MOUNTAIN CARRIERS AND GUIDES.* BY ERNST PLATZ. Na gay company of pleasant acquaintances I went up Guarda Lake in a steamboat. There, high above on the west bank, rising abruptly above the dizzy cliffs, lies the little village of Tremosine. So smoothly do the yellow rocky walls shoot downward into the azure blue flood, above which the diminutive huts appear as if glued on the steep hillside, that a celebrated colleague, in the zeal of her observations, gave expression to this profound exclamation: "Ah, how have the people carried the stones up there!" Somewhat of an undesigned witticism, but certainly a good one. And the rest of us laughed more over it than really was compatible with delicate gallantry toward the author. The involuntary pleasantry arose from a very logical course of reasoning, and in the barren mountains the careful observer finds frequent opportunities to ask with surprise how the people have been able to convey this and that up. It is almost incredible what can be carried and transported into the highest regions, and what the proudest hill must put up with will surprise a sentimental reveller in SWISS PEASANT OF THE HIGH ALPS. erected, we are surprised that it is yet so primitive up there, and we look about us in vain for the station of a mountain railroad. It is worthy of notice along that line that, on the boundary of very high regions and in other places, we come across the simple houses of the Alpine Union, supplying only the practical necessities of mountain travellers, and especially in Switzerland more or less comfortable mountain hotels. But very wonderful will frequently be the cases more than 11,000 feet in altitude. There, in the midst of an extensive glacial territory, lies an asylum A BURDEN BEARER. an an fully furnished dining-room appetizing decorated table invites you to take a place. Curtains soften the bright light of the brilliant icefield without, and the walls are decorated with the originals of celebrated artists arranged in the form of a square suitable to the cozy interior. Certainly to find original Deffreger almost 11,000 feet above the level of the sea in the midst of an ice desert is something of which you had never dreamed. A very substantial menu arouses epicurean desires. And all that is offered you at a height of almost 11,000 feet, hours away from the nearest inhabited valley and eleven from the railroad. How has everything been brought up there? But there is yet something else extraordinary. With a kindly smile the servant places before you a fresh roast of mutton, and the landlord standing near by remarks with a smile of self-satisfaction, "We slaughtered it to-day." 66 Zounds, even the cutlets are carried up there," you at first suppose, until some one informs you that the poor sheep is brought from life to death up on the heights. Barbaric, indeed, but convenient. The useful wool-bearer is made to transport his own juicy ribs, which is decidedly more convenient, and by this means the necessary freshness of this indispensable meat is guaranteed. Less convenient, indeed, but much more interesting, was the transportation of the building material and the fittings, which increase very much the cost of the simplest refuge for travellers in such an elevated territory. Every piece, the largest as well as the smallest, had to be carried to its place, the greater part of the way by human power. Only in exceptional cases does the condition of the path permit the use of pack animals. The house itself, that is, the frame-work, is brought together in CLIMBING MONT BLANC. the valley and then it is transported The constant supplying of the house with the indispensible material for heating proceeded by sledges over the level glacial territory. The employment of sledges for the transportation of loads is a very special advantage only to a few of the houses in the high regions; for the most of these every transpor officers over the ridges covered with snow, and how even now by the strength and perseverance of these frame-bearers the products of Alpine industries find their way from the remotest corners of the mountains into the great commercial regions. How often I have tation is conducted with a weariness, difficulty, and expense which arise from the sole employment of human carriers. Man as a carrier in the pathless mountains is the oldest means of transportation for every conceivable burden. Above all, in war times, in every celebrated passage of the Alps, from Hannibal to modern times, he has always proven the most trustworthy means of transportation. It is known what astonishing things the powerful son of the high mountains can perform in carrying his giant burdens, how in the Tyrolean struggle for liberty the Passeyr riflemen bore on their shoulders cannons and met the Kraxentrager (framebearer), called for short "Krax," who, always laughing and in good spirits, for four kreutzers a kilo bore his heavy burden the long, difficult way from Schwaz up to the "Eng,' an ascent of about 5,000 feet and of about six hours for a vigorous walker. Once when I fell in with him he carried up fully two hundred and seventeen pounds of necessaries for the landlord of the " Eng." For the return journey, according to merchants of the Inn Valley, he loaded his frame with the products of the cheese dairy, always jolly in spite of his heavy day's work, living frugally on the simple provisions and taking account of every kreutzer. 66 The carrier naturally plays a the great role with tourist, especially in the glacial regions of Switzerland, where in the difficult excursions the guides themselves carry nothing, and for transporting provisions, etc., special carriers must be engaged at a tax fixed by law. These certainly earn more than the Krax, and with wages from twenty to twenty-five francs in addition to the fees, a carrier can enjoy himself very well; indeed often too well, for the benefits of the provisions entrusted to him are too enticing. At the well-deserved rest suddenly the carefully packed provision sacks of the panting carrier appear very much lightened. The traveller and the guide joke and argue, but the condition is not to be altered. The brave guide has often to prepare for the hard work of transportation, if he is permitted to bring the ambitious tourist to the goal, for there are common fellows enough who like to swagger about with their ice-picks and impress their modest companions by tales of valorous performances without having the least capabilities for such. But of that the world is CROSSING THE MER DE GLACE. unsuspicious and the strong guides have powerful arms and stout ropes on which the courageous mountain climber must depend. The principal thing is that it is well paid for. Certainly there are a few brave guides and it is affirmed that now and then, though naturally rarely, the inverted relation between guide and tourist has been permitted. In the meantime to him and his kind there may suddenly come the opportunity of a more serious transportation, when the guide is permitted on the information or supposition of an accident to go out on the search and to bear valleyward with unspeakable weariness the unfortunate ones, whether they be living with shattered limbs or dead and frozen stiff and hard by the nightly frost. Not always can they be found. Many a one has been buried by the falling avalanche or swallowed the up by glacial crevasse. The ice becomes his coffin, which often, after long years of transportation in the secretive deep, gives back the remains to the light. There is one trait which characterizes most, if not all, of these men. It is their large-heartedness. They are like a providence haunting the most perilous places of the Alps. There is hardly any risk they will not run, scarcely any exposure they will not endure, to save life or help those in danger or difficulty. |