WHITSUNTIDE LONGINGS—THE ALPS AND ITALY L ATELY under that somewhat prim
heading in the Times—" Telegrams in Brief "—a heading, how- ever, which often covers many interesting things—my eye caught the following :- " It is expected that the roads over the Simplon Pass will bi open to motor-cars on May 21st. This is nearly three weeks in advance of the date usually fixed. This early opening is due to the fact that snowfalls in the Alps were rare last winter."
That may seem to some men a prosaic piece of news. To others and certainly to me it means all the glories and delight of youth in the mountains, and woods, the waters and wastes, the fields and floods of a great European landscape. How vividly it recalled to me the whole magnificent array of the Passes of the Alps and the circumstances in which, as a young man, I crossed them and looked down upon the plains of Italy. In my day, and I cannot doubt it is the same to-day, the thing that the adventurous youth of both sexes wanted to see most was always Switzerland and Italy—to sit upon an Alp as upon a throne, and to see from it in vision, if not in fact, that pageant of beauty, romance and history which is Italy. let others praise Berlin or Vienna, Christiania or Stockholm, Cairo or Constantinople ; we were for Como and Venice via the Simplon or the Splugen. That, I suppose, is why the news that the Simplon is opening stirred my heart like a trumpet. For a very different reason it once stirred the heart of Napoleon. He planned—with triumphant success—the first carriage road across the Alps. Until it was finished his fiery spirit knew no rest. It is said that during the two years or so in which the road was building he was always asking the question, " Le canon, quand pourra-t-il passer le Simplon ? "- "When will the guns be able to pass the Simplon ? " Till they could do so he felt that he had no hold over Italy.
We have pierced the Alps with half-a-dozen tunnels, and soon shall pierce them with more. But, all the same, the opening of the Pass remains as a great symbol that the door is flung open into Italy and that we may accomplish our springtime desires—the time when, as Chaucer says, " longen folk to gon on pilgrimage." The Whitsuntide holidays are upon us. They combine, with the clearing of the passes from the snow, to play us that immortal tune—the invitation to the Alps.
Though this is not the time for making the great ascents, for climbing Mont Blanc, -or the Matterhorn, or Monte Rosa, it is a delightful time for what I may call moderate mountaineering. It is the time when the cunning embroidery of the fields of Switzerland is to be seen in its supremest beauty. The gentians great and small are springing up as the snow recedes. Only a week ago in my Surrey garden I saw that my one remaining plant of the bell gentian had punctually produced its azure flower of joy—the flower whose colour Ruskin compared with the blue depths of the crevasse. It was beckoning me to Helvetian pastures. To my mind the gentians are the best of all wild flowers ; but those who like something more luxurious will find them in Nature's vast parterre upon the slopes of Monte Generosa. There acres and acres of lilies of the valley scent the air and nod their exquisite heads in " breaths of vernal air from snowy Alp."
I have, begun with the passes of the Alps- and -I must finish with them, for they are too often neglected. There is no reason why, because men usually go by tunnel under the Mont Cenis, the Simplon or the St. Gothard, spring tourists should not get out at the base of the Alps and walk over them. This does not necessarily mean keeping to a dusty high road. Along the course of most of the main mountain roads there are traces of the old mule paths. They haunt the new roads like ghosts. When your feet are on the "old way" you are in a mood to think how the men of former days crossed the Alps, for, in spite of their roadlessness, there was a perpetual stream of travellers both ways. Chief among . these walking passes was the Great St. Bernard. Except in the height of winter there were two streams of foot and horse traffic which formed a perpetual procession. Oddly enough, these streams. were greater in the Dark Ages than in the later Middle Ages or in the Renaissance when sea traffic from ports like Marseilles afforded an alternative . entry into Italy. If I remember rightly, ping Alfred before he ascended the throne of Wessex paid at least one visit to Rome, crossing probably by the St. Bernard. So did most of our Bishops and Archbishops. Indeed, in the period from about 800 till 1100. our chief Ecclesiastics thought nothing of riding to Rome..
All good luck, then, to those who are going to take their first view of the Alps and their. first view of Italy this year. On some, no_doubt, the impression will be entirely ephemeral. For others a world will be affected. Throughout the rest of their lives they will lie awake in London every spring or summer and listen to the call of the.. mountains of Switzerland and of Italy.
Pope in the Duiwiad said of the young Englishman on the grand tour :— " Europe he saw ; and Europe saw hisn, too."
Let us hope that none of those who arc going to accom- plish their novitiate this year will forget the warning in this line. Europe will be looking at them. Let them determine to give no opportunity to Europe to say that they are a parcel of cads or barbarians whose money may. be acceptable btit whose presence is odious. In- stead, let them compel the people -of Switzerland and of Italy to say, " These men and women seem to appre- ciate and love the beauties of our country even better than we do ourselves."
J. ST. LOE STRACIIEY.
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