TRAMPING 'ROUND MONT BLANC
Poole, Ernest
TRAMPING 'ROUND MONT BLANC An Artist, a Promoter, a Russian, a Writer, and a Guide Meet with Adventures By ERNEST POOLE WE were tramping down a piney road along a precipitous mountain side. A...
...The mites were utterly dazed...
...It was nearly eight o'clock when the lights of Chamonix sparkled through the tree trunks...
...The wretched rain was at an end...
...One fellow had told stories that made you laugh till your eyes grew wet...
...and from time to time, bold and free in his own dominions, an eagle circled down and down, giving that shrill cry of his, suddenly swooping in the trees...
...I have brought my friends, I have told them of you...
...We stood stock still to listen, and from the depths of this seemingly dead and motionless monster came faint noises, cracklings, heavings, muffled booms...
...The sun had reached only the highest peaks...
...They asked many questions, hungry questions as to the way these things were run...
...A thousand feet below us the gorge was darkening into night...
...Slowly he took off his pack...
...Down in the Triente inn a Britisher had told us of "a jolly little path"—some twenty miles in length...
...There followed a moment of deep suspense...
...But the billiard room where I slept the last time I was—Ah...
...When the first big drops were already pattering down, over a bleak heathery crest appeared three long cabin barns anchored to the boulders...
...our friend the Russian, who for years had baffled the secret police of the Czar, gave all his wisdom to the task...
...With low grunts of solid comfort, blistered feet were powdered and loosely clad in soft old socks and slippers...
...the roar from the chasm quivered with life...
...and they could not understand...
...That was all, except for the motor cars...
...I powdered mine," I murmured, "morning, noon and night...
...but even then you must watch the cattle, for they were always straying down...
...The Russian was to room with me...
...It's throbbing...
...and at night the herdsmen crawled up there to sleep...
...they had found him black and shattered at the bottom of a cliff, had buried him in a hole and piled on heavy rocks to keep off "the vulture devils...
...And from all over the mountain top, goats young and old, disconsolate all, were straying to shelter...
...They had seen the tiny things whirl by two thousand feet below...
...EMERGING from a dark pine forest, we came abruptly to the edge of a ravine quite bare of trees...
...At a long table, crowded close together, nudging, chuckling, whispering, were some forty outrageous young girls, German, English and French, from a Swiss boarding school, out on their midsummer's tramp...
...As they spoke the thunder sounded now and then, not in claps but in dull sullen tones, making it easy to believe that demons were not far away...
...and as we tramped on down, five brand new vagabonds between the ages of forty and nineteen, with sleeves rolled up, heads bare, packs swinging and jolting over our backs, we were shouting the glorious old Latin hymn, "Let us rejoice while we are young...
...To get the views," we told them...
...IT was six o'clock...
...Steaming soup came two minutes later and crisp little mountain fish soon after that...
...What a home," he muttered, "what a home for children...
...Suddenly with a sharp exultant bleat the animal rooted Shorty out...
...He chewed, he drank and chewed again, and still he did not falter...
...Speaking low, the Russian briefly sketched its story, from the desolate beginning...
...Below in the center, cold forbidding, dirty grey, stretched a narrow glacier...
...Through a hole in one corner a small mountain stream leaped gaily in, was caught in a natural rocky well, overflowed, swept along a channel where stood milk buckets by the score, and found its way out through a rift in the opposite corner...
...And as he stuffed tobacco into those wide open jaws, he chuckled with a sudden hope...
...He drew out five shining one franc pieces, and gave them to the pair...
...Even the Russian, whose life was spent in rousing the dull peasants of the North, had trouble in making them understand...
...He fiercely cursed, and I fell into a dreamless slumber...
...The trees, the grass, and the peasants passing—all were dripping wet...
...So equipped he may leave the tourists far behind, and with them tourist prices...
...How much will you give them to tie him up...
...As Shorty rose, he gave a sudden cry...
...And then you came back here...
...Uncouth, shock headed men, these herders...
...Madame...
...And they were mightily scared...
...But in vain...
...And often in the days ahead we blessed the luck that had brought him our way...
...But I was catching cold...
...We had stopped at many springs for long delicious drinks, we had breathed as men were intended to breathe, and now moment by moment our swinging strides grew longer...
...he asked impatiently...
...Well...
...The mountains, they said, could fill with thunder and growl and kill a man...
...And with appetites fast rising, we common selfish mortals tramped gaily down the path...
...And Madame's gracious face, at sight of Shorty, suddenly lighted with pleasure...
...Under the pines it grew so dark we had to watch our way...
...In July and August, sometimes gentlemen came by...
...Shorty was nineteen...
...and in guttural French patois they told us of their life...
...Even among themselves they did not care to talk...
...This dairy was some twenty feet square, with a hummocky earthen floor and walls of huge grey logs, with generous cracks for light and wind...
...For a full half hour, up hill and down dale through the soaking heather, we hunted for our "jolly" friend...
...He did it with a smile...
...But again the mountains grew warm and sunny and brought out the grass, and this was fine for feeding...
...I can," said the big Russian, in gruff and ominous tones...
...They were only mites of four and five, boy or girl you could not tell, so untamed and shaggy...
...It was empty...
...TfAt any rate there are ten Republican senators who will not have to return home by the freight-train and back-alley route.— Chicago Tribune...
...He stood like a statue in the door and fixed those eyes on Shorty, who at that moment held his flask raised high above his lips...
...We had a good five miles to go, and already the shadows were rolling up from the valley...
...THE rain still fell softly from the foggy mass so close above...
...He had scorned his feet...
...but these passers spoke "bad French, almost as bad as yours...
...THE bath I had that evening was the kind that cuts a man's existence sharp in two...
...Hold on," cried Shorty, our guide, in sheer desperation, "it is always quite impossible...
...You were glad enough in the Fall to get down to your village and your wife and brats...
...fir trees dwarfed and gnarled appeared...
...It was dark and bare, with earthen floor, a rough log bench for sleeping, an iron pot and a smouldering fire, whence the soft white hissing smoke drifted up into the rafters...
...And for over an hour, with a clangle, clangle, clangle of his bell, old Judas followed in our wake...
...We turned and saw a gaunt unlovely goat with scraggy hide of dirty white and sallow face and stony eyes...
...The milking was just over, and in stout wooden pails they were carrying it to the farther cabin...
...I do not believe it will be conducted separately and independent of these other questions...
...In the City of New York, men ignore their feet...
...From time to time we crossed fields of dirty crusty snow...
...And slowly one by one, we slunk from our holes, while without a blink old Judas gazed upon his chum and softly chewed his cud...
...It was useless...
...And when at last, with three severe little taps on her glass, she gave the signal for rising, as they went trooping from the room, one by one they turned and giggled...
...When little by little our mirth had subsided, the herdsmen asked why we had climbed so high...
...He will not know his teeth from his tail...
...It probably will continue in connection with the progressive movement that has been inaugurated for the destruction of monopoly, the correcting of transportation abuses and the limiting of the powers of the great corporations...
...it became a little friend by night...
...Kids," he said, "I have brought a little playmate for you...
...The gorge abruptly widened into the steep little valley of Triente...
...When at last we were dressed "a leetle" in fresh flannel shirts, jackets decorously donned, hair shining from the brush, our hostess led us to a table, where the hors d'oeuvres were already set forth in cool and toothsome array...
...She clapped her hands: "Now I have ett...
...and below, the narrow valley lay heavily wrapped in fog...
...The Promoter had gone on ahead and was using his keen eyes and mind to follow the vague hints given by the herdsmen...
...Slowly their awkward grins and scowls were overcome...
...After that the snow of winter shut you in, you saw nobody till spring...
...Good Lord...
...Get out of sight...
...but not often, for a man knows how to keep alive...
...The hay was packed over the rafters close above...
...Many times we played that ancient game of hide-and-seek...
...In vain did their frowning duena try to squelch their spirits...
...There's a devil for you," said one of the men...
...Get out of sight—everybody—quick...
...What a beautiful world it is...
...We were down among the pines again, and the mountain side was spreading in gentler slopes out toward the valley...
...Cruelly we laughed...
...By ten we were snuggled deep in our beds...
...They talked with no one...
...But please, you must be quick...
...And entering the village, a straggling circle of cottages and small hotels around a little lake, we barely glanced at the loveliness of it...
...This creature is my friend," said Shorty in piteous tones, "he loves me, he will follow me through life wherever I go, I shall never lose him...
...His voice was so intensely earnest that in an instant we were all in hiding behind the bushes and boulders, anxiously scanning the path...
...And then will come a perilous crag and the little lambs will be avenged...
...The Artist mopped his brow...
...they had no quarters...
...It dropped with a thud to the floor...
...There seems to be a kind of economic evolution going on and these questions are interwoven more or less with each other...
...There are some who tramp with many clothes, sending their luggage on each day by diligence or train to meet them in the evening...
...Quiet as a mouse and busy as a bee, he had begun to lunch on the bulging rear of Shorty's only trousers...
...As we stooped to enter, the air was fragrant with their breath and the odor of fresh hay...
...We crowded in behind them...
...For a long time nobody uttered a word...
...the scaly trunk of a giant pine loomed stark and wet, its branches hidden in the mist...
...Madame had emerged from the supper room...
...they were always getting killed or breaking legs, and then one had to kill them...
...And two ragged little urchins sat by the gaping door...
...My foot...
...A more sombre playground could not well be pictured...
...Now and again we met silent men and women bending under faggot piles or heavy loads of hay...
...Great—guns...
...You cannot turn us away...
...And from a neighboring mountain top a dark purplish mass of clouds was rolling toward us dense with rain...
...It was cur first day out...
...with all our cunning, we manoeuvred...
...Madame...
...until with one deft jerk Shorty tipped a few fiery drops into the angular mouth...
...Five frarcs," cried Shorty...
...He came back smiling broadly, with a squealing little animal on each heavy shoulder...
...We cheerfully followed, and half a mile down it vanished over the edge of a cliff...
...Finally, in response to our wrathful shouts, the simpleton peasant boy came down and put us on our way...
...Can't you see it...
...up here we watched them reverently—all but the tall thin artist of our party...
...In another hour even these were left below...
...Even the rolling thunder had grown thick and muffled...
...Early that morning in Chamonix, setting our backs to the radiant slopes and crest of old Mont Blanc, we had started forth to make a great straggling circle of two hundred miles before we should see it again...
...And soon with a waggish twist of his jaws, without so much as a wink or a quiver, Judas Iscariot chewed...
...We don't purpose to let it rest...
...Even the simpleton boy who sat grinning by the churns, had a way of escaping the bolts...
...Without a word the Artist rose and slowly stalked away...
...But for a moment the other was speechless...
...A sharp gust of wind sent the fog whirling off to our left, from above the flashing sun broke through, and now all down the mountain side we could see little white billowy clouds careering, with only here and there a lowering mass dragging its dark curtain...
...In each low cabin, crowded close in two dark silent rows, the drowsy cattle lay chewing their cuds, with an occasional stowaway goat sandwiched in between them...
...From wooden bowls we drank delicious draughts of milk...
...Genteelmen, I am sorry," a stout affable Frenchman was saying, "but we are full—quite, quite full...
...But as the minutes pass and still you feel that jerk, jerk, jerk on the muscles round your knees, then begins the aching...
...As we entered the inn, from the low rough-timbered hall we had a peep into a room, a warm bright room, clattering, humming with voices...
...Later still, when roast lamb and sizzling brown potatoes began to have some slight effect, we looked about the room...
...the other almost shouted...
...And for the man who goes with a pack on his back: letting the friendly old mountains guide him, free to turn up any enticing road or path or stop at whatever quaint little village strikes his roving fancy: for him two flannel shirts, two changes of underclothes and socks, soft slippers, tooth brush, hair brush, sponge, some favorite little book of his, a flask well filled for emergencies, a jersey, and the thinnest of rubber capes—these with his coat make a comfortable fifteen pounds on his shoulders, and anything more is useless...
...The animal sniffed, again, moving cautiously forward...
...The trouble came with the cows, the calves and the kids...
...He had joined us in Geneva only the day before...
...They sagely shook their heads...
...The resinous air was rare and crisp...
...To all who would be trampers—beware of your feet in the first three days...
...Tramping down a mountain is at first a merry sport...
...All afternoon we had been tramping down into the narrowing gorge...
...And he pointed to old Judas...
...The jagged rocks, the dark old pines, the precipice above, the glacier close below...
...The short member of our party had dropped behind...
...To the man who loves to smoke a pipe, the world gives many snug retreats...
...For up here were goats and cows and tinkling bells, and birds and scurrying squirrels...
...he now came sprinting round a curve, and with one quick backward look he dived into a dripping bush...
...And when it is here, then I shall arrive...
...Supper had begun...
...We were up at six...
...And we were tramping high above the clouds...
...So come and I will show you—please...
...And our minds were fixed on one idea—supper close ahead...
...And some minutes later, when we started down into the forest, we left them with the Russian, one on either side, puzzled, serious, very shy, listening intently to his yarns...
...and when he spoke at last, his voice was low and dreamy...
...the midsummer sky, frosty and clear, was already beginning to sparkle above...
...A year before in Russia, he had helped me to get glimpses into the revolutionist world, and we had become good friends...
...We climbed the wet slope to the cabin...
...The herdsmen all guffawed...
...And then round the corner, sagaciously sniffing and glancing from side to side with omnivorous gray eyes, trotted old Judas Iscariot, looking for his friend...
...We held our breath and made not a sound...
...Yes, a man had his hands full...
...As we stepped cautiously upon its crunching treacherous snow, feeling ahead with our stout canes, the breath of it rose chilling and damp...
...These too were devils...
...Now for supper," shouted Shorty, rejoicing in his freedom...
...In the centre snuggled a cluster of buildings with smoke curling up and the windows already gleaming with lights...
...And gradually, with toothsome bits of chocolate and reassuring words, he soothed their raging little souls, until at last they stared in solemn silence...
...But suddenly rounding a corner of rock, in an instant all was changed...
...And with our long light rubber capes buckled over our packs and falling to our knees, we started briskly down...
...She hurried off, and gratefully we followed...
...Just as I was drowsing off, I heard him softly enter...
...The old goat sniffed, came forward a few steps and again stood still, never once removing his eyes...
...Aches and weary feelings passed into another world...
...As we slipped and slid and scampered down the steep incline, the rain grew slowly finer, until at last the clouds settled square upon us, dense and cold...
...The silence was intense...
...The mighty vistas were to them as an engine is to an engineer...
...But not thus did it happen...
...Young man," said the Promoter, "let this be a lesson...
...They squealed and scratched and pummeled, their black eyes glared like eyes of hawks, but he would not put them down...
...The mouth snapped tight...
...How about your sweater and your Jaegers now...
...Savagely he drew out his pouch...
...And as the rain came harder, spattering angrily into the open door, we drew around the cauldron fire with three herdsmen, sitting upon rocks and stools...
...and for some moments the beast shut and opened his eyes with amazing swiftness...
...Below us lay many winding cow paths...
...Over a ledge of rock two wild little heads kept bobbing...
...A half hour later, climbing the road that zigzagged up to the pass above, we first took off our coats, later we rolled up our sleeves, then collars were unfastened, hats were pinned to our packs, and at eight o'clock with the sun striking over the wooded ridge, we were breathing hard and fast in the thin dry Alpine air...
...What would I not give," said the gloomy Artist, "for my sweater and my Jaegers...
...By nine we had dined in bountiful fashion...
...For miles and miles, as we swung down, the wizard kept on Shorty's heels...
...Pityingly she locked us over...
...Yes," he said fervently, wringing her hand, "you have seen me before...
...Moving with never an instant's pause through the ages, the weight of countless millions of tons of ice and snow crushing it forever down...
...but he had been struck by a thunderbolt three weeks ago...
...They looked at one another and suddenly laughed...
...The dining room was empty, and as we sat at our coffee and eggs and luscious Swiss honey and rolls, we looked out of the window and shivered...
...The rest was hidden in gloom...
...For the making of cheese, in the corner by the door was a great deep hollow filled with logs, and over the logs and the curling flames squatted a monstrous caldron, high as your head, sooty black outside and shining copper within...
...The Fight Will Go On THE agitation for tariff revision will continue...
...Kids," said Shorty wrathfully...
...asked Shorty...
...the higher, the jollier...
...Leave drink and tobacco alone...
...But the hour was late...
...Our keen little friend the Promoter had started from his seat...
...NEVER have I seen more primitive abodes...
...Here, you brute, you devil, chew...
...long mottled vistas opened down to cheery Earth below...
...We gave up...
...Sunny patches swiftly spreading...
...The relentlessness of Mother Earth was sternly sym-boled here...
...He stood by the open window, motionless...
...She flashed a charming smile...
...Good," said the Russian quickly...
...It was jolly...
...The Russian had gone in search of the youngsters...
...we watched in keen suspense...
...Our limping Artist friend was a pathetic figure...
...Among piles of broken rock the path twisted up to nowhere...
...He stopped short, he sniffed and sniffed, he strained his ragged ears...
...When at last we reached the bottom and beheld our jolly friend winding upward over a hill, we drew breaths of glad relief...
...What a chance for a dynamo plant," he murmured...
...Well...
...You had better be careful, young sir," he added with a twinkle...
...He was the only stranger in our group...
...What's wrong...
...At least we rose to leave...
...Suddenly the Artist drew a sentimental sigh...
...This creature will grow dizzy," he said softly, "fearfully so...
...At last he waved his hand and trotted down a path as wide and clear as any scheme of Wall Street...
...From the foaming torrent before us he looked far up the heights whence it came...
...The delighted youth then pulled out his pouch...
...He may tramp and live and he may be happy on something over two dollars a day...
...It ees impossible —quite, quite...
...The cream was skimmed with wooden ladles and made into butter in clumsy churns...
...At noon we were seated on mossy hummocks under the pines far up the mountain side, lunching from our packs and watching with disdain the heavy tourist wagons toiling along the hot dusty road below...
...I may be mistaken as to the extent of their relation, but when I see the interests all working in perfect harmony here to protect their special privileges it is evident to me that there is a tremendous struggle ahead of the American people in order to protect themselves from the greed of these combinations.—Senator J. L. Bristow on the fight for tariff revision, in the Kansas City Star...
...Wide awake now, impatiently glancing over my covers, I caught a glimpse of him, shadowy, doubly huge in the dark...
...And now Shorty did a wicked thing...
...We hurried on, seeing barely a hundred feet ahead...
...For he was a rich companion...
...but the towering snowy peaks ahead still glowed in rich warm rosy hues, facing the departed sun...
...her plump French visage wrinkled in thought...
...asked the Artist, much annoyed...
...filmy drifting shreds of mist, dead white masses clung to the hollows, billowy little clouds slowly climbing the mountain side over the tops of the firs...
...But never have I found a place where tobacco tasted quite so good, as when with our dinners splendidly stowed and all our limbs relaxed and cool, we strolled into the frosty night, stretched out on a bench by the noisy stream, and watched our lazy incense rise into the cold still air...
...The Russian began to talk to the men...
...Spookish little firs trooped by on every hand...
...As we climbed on up, the pines grew lower and more meagre...
...From the mountains, the streams, the firs and the pines came the blended murmur of night...
...THAT night as I was drifting into sleep, I heard a groan from the Artist whose cot was close to mine in the little room under the roof...
...You will wish to bathe and perhaps to dress"—she glanced at our packs—"a leetle...
...Over its edge, on a mound of boulders perched a rough log cabin...
...If the Czar had goats for spies," he growled, "the Russians would be always slaves...
...We looked up...
...Judas Iscariot is his name," said their spokesman, "We call him that because often he has led young kids to the edge of a cliff—and buck!—over they go...
...But these are tethered trampers...
...Early in May they came up with their goats and cows, and they stayed until October...
...Old Judas had chewed until he had grown very eager for food...
...Down we slid and stumbled, hallooing in our glee...
...And I shall hurl a bomb...
...At this our friend drew up to his full diminutive size, and boastfully proffered his flask to the goat...
...Already in the silent mountains this simple giant seemed at home...
...The billiard room, the bath room and the leetle one under the roof...
...You run the most wonderful pension in all the Alps —magnifique, Mon Dieu, superbe...
Vol. 1 • August 1909 • No. 33
