Italian Alps

We get the first Alpine adventure just before reaching Chambery. Coryat was apparently a nervous horseman, and would not with his companions ride over the 'Montagne Aiguebelette.' Consequently he was led 'to compound for a cardakew, which is eighteen pence English,' with 'certain poore fellowes which get their living especially by carrying men in chairs to the toppe of the mountain.' 'This,' he says, 'was the manner of their carrying of me. They did put two slender poles through certaine woodden rings which were at the foure corners of the chaire, and so carried me on their shoulders, sitting in the chaire, one before and another behinde; but such was the miserable paines that the poore slaves willingly undertooke for the gaine of that cardakew, that I would not have done the like for five hundred.' 'The worst wayes that ever I travelled in all my life in the summer were those betwixt Chamberie and Aiguebelle, which were as bad as the worst I ever rode in England in the midst of winter;' but still Coryat says, 'I commended Savoy a pretty while for the best place that ever I saw in my life for abundance of pleasant springs descending from the mountaines, till at the last I considered the cause of those springs, for they are not fresh springs, as I conjectured at the first, but only little torrents of snow-water.' Why snow-water should be held of no value is explained afterwards. It is the cause of the bunches, 'almost as great as an ordinary football with us in England,' on the necks of the Savoyards. The swiftness of the Isère, the great blocks fallen from the mountain-side, of course strike Coryat, but he has also his eyes open for the snow-mountains; he mentions one 'wondrous high mountain at the top whereof there is an exceeding high rock,' and another 'covered with snow, and of a most excessive and stupendious height.' From Lanslebourg he sets out for the Cenis. 'The waies were exceeding uneasie, wonderfull hard, all stony, and full of windings and intricate turnings.' Coryat therefore had to walk down the mountain, passing on the way 'many people ascending, mules laden with carriage, and a great company of dunne kine driven up the hill with collars about their necks.'

The 'Roch Melow' (Roche Melon) was said to be 'the highest mountain of all the Alpes, saving one of those that part Italy and Germany.' We learn afterwards that this was the 'Mountaine Goddard, commonly esteemed the highest of all the Alpine mountains.'31 Monte Viso Coryat knew only by name. Otherwise he has no information as to peaks, and he believes that the Alps 'consiste of two ranges sunderd by the space of many miles,' and dividing respectively Italy from France and Germany. As to passes, he mentions besides the Cenis, the Brenner, the St. Gothard and the Splugen; he knows that the Rhone springs from 'the Rheticall Alpes out of a certain high mountaine called Furca;' that the Rhine has two sources from 'the mountain Adula,' between which and the springs of the Rhone 'there is interjected no longer space than of 3 houres journey.' So much for his Alpine geography.

I wish I had space to follow Coryat into Italy, where he discovers forks and umbrellas, and describes them with the minuteness appropriate to such important novelties. Venice was the goal of his journey, and there he 'swam in a gondola' for six weeks – 'the sweetest time (I must needs confesse) that ever I spent in my life.' He saw and describes all the sights we know so well, filled with the crowd which for us lives only in pictures, visited the Arsenal in its glory, was shown the Titians and Tintorettos in their fresh beauty, and bursts out into an enthusiasm which might satisfy Mr. Ruskin for that 'peerlesse place' the Piazza di San Marco.

Coryat's homeward journey through the Alps began at Bergamo. On reaching that town his route was altered by the news given him by a friendly Dominican monk, who warned him that a castle near the head of the Lago di Como was held by Spaniards,32 who would have little scruple in submitting a heretic to the tortures of the Inquisition. He consequently gave up the lake for Val Brembana and the Passo di San Marco.

In Val Brembana he saw exposed the bodies of some bandits, members of a party of thirty who had been recently captured while lying in wait for passengers to the great fair of Bergamo. The Passo di San Marco was then the limit of Venetian rule, and the frontier was marked by an inn bearing on its front the golden-winged lion. The house still exists.

In descending towards the Val Tellina Coryat saw the Bergamasque flocks being driven home from their summer pasturages. Near Chiavenna the 'very sharp and rough stones' were 'very offensive to foot travellers;' on the other hand, the security of the country was such that a priest told him no robbery had ever been heard of. The passage of the Splugen is passed over very slightly. The cataracts of the Rofna defile attracted Coryat's notice, but the old path of course did not penetrate the crack of the Via Mala.

The inveterate Swiss habit of reckoning distance by hours rather than miles is justly criticised as yielding 'a very uncertain satisfaction to a traveller, because the speed of all is not alike in travelling; for some can travel further in one hour than others in three.'

At Ragatz he leaves 'Rhetia' for 'Helvetia,' and at Walenstadt Val Tellina wine, of which he has a good opinion, for Rhenish. Swiss diet he finds 'passing good in most places,' and 'the charge something reasonable,' varying from a Spanish shilling to 15d. of English money. Duvets are novelties observed for the first time in Swiss inns, and much appreciated.

In Zurich Coryat was taken to see the sword of William Tell and told his history, on which he very pertinently suggested that 'it would have been much better to have preserved the arrow.' At the Swiss Baden he was shown and properly shocked at the sociable manner of bathing, which seems not to have differed much, except in the quantity of clothing worn, from that now in use at Leukerbad. At Basel Switzerland is left, with the unexpected remark that the bridge, the established favourite of modern sketchbooks, is 'a base and mean thing.' But our traveller has already led us too far from the high-road of Val Brembana – and here we must leave him to find his way home.

After all, what impression did the mountains make on Coryat? I think we must answer, about the same as on a commonplace tourist of our own day who has sufficient sturdiness of mind to be independent of fashion in his likes and dislikes. Horror of them he has none, and their dangers he is little disposed to exaggerate.33

He is struck by a bold peak; he notes a waterfall; he is amused to find himself above the clouds; he likes to be able to see a good many things at once, as from St. Mark's tower, whence he admires 'The Alpes, the Apennines, the pleasant Euganean hills, with a little world of other most delectable objects.' But he has not an imaginative mind, and a few days is a short time in which to develop an intelligent taste for mountain scenery. He is at a loss in the Alps from want of familiarity. His feeling towards them may be fairly illustrated by his attitude in matters of art. He is equally embarrassed by the glorious Tintorettos of the ducal palace. These he can only note down, he cannot appreciate. What he really could understand and admire comes out naïvely elsewhere. He saw in a 'painter's shop,' near San Marco, two things which 'I did not a little admire, a picture of a hinder quarter of veal – the rarest invention that ever I saw before,' and 'the picture of a Gentlewoman whose eyes were contrived that they moved up and down of themselves, not after a seeming manner but truly and indeed.'

The neighbouring village of Olmo produced a carriage. A short drive through an open valley brought us to Piazza, the market-town and centre of the upper valley, placed on a low flat-topped brow, the last spur of the range dividing the stream of Val Torta from the Brembo. Throughout these valleys the villages, although in number of inhabitants only villages, take the air of towns. Italians, as contrasted with Swiss, are essentially a town-loving race; north of the Alps it is mere matter of chance whether the brown cottages are scattered widely over the hillsides or clustered together; the southerner is more sociable and more ambitious, having ever before his eyes the nearest large town as a model. Even in the mountains he likes his native place to boast a 'piazza,' and perhaps even a 'Corso,' a name which can be easily stuck on to the first quarter of a mile of road. He builds lofty white houses and ranges them along the sides of a narrow street, which, with its barred windows, gloomy little shops, and bright fruitstalls, might be in a back quarter of Bergamo or even Milan.

The ambition of Piazza is leading it to erect a vast church with columns and porticoes, incongruous enough in a mountain landscape. Beneath the uncompleted edifice a car-road turns off to the upper Val Brembana and Branzi. The high-road goes away to the south through a narrow rift in the hills in company with the united streams. I longed to follow it and see something more of the Bergamasque valleys than their heads. Amongst these bold hills rising so near the plain there must be a crowd of landscapes of romantic beauty, and from every brow the most exquisite views. Moreover if Herr Iwan von Tschudi's 'Schweizerführer' is as trustworthy in matters of art as with respect to mountains this region is rich indeed. In every village church there are said to be good pictures.34 The great names of Tintoretto and Paul Veronese are coupled in the list with a host of local painters, such as Cavagna and G. B. Morone, many of them natives of the upland villages in which their works are found. But it must be remembered that hidden gems are rare, and that in remote hamlets great names are readily bestowed and seldom disputed. The real worth of these art-remains is a matter to be determined by further research. Objects of architectural interest are less open to doubt. At Almenno San Salvatore is a small Rotunda of the fifth century dedicated to St. Thomas: at Almè an old and very remarkable chapel attributed by popular legend to the Gothic queen Theodolinda. In the church of Leprenno, itself of the twelfth century, is to be seen 'a costly altar brought out of England at the time of the schism under Henry VIII.'

Convenient resting-places are not wanting. At Zogno, in Val Brembana, there is said to be a 'delightful' inn; at San Pellegrino, higher in the valley, and at San Omobuono, in Val Imagna, bathing establishments described as 'comfortable and much frequented.' For the present, however, I had to turn my back on these varied attractions. Athletic companions, a Chamonix guide, and four ice-axes, all pointed towards the rocks and snows, and were only prevented from rushing straight to the Bernina or the Adamello by my assertion, somewhat recklessly made, that there were glaciers in the next valley.

Our course lay up the eastern stream by a country road rougher than that we had left, but still passable for spring-carriages. In the morning the variety of Val Torta had come up to our hopes, the scenery of the main valley for the next two hours surpassed them. The rocky defile leading to Branzi fairly rivals any of the similar scenes amongst the branches of Val Sesia. If less noble and majestic than Val Bavona or Val di Genova, it could scarcely be more fascinating. The track climbs steeply amidst ruddy boulders and cliff faces stained a deep purple. Against these the chestnuts stretch their green branches or spread out at their feet in banks where the deep green of the leaves is shot with the lighter hue of the unripe fruitpod. Side-glens break through the opposing walls and give variety to the gorge, peaks bold in form and rich in colour fill the gaps, the water is blue and sparkling, the foliage fresh and varied. Churches and villages, with the usual accompaniments of frescoed campaniles and high-pitched bridges, are always ready in the right place to give variety to each sunny picture.

Nature presents herself in Val Brembana in a bright fantastic mood, full of life and vigour, yet not so earnest and severe as to strain our comprehension or our sympathy, or so large as to be beyond – more than, in its many-sidedness, all nature is beyond – the grasp of even an unambitious art. To employ a much-abused yet useful phrase, the scenery is essentially picturesque.

The valley when it opens again is more Alpine, although we are still only at the moderate height of 2,200 feet. A village, Trabuchetto, stands on the edge of the first meadows of a long steep-sided basin fringed with pines. For the next mile or two the road runs at a level over fields of the greenest turf broken by mossy boulders. A very slight ascent leads up to the first houses of Branzi, the chief place of the upper valley, locally famous for a great cheese-fair held in September, before the departure of the herds for the plain.

Steep hills hem in on all sides the verdant meadows amongst which the village stands. Two streams and paths, issuing out of deep-cut clefts, descend from the chain dividing us from the Val Tellina. A third torrent pours down from the top of the eastern hillside, some 3,000 feet above, in a scarcely broken fall which only wants volume, and must be superb after any heavy rains.

Driving under a dark archway we entered the little piazza, and, following a priest's directions, passed one not ill-looking 'osteria,' and sought another standing back from the high-road at the top of the village. Here again we were fated to be disappointed in our inn. Our arrival was doubly ill-timed. In the first place the house was under repair, and the upstairs rooms – if in their present condition they could be called rooms – showed ribs as bare as a ship in the first stage of construction. Secondly the culinary and conversational resources of the establishment were alike engrossed on behalf of two Italian 'Alpinisti' who had preceded us.

The 'Alpinista' is a novelty in Italy, and seems to bid fair to become a fashionable one. His creation is due to the assiduous zeal of the promoters of the Italian Alpine Club. That institution has ends far broader and deeper than those proposed by the founders of our own merely social club. Among its many objects are the strengthening of good-fellowship between the different provinces of United Italy, the advancement of science by the multiplication of observatories and other means, and the promotion of the welfare of the mountain districts by turning attention to the preservation of their forests and the embankment of their streams, and also by attracting to them some of the foreign gold which flows so freely into the pockets of their Swiss neighbours. Such a body demands of course no climbing qualification. Yet there are in Italy some proved and first-rate mountaineers, and, if the outward appearance of the novices is sometimes amusing to an Englishman, it is only owing to the apparent incongruity between a southern face and figure and an equipment so completely British, from the knapsack down to the boots, that one is tempted to believe the Italian Club must have given a wholesale order in Oxford Street for a regulation dress. But these young mountaineers are, as a rule, very pleasant fellows, and though exceedingly vague on mountain matters in general walk well. On the present occasion I fear we wished our fellow-guests elsewhere, for their claim to precedence turned our dinner into one of those hopes deferred which make the heart – or something very near it – sick.

There are on the map two obvious passes from Branzi to Val Seriana, one following the main valley to its principal head, the other climbing beside the waterfall and then traversing a wide stretch of lofty lakelet-dotted table-land. We chose the latter. The first ascent seemed endless; the houses of Branzi were always but a stone's throw in lateral distance, while the bells of its church tower rang out successive quarters of an hour enough to have put us ten miles off in any reasonable country. At last a green hillock was turned and the upper region discovered; a long green valley with shelving sides surrounded by bold scattered peaks. A terrace-path led along the hillside past an opening within which lies a large lake, the object of the day's walk of the 'Alpinisti.' We passed presently another tarn of clear blue water, the Lago di Gornigo, hidden away among the hills. The scenery was pleasing though not of a high order, but near the lake an exquisite touch of beauty was given to it by the apparition of Monte Rosa, a frail opal vision floating on the tops of the nearer ranges.

Grassy banks lead to the apparent pass. On reaching it, however, it is, in clear weather, easy to see that the glen on the further side is another feeder of Val Brembana. A short level traverse to the right, or the ascent of the rocky knoll in the same direction, leads to a point overlooking the true valley of descent. But the Y-shaped ridges may well perplex a stranger, and the pass, though absolutely free from difficulty, is one where most people will find a native indicator useful. From the knoll where the two ridges join Monte Rosa is still seen, together with several of the Bernina peaks and a wide view to the eastward.

The entire descent was for a pass of this nature exceedingly fine and varied. First we plunged under purple cliffs and past a châlet into a wilderness of stone blocks, a rough setting for a cluster of gem-like pools; some blue, some the colour of the Bluebeard when, to quote the latest version of an old story, 'it writhed in an indigo blackness.' Then a steep rocky stair or 'scala' amongst waterfalls, and a stride over juniper bushes brought us to a path, level, green, shaded by tall pines, with bright glimpses of distant hills and once of the golden floor of Lago d' Iseo between the moss-grown columns. We came out on to a mountain of hayfields, whence the Presolana, an isolated limestone mass between us and the Val di Scalve, tried with some success to look like the Pelmo.

When we turned downwards the path was a stony impossibility, and trespassing on the new-mown turf a delicious and harmless necessity. Beyond a picturesque, warm-looking village we were caught between maize-fields by a most penitential pavé, which led to a corner where a handsome young priest advanced book in hand before a fountain and a vista, as complete a picture as any composed for Burlington House.

Gromo and the 'Strada Provinciale' were now below us, and in five minutes more we passed under the church tower and the one unfallen feudal keep which still overshadows the village, and found ourselves at the doorway of the inn. This time there was no disappointment. We entered a large, handsome house, with a kitchen and a store-room, such as the painters of Bassano so often chose for subjects, dark and cool, yet lit with the reflected gleams of copper and the bright hues of southern fruit and vegetables.

Food here was as ready and good as it had been lately hard to obtain and indifferent; and but for the distance from the head of the valley and our next mountain we should have gladly stayed the night. Forewarned, but we felt also forearmed, against the kitchen of Bondione, we mounted the carriage which had been without difficulty procured for us.

Val Seriana, at any rate in its upper portion, is wider and straighter than Val Brembana, and the mountains, although lofty, do not make up in sublimity for what they lose in variety. As far as Fiumenero the drive is in fact a trifle monotonous. At this point the river turns round a sharp corner, and its last reach, backed by the horseshoe cliffs closing the valley, comes into view.

The Monte Redorta (9,975 feet), the highest summit between Lago di Como and the Aprica Pass, rises in rough tiers of precipice on the left. Near Bondione large iron mines are worked, and the leading industry gives the place the air of hopeless grime peculiar to underground pursuits. Dirt nowhere looks so dirty as on the pure mountains, and the village is the last place one would care to make a stay in. Moreover nothing can be less tempting than the inn, although a neighbouring house provides the unexpected luxury of two decent bedrooms and clean beds.

The houses are built among the huge ruins of a fallen buttress of the Redorta; and the natural cavities under the boulders, which are rather bigger than the houses, serve the inhabitants for store-rooms, cellars, and other purposes. The population of Bondione seem to hold firmly to the theory expounded to Peter Simple that a second cannon-ball never comes through the hole made by the first, and to look on these, to strangers somewhat unpleasantly suggestive neighbours, as among the 'amenities' of their situation.

Next morning we crossed the river by a bridge, beyond which was an 'osteria' with a rhyming sign, suggesting to the wayfarer bound for the Barbellino the need of refreshing himself first with the 'buon vino' of the host. Leaving on the right a glen through which an easy track crosses to the remote villages of Val di Scalve, a steady ascent through beech copses led us to a narrow platform at the foot of a great rock wall, like that which bars the Schachenthal in Canton Uri. It is difficult to see where the path will find passage; at the left-hand corner the Serio flings itself off the brow, crashing on the rocks, and throwing itself out again with fresh energy into space. As we mounted the steep zigzags of the path the first arrows of sunlight, shooting over the hills and striking obliquely across the rock-face, caught the most outward-flung part of the fall, leaving the crags behind still in shadow. Seldom had we witnessed so fantastic and fairylike a play of the elements as that now exhibited before our eyes. The water-rockets, thrown out in regular succession from the first rude contact of stream and rock, leapt forth masses of pure cold white. In a moment, as they entered the illumined space, they were transfigured in a glory of reflected light. The comparison to a bursting firework is inevitable but unworthy. At first they shone with the colours of the rainbow, then with a hundred other indescribably delicate and unexpected shades, from a brilliant green-blue to a rich purple. A minute or two later and the cloud of foam below caught the illumination, and the whole cascade was one mass of radiant colour thrown out against a dark background.

When the coat of many colours was stripped from it the fall, though a fine one, did not seem full enough to rank in the very first class of Alpine cascades. But its comparative merits can hardly be decided without a nearer approach than we made.

A slight gap in the rocky crest lets the path through to the Barbellino Alp, a flat meadow, hemmed in by rugged slopes. Near the huts we halted for breakfast and to decide on our future course. We were bound to Val Camonica, and time not allowing us to explore Val di Scalve, had determined to cross the ridge separating the head of Val Seriana from Val Belviso, a side-glen of the Val Tellina, by which the Aprica posthouse could be gained without a preliminary plunge into the great valley. The straightest and easiest course was doubtless to strike the ridge due east of Lago Barbellino, where, although no track is shown on the map, it is certainly easy to pass. But the day was fine enough for a peak, and Monte Gleno lying at the angle of the chain where it turns northward round the sources of the Serio, seemed capable of being combined with a pass into Val Belviso.

Seen from the Barbellino Alp, the Pizzo di Cocca and its neighbours are a bold group of rock-peaks, but they do not show any ice. My friends did not fail to point out this unfortunate deficiency, and to remind me that I had only a few hours left within which to produce the promised glacier which was to justify the intrusion of rope and ice-axes into Bergamasque valleys.

My own confidence in my assertions, never very strong, was now at its lowest ebb, and I could only repeat them with renewed vigour. Fortunately, unexpected assistance was afforded me by the stream which joins the Serio at the upper end of the level pasturage. Its waters were milky white, a strong indication that it was iceborn.

We followed the sides of this torrent, climbing by steep sheep-paths, until we were almost on a level with the base of the surrounding peaks. A rocky bluff cut off the view of what lay beyond. The head of the glen was evidently a broad basin, but how was it filled? Suddenly we saw before us a sheet of ice at least two miles long by one broad – the glacier of Val Seriana.