Kitabı oku: «Touring in 1600», sayfa 14

CHAPTER VII
ON THE ROAD

 
A journey is a fragment of hell.
 

Awliyái Efendi (1611-1679).

What M. Babeau, in his charming "Les Voyageurs en France," says of the history of France since the eleventh century, that it may be divided into three periods, of the horse, the carriage, and the railway, is true of most of Europe. He goes on to point out that the first period synchronises with the feudal system, the second with uncontrolled monarchy. And this was not a matter of chance, for the improvement in the state of the roads implied by the substitution of driving for riding directly resulted from the centralisation of authority. A feudal system tended to keep the roads bad, partly because no one authority received such exclusive and overwhelming benefits from the roads as to be ready to bear the cost of their upkeep; partly because the constant petty warfare which feudalism gave rise to often made neighbours desire that approaches should be difficult rather than easy.

In 1600 the transition was in its infancy; and even during the subsequent half-century is only noticeable in a marked degree in France. Even there, the change was not from bad roads to good, but from very bad to a state of uncertainty. One road, it is true, is mentioned as paved, at any date during these two centuries, that from Paris to Orleans, but by Evelyn's time there were many such in France; while, on the other hand, on the king's highway between Bourges and Lyons the horses of Gölnitz and his companions fell into a marsh, whence they were rescued with difficulty; and on another highway (Paris-Bordeaux) Claude Perrault, the architect of the Louvre, speaks of one occasion when night overtook him before he had reached his stopping-place; and the holes in the road being so deep as to render it almost impassable for his carriage, a quarter of a league took him four hours to cover.

Elsewhere in Europe, things seem to be remaining much as they had been. Here and there in Italy sections of Roman road which had been maintained in fair condition continued to be patched in imitation of Roman methods until they appeared excellent in contrast with the others; what the others were made of travellers do not say, but it may be guessed that they were paved like hell in the proverb. Montaigne might note with sadness how the Via Flaminia had shrunk from forty feet broad to four between Loreto and Lucca, although one may query where he found that it was ever more than fifteen feet across; but no one else had recourse to archæology to make himself grieve. The following is a tale that Rivadeneyra, Loyola's boy-friend and biographer, tells of some of the other early associates during a walk from Venice to Rome. Being Lent, they fasted except for what they received in alms. "And one Sunday it befell that, having tasted no more than a few mouthfuls of bread that morning, they trudge twenty-eight miles of that land on their bare feet; and all the day the rain comes down pitilessly, whereby they find the roads turned into lakes, and that so truly that there are times when the water reaches their chests." He continues, "None the less they feel within them a marvellous contentment and joyousness; and being mindful that they were enduring these troubles of the flesh for love of God, gave thanks to Him without ceasing, singing David's psalms in metre; and even Master Juan Codurí, who was suffering with the itch in both of his legs, was no whit the worse for the trials of this day."

It was always the rain that caused the trouble, although the state of the roads when dry must have been fearful for ordinary wet weather to effect so rapid a deterioration. From Ferrara to Bologna was reckoned a half-day's journey in summer, a whole day in winter. And in 1606 an Italian says of the roads near Strassburg that the mud, stones, and holes compelled the horses to go single file, each one stepping in the tracks of the leader; near Ypres they found the road often indistinguishable from the fields, and the mud came up to the horses' girths.

In dry weather the only complaint is against loose stones on steep gradients, which latter naturally occur far more frequently on the old roads than on modern ones, keeping, as the former do, to high ground for choice. The fact that by this means traffic was less at the mercy of floods seems to be considered reason enough for the habit, but perhaps it was also found to give greater protection against highwaymen, who were thereby afforded fewer opportunities for attacking from higher ground, and for concealment. One place in particular where these loose stones formed a serious hindrance was Scaricalasino, between Bologna and Florence, so named (scarica l'asino means "unload the ass") because what with the badness of the road and the sharpness of the stones the asses had to be relieved of their burdens at intervals. So, too, the secretary of a Venetian embassy writes that between Terni and Assisi the way was so rough as well as muddy that it cost the party of forty fourteen hours and the deaths of four horses to do twenty miles.¹⁰²

Another difficulty, sometimes a peril, to be faced were the fords. On the main road, for example, from Rome to France, through Florence, there was the river Paglia to cross, which bounded Papal territory in that direction. The passage still remained a ford, although after rain it would be impassable for a week at a time. And where, on the map, north of Venice, you see the Tagliamento divide into seven branches, there, through them, lay the road which joined Italy with Germany. Yet only one branch had a bridge over it, and the fords through the others were dangerous enough to keep guides at work. It is not surprising, then, to find Sir Thomas Browne's son having to engage two men to walk beside his horse up-stream to break the force of the current lest it should carry the horse off his feet, since the river was the Var, in the Riviera, and across a less important road.

Sometimes travellers preferred the ford even where a bridge existed, as did one¹⁰³ at St. Jean de Maurienne on the post-route from France to Italy because the bridge was in such disrepair as to be unsafe. The same traveller crossed by boat at Otricoli beside the ruins of a Roman bridge which had once been a link in the Via Flaminia. On the bridges the same political reasons that kept the roads difficult had set their mark, accounting as they do for the number of wooden bridges, easier to dismantle in case of a raid. The bridges of Strassburg and Vienna were particularly striking examples of this; the planks were not even fastened down; if one end tipped up, a plank was as likely as not to fall into the river. Neither were there any rails at the sides. That was not exceptional, either, in spite of a bridge being worthy of remark if broad enough for two carts to pass each other. But whether it was the initial cheapness, or the habit of precaution, there they were, in spite of the cost of their upkeep, thirty thousand thalers yearly in the case of the one at Yarunov on the Vistula in the middle of the seventeenth century, when a thaler was nearly equal to one pound at present value. Yet the traveller¹⁰⁴ who reports this says his horse trod a hole in it. And in Hungary, when Busbecq returned from Turkey by road, the bridges offered so many traps for horses that robbers laid in wait under bridges for their best opportunities.

As for stone bridges, Spain seems to have been the best off before 1600, but subsequently the improvement in bridges became very marked, especially in France. When Zinzerling knew Paris (1612-16), of its five bridges, only two were of stone, whereas of the six that Evelyn saw in 1643, but one was of wood. The only stone bridges in the empire that are mentioned are those of Schaffhausen, of Ratisbon, and, over the Moselle, of Coblentz; while two of the finest west of the Rhine, those of Avignon and Rouen, were impassable owing to gaps which no authority saw its way to repair. But the test of a first-rate bridge in 1600 was not how much traffic, but how many houses, it carried. Judged by this standard, it was agreed that London Bridge was the finest, with that of Nôtre Dame at Paris second, considering the latter's houses numbered sixty-eight. Still, it was with the number of bridges that the tourist was mainly concerned, in which matter he would find the Loire the only river across which passage was fairly easy; the Rhine had no bridge below Strassburg; the Seine had to be crossed five times by boat in the first four leagues of road northwards from Paris; and below Turin there existed no bridge over the Po except a wooden one at Ferrara.

Means of conveyance consisted of riding, subdivided into post-horses and other beasts; by cart, either the long, heavy waggon employed by carriers, or those with two big wheels and no more, which occasioned the traveller fewest shocks; and lastly, by litter. Coaches, in the sense of vehicles which are supposed to be comfortable, can hardly be said to have existed except among private owners, and even these preferred the litter, especially in winter. The acme of luxury when on the road may be represented by Marguerite de Valois' litter used on her journey to the Netherlands. The lining was of Spanish velvet, the hangings of silk, the sides glazed with one hundred and forty panes of glass, each of which bore a different design.

As for carts, though everywhere one comes across occasional instances of their use by tourists, this was far more customary in Germany than elsewhere; even a knight-errant going to seek his fortune, Sir Anthony Sherley, mentions covering distances in them there without apology. The German "rollwagen" carried six or eight passengers; those of the Low Countries as many as ten, sitting on boards laid across the cart so close behind one another that they resembled geese going to the pond. The chief centre for carrier-arrangements was Augsburg; thence to Venice and back a waggon went each week; between Augsburg and Nuremberg daily. In France conveyances started running more freely as the civil wars slackened, as, e. g. between Troyes and Paris in 1598; a reversion to what had been in force earlier. But in 1584 between Amiens and Paris, and in 1586 between Rouen and Paris, was running what was called the "coche royale," which took passengers.¹⁰⁵ By Zinzerling's time communications of this kind existed between Paris and Orleans, and Paris and Rouen, daily; between Rouen and Dieppe thrice weekly; and between Rouen and Antwerp.

The disadvantages of waggons were more obvious in the Low Countries than elsewhere, since there they never entered towns, depositing the passenger, heavy luggage and all, outside the gate; often, too, a change of waggons was obligatory during the day, whereas an English carter drove straight on, too long, in fact, for his custom was to keep on the move from dawn till sunset. The Dutchman, in addition, was usually drunk and drove his mares (always mares) like a madman, and passengers found it advisable, besides, to wear spectacles to protect their eyes against the sand thrown up by the road-menders. All waggons were provided with awnings, of cloth or leather.

In Italy and Spain practically all traffic was four-footed. Post-horses were always for hire in Italy, with a bit of fur attached to their bridles to mark their status. The owner gave the hirer a ticket to show his host at the end of the day's journey, who would then take care of the horse until a return fare was forthcoming; no security was asked. It was a novel experience for most foreigners to ride one post-horse all day: in England the stages were ten miles; in France, in the seventeenth century, four or five, so that a traveller in a hurry would change horses as many as eighteen to twenty-two times a day. The reason for the difference lay in the pace, the standard for which was much lower in a country like Italy, where mules and asses were habitually used. In fact, when the pace was set by the mules, as, for instance, in the Rome-Naples caravans, all who accompanied which had to keep together for fear of robbers, a man might be in the saddle all day and cover no more than twenty miles. As for wheeled traffic, it may be imagined from the state of the roads that the pace often sank to nothing at all. After several breakdowns, one traveller writes: "Advanced that day as far as the cursed carriages would give us leave, and the rest of the day practised Christian patience… Carts ought to be put in the Litany."

The above must be understood as leaving Muscovy out of account, for that was the one country where the journey itself could, under favourable circumstances, be continued with comfort. Once the ground was hard enough for sledges, the traveller could travel night and day and yet sleep as long as he felt inclined. Nor did the gain end with positive comfort and double the available time, since the diminished strain on the horses enabled them to go at a greater pace for a longer period. Twelve leagues without a change of horses and a hundred leagues in three days represent what was practicable in the ordinary way amid a Russian winter; treble what would be reckoned good for any conveyance elsewhere.

In Dante's "Purgatorio" (II, 11-12) is a comparison well commented on, unconsciously, in these travel-books. It is when he speaks of himself wandering

 
Come gente che pensa a suo cammino,
Che va col core, e col corpo dimora.
 

Three hundred years later, sign-posts were still as rare as unicorn-horns. One mile north of Rimini, where the road forked, stood a chapel between the two turnings, on one side of it written, "La Strada di Ravenna," on the other, "La Strada di Bologna"; and the roads round Freiburg were planted with trees to mark the way, for the benefit of citizens, however, rather than of strangers, because of the mouths of the silver mines which would otherwise have been man-traps. Something of the kind, too, was put up in Holland when snow hid the roads. More to the point will it be to quote John Smith's account of his escape from Tartary, and how he found pictorial sign-posts at cross-roads, the way to Christian Muscovy being indicated by the sign of the Cross; to Crim Tartary by a half-moon; while a black man with white spots meant Persia; a sun, China; and minor princes' territories were pointed out by the emblems they had adopted. But these were really out of Europe and those of Freiburg and Holland outlined the road rather than indicated directions, as did the poles erected on the Col di Tenda Alpine-pass for a mile together, each pole a spear's length from the next. The Simplon and Mt. Cenis passes were thus marked out also – when the poles had not been blown flat by the wind.

But then, crossing the Alps alone was practically unknown, although only on the Mt. Cenis route were professional guides employed as a matter of course. These guides had their own special name, "marrons" and a special function, to "ramasser" the traveller on his way to France, down the slope between the summit of the pass and Lanslebourg, when it was covered with frozen snow. The traveller took his seat in a rush-seated chair on runners; one "marron" in front and one behind. The one in front had a strap round his chest fastened to the chair; he took a few steps, and the chair did the rest; if the direction became amiss or the pace too furious, the "marron" behind the chair guided or checked it with an alpenstock. The distance was a league; the time fifteen minutes. Going towards Italy you would have found fifty or sixty persons coming to meet you at Lanslebourg, hat in hand, offering their services as "marrons" or as horse-owners. Dismounting, one would have held the bridle, one the stirrup, one yourself. Two or three struggle for the privilege of taking your horse to the stable and your trunk to your room, but the latter privilege is not one to be granted lightly; it was not in sound only that "marron" resembled "larron." The traveller's own horse was sent on after being shod with calkins, and he himself followed in one of the sledges, used in ascents, litter-fashion, by four "marrons," who carried it, two at a time, turn and turn about; glasses to protect the eyes from the snow-light formed part of the stock-in-trade of the local pedlars.

At the top would be found "La Chapelle des Transis," the wayfarers' mortuary, not empty probably; in March 1578 it contained fifteen bodies.¹⁰⁶ After heavy snowfalls the monks of the neighbouring hospice of St. Nicolas used to send out search parties; corpses discovered were examined for proofs of orthodoxy, beads, for instance, failing which the bodies were left to the beasts of prey.

During this period the Mt. Cenis route came to be used more exclusively for passing between France and Italy than had previously been the case, doubtless as a result of the transference of the capital of Savoy from Chambéry to Turin in 1559, between which towns this route was the most direct. Yet notwithstanding that travellers note here, and here alone, that the population on either side of the pass had no other means of livelihood than by ministering to travellers, the most frequented route must be considered the Brenner. It was the only one which wheeled traffic could pass, though even there the waggon had to be kept from falling off the road "by force of men's shoulders," according to Moryson.

Of the experiences to be met with in crossing an Alpine pass other than the Brenner, there is no better account than that which the Infanta Clara Eugenia wrote home concerning the St. Gothard. Even before reaching Bellinzona the luggage carts had to be exchanged for mules. And at Bellinzona, too, she notes that there was not a woman without an enormous goitre; and, indeed, the frequency with which travellers remark on the number of those afflicted in this way leaves no doubt but that the disease was far more prevalent then than now. It was generally accepted that the cause lay in the water, but one old resident, at least, disbelieved this, since he had one himself, although, as he told a tourist, he had never drunk water in his life. The worst of the Infanta's journey occupied the four days after leaving Bellinzona; the way so narrow that a horse could scarcely walk and the litters had continually to be taken off the mules and transferred to men. This narrow path, of course, lay always with the mountain-side high above it and a precipice and a river below. The ladies' litters were by no means according to royal standards; just four poles and a linen seat, from which the royal legs dangled; but she rode most of the way, feeling no fear of anything but the "snow-bridges," two of which had to be crossed. On the farther side there was the "Devil's Bridge" to pass also, or, as she names it, "Hell Bridge"; which now does not even exist; twenty paces long above the Reuss, so far above that the river was out of sight, although the rush of it resounded so loudly that she could not hear herself speak. The whole road had been specially prepared for her passage, and among the preparations was the erecting of railings along "Hell Bridge"; in the ordinary way there were none, the wind being so strong in the narrow gorge as always to sweep them away very soon. He who passed by the St. Gothard under ordinary conditions, and the Furka, too, wore gloves and boots studded with nails to preserve his hold; and the average Alpine bridge answered to the description which Cellini gives of those he found on the Simplon route, a few tree-trunks laid down. Another Italian going home that way says the last bridge was thirty feet by two and bent in the middle; he crossed it at night, coming as it did among the "last four leagues"(?) between the summit and Domodossola, all of which he and his traversed in pitch-darkness among precipices, the foremost calling at intervals "Ave Maria" and the hindmost answering "Gratiâ plena."

Most travellers rode horses or mules where they could, and led, or crawled with them, the rest of the way; but sledges were also in use, in which case, Moryson was told, "it sometimes happens the sledge whereon the passenger sits is cast out of the way and hangs down in a most deep valley with the passenger's head downward. Woe be to him, then, if he let his hold go, or the harness tying the sledge to the horse should break." Moryson himself had only passed by the Bernina and the Brenner, the former of which seems to have ranked third in order of popularity in spite of the track being no more than a yard wide in places. The Splügen was used as often, perhaps, but when the two St. Bernards and the Gemmi have been added to the list, there is an end of those frequented by tourists. One used the San Marco and Sir Henry Wotton another, which cannot now be identified, when the ordinary ones were shut against him by plague. But for an instance of some one keeping to the coast between France and Italy, it seems necessary to go back to Beatis in 1518, a man whose narrative is obviously trustworthy; yet, after mentioning that it was so dangerous that few rode, he adds what may sound incredible except in his own words. "Ben vero che questo Camino è di sorte Che in tale giornata di XV miglia solamente le bestie se besognarno ferrare quactro et cinque volte." For all practical purposes, moreover, the mountains near Grenoble must be considered as part of the Alps, lying, as they did, across the route of all who crossed Mt. Cenis, and being no less fearful than any of the Alpine passes themselves. At one point, nearest Aiguebelette, horses and mules were specially trained for the ascent and descent, holes having been cut in the rock which made the way more practicable for animals accustomed to them, but almost impossible to any others, unless riderless.

Elsewhere, wherever mountains have to be traversed, similar conditions prevailed. Near Spalato, it is true, the path was railed in some distance, the only railings of the kind in Europe, apparently; but near Mt. Olympus one looked over the edge of the precipice he had to ride along and saw carcasses of horses, caught as they fell, or fallen, to warn him to be careful. Says one who knew both, the road over Pen-maen-mawr in these days was more fearful than any Alpine way. As for Spain, there were quite a number of main roads which allowed nothing more than single file here and there: the pass into Castile on the road from Bayonne, for instance, and another between Granada and Cartagena, on entering which it was customary for travellers to tighten their belts and say an "Ave Maria" for those who had lost their lives thereabouts. Above San Sebastian ten men might hold the road against an army and no beasts but mules could be trusted on it, nor on the pass from France into Aragon, so steep that no man was safe there; while south of Santander, according to Sir Richard Wynn, for two leagues the road was two feet broad and one hundred perpendicular fathoms above the river.

Neither were the efforts thus entailed brightened by the idea of mountaineering as a form of pleasure. Probably the only recorded climb undertaken during this period with no other object than that of getting to the top is the ascent of "Les Jumelles," the highest peak near Pau, an ascent known to us through De Thou. One M. de Candale started at four o'clock one May morning in the first half of the sixteenth century. Before half-way was reached, his younger companions were on the way down; they had come in their shirts and found the cold too much for them; M. de Candale was wearing a fur coat. At half-way the last trace of a human being was left behind, but he and some peasants reached the top with the help of ladders and grappling-irons and took measurements. It is characteristic enough of the age that De Thou's comments on the calculated height are a comparison with the reckonings of Apuleius and Plutarch concerning Olympus, which they considered the highest mountain in the world. Mediæval opinion put Mt. Sinai first, probably because that was the only mountain a mediæval Christian ever tried to get to the top of, a process of reasoning which may be traced in the guesses of these travellers, and in local opinion, as to which was the highest of the Alps; it is always one of those past which they endeavoured to make their way, St. Gothard or St. Bernard, for which they claim preëminence. Another fashion of reckoning is to calculate, not perpendicularly, but according to the apparent length of the way, which makes Mt. Quarantana "six miles high"; while one traveller has a unit of measurement entirely his own, a mountain being to him so many "towers" high, the tower in question being the belfry of Malines, his native place.

There was, nevertheless, one piece of mountaineering that was continually being done under the guise of a pilgrimage, the ascent of the Roche Melon, near Mt. Cenis, or, as it is termed in full as late as 1574,¹⁰⁷ Roche Rommelon; the Latin name had been Mons Romuleus. Of the origin of this pilgrimage and the reason for building a chapel to Our Lady on the summit, nothing has been ascertained beyond what may be read to-day in the cathedral at Susa, where is still to be seen,¹⁰⁸ though unmentioned by Baedeker, a triptych representing a Madonna and Child, St. George, St. James, and a kneeling warrior, with an inscription to the effect that one Bonifacio Rotario of Asti "brought me [i. e. the triptych] hither in honour of our Blessed Lord and our Lady on September 1, 1358." The word "hither" refers to the summit of this Roche Melon, to which the picture is still carried up every year.¹⁰⁹ In 1588 Villamont made the ascent, which was only practicable in August, with spikes on his feet and hooks fastened to his hands, and rather more assistance than a modern mountaineer would consider dignified. The feat is the more remarkable inasmuch as the height (11,605 feet) is more than half as high again as the highest point of any pass that was used then.

On reaching the top, Villamont forgot all his terror and fatigue in the glorious view, glorious not for the grandeur of the scenery to him, but because it was his first sight of Italy, "the paradise to gain which they willingly," as another phrases it, "passed through the purgatory of the Alps." Such was their opinion of Switzerland. They spoke of the Alps just as we do of the Channel – they had had a "good crossing," or the reverse. More definitely, to quote Howell's words, "the high and hideous Alps … those uncouth, huge, monstrous, Excrescences of Nature," productive of nothing useful. Few were those who were free-spirited enough to enjoy themselves. Of the exceptions most notable are Tasso and the Infanta. The former mentions the existence of a common preference for scenes characterised by unbroken spaciousness, but for himself, he likes a varied view with much to catch the eye, hills, dales, and trees, and even, he goes on, "E, che più, la sterilità e rigidezza dell' Alpi, facendone paragone alla vaghezza degli altri spettacoli, suole molte fiate riuscire piacevolissima."¹¹⁰ The Infanta's own words are still more remarkable: "Yo dudo que se pudiera ver mejor cosa en el mundo ni màs para ver." Even she, however, when going into detail, gives first places to the plants that were new to her and to the waterfalls. When, indeed, somebody else expresses any degree of pleasure in connection with the Alps, it is generally the waterfalls that occasion it. But there is a further exception even to this, and he, curiously enough, is a popular Parisian poet, St. Amant. Although he writes, in his "Polonaise," concerning Poland,

 
On n'y voit nulle eminence
Comme on voit en d'autres lieux;
Cela me charme, et je pense
Qu'on ne peut dire tant mieux,
 

he finds the characteristics of the Alps, even in winter, such that they

 
Sont si doux à mes yeux que d'aise ils en pétillent,
 

and is even modern enough to speak of

 
Et cet air net et sain, propre à l'esprit vital.¹¹¹
 

These three have been entirely overlooked hitherto; the only person of this period whom the modern mountaineer is told to claim as his spiritual brother is the botanist Conrad Gesner; but in claiming him they claim too much – for themselves. It is true that Gesner does write¹¹² that he never lets a year go by without climbing one or more of the Alps for exercise and pleasure as well as for botany; and that "whoever does not consider towering mountains preëminently worthy of more than ordinary attention is, to my mind, an enemy of Nature." But he goes on to show that the Alps meant far more to him than this much would prove. He looked on them as an epitome of all Nature's habits and experiments, the key to all Nature's secrets, to geology in the fullest sense of the word, structural, historical, dynamical; and that to a greater extent than is apparent at first sight, inasmuch as problems now treated as solved then belonged to dreamland and problems which seemed soluble there if anywhere are now known to be better studied elsewhere; the internal temperature of the earth, for instance, since it was not recognized in Gesner's day that there was any difference in kind between mountains and volcanoes.

The attitude of the average man of Gesner's time towards the Alps, however, is but the most striking instance of a general attitude towards Nature which circumstances at that time enforced and which different circumstances have since abolished. Further, of all classes of men, it was the tourists who were most oppressed by the circumstances of the past, and it is the tourists who get the greatest benefits from the changed circumstances of to-day. Further still, the difference was, and is, most noticeable by the tourist when on the road. In other words, the absence of enjoyment of the sterner aspects of Nature was the result of their having far more of Nature than an average man can stand. The growth of the size of towns has, so to speak, set a premium on Nature, just as it has, during the past century, created the custom of taking annual holidays; while the successive minimising of the dangers, the discomforts, and of so many of the lesser difficulties of travel has provided the traveller with contrast where once upon a time was none, and leaves him free to find pleasure (sometimes, perhaps, forces him to look for it to avoid being bored), where in 1600 all spelt pain and foreboding. This difference of sentiment culminated then, as it culminates now, when the tourist found himself among the Alps. There, above other places, were his faculties narrowed by fear and what remained of them wholly concentrated on self-preservation, until enjoyment was out of the question.