Читать книгу Letters from Switzerland and Travels in Italy - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Страница 28

We reached this place just at nightfall. We have surmounted all difficulties, and the knots which entangled our path have been cut in two. Before I tell you where we are lodged, and before I describe to you the character of our hosts, allow me the gratification of going over in thought the road that we did not see before us without anxiety, and which, however, we have left behind us without accident, though not without difficulty. About seven we started from Munster, and saw before us the snow-covered amphitheatre of mountain summits, and took to be the Furca, the mountain which in the background stood obliquely before it. But as we afterwards learned, we made a mistake; it was concealed from our view by the mountains on our left and by high clouds. The east wind blew strong and fought with some snow-clouds, chasing the drifts, now over the mountains, now up the valley. But this only made the snow drifts deeper on the ground, and caused us several times to miss our way; although shut in as we were on both sides, we could not fail of reaching Oberwald eventually. About nine we actually got there, and dropping in at an auberge, its inmates were not a little surprised to see such characters appearing there this time of the year. We asked whether the pass over the Furca were still practicable, and they answered that their folk crossed it for the greater part of the winter, but whether we should be able to get across they could not tell. We immediately sent to seek for one of these persons as a guide. There soon appeared a strong thick-set peasant, whose very look and shape inspired confidence. With him we immediately began to treat: if he thought the pass was practicable for us, let him say so; and then take one or more comrades and come with us. After a short pause he agreed, and went away to get ready himself and to fetch the others. In the meantime we paid our muleteer the hire of his beast, since we could no longer make any use of his mule; and having eaten some bread and cheese and drank a glass of red wine, felt full of strength and spirits, as our guide came back, followed by another man who looked still bigger and stronger than himself, and seeming to have all the strength and courage of a horse, he quickly shouldered our portmanteau. And now we set out, a party of five, through the village, and soon reached the foot of the mountain, which lay on our left, and began gradually to ascend it. At first we had a beaten track to follow which came down from a neighbouring Alp; soon, however, this came to an end, and we had to go up the mountain side through the snow. Our guides, with great skill, tracked their way among the rocks, around which the usual path winds, although the deep and smooth snow had covered all alike. Next our road lay through a forest of pines, while the Rhone flowed beneath us in a narrow unfruitful valley. Into it we also, after a little while, had to descend, and by crossing a little foot-bridge we came in sight of the glacier of the Rhone. It is the hugest we have as yet had so full a view of. Of very great breadth, it occupies the whole saddle of the mountain, and descends uninterruptedly down to the point where, in the valley, the Rhone flows out of it. At this source the people tell us it has for several years been decreasing; but that is as nothing compared with all the rest of the huge mass. Although everything was full of snow, still the rough crags of ice, on which the wind did not allow the snow to lie, were visible with their glass blue fissures, and you could see clearly where the glacier ended and the snow-covered rock began. To this point, which lay on our left, we came very close. Presently we again reached a light foot-bridge over a little mountain stream, which flowed through a barren trough-shaped valley to join the Rhone. After passing the glacier, neither on the right, nor on the left, nor before you, was there a tree to be seen, all was one desolate waste; no rugged and prominent rocks-nothing but long smooth valleys, slightly inclining eminences, which now, in the snow which levelled all inequalities, presented to us their simple unbroken surfaces. Turning now to the left we ascended a mountain, sinking at every step deep in the snow. One of our guides had to go first, and boldly treading down the snow break the way by which we were to follow.