tower, and spire.

If the dreamer of these dreams, as he gathers material from books of travel, be an enthusiastic man, he is tempted at once to pack VI PBEFACE. up his traps and be off; but he must wait till days get longer and fine weather comes. And the pleasures of hope are oft repeated as he reads and reads again about the places he is to visit — and when young Spring has got the mastery over old Winter — and when Summer comes to take her lovely sister's place, and to keep the sun above the horizon till nearly bed-time— out of doors on garden lawn, or in shady dingle, will panoramas of what is soon to be sought and seen flit up and down the fancy. T Then there is tbe use of a book of travels on the journey. It is opened in the railway carriage, on the deck of tbe steamer, in the inn parlour, on the hill-side, and under the old palace or cathedral porch.

Then come inquiries after things described by the writer, and with sharpened curiosity the reader goes in quest of special points of view, and works of art, buildings, and antiquities. Com parisons are instituted between the impressions of others and his own. The difference of weather, health, and spirits not consi dered, he wonders that his author saw so much where he sees so little, or so little where be sees so much. Some of the prior dreams now fade into tame colour before the glorious reality; and, on the other hand, in some things seen, there is a sad falling off, compared with what they were as only thought of. And if I may add the result of my own experience, it has been in cities, and in works of art, that I have felt most disappointment — never any in the works of God. And now the journey is over, we come home, and go again to business, and then how pleasant in the winter after the excursion, again by the fire-side, or in the next spring and summer, again in the open air, to turn over the leaves of a favourite book of travels, and to retrace one's footsteps, and to get again amongst the lakes and hills, and old-world towns, with their old-world stories, and to reimprint on the memory images of the past, and to correct false impressions and to fill up outlines, and to renew in the " book and volume of the brain" stores of thought and fancy for weary days and sleepless nights.

But every one cannot take a lengthened summer tour. A trip to Switzerland may be among the possibilities of the suture when a broader holiday can be had, or when salary is raised or business is more profitable, or a son or a partner can have responsibility devolved on him. Till then the book must be a substitute for the railway, the steamer, aud the char-a-banc. It is the best substi tute that can be had, and often it proves a very fair one. PBEFACE. VII I think Dr. Cheever's " Wanderings " will be found, in all the four cases just mentioned, a most desirable companion for Switzerland. I have read it, more or less, at least three times over, under the circumstances described in the first three instances; and it has appeared to me fully to accomplish the most pleasant uses of a book of travels.

Some years ago now, when Switzerland was to me but a beautiful dream, I first perused these Recollections of a Pilgrim under the Shadow of the Jungfrau and Mont Blanc. The impressions made were of course indistinct, but they were brilliant and exhilarating, and amazingly increased the desire to visit such lands of beauty and glory. The book has been my companion amidst many of tbe scenes the writer so well describes, and it has added to the interest of my journeys to compare my feelings of admiration or otherwise with his. Sometimes I have heen less enchanted, sometimes more ; but had I annotated the margin of my copy, the confirmation of his descriptions would have been more frequent than the contrary. Full has been the measure of sympathy while gazing on the Rhinefalls at Schaffhausen, leaning over the Devil's Bridge in the pass of St. Gothard, cruising over the waters of Lucerne, or climbing the steep of Montanvert.

At the Baths of Leuk I have laughed with him at the bathers; at the Gemmi I have panted with him up the toilsome steep ; at Thun I have stood with him under the shadow of the green mountains, with the clear rapid Aar shooting like an arrow from the lake ; at Interlachen, aud at Staubach, I have watched with wonder the sunlight on the Jungfrau, and the rainbow on the " sky-born waterfall." My experience, like that of many on the Righi, was very different from Dr. Cheever's. No " layers of silver-lace dipped first in crimson, then in gold, then in pink, then lined with an ermine of light;" nothing that "looked like blazing cressets kindled from the sky and fed with naphtha ; " but only rain — rain, and rain. But then, coming down from the mount, I have bad through a rent in the clouds beneath, such a view of the Lake of Lucerne as was perfectly ravishing, the delight of which had been purchased from the dull damp clouds that lay all night upon the mountain top.

And such differences and contrasts are the very things which add so much to the interest of the perusal of a previous tourist's note-book, either during or after our own individual journey. Then, again, I have seen TEEFACE, the Tete Noire under very different circumstances from those described in Chapter XIII. It was all sunlight and spendour on two occasions when I rambled through the pass, and happily had not to discern " a solitary umbrella at the bottom of the valley." An umbrella drenched with rain, whether solitary, or in company, is a doleful sight indeed in a Swiss valley. Though not in the Tete Noire, I have had elsewhere, alas ! to see and hoist such a thing; and in like experiences of the drawback character, all travellers must expect to share ; yet though annoying at the time, the sum total of one's memories, taking in light with shade is, as an old friend used to say, " vastly pleasant."

Dr. Cheever has an intense love for nature, and looks at it with the eye of a painter and a poet — seeing things which the uneducated mind, and the soul devoid of taste and sensibility, can never discern. There is often a haze of beauty and glory diffused over his pictures of scenery which, while they may not convey a definite idea of the objects indicated to those who have not witnessed them, will serve to enhance their perception and remembrance by the companion traveller. With these "Wanderings" in his hand, musing on what he beholds, he will have before him spectacles of nature in her robes of most brilliant light, as she wears them on many a Swiss lake and mountain, in the sunny hour of noon. Switzerland is just the subject for such a writer: "perhaps," as I have said elsewhere, " no country in the world is so crowded with objects beautiful and sublime.

It is not only here and there but almost everywhere that one meets with something to arrest attention and inspire delight ; and the remembrance of the whole, till the parts are arranged and grouped into order by a careful, patient memory, is full of bewildering magnificence and glory. The things that artists strive to paint, and poets love to praise, the emerald-paved valleys, and the wild-flowing streams, and the fir-mantled hills, and the diamond-dnsted-snows, and the azure-tinted glaciers, and cloud-wrapped lofty solitudes; all these and many more come sweeping before tbe imagination in glowing visions. And then over all is seen the shadow of that Hand which moulded the mountain and scooped out the channel of the river, and planted the forest, and dappled with rich colours the field and the meadow, the rock and the cloud ; and, moreover, images are left in the mind which exist PBEFACE.

IX not by themselves, but are sanctified by many a holy association." Our author has so mused on what he has beheld as to bring out idealized and spiritual pictures of it with rare force and brilliancy ; and the associations which make nature otherwise than she would be by herself, are gathered up by him with an industry which is only equalled by the profuseness — some may think excessive — with which he rescatters them over the pages of his book. One great charm of his writing is that, from all sources artistic and literary, historical and experimental, he collects materials for his thoughts, thus giving a fulness and variety to his descriptions and illustrations which none but a more than ordinarily well read, world acquainted, re flective man could possibly command. But, more than by these things, more than by anything else is this work distinguished by its tone of deep religious sentiment.

This Pilgrim under the shadow of the Jungfrau and Mont Blanc, sees God in everything and everything in God. The Divine hand is recognized in every mountain, valley, tree, and flower ; devotion blends with admiring taste; the poet and painter kneels down to adore ; and ail nature becomes a templewith walls and roofs covered with hieroglyphics illustrative ofthe truths recorded in that Bible which the Builder of Creation has laid on the altar of his own sanctuary for worship. Not chance suggestions, or meanings put by man into the works of God, are the spiritual thoughts which gifted minds associate with material things; but real discoveries are they of mystic significations lying deep in the forms of nature like gold in mines and truth in Bible texts. I believe there is a Divine relation aud parallelism between nature and the Bible, and that nature is no less typical of the Gospel than was the Jewish tabernacle with its furniture, or the Jewish history with its representative men.

Heaven and earth — the whole universe is full of typical forms, and blessed is he who has the eye to see, and the wisdom to explain them. In all this, nature is the handmaid of religion, and must ever rank below her mistress. The spiritual infinitely transcends tbe material. " Believe, with Aristotle, that this should abide and that should perish, still there is in moral beauty an inherent excellence which the natural beauty cannot have; for the moral beauty is actually, so to speak, God and not merely his work. His living and conscious ministers and servants are — it is permitted us to say so— the temples of which God is the light Himself." And X PBEFACE. how much more may these words of Arnold be applied to Chris tianity itself— to that power which God employs in painting tbe forms and colours of holy thoughts, and iu building the spiritual temples for His presence.

Dr. Cheever appears, by natural constitution, aud still more through the influence of Christian piety, to be a genial man. Homer describes Nestor's eloquence as like falling snow. The figure conveys the idea of gentleness but not geninlity. A greater than Homer speaks of that which " distils as the dew, and drops as the rain" — as " rain on the mown grass, as showers that water the earth." There, geniality is combined with gentleness. The eloquence of this book is as genial as the rain. It is' full of refreshment. It is pleasant and grateful. It makes one feel happy. Whatever the writer owes to nature, I am persuaded he is prepared to vindicate the claim of the religion he professes, to the power of heightening the temperament that is cheerful, and changing that which is morose. The effect of the rain in the growth of flowers is not more different from the effect of blight or frost in their destruction, than is the real tendency of religion to make the soul genial, different from its supposed tendency in the estimation of those who, perverted by prejudice, only speculate on its character and influence.

I can safely recommend this volume as a specimen of how contented, and cheerful, and pleasant, and genial a man a Christian may and ought to be. With re. pect to this Edition, I would only add that, while it has been corrected and a few notes inserted here and there, indicating changes which have occurred since Dr. Cheever visited Switzerland, a valuable improvement has been made by the intro duction of a copious Index. J. S. AUTHOE'S

PREFACE.

. A Preface is a thing of inconsistencies. Though it comes first in tbe book, it is last in the author's thoughts; the first thing with the reader, it is the last with the writer and the printer. Though it is the shortest part of tbe book, it is by far the most difficult. And though it is no part of tbe book, it is sometimes the only part read, and the longest remembered. It is always demanded by custom, though oftentimes wholly unnecessary. It is like a visit of ceremony, with half an excuse for not calling sooner, and half an apology for calling at all. It is like the title Esq., which is no part of any man's name, and yet every man writes it on a letter to his neighbour. It is like notes at the bottom of the page, which, if they coutain anything important, had better be put in the body of the work.

Finally, it is like standing at the door in a rain-storm, and sending in the servant to announce your name. A preface iu the present case might have been spared, inasmuch as there is au introductory chapter. But perhaps it may be set down as one of those graces in book-life, like the touch of your hat to a friend across the street, which softens the manners, and does not permit men to be brutes. This doubtless is the philo sophy of it, though the etymology intimates that it is simply the art of putting the best face foremost. It may be questioned whether it were not better not to have published at all; but this should have been thought of before. When I first wrote I was thinking of dear friends, just as in col lecting my Alpine flowers, and of the pleasure I would give them, if ever permitted to show them my mountain treasures.

To write merely for the public is but poor business ; it makes a sort of commercial traveller out of a man, who goes about like an Argus, seeing with a hundred eyes, not one of which is his own; seeing everything for the public, nothing for himself; a kind of com mission agent to trade with nature, and drive the best speculations. AUTHOR'S

PREFACE.

. XII " These tourists, Heaven preserve us, needs must lead A profitable life !" They climb the crags, and beat about the bushes, for mares' nests, that they may show aud sell the eggs. What can they see of nature's own, of nature's hidden treasures, which come to view all spontaneously, just as the graceful attitudes of children are seen only when you are not watching for them, and before they have been taught to dance. On the other hand, to write for dear friends, and then publish, if need be, as an after-thought, is not so bad. Nor need the author tell his reasons for so doing. If the public are pleased, that is reason enough; if not, they care nothing at all about it. For his own gratification and benefit, it is better for the traveller in so glorious a region as that of tbe Alps, always to write, whether he publishes or not; and then, the copying and filling up of his journal is as pleasing as the revisiting of a beautiful gallery of paintings.

If he could make the description as interesting to his reader as the visit was to himself, he would never need an apology for a book. I do quite despair of this, and yet I have attempted my Pilgrim Story. In speaking of the shadow of Mont Blanc, and of day and night, of morn and eve, of sun and moon and stars upon the mountain, I could adopt whatDant. says ofthe light of Paradise, except that my dream of glory is better remembered; and this shall be my preface — " As one who from a dream awakened, straight, All he hath seen forgets; yet still retains Impression of the feeling in his dream; E'en such am I : for all the vision dies, As 'twere away ; and yet the sense of sweet, That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart Thus in tbe sun-thaw is the snow unsealed; Thus in tbe winds on Hitting leaves was lost The Sybil's sentence.

O eternal beam! Whose height what reach of mortal thought may soar? Yield me again some little particle Of what thou then appearedst; give my tongue Power, but to leave one sparkle of thy glory, Unto the race to come, that shall not lose Thy triumph wholly, if thou waken aught Of memory in me, and endure to hear The record sound of this unequal strain." Cabey's Dante, Paradise, Canto __xiii. CONTENTS. MONT BLANC. CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction — Interpretation of Nature . . 9 II. Mont Blanc from Geneva and its Outskirts . . 13 III. Cloud- Land and Mountain Scenery from the Grand Saleve . . . . . .18 IV. Junction of the Arve and the Rhone . . 22 V. The Truth of Christ and its Defenders in Geneva . 24 VI. Dr. Malan, Dr. Merle D'Aubigne, and Dr. Gaussen 30 VII. Dr. Merle D'Aubigne . . . .36 VIII.

Dr. Gaussen— The Children of the Oratoire— Religious Liberty . . . . .44 IX. Chamouny and the Mer de Glace . . .51 X. Cascade des Pelerines — Swiss Family — Coleridge's Hymn ...... 60 XI. Mont Blanc from the Col de Balme . . .67 XII. Starting for the Tour round Mont Blanc . . 72 XIII. Cascade Barberina and Pass of the Tete Noire . 76 XIV. Pass of the Grand St. Bernard . . .81 XV. Hospice of the Grand St. Bernard . . .83 XVI. Descent into the Val d'Aosta — Romish Intolerance, and that of State and Church . . .90 XVII. Lower Valley of Aosta into Ivrea and Turin . 96 XVIII. The Grand St. Bernard by Moonlight— Flood of the Drance . . . . . .100 XIX. Sunset — The Tete Noire — The Valorsine by Moonlight—Piety of the Guides . . .107 XX. City of Aosta— The Sabbath— The Peasants— Monument to John Calvin ....

Ill XXI. Antiquities, Calamities, and Bye-Laws of Aosta — Mont Blanc from Ivrogne . . . CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAOE XXII. Mont Blanc from the Upper Val d'Aosta . • 124 XXIII. PassoftheColdelaSeigne . . . .128 XXIV. Pass of the Col de Bonhomme . • .132 XXV. Chamouny to Geneva — The Bishop of Cashel Preaching in the Dining-Hall . . • 138 JUNGFRAU ALP. XXVI. Introduction— The Serious Side of Travel . . 149 XXVII. Lake Leman— Entrance on the Valley of the Rhone 153 XXVIII. Ecclesiastical Despotism in the Valais — Measures of the Jesuits ...... 158 XXIX. Physical Plagues of the Canton du Valais and of Switzerland — Hospital for the Cretins . .162 XXX. Gorge of the Dala 167 XXXI. Elements ofthe Landscape — Alpine Flowers — Jonathan Edwards ..... 169 XXXII. The Moon and Mountains— Village of Leuk . 171 XXXIII.

Baths of Leuk . . . . . J 74 XXXIV. Pass of the Gemmi— Trials of Faith . . 175 XXXV. Pass of the Gemmi — Successive Splendours of the View ... ... 178 XXXVI. Canton Berne — Scripture on the Houses — Truth a Good Talisman . . . . .183 XXXVII. Picturesque Cottages — A Picturesque Language — Right and Unright Innovation . . . 185 XXXVHI. Kandersteg — Frutigen — The Blumlis Alp — Lake and Village of Thun . . . .189 XXXIX. Thun to Interlachen — Interlachen to LauterhruDnen —Bible in Schools . . . .192 XL. Staubach Cascade and Vale of Lauterbrunnen . 195 XLI. The Wengern Alp and Morning Landscape and Music 198 XLII. The Jungfrau AJp and its Avalanches . . 201 XLIII. Mortar Avalanches — Valley and Glaciers of Grindelwald . . . . . .204 XLIV. Pass of the Grand Schiedeck to Meyringen . . 209 XLV. Glacier of Rosenlaui and Falls of the Reichenbach 212 XLVI.

Twilight, Evening, and Night in Switzerland — A Sabbath in Meyringen .... 214 XLVII. From Meyringen to the Pass of the Grimsel . CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER XLVIH. PAGE Upper Hasli and the River Aar — Falls of the Aar — Desolation of the Pass .... 221 XLIX. Hospice of the Grimsel— Glaciers of the Aar . 224 L. Lake of the Dead — Glacier of the Rhone — rass of the Furca . . . . . 228 LI. The Devil's Bridge— Savage Defiles of the Reuss . 231 LI I. Legends of tbe Pass — Cowper's Memoria Technica 234 LIII. Associations— Canton Uri, and the Memoirs of Tell 237 LIV. Traditions of Freedom — Religious Liberty the Garrison of Civil . . . . .240 LV. Lake of Uri and Town of Lucerne . . . 247 LVI. Ascent of the Righi — -Extraordinary Glory of the View . . . . ' . .251 LVII. Lucerne to Einseidlen — Dr. Zay's History of the Rossberg Avalanche .... 259 LVIII.

Morgarten, Sempach, and Arnold of Winkelried . 264 LIX. Pilgrimage to Einseidlen and Worship ofthe Virgin 266 LX. Zurich and Zwingle — Banishment of Protestants from Locarno ..... 272 LXI. Scenery on tbe Lake of Zurich — Poetry for Pilgrims —Grandeur of the Lake of Wallenstadt . . 277 LXII. Baths of Pfeffers — Gorge of tbe Tamina — Coire and the Grisons . . . . .281 LXIII. Course of the Rhine — Louis Philippe, the Royal Schoolmaster at Reichenau — Reichenau to Thusis 284 LXIV. Terrific grandeur of the Spulgen — The Via Maxa — Creation as a Teacher of God . . .288 LXV. Natural Theology of the Splugen . . .292 LXVI. Pass of the Splugen into Italy— The Cardinell and Macdonald's Army — Campo Dolcino and Chiavenna 295 LXVIT. The Buried Town of Pleurs . . . .300 LXV1II. Beauty of the Lake of Como — Como to Milan — Leonardo da Vinci ..... 304 LXIX.

The Cathedral of Milan— The Gospel in Italy . 308 LXX. Silvio Pellico, and the Bible in Italy . . .311 LXXI. The Farewell — Swiss Character and Freedom . IN THE SHADOW" OF MONT BLANC, etc.

Introduction

INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.

The fasciculus of leaves from the journal of a summer's travel here presented to the reader is more like a familiar letter than a book. It was written at first for the perusal of a few friends, and it makes no pretensions to depth or greatness, hut is a quiet ex pression of thoughts and feelings which any man may experience amidst tbe wonders of Alpine scenery. There is neither political economy, nor geology, nor botany, nor musical, nor theatrical, nor statistical information much attempted in it. And yet it is pos sible to find in such a journal a hook which may beguile and henefit hoth the traveller among the Alps and the pilgrim at home ; a hook " which meets us like a pleasant thought when such is wanted." Mere descriptions, he the scenery ever so grand, are cloying and tiresome, and soon become tame.

It is like living upon poundcake and cream, or rather upon whip-syllabub. But if, while the eye is pleased, the heart may he active, and the mind awakened into deep thought — if the thought be such as befits the immortal tenant of a world so beautiful, then will the mind and heart he at harmony with nature, and the language which the very frame of the world speaks will he understood, and the spirit which pervades such a world will imbue the being as a calm and gentle element. Nothing is more desirable than for a traveller so to converse with Nature as well as with mankind. We do not con men's features alone when we meet them ; we do not report their eye hrows, their noses, their lips, the colour of their eyes, and think we have done with them; we learn their habits, thoughts, feelings; we speak to their souls.

And Nature hath a soul as well as features. But a man's own soul must he awakened within him, and not his pleasure-loving faculties and propensities merely, if he would enter into communion with the soul that is in Nature. B Otherwise, it is as with a vacant stare that he sees mountains, forests, bright skies, and sounding cataracts pass before him ; otherwise, it is like a sleep-walker that he himself wanders among them. What is not in himself he finds not in nature ; aud as all study is but a discipline to call forth our immortal faculties, no good will it do the man to range through nature as a study, it his inward being be asleep, if his mind be world-rusted and insensible. " It were a vain endeavour Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west : I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life'whose fountains are within."

And hence the extreme and melancholy beauty of that passage in John Foster's writings, where he speaks of the power of external nature as an agent in our education, and laments the inward deficiency in many minds, which prevents our " foster-mother " from being able to instil into them her sweetest, most exquisite tones and lessons. " It might be supposed" he says, "that the scenes of nature, an amazing assemblage of phenomena, if their effect were not lost through familiarity, would have a powerful influence on all opening minds, and transfer into the internal economy of ideas and sentiment something of a character and a colour correspondent to the beauty, vicissitude, and grandeur which continually press on the senses. On minds of genius they often have this effect ; and Beattie's, 'Minstrel' maybe as just as it is a fascinating description of the feelings of such a mind.

But on the greatest number this influence operates feebly; you will not see the process in children, nor the result in mature persons. The charms of nature are objects only of sight and hearing, not of sensibility and imagination. And even the sight and hearing do not receive impressions sufficiently distinct and forcible for clear recollection ; it is not therefore strange that these impres sions seldom go so much deeper than the senses, as to awaken pensiveness or enthusiasm, and fill the mind with an interior permanent scenery of beautiful images at its own command. This defect of fancy and sensibility is unfortunate amidst a creation infinitely rich with grand and beautiful objects, which, imparting something more than images to a mind adapted and habituated to converse with nature, inspire an exquisite sentiment, that seems like the emanation of a spirit residing in them.