Italian Alps. Freshfield Douglas William

Italian Alps

who, however much they might gratify individual vanity, would advance the general sum of knowledge about as much as an ordinary amateur sketchbook does art.

Is it always better for a man, when acres of red rhododendron are in full bloom around him, and the insects are filling the air with a delicious murmur, to be engrossed body and soul in poking about for some rare plant or impaling an unfortunate beetle? When two hundred miles of mountain and plain, lake and river, cornland and forest, are spread out before the eyes, ought one to be remembering that 'justification' depends on ascertaining whether the back is resting on granite or feldspathic gneiss?

The preposterous pretension that no one is 'justified' (it is the favourite word) in drinking in mountain glory in its highest forms unless he brings as a passport a profession of research, cannot be too strongly denounced. To require from every Alpine climber some show of a scientific object would be to preoccupy men's minds at the moment when they should, and would otherwise, be most open to enlarging influences; it would in many cases be to throw away moral advantages and to encourage egotism, vanity, and humbug.

An obvious comparison may perhaps render more clear the relative positions of the simple lover of the Alps and the scientific dabbler. Rome is almost as universal a goal of modern travel as Switzerland. There also is a great history to be studied, on many of the problems of which investigation of the ground we tread may throw light.

The world listens with eager attention to anyone who has the requisite training to study such problems with profit, who can tell us what rude remains may be of the time of the Kings, can distinguish between the work of the Republic and the Empire. And amongst the galleries we are glad to meet those who can trace the progress of art and analyse a great picture so as to show the elements drawn from earlier masters which have been crowned and immortalised by the genius of Raphael or Michael Angelo.

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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

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.

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