Italian Alps

21. A winged Death, galloping on a white horse, with bow stretched in act to shoot at the groups previously described. Inscriptions illegible.

22. A square red shield with the lines —

Arcangelo Michel de l'anime difensore,Intercede pro nobis al Creatore.

The archangel St. Michael with a bloody sword, and above him an angel who holds in his hands on a cloth a beaming and beautiful soul. Beneath is written —

Morte struzer non pol chi sempre vive.

23. A winged demon; above him the inscription 'Io seguito la morte e questo mio guardeano, d'onde e scripto, li mali oprator chi meno al inferno.' He carries on his back a large open volume, in which are written the seven deadly sins. Beneath the 'Dance of Death' are allegorical representations of the seven deadly sins and the date 1539.

APPENDIX E.

THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE BRENTA GROUP

There has been much confusion of late years as to the names to be given to the two highest summits of this range, which stand respectively N. and S.W. of the Bocca di Brenta.

The old and very incorrect Government Map of Tyrol gives the name of Cima Tosa to the N. peak, and none to the S. and highest. Mr. Ball, the first mountaineer who explored this country, adhered, on his first visit, to the name given by the Survey to the N. peak, and to the S. gave the name of Cima di Brenta or Brenta Alta. Lieutenant Payer followed Mr. Ball's example in his article on the Bocca di Brenta in the fifth volume of the Austrian Alpine Club's Publication.

When, however, in 1865, Mr. Ball made from Molveno the first ascent of the S. peak, he found that his guide, a native of that village, knew it as 'La Tosa.' Mr. Ball therefore seemed in his last edition disposed to give the collective name of Brenta to the chain, and to call the S. peak the Cima Tosa; but he ignored the difficulty that the almost equally important N. summit, hitherto known to chartographers and English climbers as the Cima Tosa, was left nameless.

In this state of things the attention of the newly formed Trentine Alpine Society was called to the subject, and they promptly appointed a committee to inquire into and consider the local usage. The results of this inquiry are now shortly stated.

The Val di Brenta gives its name to the group. The point S. of the Bocca di Brenta is known as La Tosa throughout the country. The peak N. of the Bocca (the Cima Tosa of the map) is called in Val Brenta the Cima di Brenta. The following names are wrongly given in the Austrian map: – Val Asinella for Vallesinella, Val Agnola for Val Agola, Val Dalcon for Val d'Algone. The names Bocca di Vallazza, Bocca della Vallesinella, Bocca dei Camozzi, and Passo d'Ambies, suggested for the passes discovered of late years by English climbers, are, as I understand, accepted. The Bocca della Vallesinella is the pass first called Bocca di Tosa by Mr. Tuckett.

Some curious etymological details are added to the report. Tosa, supposed by Mr. Ball to be equivalent to 'virgin,' is stated to be a contraction of tosata = shaven, a title derived from the bald, rounded aspect of the peak when seen from the east. 'Brenta' is a local word in the Sarca valley for a shallow vessel used for soup in cottages: thence it is applied to the stagnant pools or tarns common in the dolomite glens. In this way the word gets attached to the glen itself, and finally to the peak above it. Cima di Brenta is, it would seem, therefore, the Italian equivalent for Kesselkogel.

There was one other quarter to which it was natural to look for information – the officers at the head of the Viennese Ordnance Survey Department, who have recently re-surveyed the Trentino. But every application for information – although made to the Head of the Department through influential Austrian friends, and in the name of the English Alpine Club – was met by a refusal, or a promise broken as soon as made. I finally sent an extract from the old Government Map, with a request that the names adopted in the new survey for the two chief peaks of the Brenta group might be written across it. Even this the office declined to do. Such a refusal was the more unexpected as the French and Swiss Engineers have always been ready to give every information, even where there was real prospect of rivalry between the private work in hand and the Government survey.

From photographs I have seen of some portions of the new map, I feel sure that although much too large for general use it will be valuable to explorers, and I recommend every mountaineer intending to visit the Trentino or the Italian Tyrol to inquire through Messrs. Stanford if it is yet out, and if possible to purchase the sheets he will require.

Time has not verified the official statement made in March last that the sheets containing the Brenta group 'would be published in a few days,' but they may probably be looked for within the next year or two. If, when they appear, the nomenclature adopted proves different in any way from that here given, General Dobner, the head of the Department, will be alone to blame for any confusion to which the discrepancy may give rise. I should have been glad to follow the authority of his map; but the nomenclature I have used, coming as it does from the very best local authorities, can scarcely, if the engineers have gone for information to the same source, differ widely from theirs.

I have taken the heights in my map from the reductions from the Kataster of Mr. Ball and from a table contained in the 'Annuario' for 1874 of the Trentine Alpine Society. The peaks are mostly derived from the latter, the villages from the former authority.

I may mention here that I have been unable to adopt the heights given for the Primiero peaks in the same 'Annuario.' The Cimon della Pala is there set down as 3,550 metres = 11,647 feet, and the Palle di San Martino as 2,953 metres = 9,688 feet. The first of these figures is as much over as the other is under the mark. In the same list the height of the Sass Maor is probably pretty correctly given as 10,656 feet, and that of the C. della Rosetta as 10,266 feet.

APPENDIX F.

TYROL v. TIROL

I ought perhaps briefly to notice this lately raised question of orthography, and to explain the grounds on which I decline to follow the example set by two authoresses, who seem anxious to introduce into our literature the confusion which already prevails in Germany as to the correct spelling of the name of this province. If it could be proved that 'Tirol' was the invariable local and German spelling, as Miss Busk seems to fancy it is, there would at least be a good argument for changing our present practice. But I am informed by a gentleman living near Innsbruck that in the old histories he has consulted the form used is 'Tyrol.' I have myself noted, during the last few weeks, the spelling adopted in the German books I have had occasion to refer to; and, so far from 'Tirol' being universal or 'Tyrol' obsolete, I find the latter form preferred by Herr von Sonklar, Herr Liebeskind, Herr Studer, Herr Siber Gysi, the late Professor Theobald, and the 'Alpenpost;' in a set of views published at Leipzig is one of 'Schloss Tyrol,' and in another set published at Partenkirchen (Bavaria) the 'y' is also throughout adopted. In maps the balance of authority is for 'Tyrol.' I may cite Anich and Huber's, 1774; Pfaundlers, 1783; Schwatz's, 1795; Unterberger's Innsbruck, 1826; Artaria's, 1839; and the 24-sheet Government map of the whole country. They can all be found in one box (No. 21) in the Geographical Society's Map-room.

I do not of course question the fact that the spelling 'Tirol' is now very frequently preferred abroad both in maps and books; but the assertion that it is the more ancient form, and the one exclusively sanctioned by local use, seems to be wholly unsupported by evidence.

1

The Livigno district has been touched on in two works, A Summer Tour in the Grisons, by Mrs. H. Freshfield, and Here and There in the Alps, by the Hon. F. Plunket, but the route here described was not previously known. There is a pleasant description of Val di Sole, in On Foot through Tyrol, by Walter White. Chapman and Hall, 1856.

2

See Appendix F on 'Tyrol v. Tirol.'

3

See Appendix E for further details on this subject.

4

I have not succeeded in discovering any connection between the word, Maggia and Maggiore.

5

Bignasco is only 1,400 feet above the sea.

6

The falls of Krimml in Tyrol are probably on the whole the Alpine cataract in which height of fall, force of water, and picturesque surroundings are most thoroughly united. There are many falls in the Adamello group which a painter would prefer to the cascade of the Tosa.

7

Between the years 1850-56, one-eighth of the whole population, and one-fourth of the male population, left their homes. Amongst the emigrants were 324 married men, only two of whom took their wives with them!

8

The herdsmen of these châlets have a way to the Val Formazza without crossing the Basodine. The 'Bocchetta di Val Maggia,' a gap in the rocky ridge at the north-eastern corner of the Cavergno glacier, brings them on to the pasturages near the San Giacomo Pass, whence either Airolo or the Tosa Falls can be gained without further ascent.

9

Domenico Macaneo, in his Verbani lacus locorumque adjacentium chorographica descriptio, quoted by Studer, Physische Geographie der Schweiz. These notices suggest that the Val Verzascans may be a relic of some primitive tribe, but I have no authority for imputing to them ethnological importance.

10

Between the two valleys mentioned above is Val Onsernone (see Alpine Guide, p. 315, and Appendix) penetrated for some distance by a carriage-road. In a lively article in the fifth Jahrbuch of the Swiss Alpine Club, Herr Hoffmann Burkhardt describes the scenery as most varied and charming, and the road 'as a magnificent example of a mountain-road, and a most striking evidence of the talent of the Tessiners in this department of human industry.'

11

The carriage-road was expected to be finished throughout in 1875.

12

This and the following chapter were originally written as a paper to be read before the Alpine Club.

13

See Vignette.

14

Herr Theobald states that the villagers of Bondo give the name of Trubinesca to the Cima di Tschingel of the Federal map. Herr Ziegler, the author of a new and very beautifully executed map of this portion of the Alps, confirms this statement, adding that 'Turbinesca' is the correct spelling, and he has accordingly changed the names of the two peaks. As a rule, local usage should, no doubt, be followed. But in the present instance, the mistake is of such long standing, that an endeavour to correct it would only lead to confusion, and I have adhered to the nomenclature of the Federal map. It is much to be regretted that Herr Ziegler's map is wholly inaccurate with regard to the glaciers of Val Masino, and the position of many of the ridges dividing its lateral glens.

15

Naturbilder aus den Rhätischen Alpen: Chur, 1861.

16

The junction of this spur, the Cima Sciascia, with the principal ridge, has been placed too far east in all maps previous to the Alpine Club Map of Switzerland.

17

I am disposed to doubt whether a direct pass from the Bondasca Glacier to the western branch of Val Masino was ever effected before 1865. It is true there is a tradition embodied in the Swiss Federal map of such a pass. It is possible, however, that smugglers may have gone up to the Passo di Ferro, and then scrambled westward over the rocks into the basin of the Porcellizza Alp.

18

The pass was at first named the Disgrazia Joch; but Passo di Mello, suggested by Mr. Ball, seems the most appropriate title.

19

So named by Messrs. Stephen and Kennedy, who apparently considered the gloominess of the surrounding names required some relief. The Monte della Disgrazia is supported on the other side by the Monte della Cassandra.

20

Judging from the map appended to Mr. Kennedy's paper in the first vol. of the Alpine Journal, he crossed the spur at a much lower point than we did.

21

This gap is probably the Passo della Preda Rossa of an Italian party who in 1874 ascended the Disgrazia from the Alp Rali in Val Torreggio.

22

According to Herr Ziegler's map of the Lower Engadine, the principal glacier of Val Lavinuoz is the Vadret Chama, and the Vadret Tiatscha is a tributary ice-stream flowing into it from the west. On the Federal map the Verstankla Glacier is marked Winterthäli.

23

The information is somewhat contradictory. Tschudi speaks of a 'new path;' a writer in the last year's publication of the German Alpine Club talks of the climb as decidedly difficult.

24

The summits of Piz Pisoc and Piz St. Jon are, as the crow flies, 3,250 mètres apart; the bottom of the Scarl Thal is 1,600 mètres, or about 5,400 ft. below them. The average of the slopes on both sides the valley would be 45°.

25

One of the sources of the Rhine is in Italy. The pasturages of Val di Lei, a lateral glen of the Aversthal, are pastured by Italian shepherds, and included within the Italian frontier.

26

See The Grisons, by Mrs. H. Freshfield. Longmans & Co.

27

I ascended Piz Quatervals some years later from Val Tantermuoza, a glen opening above Zernetz, and returned to the Engadine by the way indicated above. The head of Val Trupchum is very wild, but the walk as a whole is disappointing.

28

Herr Ziegler's map of S.E. Switzerland includes this country. The scale is large, and the execution beautiful, but the corrections introduced on the very inaccurate Lombard map are but slight.

29

Travellers often forget that all locked luggage coming from Switzerland is stopped at the Italian custom-house. In the present instance the portmanteau had been directed Porlezza, in ignorance that, by an absurd postal law, which it is worth while to call notice to, everything is sent from Lugano to Porlezza viâ Como!

30

See Mr. J. A. Symonds' charming description of the Italian foothills in spring, in Sketches from Italy and Greece.

31

In this statement Coryat is supported by the best Swiss authorities of the time. The belief in the pre-eminence of this part of the chain was probably grounded on the plausible argument that, as the two greatest rivers of the Alps rise in this group, and all rivers flow down hill, the region containing their sources must be the most elevated.

32

On the rocky knoll in the centre of the delta of the Adda, I find printed on the Lombard map the Spanish word 'Fuentes.' This was doubtless the site of the castle.

33

Unless indeed we take him to task for a passage found, of all odd places, in an answer to a Chancery Bill filed by a certain 'vilipendious linendraper,' to restrain him from common law proceedings for the recovery of a debt. His 'versute adversarie,' amongst other impertinent matters, seems to have inserted allegations as to the 'smallnesse and commonnesse' of Coryat's voyage. The enraged traveller retorts, with an eloquence seldom reached by modern pleaders, 'has he not walked above the clouds over hils that are at least 7 miles high? For indeed so high is the mountaine Cenys, the danger of which is such, that if in some places the traveller should but trip aside in certaine narrow wayes that are scarcely a yard broade, he is precipitated into a very Stygian barathrum, or Tartarean lake, six times deeper than Paul's tower is high.' Has he not 'continually stood in feare of the Alpine cut-throats called the Bandits?'

34

Since writing the above, I have been favoured by Signor Curo, President of the Bergamasque Section of the Italian Alpine Club, with a list of some of the most remarkable works of art in this region. It is printed as Appendix B.

35

The height may be roughly estimated at 9,300 feet.

36

See Appendix A. for mention of the passes they offer.

37

The suggestions made here at haphazard are, I see, seriously supported by Dr. Julius Morstadt in a long article Ueber die Terraingestaltung in Südwestlichen Tirol in the last publication of the German Alpine Club, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Alpenvereins, Band V. Heft 1, 1874.

38

A change seems, however, imminent. In 1873 some of the leading inhabitants of Trent and Arco formed themselves into an Alpine Society. Its object is at once to excite in the youth of the Trentino the taste for healthful exercise, and to increase the material prosperity of the mountain valleys by drawing to them some of the abundance of foreign gold which flows so freely into Eastern Switzerland. One of the first consequences of this step has been the establishment of Alpine Inns at Campiglio and San Martino di Castrozza.

39

See Appendix C for two routes from Santa Catarina to Val di Sole.

40

Vermiglio, like Primiero, is the name of a group of villages, of which the highest is Pizzano.

41

From an article, Die grosseren Expeditionen in den Oesterreichischen Alpen aus dem Jahre 1864, von Dr. Anton von Ruthner, published in Petermann's Mittheilungen for 1865.

42

This refers to eleven years ago. Proofs of nationality are no longer asked for anywhere in the Alps unless, perhaps, in France, where even a Republican Government finds itself forced to gratify the peculiar passion of the nation for restrictions on liberty of travel by retaining passports for Frenchmen only. So long as this distinction is maintained, members of other nations are liable to be occasionally required to prove their disqualification for the privilege of carrying about one of the minute descriptions of their own persons, which seem to give our neighbours so much pleasure.

43

Lieut. Payer's pamphlet Die Adamello-Presanella Alpen, Petermann's Mittheilungen, Erganzungsheft, No. 17, Gotha, J. Perthes, 1865, is a very valuable contribution to the orography of the group he describes.

44

I follow Lieutenant Payer's nomenclature, as it has been adopted in the Alpine Club map. Mr. Ball prefers the name of Bedole Glacier for the Mandron Glacier, and of Matarotto Glacier for the Lobbia Glacier.

45

I ought, perhaps, to say 'stretched.' The axe has laid low much of it during the past ten years.

46

The widest range of vision I have ever gained was from the Pizzo della Mare in the Orteler group, from which the Ankogel above Wildbad Gastein, and Monte Viso, distant from each other over 400 miles, the Apennines above Bologna, and the hills of the Vorarlberg were visible at the same time.

47

There is an opinion current, based only on the habitual hurry of some mountaineers and the slowness of others, that it is impossible to spend hours on a great peak. On a calm, fine day no pleasanter resting-place can be found, and the time you can pass on the top depends only on the time of day you reach it. I have spent three hours on the Aletschhorn and Monte Rosa with the greatest enjoyment, less than an hour rarely, in decent weather on any peak of over 10,000 feet.

48

'J. S. Mill und Tochter,' is a frequent entry in the strangers' books of Tyrolean inns.

49

Messrs. Taylor and Montgomery passed two nights in these huts later in the same year, and, weather forbidding an ascent of the Adamello, crossed into Val Saviore by a wild but easy Pass.

50

Payer's account of the answers given to his enquiries about this summit, furnishes a good illustration of the difficulty of naming a peak: – 'Botteri declared the mountain was nameless; from others I got the names Monte Mulat, Monte Folletto, Monte Marmotta (from Marmot), Monte Calotta (from cap). I chose finally the name Folletto (from mountain-spirit, Kobold).'

51

A good view of the Bedole Glacier from this point, the Passo del Mandron, appeared in the publications for 1874 of the German Alpine Club. There are some serious mistakes, however, in the identification of various points. The Lobbia Bassa should be the Lobbia Alta, the Lobbia Alta the Dosson di Genova, and the Passo della Lobbia Alta the Passo d'Adame.

52

In Southern Tyrol campaniles are generally built by the communes which have realised their wealth by cutting down their forests, and the great sawmills at the mouth of Val di Genova have undoubtedly had a large share in the execution of this pious work. It is most distressing to see from year to year how greed of immediate gain is leading the peasantry to treat their mountains like convicts. Ample as the locks were, they have been terribly thinned even in the last few years. Val di Genova, within my recollection, has lost much of its ancient and primeval wealth of verdure. The comparative barrenness of its lower portion was painful on my last visit. Good forest-laws may retrieve in the future the waste of the last few years, but no traveller in this century will ever see the valley clothed in the same full-folded mantle which, eleven years ago, made our long walk from the Presanella to Val Rendena one continuous delight.

53

See Appendix D, where this inscription is given in full, together with a description of the frescoes of San Vigilio.

54

In the Vita Caroli of Eginhardt is the following tantalising passage: 'Italiam intranti quam difficilis Alpium transitus fuerit quantoque Francorum labore invia montium juga et eminentes in cælum scopuli atque asperæ cautes superatæ sint hoc loco describerem, nisi,' &c. The words italicised apply singularly well to dolomitic landscapes, but it was probably the St. Bernard and Mt. Cenis that the chronicler had in mind.

55

There are several dolomitic groups in Swiss territory. One of the most considerable has already been described (Ch. V.). Another is the cluster of bold peaks standing between the Julier and Albula roads, of which the highest summits are the Piz d'Aela, Tinzenhorn, and Piz St. Michel. There is also dolomite between the Via Mala and the Savien Thal, and in other parts of Switzerland. But none of these masses – probably owing to some slight difference in the composition of their crags – show the peculiar characteristics of the rock in a sufficiently marked manner to attract attention except on close approach.

56

It would be unfair to dwell on the shortcomings of an inn but just opened in a remote and, until the completion of the new road, somewhat inaccessible situation, without adding that great improvements were promised for this year (1875). As these pages are passing through the press, I learn from a new advertisement in Le Touriste, that the owner of the house and land has taken the management of the hotel into his own hands. I shall let him speak for himself.

'Campiglio. Tyrol. Le grandiose Établissement Alpin de Campiglio, dans une position enchanteresse, à plus de 1600 mètres de hauteur, est honoré par le concours de nombreux visiteurs, qui trouvent la santé et le repos dans son air des plus salubres, ses laitages exquis, ses bains et boissons ferrugineuses, ses douches, ses cures de lait et petit lait, son service médical, ses eaux ferrugineuses, apportées journellement de Pejo et Rabbi aux prix de 6 soldi autrichiens la bouteille de 2 livres, dans sa cuisine choisie, dans son service bien organisé, dans les nombreux amusements qu'offre l'endroit, dans les belles excursions aux environs, dans les conforts intérieurs de l'établissement, ses vastes salons avec pianos, les cavalcades, etc. etc.