LIFE IN THE ALPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1928, 2 November 1888, Page 32

LIFE IN THE ALPS.

Leaving England in July and returning in October, I spend three months of every year among the Swiss mountains, where I now write.

Various and striking are the aspects of Nature witnessed during thepe long visits. Sunshine from unclouded skies, dense, fog, mountain mist, furious rain and hail, and snow so deep that were not my wife and I such thorough children of the hills and so well acquainted with their ways, «c should sometimes fear imprisonment in our highland home.

On still sunny, summer days the heat ia great and relaxing. This is the time to seek the adjacent glazier, down which a toirenfc of bracing air rolls daily. We havo also our due share of thunder-storms, when the peals, sometimes breaking close to us, retreat in deafening echoes, and die away amid the rocky halls of the mountains. In this respect, however, we are far better off than our neighbours in Northern Italy, whose hills, acting as lightning conductors, partially drain the clouds of their electricity before we receive the shots of their " red artillery." We can see from our mountain perch the wonderful thrilling of these Italian thunder-storms, beyond the. great mountain range at the further side of the Valley of the Shone.

At night it is one of the grandest of spectacles. Flash rapidly follows flash, while at times the light bursts simultaneously from different parts of the heayens, every cloud and mountain top appearing then " whitelisted through the gloom." At night the eye is far more sensitive than it is by da)-, the more vivid lightning-thrills being then quite dazzling. Meanwhile no sound is heard ; and an observer might be disposed to conclude that it was lightening without thunder — Blitz ohie Dormer, as th.c Germans say. Among the southern mountains, however, where the thrills occur, there is one, called the Monte Generoso, on which stands a hotel in telegraphic communication with the lower world. Thither 1 have telegraphed on various occasions, ana invariably, when the lightning was thrilling silently in the manner just described, I have been informed that a terrific thunder-storm was raging over Northern Italy. From our position here the peals were too far away to be heard. The region where we dwell was chosen by Mrs. Tyudall and myself on account of its surpassing beauty and grandeur. I first made its acquaintance 29 years ago, having previously become familiar with Mount Blanc and its glaciers, and with other glaciers, both in Switzerland and the Tyrol. It is iv the Roman Catholic canton of Valais, which, notwithstanding the success of the reformation in adjoining cantons, has, up to the present day, maintained its ancient religion. Here we live on the friendliest terms with both the priests and the people. Switzerland is made up of a number of cantons, which arc subdivided into communes, each possessing its own president and council and making irs own local laws. The communal laws are, however, subjected to the revision of the Cantonal Government. 1 live, for instance, in the Commune of Naters. The' sale of the land on which our chalet stands was first agreed to by the vote of the assembled burghers of the commune ; but their vole had to be afterward ratified by the "high government " of Sion, the chief town of the canton. Naters, the name of the commune, is also t!ie name of its principal, village. I had the honour this year of being unanimously elected an honorary burgher of the commune. This confers upon jne certain rights and priyileges not previously enjoyed. I can, if I please, pasture cows upon the alps — a name given by the inhabitants not to the snow-capped mountains, but to the grassy slopes stretching far below (lie snows. I am also entitled to a certain allowance of fuel from the pine woods. Finally, I cm build a chalet on the communal ground. Prizing, however, the good- vy ill of the people more thau these material advantages, if I at all avail myself of my newly acquiied rights and privileges, it will be to a very modetate jjxtenfc,

The well-known Bel Alp Hotel stands some 200 ft or 300 ft below our cottage. The name "Bel " is derived from a' little hamlet of huts planted in the midst of grassy pastures or alps, about half an hour disfcanfcfrom the hotel.

Towards the end of June the flocks and herds are driven to the upper pastures, private ownership ceasing and communal rights as to grazing beginning at an elevation of about 4000 ft above the Rhone.— Professor John Tyndall, in " Youth's Companion."