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 manoeuvre 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]

St. Maurice can boast of as long a history as any town in the country. Looking backwards it is lost in the mists of Time, and it only reveals itself with real distinctness when the Romans made the town the centre of their activities in Valais, and Julius CÆsar threw up walls and fortifications around it and gave it the name of Tarnade or Ager Tarnadensis. The well-known savant and archÆologist, Dean Bourban, of the Abbey of St. Maurice, says that the road which crosses the bridge and runs beside the Rhone, through the defile, through the town and on to Martigny and the Grand St. Bernard, is the selfsame road used by the Gauls on their way to Italy, and by the Romans on their way to Gaul and Germany. There is at Bourg St. Pierre, the last village on the road to the Grand St. Bernard, an ancient milestone, marking the twenty-fourth mile between Aosta and Martigny on the great military route which ran from Milan, through St. Maurice, to Mayence in Germany. On the front of the old town hall of St. Maurice is an inscription saying: “I am Christian since the year 58”. According to tradition St. Peter crossed the Grand St. Bernard and preached Christianity throughout Valais, and if this be fact, then he must of necessity have been to St. Maurice. But the town’s present name was not then in existence; it is derived from the massacre in 302 of the Theban Legion commanded by Maurice. The massacre is said to have occurred in what is now the Bois Noir, about two miles out along the road to Martigny—a wild sparse forest of stunted pines beneath which the lovely rosy springtime heather (Erica carnea) luxuriates. This forest was the scene, too, of the terrible rockfall in 1835 from the summit of the Dent du Midi, which mountain, in its grandest and most gaunt aspect, dominates this part of the valley, having as vis-À-vis the Dent de Morcles.[5] The old Abbey of St. Maurice, built upon pagan foundations, was for centuries a spoilt child of the Church. Endowments and gifts were showered upon it by Charlemagne and other kings and princes, and its actually existing treasure is priceless, including as it does specimens of gold and silversmiths’ art from the sixth to the seventeenth centuries.[6] High up on the side of the precipitous cliffs at the back of the abbey is an ancient hermitage. As one looks at it from the town there appears no sign of a path or even of a ledge for the chapel; but on closer inspection one finds a steep and stony way up, bordered at intervals throughout its length by Stations of the Cross. When I visited it some years ago the hermit was absent, but there were rats in abundance. Pilgrimages to this chapel used to be frequent (I believe that it is closed at present), and I understand that on these occasions freshly broken stone was strewn about the path, and that those who felt their consciences in need of drastic measures went up the whole way on their hands and knees.

Ten minutes’ climb above the ChÂteau of St. Maurice (now the gendarmerie and prison) is the beautiful Fairies’ Grotto, one of the natural wonders of this district. It is noted locally as having been the residence of Frisette, the good fairy, after her troubles and vexations with the bad fairy, Turlure, who, if my memory serves me, frequented the woods and pastures around Bex. The Canton of Valais is remarkably rich in legend. If we accept the result of the patient and exhaustive researches of Mme F. Byse, Milton must have made himself familiar with certain of these fairy tales when he was at Bex on his way from Italy; for L’Allegro is held to contain conceits and fancies gathered from this district. Emile Javelle, the famous author-alpinist (his title for himself was clubiste inutile!), in writing of his first ascent of the Dent du Midi, tells of his guide’s fear of the dreadful, fiery, devastating dragon that for ages had inhabited the very district through which they must pass that of Bonaveau and the vallon of Susanfe, above ChampÉry. I myself have had narrated to me at midnight creepy hair-lifting stories of the doings of malevolent spirits doomed since ages to frequent certain old chÂlets around ChampÉry, notably those on the high plateau of Barmaz—upon which chÂlets I involuntarily keep one careful eye whenever I am in their neighbourhood. On another occasion at ChampÉry, in early morning, a hurrying man, with awe in his eyes, breathlessly gave me to understand that a boy, whilst sound asleep, had been transported on a blanket in the dead of the previous night from his bed in a chÂlet high above the village to the bed of the torrent far below the village, and that he had awakened to find himself lying among the boulders with the icy water all but dashing over him.

But we must be moving on. To reach Bex we may either cross the bridge, the other side of which is the territory of Vaud, and follow the road that winds along the base of wooded cliffs, or else after crossing the bridge turn to the left up a path that leads through the earthwork fortifications and then through vineyards to the sweet-chestnut woods of ChiÈtres and the timbered hill crowned by the remnants of the castle of Duin; or, if we are game for a long, delightful Alpine walk, we may leave St. Maurice by the south-eastern exit, cross the Rhone to the Baths of Lavey—boasting of evil-smelling but curative waters—past a picturesque waterfall, then up the ever-ascending road to the village of Morcles (taking its name from the great Dent which towers above it), thence a path leads up through the forest and across the pasture-slopes to the famous Croix de Javernaz[7]—famous for its grand view down the Rhone valley to Lac LÉman and the Jura Mountains, and for its wonderfully rich Alpine flora; from there the descent is continuous until the highroad is struck at BÉvieux, whence a tram runs in a few minutes to