Many and varied are the calamities to which those people are exposed who have their abodes among the grim mountain fastnesses of Switzerland and the Tyrol, or indeed who live in any similarly situated region, where Nature still reigns in undisputed majesty, and manifests her power by those swift and awful catastrophes which strike terror to the hearts of all who come within their influence. In winter the snow falls heavily and constantly, and forms a huge overhanging mass, that overtops the often narrow pass below, and is suspended, like the sword of Damocles, by the slightest possible retaining hold; a trifling noise, such as the discharge of a rifle or even the prolonged blast of the Alpine horn, being sometimes sufficient to dislodge the vast snow-wreath, and send it gliding on its silent but deadly course towards the valley beneath. The destruction caused by the overwhelming avalanche is too well known to need description. Scarcely a Swiss hamlet or mountain pass but has its record of some sad calamity caused by the resistless force of those fatal snow-falls. Single travellers, parties varying in number, chÂlets, and even entire villages, have on different occasions been buried under the snow; no warning having been afforded to the hapless victims till the icy pall of death descended relentlessly upon them, and hid them, sometimes for long months, sometimes for ever, from their fellow-men.

Those who live on the banks of the narrow, swift-running torrents that intersect the valleys, have another danger to encounter. Those little streams, greatly swollen in summer by the melting of the snow on the higher ranges of the mountains, frequently overflow their boundaries and spread destruction and death around. If, as occasionally happens, the stream becomes choked by dÉbris from the overhanging precipices, it is turned aside from its natural channel, and flows in quite another direction; sometimes forming in its progress a lake or a small tarn, which never again subsides, and which may destroy in a moment the long and arduous labour of the husbandman.

A third and even more tremendous catastrophe is that known as a berg-fall or mountain land-slip; when an overhanging portion of some steep precipice becomes loosened from its foundations, and on some unusual impetus being given to it, topples suddenly over and hurls itself upon the plain beneath it. These berg-falls occur very frequently in the Tyrol, sometimes occasioning comparatively little damage, and even adding an element of picturesqueness to the great natural beauty of the region; while on other occasions they are followed by widespread havoc and destruction.

In 1771 a terrible calamity of this nature befell the little village of Alleghe, situated on the banks of the river Cordevole, not far from the town of Caprile in the Tyrol. The district was a fertile and beautiful one, with several scattered villages surrounded by orchards and corn-fields, and protected from the fierce blasts of winter by the range of high mountains, which were at once its safeguard and its peril. At the base of one of the loftiest of this great range, called Monte Pezza, stood the little village of Alleghe. In the month of January, when the mountains around were all covered with heavy snow, a charcoal-burner was at his work in the woods of Monte Pezza, when his attention was suddenly arrested by a distinctly tremulous movement of the ground, and by the frequent rattling down of stones and dÉbris from the rocky precipices behind him. These were sufficient indications of danger to the practised ear of the mountaineer. He knew too well the portents of those overwhelming catastrophes that are continually to be dreaded; and on listening more attentively, he became convinced that serious peril was impending. Even as he watched, several large boulders became detached from the face of the mountain, and rolled down to a considerable distance; while at intervals the trembling motion of the ground was too evident to be mistaken. It was growing late in the afternoon, and darkness would soon fall on the valley; so hastily quitting his work, he made the best of his way down to the nearest village, and with the excitement naturally caused by anxiety and fear, he told the inhabitants of the alarming indications he had just witnessed, and urged them to make their escape without loss of time from the threatened danger. Strangely enough, they seem to have attached no value to the signs of approaching mischief which the man described to them; and it would appear that they considered the falling dÉbris to be attributable to some accidental snow-slip, caused possibly by the warm rays of the noonday sun.

Whatever they may have thought, they paid no heed to the warning; and the charcoal-burner having done all he could to save them from the threatened calamity, went on as fast as possible to carry his terrible news to three other villages, which were all directly exposed to the like danger. But they also utterly disbelieved in it, and laughed at the fears of the poor man, whose breathless and agitated condition clearly testified to the truth of his conviction that a very great peril was close at hand. One and all, they refused to quit their dwellings; and the charcoal-burner, having vainly endeavoured to awaken them to a sense of their danger, quitted the spot himself, and sought shelter elsewhere. Hours passed, and no further disturbance of any kind taking place, the villagers concluded the whole thing to have been a false alarm, and at night all retired to rest as usual, without apparently a shadow of misgiving. Suddenly, in the midst of the silence and darkness, a fearful crash of falling rocks sounded far and wide through the valley; and when the first rays of the sun lighted up the mountain peaks, a terrible scene of ruin and death was revealed. The four little hamlets had entirely disappeared; two of them, those that lay nearest to the slopes of Monte Pezza, were completely buried under an immense mass of fallen earth and rocks; the other two were submerged beneath the waters of the river Cordevole, which had been driven from its coarse by the berg-fall, and had spread out into what is now known as the Lake of Alleghe. None of the unhappy victims had a moment's time for escape, even had escape been possible. The rushing down of the mountain was instantaneous, and buried them as they lay sleeping; and the water flowed with impetuous rapidity into the unprotected villages, not one inmate of which survived to relate the experiences of that awful night.

Some months passed; and the first horror of the catastrophe had a little faded, when another berg-fall took place, again followed by lamentable consequences. It occurred in the month of May and in daylight; but a much smaller loss of life was the result, though the destruction of property was even greater than on the previous occasion. Owing to the tremendous force exerted by the falling dÉbris, the waters of the lake, which had never subsided since its formation, instantaneously rose into an enormous wave, and rushed violently up the valley; wrecking houses and farm-buildings, destroying the flourishing orchards and corn-fields, and carrying away a portion of the parish church of a village which had been re-called Alleghe, after the submersion of the first of that name. The organ of this church was forcibly swept to a considerable distance; and a tree borne along on the mighty wave was dashed into an open window of the curÉ's house, while he was sitting at dinner, the servant who was attending on him being killed on the spot. Many lives were lost during this second great berg-fall, and terrible consternation was created in the minds of the inhabitants of the district, which seemed to have been so specially singled out for misfortune.

Since that time, however, no other serious disaster has befallen them; the huge mountains of the neighbourhood have not again hurled death and ruin on the smiling valley at their feet; and the little lake of Alleghe, the principal memorial of the catastrophe, is only an added beauty to the lovely scenery which surrounds it, and lies there in serene tranquillity, all unconscious of the beating hearts for ever stilled beneath its waters, of the happy homes rendered dark and desolate by its cold cruel wave. More than a hundred years have passed since then; many generations of villagers have lived and died, and the recollection of the great berg-falls of 1771 has faded into a mere tradition of the place; but yet, looking down into the clear depths of the lake, on a day when there is no wind to raise ripples on its surface, the outlines of the submerged villages can be distinctly traced. Roofs and walls of houses can yet be distinguished; it is even said that the belfry of the church is visible, flights of stairs, and many other relics of the past life of the drowned inhabitants.

On the 21st of May in each year, the date of the second of those great disasters, a solemn commemorative service is celebrated in the little church of Alleghe, and masses are performed for the souls of those who perished in the two fatal berg-falls of 1771.