53. William Tell trip

The 10th of August 1877, I left to see the country of William Tell and the Rhone glacier. I arrived at Lucerne, a little town, old-fashioned like so many of the Swiss towns. But the surroundings are most varied. By steamboat I followed the Lac de Quatre Cantons, which is magnificent because of the variety of its shores. As one approaches the country of Uri, the scenery becomes wilder and wilder. The rocks are perpendicular and are thousands of feet high. I saw with pleasure the prairie of Grütli and the hotel on the rock which terminates it. I arrived at Fluellen, then at Altdorf, pretty village in a little valley, well shut in where one sees the statue of William Tell. Surrounding Altdorf is a low land, probably brought by the Reuss. This earth is very fertile, and with the heat of the sun which is concentrated in this valley, the climate must not be of the most agreeable. It must be too hot in summer and too cold and especially snowy, in winter. I climbed the valley where the river rolls its frothy billows from cascade to cascade. On either side the land slopes up toward the summits not distant, without leaving place for any cultivation. The climate opposes this also. The freshness of the grass and the bushes, the effect of the lively air upon the face, all reminds one that this is a country of pasturage. Then, from time to time, is to be seen troops of goats. It is thus that one climbs and finishes by arriving at Göschen, the entrance to the St. Gothard tunnel, above the region of trees. The village was filled with Italians, several of whom had red suits and seemed decidedly unfriendly. From there one climbs to Andermatt, a big village which seems to live at the expense of tourists. I crossed the Devil's bridge and in the Gap of Uri I saw also an ancient tower, called Zwing Uri.

From Andermatt to Hospenthal, the land is flat. The name of this last village comes from the Hospice there established. *There are there pigeons which are fed throughout the year, since the country produces nothing but a little hay. It is the most elevated point on the collar of the Gothard. There the winters are very long and very snowy. One draws the potatoes from Tessin*. In continuing forward, the route starts descending; then one has the Canton d'Uri to the back, Tessin in front, to the right Valais and the Vallée of Hasli in the Canton de Berne.

In these high regions the houses are built of flat stones. Shrubs of juniper grow there and are for burning. The cattle are of fine stock -- not too large and the farmers who are Catholics, do not appear less civilized than other Swiss farmers. On the contrary, they appear less timid than those of Argovie and do not have the dogs to worry the passerbys as in the surroundings of Reinach.

I stopped in a hotel where I saw a map of the United States. These people had a son in America. The guides who accompany the tourists are paid eight francs per day. They carry the baggage for which they are responsible. They speak a little French and English.

For strangers the summit of Gothard is a remarkable spot; but for a mountaineer these hills covered by grass, gravel, rock work, impetuous torrents deeply engorged, have nothing astonishing. However, the absence of trees gives to the surroundings an air of desolation which one doesn't find in the Jura.

Turning to the right, in the Canton de Valais, there is a large hotel, filled with strangers, the waiters of which are in black suits, the serviette on the arm, and the flexibility of their confreres in Paris. The hotel appears well furnished; but naturally one pays dearly.

At a small distance from the hotel is the Glacier of the Rhone one sees only the end, that is, what one could call its outflow. It is like an immense river, several hundred feet wide, flowing out of a lake and which would flow down the hill that forms the upper extremity of the Valais, and which, in flowing out is changed to ice. Then continuing to flow on the surface of that ice and freezing right away, would have augmented in thickness until more than one hundred feet. There then was this mass of ice which goes to the foot of the hill and which makes a great contrast with the greenery and the summer flowers one finds there.

In walking across the hill to the height of the level of the glacier. I soon found myself on its summit where appeared a lake larger than that of Joux. Enclosed in a basin of granite rocks, which rise to a great height on all sides. The first hundred feet from the surface of the glacier was a polished rock, as if it had received, just lately an operation of cleaning. Higher up the mountains rounded out, sterile, the eye saw almost nothing but pebbles. Varying from the size of the fist to the dimensions of several cubit meters. Higher the summit of the mountain was white with snow; and there, on this lake of ice, level surface, scattered with cracks, the size of which might have been ten feet; length one hundred feet; and, as to the depth, one could not know, but it must have gone to the bottom of the ice, where flowed water, which made a frightful noise.

My idea was to walk the whole distance of the lake, and in order to do so, I had to walk zigzag to avoid the cracks. I saw from start to finish something special. It was a block of granite placed on an ice pedestal, at various heights -- which might go from six to eight feet. In proportion to the largeness of the block, the pedestal varied, so that often it was a pebble perched on a column, and as I advanced the cracks and the stones continued to mark this tablecover of ice. I walked for a long time on this glacier with pleasure, then when the idea came to me to turn back, I thought that I could refrain from remaking my long zigzags by climbing the Schreckhorn and by descending on the opposite side. *I would thus be transported on the route to Hospenthal.* Having found a place where the rock permitted me to ascent, I climbed the perpendicular part. Then climbing higher. my feet made the pebbles and black and powdery earth roll, which would fall like a hailstorm on the surface of the glacier.

I arrived as far as the snow; but there the slope was always as precipitous. The summit seemed to me very far away. I decided to descend, to take the same road, on the ice to arrive at its outflow that I had made in entering upon it. Thus I left the glacier at six in the evening, having been on for twelve hours.

In all that day not a single person had come to visit the glacier. Had I fallen into one of the cracks, as it seems sometimes happens to tourists, I should have been dead before any man could have discovered me. As far as animals were concerned, I saw one marmot; and as to birds, one redtail. During that day it rained four times.

Altogether, a glacier is worthy of being seen, but I would counsel a person against going near the cracks.

*Here is the principle of the formation of glaciers. There are in the Alps natural basins that come from the configuration of the earth. Receiving the moisture which trickles down the surrounding mountains, they fill with water. If the basin is very much lower than the region of the eternal snows, it is a lake; but if at that altitude the water which fills it, freezes from the bottom to the top, and during nine months of the year, all the water it receives freezes upon the surface which thickens it enormously. Then, in the heat of summer, the sun's rays thaw the surface wherever they can strike; but the parts covered by stones or by debris, stay in the shade, remain frozen; thus forming the columns and the pedestals of which I spoke.

Another phenomenon less apparent; by great colds the ice swells, as we know by our experience in St. Paul. In swelling, it pushes against the sides with prodigious force; and the side of the outflow offering no resistance, this mass of ice turns to that side. Then when a thaw comes, the ice no longer touches its walls. The space is filled with water, and with the next spell of cold comes a new swelling and a new gliding of the mass. Thus the moraine (it is thus one calls the stones found on the glaciers) approach slowly but constantly the place of outflow and finish by finding themselves at the foot of the glacier. Naturally the ice, going down the hill, melts in summer and gives way to a stream and this cave of ice is much shorter at the end of summer than in the spring.*