Indeed the very variety of this district—historically, geographically, botanically sets a difficult task before so slight a volume as this present. However, an attempt must be made towards adequacy. No time can be wasted, and we had best start at St. Maurice and work diligently round in a circle by way of Bex, Les Plans, and Villars, thence to Aigle and Leysin, ending up with Monthey, Morgins, and Champéry, meanwhile knitting the whole district together with general and comparative facts.
[Illustration: ST. MAURICE: THE CHÂTEAU AND THE ROCK OF DAILLY]
The scene as one approaches St. Maurice from the north-west is among the most noted in Valais. The old castle hugging the cliff to the right and dominating the swift and troubled Rhone rushing low beneath the ancient stone bridge, with the great sheer Rock of Dailly to the left—it is a memorable picture, particularly in spring, when the wild wallflowers and laburnum deck the castle cliffs, and the young tints of spruce and larch soften the stern aspect of the fortress. Fortress? Yes, the Rock of Dailly, buttress of the Dent de Morcles, is a veritable Gibraltar, designed to stop and crush all invasion by way of the Simplon and the Grand St. Bernard. From an arrant civilian’s standpoint it would seem an absolute impossibility for an invading army to live to pass the narrow defile of St. Maurice. Those innumerable and mighty guns hidden in the face of that grim precipice are apparently able to overwhelm all intruders, and the defile of St. Maurice would seem as safe to-day as when in olden times it was closed by a great gate. One has only to watch at nighttime the firing practice, illuminated by searchlights and directed against the forests and cliffs high upon the Dent du Midi, to be impressed with the awful deadliness of this rock-fortress. It seems, of course, a sacrilege so to insult the lovely, peaceful Alps; it seems a gross, insensate outrage upon a land pre-eminently designed to wean men from the cult of war.[3] But of its practical effectiveness in case of need there can be no manner of doubt. Napoleon to-day would have to go round some other way to get to Italy; he could not now use Switzerland as a convenient passage. And yet, and yet, it seems to me a shame when I remember the delightful months I spent upon the summit of the Rock of Dailly some five-and-twenty years ago, and think that now it is closed to mere civilians, that the magnificent prospect, with a sheer drop down upon the Baths of Lavey, is now only examined by the trainer of far-reaching cannon, and that the exquisite carpet of Alpine flowers around the Dent de Morcles is trampled under foot by companies and battalions. It is sometimes hard to reconcile one’s quiet ideals with the stern exigencies of life, and perhaps this is particularly so in Switzerland. It was on the slopes high above Dailly, now a vast manœuvre ground for troops, that I once fled hurriedly in the front of a stampeding herd of cattle driven mad by flies, and that I only just escaped destruction by scrambling on to the roof of a friendly cheese châlet. Needless to say, I do not rank such incidents among my quiet ideals.[4]