Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

HIGH LIFE-ON THE MOUNTAINS.

"On the mountains dwells freedom;
The foul odor of graves

Reaches not to the blue ether."

days of old, as in our own, liberty proclaimed her triumphs aloud on mountain heights. Even the weary wanderer feels his courage strengthened and his heart expanding, as he reaches the lofty summit, and sees the world at his feet. He leaves the narrow bounds of daily strife behind him; free as the eagle that hangs still higher in the pure air, and binds the clouds to the world beneath, he looks around him, where, even on the airy wings of the wind, the sad sounds of man's petty sorrows and joys can reach him no longer. Lifted high above the painful tumult of life, abandoned by all but the great mother nature, he receives, as it were, a second time at her hands, and from her unstained altar, the gift of life, and the cheerful courage of trusting youth. The clear, bracing air, the silent solitude of the scene, the magnificence and grandeur of the prospect, and his elevation above the world, all conspire to strengthen, to elevate, nay, to inspire the dweller on lofty mountains. And this feeling is common to the greatest among men, and to the simple shepherd. With speechless joy the herdsman climbs once more, after the fierce rigor of winter, up to his cherished heights, where, as the children of Afghanistan enthusiastically say, the leaping waters are as clear as diamonds, where the luxuriant verdure resembles a carpot of emeralds, and the atmosphere is sweet with musk; where, as they add in the boundless love of their mountain pastures, the air itself is so full of life and vigor, that even were there no water, it alone would make the plants grow and blossom.

But mountains are noble objects, and inspire us with even higher feelings when seen from afar. They are, after all, the great landmarks of the earth, locking in, as it were, large districts and the children of men that dwell therein, the most perfect boundary lines of countries and nations, and the natural limits of powerful kingdoms.

How pleasant it is to the eye to see a vast landscape closed in, on the far

horizon, by gently-swelling heights, as "hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise." How grandly they loom up, as in Norway, in proud, silent majesty, from the raging ocean, to the very clouds in the heavens! More impressive yet is the sight, when, from the midst of an immense plain, a wall of mountains is reared in bold and gigantic forms, as where the colossal chain of the Alps rises in stately grandeur on the northern frontier of Lombardy. When the eye has been tired with a long, level surface, when the monotonous steppe or the swelling prairie has sorely wearied the mind, that ever thirsts for variety, then it greets the mountains with peculiar pleasure. It rests delighted on their varied forms, their ever-changing colors, their proud, upward tendency. All that is low, shapeless, and vague in the plain, becomes here firm, permanent, and aspiring. Now they are cheerful and pleasing, stretching in gently swelling undulations far away, and softening by rich verdure and light indentations the rugged character of higher ranges. Now they rise high into the air, their proud heads hid in dark clouds, or crowned with eternal snow, reaching up into inaccessible space, and carrying apparently the very vault of heaven on their mighty, massive columns. Hence the imagination of almost all nations has bound them up with the higher gods: here it is an Atlas bearing the heavens on his colossal shoulders; there it is an Olympus, the blissful home of the immortals.

The lower ranges, it is true, are apt to be but rough and rugged; they please us little, when compared with the rich, fertile plains by their side, and convey no other idea to the mind than that, as Euripides said, "They are hard soil that can be tilled only by still harder labor." Hence the universal preference given to truly Alpine ranges. Their gigantic height, their massiveness in themselves, the terrible steepness of their sides, impress us with awe. Here parallel chains and groups, alike rugged and snowy, press on the princi

pal crest, and send their flanks far into the lower grounds. An endless mass of sharp ridges and bare peaks, mixed with gigantic masses of pure snow, fading coldly into the blue horizon, present a scene of sublime quiet and repose, unbroken but by the avalanche or the thunder. Their glaciers and snow-fields, which are gilt only, but never warmed by the sun, and from which, through rents in the clouds, the green, blooming world is seen far below, the feeling of immutability suggested by their stupendous height, even the dizzy paths that lead over frightful abysses, and the "roads of terror" that pass close by unfathomed crevices and threatening masses of snow-all these add fear to our admiration and awe to our pleasure. It seems, at first, as if nature had created all this grand scenery for herself only, utterly mindless of man. And yet even here she has not forgotten him. Close by those regions of Titanic confusion and fearful solitude, at the very side of those gigantic rocks, in which we fancy we see the skeleton of the earth, and of those dazzling, deathhiding fields of snow and ice, there greet us sweet meadows with fragrant Alpine flowers. Green pastures spread their soft carpet to the edge of the icy mass, and streams gambol merrily over rock and root. Thus, here, also, life cometh out of death, and the awfully grand is kindly blended with the gently beautiful.

The effect of mountain scenery on the eye, is naturally much varied by lights and colors; the whole hue is very different in the clear, warm air of a southern landscape, and in the moist, vapory atmosphere of the North. The Alps glitter and glare in the dazzling splendor of everlasting ice, and yet greet us with the bright freshness of the color of youth, so that Italian poets with justice speak of their forest-covered brows, as of fit emblems of all that is imperishable. The granite fastnesses of Sweden loom up in subdued tints, fretted as they are by the tooth of time, and covered with the tender mantle of warm but sad-colored mosses. Dim, dismal mists forever shroud their hoary heads, and the melancholy songs of northern bards see, in their weather-beaten, decaying baldness, the irresistible power of age.

and year, and herein lies one of their greatest beauties. As the deep valleys are now lighted up by gorgeous floods of sunshine, and now buried in dark night; as bold spurs, losing themselves into the plain, cast deep shadows on a sunny landscape, or rise, gilded by the rays of the setting sun, from out a sea of shadows, the whole of the mountain range assumes a new form. But more important still, for their effect at a distance, than the variety of different hues and changing shadows, is the principal form of the mountains themselves. A long, straight line, rising to nearly equal height at all points, gives to a chain of mountains the appearance of a mere wall or rampart, that closes the horizon, and fills the mind with undefined sadness. Far more pleasing is the impression, when bold heights and sharp-pointed peaks break the uniformity here and there, as in our own Blue Ridge. Some countries boast of odd round mountains, that rise suddenly from the midst of large plains: they are mere shapeless masses, without any proportion, and convey not unfrequently to the mind the painful idea of a colossal grave-mound. Now and then, as on our northern waters, and in almost all long, far-stretching chains, formations are found, that appear to a lively fancy like familiar objects-a sleeping bear, a striking profile, or even a whole standing figure. Such forms may, of course, please our imagination and occupy our memory, but they often affect, unpleasantly, our aesthetic feeling, which cannot be satisfied with what is merely grotesque or amusing.

Mountains are, unfortunately, much less known than valleys. Even prejudices are nourished against them, and men fancy that the snow-covered peaks and the silently wandering glaciers are useless in the great household of nature. As, if under the rule of the Almighty, all things were not made to work together in sweet harmony. Did he not say, in early days, "Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain ?" For it is from the eternal snow and ice of these apparently sterile heights, that, year after year, abundant streams descend and nourish the thirsty earth. In the temperate zones, this advantage is less clearly seen, as rain snow there falls at all seasons. The colors of mountain scenes Only now and then, as in the glaciers change with every season of the day of the Alps, the amazed eye of the

or

wanderer sees in summer-time foaming torrents of whitish blue water rush forth from dark, dismal caves under the fields of snow. These are the inexhaustible sources of the rivers and streams that come from the Alps, and, as the Rhine or Rhone, form the mighty high-roads for the commerce of Europe. So it is with all snow-covered mountains; and vast, unmeasured regions would never be more than arid deserts, if their great rivers were not incessantly fed by the everlasting snow that crowns the silent pinnacles, and ever melts slowly but surely, and ever grows again upon the lofty summit. In hotter climes, where, for months and months, no blessed shower falls from the clouds, where the dry soil cracks, and all vegetation perishes, life would be impossible, were it not for such periodic supplies, furnished by long mountain ranges.

The solemn solitude and the threaten

ing aspect of the loftiest peaks often make the masses of people regard them as objects of fear and terror. They shrink from

"that sublimity which reigns enthroned, Holding joint rule with solitude divine Among yon rocky fells that bid defiance To steps the most adventurously bold. There silence dwells profound, or if the cry Of high poised eagles breaks at times the calm, The haunted echoes no response return."

The traveler, who passes near them, hastens his steps to avoid the avalanche, and to save his eyesight. A few only, impelled by a noble ardor for the study of nature, have ventured to ascend to the loftiest regions, like Saussure, Humboldt, Agassiz, and Hooker. Nor are the terrors of these enchanted regions merely imaginary. Soon after the line of eternal snow is passed, a general and painful uneasiness seizes the wanderer. The most remarkable sensation, however, is that of utter exhaustion. When Lieutenant Wood was on the "Terraced Roof of the World" in Pamir, he wished to explore the depth of the famous lake Sir-i-kol, that spreads its placid waters at a height of more than 15,000 feet above the sea. He tried to cut a hole in the ice; but a few blows consumed all his strength. A few moments, it is true, sufficed for his recovery; but he found any muscular exertion almost impossible. Running a distance of less than fifty yards, he lost his breath, and felt an intense pain in his lungs that did not leave him for

hours. He could not speak aloud without great effort, and his pulse immediately rose in an alarming manner. Saussure and his companions suffered like inconveniences; they became irresistibly drowsy, lost their appetite, and could not quench their violent, painful thirst. When Humboldt was ascending the Chimborazo, and already quite near the summit, he had to abandon the enterprise, because large drops of blood oozed out from under his nails and his eyelids.

But there is a beauty in mountains that has always been found amply to repay such fatigue and such dangers. Even in the terrific passes of the Himalaya, where man and beast are alike distressed, where thousands of birds perish from the mere violence of the wind, and furious thunder-storms add to the terror, even there the beauty of the scenery is such as to compensate the weary traveler for all he endures. "During the day," says Mary Somerville, "the stupendous size of the mountains, their interminable extent, the variety and sharpness of their forms, and, above all, the tender clearness of their distant outline, melting into the pale blue sky, contrasted with the deep azure above, is a scene of wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when myriads of stars sparkle in the black sky, and the pure blue of the mountains looks deeper still below the pale white gleam of earth and snowlight, the effect is of unparalleled solemnity, and no language can describe the splendor of the sunbeams at daybreak, streaming between the high peaks and throwing their gigantic shadows on the mountains below!"

Even ice and snow assume, at times, forms of wondrous beauty. Glaciers spread their resplendent mirrors over vast regions, and cover them closely with their transparent masses. Famous and well known in the European Alps, they are found wherever mountains arise, that are throughout the year covered with snow. The most imposing are found high in the north: in Norway they reach down to the water's edge. On the eastern coast of Iceland, a huge glacier is slowly approaching the coast, and already leaves barely room for a road; it will, it is feared, ere long form an impassable barrier between two parts of the island. Spitzbergen boasts probably of the largest of glaciers; for Captain Scoresby tells us that the "Hornsound " is nearly

eleven miles wide at its lower edge, and has a thickness of over four hundred feet. Both the Andes and the Himalaya have, of course, their gigantic glaciers also, and Darwyn met them even reaching down into the waters of the Pacific, on the coast of Patagonia.

Their charm to the eye consists as much in their peculiar form and color as in the contrast they present with the immediately surrounding landscape. The huge masses are cut and torn in all directions by a host of wide-gaping clefts and crevices, that the eye cannot fathom; around them rise towers and lofty walls and ridges of ice in the oddest shapes, with a background of black rocks ascending to the very heavens from the midst of the brilliant sea of white. The mind of man would tremble and shudder at the incomprehensible grandeur of the delicate blue that colors the whole up to the line of eternal snow, if the countless hues and tinges, which darken in the clefts and brighten up again on high and prominent peaks, did not gently greet his astonished eye and change his awe into wonder and admiration. As he turns to one side, he sees the masses of ice over which he wanders surrounded with forests and fields. with meadows and blooming gardens. At his left, a soft, velvety pasture of richest green stretches far into the ice-field itself, the tiny blade and the lonely flower struggling triumphantly with the dead matter.

Here cattle are grazing peacefully, and the herdsmen play on their simple flute, or wake the ever-ready echo with merry songs. At his right, a sunny slope is covered with ripening barley, whilst at his feet tidy cottages, with bright shining windows and embowered in thick, shady orchards, speak of comfort and content. Far away he sees ancient forests, whose dark evergreen foliage casts broad shadows over the landscape, and adds to the brighter scenes a sober, welcome seriousness. In many places a new charm is added: snugly ensconced amidst the lofty heights, a tiny lake, set in emerald meadows, smiles, as with a child's innocent eye, up to the blue heaven, and reflects in its clear waters the surrounding snow-fields and rocky peaks. In the next valley, a waterfall pours its silvery flood over dark, beetling rocks, and the slender stream sways playfully to and fro, as the breeze comes to play with it, or scatters its airy, fairy

jet into a thousand drops, long ere it reaches the meadow at its feet.

Grander still than the permanent beauties of mountains are the tragedies, the great revolutions enacted there from time to time. Now huge avalanches are hurled in mighty leaps, and fall thundering into the valley, carrying death and destruction in their wake. Or, in the silent hours of night, portentous bodies of snow leave their lofty home and glide noiselessly down upon the illfated lowlands. The careless victims awake only to eternal night, and find themselves buried alive under overwhelming masses. Such was the fate of Bueras in the canton of Grisons. No warning voice had been heard; no thunder announced the fearful catastrophe; sweet sleep bound the whole village; but when the morning dawned, the town remained enveloped in night--a huge mountain of snow covered the unfortunate place, and only a few men could be rescued alive, by almost incredible efforts. As the waters of the deep have risen and with their silent floods covered fertile and populous districts, to be seen no more by the eye of man, so even now Norwegian valleys, the happy home of peaceful peasants and of a thousand cattle upon the hills, are not unfrequently buried in the dark hours of a single night by treacherous avalanches. Ages afterwards, when the suns of many years have melted the huge masses of snow and ice, the bodies of the dead are found as if resting in sweet slumber, with arms interlocked and eyes uplifted to their Father above, who had called them so suddenly to their eternal home.

At other times, the mountains themselves loosen the bands that have held them together for ages, and, leaving their ancient resting-places, roll down into the plain, changing fertile fields into arid deserts, and burying villages and towns deep under their crumbling ruins.. Who does not know the heartrending fate that befell the village of Goldau near Righi? Who has forgotten the fate of the Willey family at the Notch of the White Hills? Who marvels not at the changes that a night produced on Mount Ida, in the state of New York? The great Creator spoke, and lofty mountains arose above the surface of the dark waters that covered the earth. He crowned them with unchanging ice and snow. He covered their hoary heads with dark clouds.

From the deep bosom of the earth, He called the high ranges with their horns of glassy rock, and their dark, furrowed sides; layer upon layer covered the naked skeletons, and His bounty spread over all a rich carpet of grass, or the warm mantle of dense forests. As man beheld them, he saw in them an attribute of the Most High, and called them the everlasting hills, the eternal mountains. But at a breath of the Lord, they are seen no more. There is no rest in nature, not even in the rigid, solid matter of which these towering rocks were formed. They pass away and melt from before the Lord" in restless destruction; and that time, which is not measured by the brief years of man, may yet see the Andes razed to the ground, and the Himalayas covering the vast plains of Asia with their gigantic ruins, whenever it please Him, "which removeth the mountains and they know not, which overturneth them in his anger."

ed by black, slimy swamps, they are at other times shut in by lofty, bold walls of living rock and covered with luxuriant vegetation. Who has not read the classic description of the favored valley of Tempe? Far in the east, in the firecountry of Zoroaster, and in the midst of volcanic cones, beautiful valleys with pure streams and peaceful glades lie among the mountains, and the vale of Kosran Shah, a perfect picture of sylvan beauty, is celebrated as one of the five paradises of Persian poetry. Such valleys abound also in other countries, though they are rare in our own. They are sheltered by high ramparts, rising on all sides in beautifully varied forms; colossal rocks lie or hang scattered about, and verdure, rich in fragrant flowers, spreads its velvety carpet around gigantic trees of by-gone ages; a foaming cascade, falling through the cloven ravine in cataract after cataract, or a deep, dark river between walls of shadowy granite, adds freshness to the grateful shade, and its charms are completed, when to the mind also is suggested some historical association, as in the Tempe of Greece or in Petrarch's Vaucluse.

Here in the valley, and among mountains, where "nature's heart beats strong," live men who show in feature and character the undeniable influence of the giants in whose neighborhood they dwell. Their eyes are ever drawn upward, and as the pointed arch, the ogive window, the vaulted ceiling and the lofty steeple of Gothic churches

But valleys also are parts of the mountains, and often lie among them at a higher elevation than the loftiest ranges of our Union. Their characteristic feature is seclusion and peaceful repose. The mountains lift us up from the world and place it in panoramic view before the astonished eye; they enliven the solitude of the regions around us with a hundred attractive objects, and raise our feelings into enthusiastic emotion. The valley, on the contrary, leads us to think but of our utter seclusion from the world perfect solitude and solemn melan-lead choly or cheerful peace fill our soul. Above is the brilliant throne of omnipotent nature; down in the valley her blessings are spread out, as she scatters them with liberal hand; there she is gorgeous and majestic, a mighty queen here she is a friend, a mother, full of kindness and tender affection.

Valleys differ as much in their natural beauty as the mountains by which they are surrounded. From the narrow rayine which only at noon is greeted by a few straggling rays of the sun, to the wide hospitable valley that unites the lofty peaks above to the fertile plain below-what a distance! Here they are little more than terrific fissures-as in the Balkan-so deep and narrow that below the sweet light of day is never seen. Sometimes bare and barren, filled with rubbish and gravel, and water

the eye, step by step, from the low marble that covers the dead, to the pure heaven, that is His throne, so the high mountains also make the son of dust, that lives among them, look up freely into the bright blue ether and from thence to his great Father on high. His glance is no longer riveted to the harvest on the vast plain with thoughts of gain and profit; he is not oppressed by the dense forests that hide from him the beauty of the sky; he follows not with vain, indefinite longing the slow, steady stream as it rolls its waves to

the ocean.

Here his eye is ever lifted upwards— from the moment when the morning sun first kindles her beacons of joy on the highest Alp, and proclaims aloud that another day has been added by God's mercy to our life, to the last hour of twilight, when the shadows of night steal gently

« AnteriorContinuar »