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AN OBERLAND CHÂLET
AN OBERLAND CHÂLET
THE CHÂLET Grindelwald Lower Glacier AN OBERLAND CHÂLET By EDITH ELMER WOOD NEW YORK WESSELS & BISSELL CO. 1910 Copyright, 1910, by WESSELS & BISSELL CO. October THE PREMIER PRESS NEW YORK Affectionately dedicated to the other occupants of the Châlet Edelweiss. THE WETTERHORN SEEN THROUGH THE TREES FROM THE FAULHORN PATH...
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APOLOGIA
APOLOGIA
At a period when everybody travels, and the yearly number of English-speaking visitors in Switzerland is counted by the hundred thousand, the writer who presumes to offer the long-suffering public a book of Swiss impressions would seem to be courting the yawn reserved for the N th repetition of the Utterly Familiar. But the discoverer of a new country still has, I believe, some privileges. It might even be considered selfish of one who had found the way back to Arcadia to keep the sailing direct
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II
II
There is nothing particularly joyous about the process of starting a new house running anywhere at any time. Experta crede. But when you are a stranger in a strange land, whose language you are imperfectly acquainted with and whose inhabitants are as uncommunicative as oysters and inclined to regard the foreigner as an enemy till he has proved the contrary, the difficulties are considerably aggravated. Among the rank and file of the people in the German cantons of Switzerland, there seem to be t
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III
III
Looking out on cocoa-palms and mango trees from my Puerto Rican balcony (whatever bad things may be said about the life of a naval officer’s wife, nobody ever accused it of monotony) it is hard to realize that last summer our outlook was on Alpine meadows and glaciers.... How can I catch and imprison in words that glorious Swiss air or the more elusive spiritual atmosphere of it all? How tint the pictures with that characteristic “local color” of which we talked so much that it became family sla
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IV
IV
The Younger Babe made friends with an Italian workman engaged in the construction of a châlet half a mile up the road and was presented by him with a piece of wall paper about a foot square. He bore it home in triumph and asked me to paste it up on the wall above his bed. The comfort he took in that reminder of what he regarded as civilization was really touching. He said he didn’t mind the house so much now that it had some wall paper in it. Frater said afterwards that the Châlet Edelweiss must
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V
V
On the epoch-making twenty-first day of July, Frater and Antonio tramped into our lives with knapsacks on their backs. We were not expecting them till the next day. Frater had written from somewhere up the Rhine that they would strike us about the 22nd. In a small parenthesis he had added that they might arrive by the 21st, but Frater’s hand-writing, being of the kind sacred to genius, I had not read this part. They had come up on the train from Interlaken, but of course we had not met them at t
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VI
VI
The next week was devoted to introducing the Mother to her new surroundings. Our trips were limited by her tendency to get asthma when climbing and her inability to go anywhere near the edge of a precipice. Even when the path was several feet wide, as on the way to the Bäregg, the consciousness of a down-drop made her “dizzy in the knees.” But there were plenty of beautiful walks to take within these limits. And her enthusiasm over the life and the land would have inspired the rest of us if we h
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VII
VII
The morning we started out on our first memorable pedestrian tour, the Mother and the Elder Babe accompanied us to where the Grosse Scheidegg path turns off from the highroad, Suzanne, Anna and the Younger Babe having previously waved us out of sight from the balcony of the Châlet. I felt some qualms of prospective homesickness as I left them and a twinge of conscience lest one of the Babes might get sick or the Mother have trouble with the housekeeping, but by the time we had dropped over on th
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VIII
VIII
Our second day’s tramp was perhaps the severest test we met of temper and endurance. We had purposely planned for an easy day—about fourteen miles by excellent highroad (a diligence route) to the Grimsel Hospice. We had four thousand feet to climb, but distributed over fourteen miles of carefully graded road, this was not very terrifying. It was a test only because we had not yet shaken down into the habit of continuous tramping. At Grindelwald, after an all-day’s walk, we always rested the next
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IX
IX
We were called in the gray dawn, and I remember the chill of the bathing water. This proved to be the most economical lodging any of us had ever had, for the charge was a franc and a half for each bed , so each individual share was fifteen cents! We took breakfast at the hotel and had them put up a lunch for us, but nearly broke their hearts by declining to take a guide or even a porter. The faithful Baedeker had said “guide unnecessary in fine weather” (which it was), and we had no notion of pu
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X
X
The following day, during which we progressed down the Val Formazza to its juncture with the Simplon road at Crevola and up that road as far as Iselle, has a color in my memory all its own. Italy went to our heads. Antonio reverted to type. All the Latin in him came to the surface. Up to now, under the influence of our society and his English grandfather, he had been the most quiet and reserved of us all. Now he suddenly warmed up and blossomed out in shrugs and gesticulations, in song and laugh
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XI
XI
Next morning, after dipping large hunks of dry bread into big steaming bowls of coffee and milk, along with the rest of the beneficiaries, we took a cordial farewell of our good hosts, and set out on our way. We soon reached the highest point of the pass (six thousand five hundred and ninety feet) and began the down grade with long swinging steps. This day, indeed, we could not afford to loiter very much, for we had a two o’clock train to catch at Brieg, fifteen miles away, and we must get our l
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XII
XII
An exhaustive account of the causes leading up to my famous elopement with the cash capital would lead us far afield. If the man from Kokomo were here to cross-examine me, he would probably get it all out of me. But he is not. I shall, therefore, make no attempt to gain credit for the really noble and altruistic motives which animated me, and the reader will have to make his own diagnosis. He will probably decide that eight days of being called Fräulein and Mademoiselle had turned my matronly he
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XIII
XIII
According to what we had said in our Zermatt letter, if the boys had not rejoined us by the morning of August 11th, we would continue over the Gemmi Pass and back to Grindelwald by ourselves. We talked over the pros and cons, but could see no reason for changing this. We could not figure out any explanation for their not having caught up with us, if they had made an effort to do so. The thirty-two or three miles down grade on a good road, was a long day’s walk, especially in view of the heat of
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XIV
XIV
Our first question, after greeting the Mother and the Babes, was, “Have you heard from the boys? Do you know where they are?” The Mother admitted that she had received a telegram from them at Leuk Susten the day before, requesting money, and a letter that morning, and that they would probably get home the next day. They did, and the hatchet was buried, and we swapped yarns about our adventures. It seems that after we left them on the mountain-side, they decided it would be healthier for them not
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XV
XV
On the 27th of August we started out for our second trip, by rail this time, looking quite conventional and civilized. The Mother and the Elder Babe accompanied us as far as Thun. From Interlaken to Thun we took the lake steamer. It is a pretty enough trip, but everybody does it, and the presence of a swarming ant-hill of tourists somehow spoils the pleasure of the Nature-lover, while affording amusement to the specialist in humanity. We watched many of our fellow-passengers with more or less in
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XVI
XVI
There was nothing very scenically interesting about the trip from Geneva to Chamonix. So far as I remember, we played cards all the way. A certain thrill of emotion was experienced as we passed over the French border. The boys felt it because it was the first time, Belle Soeur and I because we were back again! The baggy red trousers of the soldiers of the line loafing about the station—Heavens, how natural they looked! Frater called them bloomers, but that was irreverent of him. Chamonix reminde
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XVII
XVII
Going over the Tête Noire is another of the things that everybody does, and like most things that are so easy, hardly worth while. I do not mean that there is no good scenery on the road, but there is nothing that quickens the pulse or sets one to breathing deep. Perhaps I may do less than justice to the Tête Noire road because of my bodily sensations while passing over it. I certainly was not happy that day. The beast in my throat had downed me. I had a headache and a fever, a cold in the head,
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XVIII
XVIII
The next eight days we consecrated, none too joyously, to the influenza. Frater and Belle Soeur came down with it almost immediately and simultaneously and were put in quarantine. We were determined, if possible, to protect the Mother from contagion, as a cold is a long and serious matter with her. So the two invalids were shut up in the dining-room with books and easy-chairs and a cribbage-board and had their meals served there till they emerged from the fever and sneezing stage. Just as they w
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XIX
XIX
Two days later, we were once more on the road, Frater, Belle Soeur and I. We were going up over the Faulhorn to Lake Brienz on the other side, and just because it was so easy to step out of our back door and start up the slope and we had no prick of a train to catch, we lingered around over last words and last preparations a good hour longer than we should have done. And for some reason that day we did not walk with our usual snap. So we reached the summit at tea-time instead of at lunch-time. I
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XX
XX
When we arrived at Lucerne nobody shanghaied us in the pleasant Geneva way, and as it was not even lunch-time, we resolved to walk about and explore the town before deciding where to lodge. We fed the ducks and swans, wandered over the covered wooden bridge inspecting the quaint old paintings of the Dance of Death, beat around through the older part of the town, and all at once coming back to the river, beheld the Gasthaus zu Pfistern. We had no sooner seen it than we recognized our fate. The wa
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XXI
XXI
At the Grimsel we received and sent off mail, including Belle Soeur’s and my knapsacks, that we might be in the lightest possible marching order. We also invested in provisions,—ground coffee, cheese, bread, chocolate and hard-boiled eggs. And Frater, at Biner’s suggestion, humbled his pride so far as to purchase an alpenstock. Also we indulged in an excellent lunch. The weather had been beautiful all the morning, as it had been the day before, but it did not look so well after luncheon. The sky
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XXII
XXII
Their over-night celebration did not prevent our fellow-travelers from getting up about four o’clock so as to get a good start over the pass. We told Biner we would arise later and that he need not serve our breakfast till after the others had gone. They finished their breakfast, but still did not start. At last it dawned upon us that they were waiting for us . We called Biner and expressed our sentiments. We thought we had been sufficiently emphatic before, but we left no doubt in his mind this
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XXIII
XXIII
If Biner had known we were nearing the top, he kept it to himself. To us three it came as an entire surprise—and an unspeakably joyous one. We were still alive. That was the main point. We had surmounted that inconceivable cliff and were still alive! However, we could not stop long to rejoice. The summit of the pass was barely big enough to stand on. The wind swept across it furiously and the cold was unbearable. Above us on either side rose the rocky, snowy peaks of the Finsteraarhorn, Lauterho
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XXIV
XXIV
The account of our Swiss summer ought properly to end with our trip over the Strahlegg. It was certainly the climax of our experiences. I do not know that any earthly inducement could persuade us to repeat that trip (I speak with certainty in my own case). But, having done it, and having come through alive, we would not for the world be without the thrilling memory of it. Biner said that after our late trip under the existing conditions, we would find the ascent of either the Jungfrau or Wetterh
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