Italian Alps. Freshfield Douglas William
at once assured as to the identity of the valley. The block could be nothing else than the 'natural curiosity' of Val Masino, the biggest boulder in the Alps. Its dimensions are given by Mr. Ball as – 'Length, 250 feet; breadth, 120 feet; height, 140 feet;' or as tall as an average church tower, and large enough to fill up many a London square. Legend has nothing to tell about this monstrous block, and we are left to determine as we like, whether it fell from some neighbouring mountain going to ruin in the course of nature, or was dropped by the devil, on one of those errands of mischief which are always so fortunately interrupted by the opportune appearance of the pious peasant.
We had only been two hours from our last resting-place, and the day was still young, so that we could well afford a halt. As there are some tourists whose chief object is to get to the end of their tours, so there are climbers who throughout the day seem to long only to arrive in as few hours as possible at the end of it. But peaks and passes and not inns were our goal, and we had no desire to hurry on. We chose a warm corner in the sun-facing rocks, whence by lifting our heads we looked over intervening ridges to the Alps of Glarus, and raked the Punta Trubinesca and its neighbours, now viewed end on, as weird a pile of granite as I have seen in many a long day's wanderings.
From the snow-dome on our right a lofty and extraordinarily jagged ridge stretched out at right angles to the main chain, the barrier, probably, between the two branches of Val Masino.16 I wanted to climb the dome and reconnoitre, but clouds had partially covered the blue sky, and were whisking, now one way now the other, as the gust took them, as if playing a wild game of hide-and-seek amongst the granite towers. A storm seemed probable, and François thought it foolish to waste time.
We were clearly not on the legendary Passo di Bondo,17 but on another 'Col' of our own contriving, leading somewhere into the Val di Mello, the eastern branch of Val Masino. The descent looked practicable. Why not attempt it and complete the pass? The distance to be retraced along the valley to our sleeping quarters, the 'Bagni,' could scarcely be worth considering. So after erecting a solid stoneman, and trusting him with the usual card-filled bottle, we set out.
The last man had not set foot on the ice when François disappeared to his shoulders beneath the surface. Looking through the hole he had made we could appreciate the use of the rope. A dark green chasm, some thirty feet wide, yawned beneath us, its depths scarcely visible in the light thus suddenly let in upon them. The glacier we were descending fell away steeply, and became so broken and troublesome that we tried the rocks on the left. The change was for the worse, and we soon came back and cut our way through the difficulties.
As soon as the rocks ceased to be precipitous we took to them again. But they were not pleasant footing. We found ourselves committed to a slope of boulders so shockingly loose that the slightest provocation sent half-a-dozen rolling from under our feet, and piled at so high an angle that when once started they bounded away at a pace which promised to take them straight to the valley. In such places an impetuous companion always insists on stopping to take off his gaiters and then following at a run. You have scarcely missed him before his return is announced by a whole volley of grape rattling about your ears, while a playful shout warns you to make way for a 100-pounder boulder which is ricochetting down on your heels with the force of a cannon-ball. Then your friend comes up with a pleased air, as much as to say, 'Didn't I come down that well?' and it is hard not to remonstrate with him in language the use of which should be restricted to divines.
Halting beside some water which filtered out at the foot of the boulders, we enjoyed a beautiful view of the Disgrazia and the wild range behind us. On our right was a long comb, whose teeth had been tortured by time and weather into all sorts of quaint shapes; one rock bent over like a crooked finger, in another place a window was pierced through the crest. At a hasty glance one might have compared the fantastic shapes to those assumed so frequently by dolomitic limestone, but closer observation showed the tendency to curving outlines and to sharpness of edge peculiar to crystalline rock. In the dolomite districts the separate crags, cut up as they may be by flaws at right angles to the lie of the strata, have not, except from considerable distances, the same flamelike outlines. In any near view the layers of which they are built up become conspicuous, and often, as in the Brenta chain, have all the appearance of courses of masonry.
Bearing to the left from the first huts on the Alpe di Ferro, we crossed a stream just below a tempting pool, in which five minutes later we were all plunging. At the next step in the descent our path re-crossed the water, and zigzagged steeply down the hillside, which was covered with broom and Scotch heather. Passing a succession of pretty cascades, we entered the Val di Mello, near a group of châlets, whence a stony mule-road led us in half an hour to San Martino, the village situated at the fork of the valley. It is a cluster of untidy stone houses, with nothing to delay the passer-by except a douanier's bureau and a tobacco store.
We now met a car-road running up the Val dei Bagni – the western fork of the valley. The floor of the glen soon rises suddenly – a granite valley, like the national prosperity, always advances by leaps and starts – and the road indulges in a couple of short zigzags. We are again in the heart of the mountains, hemmed in by pine-clad slopes and cliffs too steep to allow any view even of the summits behind them. In this cul-de-sac there are no signs of a village. It is a spot where one would expect to find no one but a Bergamasque shepherd with his longtailed sheep. But shepherds do not make roads, nor do they often receive visitors such as the portly dame who advances towards us, supported by a scarcely perceptible donkey, and herself overshadowed by a vast crimson umbrella resembling the mushroom of a pantomime. Shepherds, moreover, are not in the habit of constructing little paths like those, too faltering and purposeless for any practical use, which wander off here and there into the woods; nor do they employ their leisure hours in planting stems of fir-trees in a futile manner along the sides of the road, and covering their branches, as the foliage withers away, with tricolour flags.
The meaning of these attempts to fasten a little paltry embroidery on nature's robes is explained when as we turn a corner and enter the bowl-shaped hollow which forms the head of the glen we discover under the hillside a long, low building – the Bagni del Masino. The presence of a sulphur spring has caused this remote spot to be chosen as one of the summer retreats of Northern Italian society.
The bath-houses in the Lombard Alps do not in any way add to the beauty of the landscape. The consistent regard for economy shown in the simplicity of their architecture and the roughness of their construction may possibly delight the heart of some shareholder, and would perhaps have commended them to the favourable notice of a late First Commissioner of Works. But to the common eye the result is not attractive. Outside we see a long two-storied barrack built with unshaped stones and abundance of mortar, the surface of which, never having been finished in any way, has a dusky-brown hue and ruinous aspect; unpainted woodwork; balconies unbalustraded, and to the last degree perilous. Internally and on the ground floor a long range of dingy fly-spotted rooms, devoted respectively to smoke, billiards, literature, and eating, and decorated with portraits of the reigning family of Italy and full-blown lithographic beauties. Above, equally long passages, and nests of scantily furnished, but tolerable and, so far as beds are concerned, clean cabins.
Our first enquiry, whether the house contained baths – at many so-called bath-houses the waters are only taken internally – called up a triumphant smile on the countenance of the waiter who had welcomed us. As he ushered us along the passages a strong smell of sulphur raised a suspicion that we might find ourselves in hot water. In another moment this fear was converted into a certainty. The beaming waiter ushered us into a little room, or rather large stove-heated oven, surrounded by four wells, each some five feet deep, and full to the brim of sulphureous waters. On the one hand we had gone too far to retreat with credit, on the other we were incapable of any prolonged endurance of the purgatorial temperature. So having made but a hasty plunge we dashed on our clothes and fled back to our rooms, ignoring the stove on which we ought to have sat and submitted to a process of slow baking. This ordeal and a good dinner completed, we had leisure to study the patients, for the most part Milanese, with a sprinkling of local Val Tellina priests and farmers. The mineral waters of the place are, no need to say, like all mineral waters, invincible enemies to every disease to which humanity, male or female, is exposed. Such being the case, it was a subject for
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.
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.