LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[TO THE EDITOR OF "THE SPECTATOR."] Berne, August 26, 1870. YESTERDAY we were in the fine cathedral here, listening to some pieces on the organ played by the organist, a composer as well as a player of great merit. The organ itself is almost too powerful for the cathedral ; at least, it was not till we had retreated to the extreme end from it, driven away partly by odious chatterers who had no feeling for the music, and partly by the pain it caused to our ears, that we could enjoy it. The last piece the organist played, when the cathedral was in complete darkness, except that two feeble candles glimmered from the organ-loft, called, as we afterwards heard, " Das Gewitter " (" the tempest "), moved us very powerfully. Had the war suggested it, or only those grand thunderstorms which, visible and perhaps grandest from the terrace outside this very Berne Cathedral, break every other day, some- times twice or three times in the same day, over the Alps of the Oberland, and frequently, if the clouds have happened to drift away, light up the huge white towering mass of the Jungfrau, or the vast snow slopes of the Eiger, or the keen, sharp needle of the Finsteraarhorn, with a sudden but momentary glare? Which- ever it was, it was the finest sound-picture I ever heard. First, the melancholy whistle of the rising wind was heard, occasionally passing into fitful shrieks, high up in the great heights of the darkness above us ; then came the rushing and booming of the storm in its full force, the crash of the thunder, the swishing drifts of gusty rain, and great discharges of wind- artillery on the ear; and finally, you heard soft and sweet notes prevailing over the undertones of fury as the storm• died away, as if the composer had had in his mind the words of the Psalm, "The Lord also thundered out of heaven, and the Highest gave his thunder, hailstones, and coals of fire ; He sent out his arrows and scattered them ; He cast forth lightnings and
destroyed them He shall send down from on high to fetch. me, and shall take me out of many waters." As we came out, the organist was just descending from his lair, and his pale, deeply- lined face—the face of a worn and solitary student in middle life —was lit up by the two dips before referred to, which had been brought down before him. My husband asked if he might be told the name of the composer, and whether the piece was- published, to which the courteous reply was given that the piece was the player's own composition, and that it had never bees published,—and with that we had to be content. Whether the composer had had solely the great natural tempests of Switzerland, in his mind as he wrote it, or not,—which, of course, we did not venture to ask,—we could not help interpreting it by reference to a more awful tempest, and hoping that those sweeter notes of victory, beneath which the tempest sank to rest, might before- long find their analogue, little likely as it seems at present, in the close of the great struggle. You see the result of all our patient waiting here is at present only the hoping against hope that the calm imaginations of peaceful men may furnish omens for the issue- of a bloody and ferocious strife.
I told you in my last letter about the " inn of the Cure" at Heilig-- kreuz and Fend. Well, the take-off to " inns of the Cure " is this,— that they usually exist in villages so small that there are no regular tradespeople of any sort there, and all that is essential to the village—carpentering, clock-making, cobbling, baking, butcher- ing, &c.,—has to be done in the cure's own house ; even that would not be so unpleasant if they wouldn't do the butcher's work in the passage, just opposite the dining-room, so that you see the gory morsels in preparation even while you are expected to eat others which have undergone a slender disguise. This is a practice conducive to faintness and nausea, but not to appetite.. Poor dear Henry, who is as blind as a mole, and sees nothing that is not pointed out to him, was quite unaware of what was going on in our vicinity, and would never have discovered it, had he not observed that I could eat nothing, and was getting into what he calls my lackadaisical fits about the foreign food. So I had to. explain to him the cause of my rapidly increasing indisposition to eat, and then he shut the door on the objectionable objects, and began to lecture on the necessity of eating against inclination if I could not eat with it, and indulged in various prophetic- sketches of my condition at night and next day if I refused my dinner, which were at once lively and true, but irrelevant, since by that time no force could have got any portion of that beef down my throat;—the terrible woman had said confidentially the previous day, 'to-morrow you can have beef, for we kill to-morrow,' which she did, and had it publicly hewed in pieces into the bargain. How could one eat the twin dish, as it were, to that raw horror which. _ was then being held up to view by the unsavoury young man who was hacking and chopping away under the staircase opposite the door of the dining-room ? So we had a little scene, and I cried, and Henry stormed and entreated by turns, and I got down some wine and bread, and two or three mouthfuls of that detestable " Nadel- suppe,"—pale warm water (supposed to be broth) containing vermi- celli flavoured with some nasty spice,—and then we retired in dis- comfort to our pretty little room, where of course I strictly verified Henry's predictions, though some cups of our own excellent tea,. and very fair bread and butter just got me through the day. What added to my depression, besides incipient famine, was that the weather looked very like change, and our mules were ordered for that awful Hochjoch,—as high as the Stelvio, and with two good hours' walk on the open glacier,—for the next morning. It was some comfort that two German gentlemen and a lady, a professor,.
to proceed up the Hochjoch. And, in fact, they were off of his landscape as occasionally to eclipse a peak or a glacier. before us, on foot, accompanied, rather than led, by a con- The Professor availed himself freely of my mule's tail ; and Otto, ceited guide and a lively little puppy six months' old, to whose who at first declined tail-help, was soon observed to be safe conduct over the pass the guide humanely but inhumanly attached in like manner to the same useful membrane in the devoted himself far more closely than to that of the Frau Prof ea- baggage - mule. The muleteers, in their flowing blankets, sorinn. As for us, we started with three mules, one for Henry, their heads thrust through holes made on purpose in the middle one for myself, and one for our baggage. The morning looked of the blankets, guided the mules ; the buskined puppy frisked hopeful as we started, and as we passed through Rofen, the highest over the ice ; and his Tyrolese guide, with jaunty air, hummed village in the Tyrol, crossed the raving Ache, and left the menu- and whistled as he closely watched his darling's movements. Soon meat to poor Cyprian Granbichler, erected in the lonely fir-wood the snow fell thick. Now and then the mists rose and disclosed where be died, on our left hand, my fears began to abate, in spite the Wildspitz or the Kreuzspitz, or the Weisakugel, and great of the fearful precipices shooting right down to the torrent on sheets of sweeping glacier on all sides of us. But generally we our right. Soon we saw the remains of the Vernagt glacier saw little except the white expanse before us, the falling snow, peeping over our path, like the horrid effigy in snow of Titanic and ghosts of mighty mountains looming indistinctly through the tooth-fangs already in decay. Then we had to get off our mules mists. At last the glacier began to slope somewhat downwards, and walk down the steep path which leads over the debris of this and soon we reached its verge, and saw its bright green ice- retreating glacier, mined by deep winding caves of dirty ice, needles quite free from snow hanging over the valley of the looking greedy and horrible,—jaws of hell. Soon we began to Schnalser, into which we were to descend. Here we left our gain on our German friends, poor Maria finding the ascent of the mules, for the descent was too steep for riding of any kind, and Hochjoch none the easier for the glissade on Pastor Semi's stair- poor Maria had again to lament the negligence of her guide, who
case. The guide, too, had had an alarm for his puppy. In cross- now devoted himself to disengaging his puppy from his snow-shoes ing one of the glacier torrents which dashed across our path, the and making experiments on his riding powers, mounting him on the puppy was carried down by the stream and very nearly lost,—only back of one of the vacant mules, a seat which he did not long main- just saved by a projecting stone. When at length we passed them, tain. I was lucky enough to be assisted by a most polite chamois- just as the great glacier of the Langtaufererjoch, and the one we hunter, who joined us at this critical moment. Perhaps he had had to pass, that of the Hochjoch, came clear into view, the mists been in pursuit of a formidable bear which dwelt is these parts, began to fall heavily. The Weiaskugel was soon hidden. Soon they and which had quite lately destroyed fifteen sheep in a neigh- fell low enough to touch the glaciers, and the desolation of this bouring flock,—the remains of some of which we saw and also wild scene of lonely glaciers and lonelier summits was profound. very unpleasantly smelt. If so, he had not succeeded in finding It was nine o'clock too,—an ominous hour for such a change. We his bear, and was going home without any booty. To me he was interchanged condolences with our fellow-wayfarers, and agreed invaluable in that rough, steep, muddy descent ; and he picked to tarry together in the empty shell of a new hospice just at the the Alpenroses for me, too, as well as arrested my sliding steps.
edge of the glacier, in the hope of better weather. An ambitious We were not sorry to reach Kurzras, where we got hard-boiled German, bent on passing the Langtaufererjoch,—a pass difficult eggs to our hearts' content,—our German friends indulging in at all times, and very dangerous in heavy mist,—was dissuaded by Nudelsuppe ' of the most objectionable kind—and where the little his guide from the attempt, and returned to Fend. Our muleteers, waitress, touched with the gift of twopence more than she expected, on the contrary, said we might just as well go on as go back ; we seized Henry's hand, and kissed it with enthusiasm. Rain, thick should get wet either way, but one way was as safe as the other. rain, all the way to Unser Frau,—a beautiful meadow path,—so So we crowded into the shell of the future hospice, where a man that we went straight to bed there, pending the preparation of was found with some wine, a seat or two, a bed of hay, and best of tea, while a smiling Tyrolese waiter, in shirt-sleeves, apparently all, a fire-place and some logs. Our mules went in with us, and were got up, in dress, features, and all, for the stage of a comic theatre quartered in the unfloored rooms beyond us. It was a picturesque in England, was so much occupied in his own deep surprise and sight ; the fire soon burnt merrily, and I toasted my toes over it ; self-congratulation at in some degree understanding us, that he the puppy nestled in the bed of hay ; the muleteers and the guide regarded the satisfaction of our wants as a matter of compara- of our German friends lighted their pipes and sang snatches of comic tively remote interest. And here practically we parted from our song ; the Professor and his brother-in-law smoked cigars and German friends. I watched pensively the embarrassment-gene-
drank wine ; the much-enduring Maria consumed hard-boiled eggs, rating stockings hanging out to dry at the inn the next morn- and proposed that we should act a scene from the Walpurgisnacht, ing, partially cleansed of their stains ; and then we went on —the witch-scene on the Brocken,—in the desolation outside ; her our way, and thought to see them no more. Nor do I husband the Professor declared gallantly with a kiss that it was think that we did ; but once and again we exchanged a greet-
his wife, and his wife's brother, were bound for the same high impossible she should enact a witch ; Henry kept dashing into the destiny. But with a chill night, a drizzling rain falling at rain to see how things looked, ransacked his pockets somewhat rue-
times, the mists arbitrarily shifting from the high retreating fully for a crust two days old, and broke the Tenth Commandment cone of the Thaleit to the smooth white cap of the Similaun, in reference to his neighbour's hard-boiled eggs :—finally, the mules and back again, and that awful pass before us, on which looked calmly in upon us from their several apartments, and the the good priest, our host,—most brilliant of mountaineers,— rain descended heavily.
had once spent twenty-two hours, and just escaped with At last the guides said there was no hope of improvement, his life, not two years ago,—to be sure, that was in Novem- and there was fear of something worse,—the rain might turn ber,—while his guide, the hero of the Oetzthal, Cyprian Gran- into snow and make the glacier walking very heavy ; so we bichler, perished from exhaustion before reaching his home, leaving sallied forth with all the wraps on us we could contrive, and soon his desolate mother to flit about like the melancholy ghost we saw reached the edge of the glacier. The puppy's guide,—he paid no her in the " inn of the cure " so long as her sad life should last,— attention to poor Maria,—had invented four socks for him to cross with all these discouraging images before me, you will not wonder the ice in, because his paws on a previous occasion had been
that I whimpered myself to sleep. wounded and frost-bitten. On the glacier it was bitterly cold. At four next morning, the inexorable Henry was stumping about Henry said his hands were freezing, and after the first ten minutes, in his heavy boots, ascending into the carpenter-, cobbler-, and when the glacier became less steep, he got off his mule and took to watchmaker-haunted attic to look at the barometer, taking opinions walking to warm himself. Thereupon it was suggested that poor from early labourers who gave him no comfort, and finally ordering Maria, who was much exhausted, might ride, though the saddle me to sleep again for another hour till we had more certain presages was not a lady's saddle. And she was only too glad. Indeed, she of the weather. At half-past five he became sanguine, routed me told me afterwards that but for this timely assistance she must up, showed me triumphantly a bit of blue sky and a gleam of sun, have given in ; and " giving in" in the middle of a dreary glacier made light of the heavy mists, and gave marching orders below. meant, I suppose, ceasing; to be a Frau Profesaorinn, or to Before I went down stairs,—or down ladder, rather, for the stairs be at all, altogether. She tried, first, riding like a lady, were as steep as a ladder, —I heard the downfall of a fellow-mortal, but the muleteers promptly remonstrated, and said she must and shuddered, resolving to take heed to my own steps. Alas ! " balanciren Bich," " balance herself," or, in more popular Ian- we heard later in the day that it was the Professor's wife, who guage, sit astride ; which she made no difficulty about. Henry began the toils of her ascent of the Hochjoch by glissading valiantly grasped his mule's tail with his left hand and followed (involuntarily) down something worse for that purpose than snow- in Maria's wake, feeling, as I had subsequent reason to believe, slopes,—the rugged stairs of the worthy cure. Heroic Maria ! a good deal of delicate embarrassment at his close and admirable Spartan-like she suppressed her pain, and rising at the foot view of a very well-filled and large, but bespattered, white of Pastor Semi's staircase, declared her unchanged intention stocking, which occupied so prominent a place in the foreground
ing with their amiable wearer and her companions,—first in the post-carriage on the way to Meran ; then in that picturesque arcade of the old city, " linter den Lauben." The last thing we heard of them was that they were bound to the Lago di Garda ; but the following day came the telegram of the declaration of war by France ; the Germans in Merau, going about with anxious hearts and troubled brows, mostly hurried back to their homes ; and I much fear that the Landwehr has already claimed the youngest of our three companions, and that he is by this time re- calling with tenderness, in many a heavy march, the assistance he derived from that despised mule's tail on the Hochjoch, and regretting that the Kronprinz and Prince Friedrich Karl provide no such adventitious aid for their severely-taxed Landwehr. Fare thee well, brave, much-enduring Maria! May we yet meet again where mules and mules' tails are as precious to us as they were on the ice of the Hochjoch 1—I am, Sir, &c., AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN DIFFICULTIES.
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