Leading the Blind

by Alan Sillitoe

  Then there was Mr Nettleship, tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, who left Chamonix to climb Mont Blanc on 23 August 1892. He took two guides, but ‘Though the morning was fine, clouds gathered, and there were indications of bad weather, before mid-day. The party, however, continued upwards, intending to stop for the night at the Refuge Vallot. An hour after leaving the Aiguille a storm broke upon them, they became bewildered, wandered about for several hours, and at last stopped, dug a hole in the snow, and remained in it all night. According to the statement of the guides, Mr. Nettleship was in good spirits, assisted in digging the hole, and even sang during the night. They had sufficient food and wine, but no extra clothing.

  ‘The storm continued the whole of the night. On the morning of the 25th it was still snowing hard, and all tracks were obliterated. The guides advised Mr. Nettleship to remain where he was, on the chance of a change in the weather, but Mr. Nettleship urged that it was idle to remain there and die like cowards, and that they must make an effort to get away. He therefore started, the guides following him. They proceeded some little distance when Mr. Nettleship stumbled and became unsteady. The guides offered him wine and brandy, which he refused. He then cried out and fell forward, uttering some words in English, after which he took each guide by the hand, bade them goodbye, closed his eyes and expired.’

  The most curious death occurred during a thunderstorm: ‘Simond, who was leading, was killed instantly by a flash of lightning, which also severed the rope leading from him to Monsieur Fontaine, and caused the corpse of the unfortunate man to fall a great distance on to the glacier below. It is stated that Simond was the only member of the party carrying an ice-axe.’

  If our gentleman-traveller made an attempt to climb Mont Blanc, we must assume that he survived, whether or not he reached the summit, for we have many more tribulations, and occasional pleasures, to keep him going. After a few weeks among ice and snow he would crave the man-made artefacts and artistic productions – not to mention the mellower climate – of Italy. But if in those early days before the railway he chose to go into that country via the coast from Nice, he could do so in a couple of days by hiring a light calèche. ‘Few travellers, however, will be willing to pass over its interesting scenes in so hurried a manner. It is a country to be dwelt upon: the artist may enrich his sketch-book at every step, and the architect or antiquary will find ample field for the most interesting researches. Persons travelling in a heavy carriage, which requires four horses, should be cautioned that in some places the road is steep and narrow, and runs along the verges of precipices, whose bases, 200 or 300 feet below, are washed by the Mediterranean: parapets are not always provided in such spots; and, unless the horses are very quiet, and accustomed to the road, there is some danger.’

  After Albenga we are told that: ‘The streets of many of the old towns through which the road is carried are so narrow, that the walls of the houses on both sides are grooved by the marks of the axletree.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  GERMANY AND THE RHINE

  Many travellers took the German route over the Alps so as to enjoy a stay at the various spas, either refreshing and rejuvenating themselves after whatever exertion they had undergone in England, or in preparation for encountering the heat and heavy cultural rounds of the tourist in Italy.

  Murray’s handbook of 1858 tells us that four steamers a week left London for Ostend in the summer, the passage lasting twelve hours, of which seven were spent descending the Thames. If our travelling gentleman thought of taking his own servant, the advice was discouraging. ‘It is notorious that English servants taken for the first time to the Continent, and ignorant of every language but their own, are worse than useless – they are an encumbrance.’ The traveller who required a servant was recommended to hire a foreign one or, better still, ‘save himself much expense by dispensing with a servant altogether’.

  The best course, though an expensive luxury, was to hire a courier: ‘He relieves his master from much fatigue of body and perplexity of mind, in unravelling the difficulties of long bills and foreign moneys, sparing his temper the trials it is likely to endure from disputes with innkeepers and the like. He must make arrangements for his employer’s reception at inns where he intends to pass the night; must secure comfortable rooms, clean and well-aired beds, and order meals to be prepared, fires to be lighted, taking care that his master is called in proper time, and that the horses are ordered at the right hour. He should superintend the packing and unpacking of the luggage, should know the number of parcels, etc., and be on his guard against leaving anything behind. It falls to the courier to pay innkeepers, postmasters, and postboys, and he ought to take care that his master is not overcharged. Besides this, he performs all the services of waiting and attendance, cleaning and brushing clothes, etc.’

  There are disadvantages in this seemingly perfect proceeding, because a courier, as the guidebooks have already suggested, will often ‘sell’ by pre-arrangement the rich family he is working for to innkeepers along the road, so that what he extorts from the innkeeper ‘inevitably comes out of his employer’s pocket’. Perhaps the traveller could be consoled by the fact that railways were spreading through the Continent, in combination with steam navigation on the rivers. This is seen by Murphy as an argument against taking a carriage from England. ‘With such expeditions and comfortable modes of travelling at command, it is far better for those who study economy at all to hire vehicles from place to place when required.’

  The many confidence men on the Continent gave rise to Murray’s classic ‘Caution to Innkeepers and Others’: ‘A person or persons have of late been extorting money from innkeepers, tradespeople, artists, and others … under pretext of procuring recommendations and favourable notices of them and their establishments in the Handbooks for Travellers. The Editor, therefore, thinks proper to warn all whom it may concern, that recommendations in the Handbooks are not to be obtained by purchase, and that the persons alluded to are not only unauthorised by him, but are totally unknown to him. All those, therefore, who put confidence in such promises may rest assured that they will be defrauded of their money without attaining their object.’

  He goes on to say that the character of hotels, good and bad, inserted in the handbook, ‘are given either from personal knowledge or upon unexceptionable authority of travellers whose names and residences are known to the Editor. Where the objections stated in this book no longer exist, and where a positive improvement has taken place, the Editor is always ready to listen to respectable and well-authenticated testimony, and to remove in future editions the condemnatory epithets or passages. Thus he hopes to stimulate to exertion and amendment, to protect travellers from neglect and imposition, and to do justice to deserving innkeepers.’

  With such assurances our traveller will set out, the indispensable Murray buttoned into his pocket, though when he reaches Ostend he is not likely to linger after reading the following: ‘… a few hours there exhaust a traveller’s patience; while the visit to the douane, and the extortions of innkeepers and commissionaires, are not likely to improve his temper.’ Apart from which, travellers should be on their guard against drinking water, ‘which is filtered rain-water. Seltzer water is drunk in preference.’ Even so, ‘Ostend is a favourite watering-place, and is much resorted to in summer; even the King and Queen of the Belgians repair hither, and occupy 2 or 3 ordinary-looking houses in the Rue Longue. There are 80 Bathing Machines on the beach, and the sands are very extensive and smooth, and crowded with bathers of both sexes, decorously clad in bath dresses, by order of the police.’

  The handbook also deals with Holland where ‘the roads run on the tops of the dykes; and, as there are no parapets or railings, there is at least the appearance of danger, and accidents sometimes happen’. Dutch hotels were said to be nearly as expensive as those of England, and inferior to those of most other countries. They were, however, generally clean, but ‘owing to the humidity of the climate the beds are often damp, and should be
warmed with the warming-pan, a much employed article in Dutch households’.

  The subject of cleanliness clearly fascinated the writer of the handbook, though he considered the matter to be ‘carried to excess in Holland; but the passion for purifying really runs to such a height among Dutch housewives that the assertion is by no means groundless: everything has an air of freshness, and the stranger in vain looks for a particle of dust. It is on the last day of the week that an extraordinary cleaning takes place. Every house door presents a scene of most energetic activity – the brushing and mopping, the scrubbing and scraping, are not confined to steps and doorways – the pavement, wall, windows, however guiltless they may be of impurity, are all equally subjected to the same course of ablution. Those spots which are out of the reach of the hand or broom do not escape a well-aimed stream from the pipe of a small engine-pump, which is always reserved for such service. The unsuspecting stranger who walks the streets is subjected to the danger of perpetual wettings. He looks up to ascertain whence the shower descends, and he perceives a diligent servant girl, stretched out of a window two-thirds of her length, and, with eyes intently turned upwards, discharging bowls full of water upon some refractory stain, imperceptible to all but herself.’

  The traveller is reminded that life was formerly most fraught in Holland – and possibly still is. The town of Dort, for example, stands on an island formed by an inundation in 1421, ‘when the tide in the estuary of the Rhine, excited by a violent tempest, burst through a dyke, overwhelming a populous and productive district, which it at once converted into a waste of waters called the Biesbosch … 72 villages and 100,000 human beings were swallowed up by the waves. 35 of the villages were irretrievably lost, so that no vestige, even of the ruins, could afterwards be discovered.’

  A more immediate danger awaited those who thought to wander freely around the houses of gentlemen: ‘Many of the grounds of the country seats are open; but some have notices – only in Dutch – of man-traps and spring-guns.’

  On reaching Germany the Customs examination was said to be ‘strict without being vexatious. The Prussian douanier (often an old soldier invalided) is above taking a bribe, or rather, government regulates matters so as to prevent his taking one. The person offering a bribe is even liable to punishment by law. Strangers are treated with invariable civility, provided they conduct themselves becomingly.’

  The money problems was again infinitely difficult, this time due to the proliferation of different states and principalities, leading Murray to warn us that the values marked on German coins ‘are sometimes not the value at which the coin passes’. He then goes on to juggle Friedrichs d’or, dollars, silver groschen, thalers, kreutzers and gulden with pounds, shillings and pence, which must have left our traveller’s head spinning, so that it would come as something of a relief to learn that: ‘Travellers in Prussia are protected by a regulation of the police from the impositions of innkeepers, who are compelled to hang up in every apartment, or at least in the public room, a tariff, or list of charges for lodging, food, fuel, servants, valets-de-place, etc. This is inspected periodically by a proper officer, who regulates the price of each article, and ascertains that none of the charges are exorbitant.’

  All the same, our traveller must have read the following with something like exasperation: ‘All innkeepers are compelled to submit to the inspection of the police the daily arrivals and departures of their guests; and not merely the name, surname, and country, but frequently the age, condition, whether married or single, profession, religion, motives for travelling, and other particulars, are required. A book called Strangers’ Book, ruled into columns, and methodically classed, is presented to the traveller for him to fill up.’

  Another point made is that German hotelkeepers were of a ‘higher class’ than their equivalents in England, and that they usually sat at the common table, ‘entering familiarly into conversation with their guests’. Travellers must have responded in various ways to this blatant intrusion into their privacy, from one of welcome at gaining some picture of local conditions, to that of wishing the hotelkeeper would eat in his own kitchen where he belonged. No doubt the silent Englishman’s protection against having to answer probing questions was helped by his lack of knowing what the upstart was talking about.

  Let us assume that our gentleman-traveller is not too much discouraged by this and makes for Cologne where, consulting his Murray, he would put up at the Hollandischer Hof. Delacroix stayed there in 1850, and ‘felt depressed by the strange jargon and the sight of foreign uniforms. The Rhine wine at dinner made me feel more reconciled to my situation, but unhappily I had the worst bed in the world, even though this is supposed to be one of the best hotels.’

  From Cologne it would take our traveller fourteen and a half hours to reach Berlin by railway, ‘allowing time for refreshment at Minden’. We are told that the 455,000 inhabitants of the Prussian capital included 15,000 Roman Catholics, 15,000 Jews, 5300 descendants of the French Protestants driven out of France by the religious intolerance of Louis XIV, and 15,000 soldiers of the garrison. Murray says: ‘The city is situated in the midst of a dreary plain of sand, destitute of either beauty or fertility. The great number of soldiers gives to Berlin almost the air of a camp.’ He evinces surprise that it had grown into the capital of a great empire. ‘Owing to the want of stone in the neighbourhood, the larger part even of the public buildings are of brick and plaster. The flatness of the ground and the sandy soil produce inconveniences which the stranger will not be long in detecting. There is so little declivity in the surface, that the water in the drains, instead of running off, stops and stagnates in the streets. In the Friedrichsstrasse, which is two miles long, there is not a foot of descent from one end to the other. In the summer season the heat of the sun reflected by the sand becomes intolerable, and the noxious odours in the streets are very unwholesome as well as unpleasant.’ A complaint was also made about the pavements, which were so narrow that ‘two persons can scarcely walk abreast, and many are infamously paved with sharp stones, upon which it is excruciating pain to tread’.

  A mere fortnight was needed to see Berlin, after which the traveller would find it tedious without the company of friends. ‘The society of the upper classes is on the whole not very accessible to strangers, nor is hospitality exercised to the same extent among them as in England, chiefly because their fortunes are limited.’

  Murray admitted, however, that Berlin was one of the finest cities in Europe, but then comments on the number of statues erected in the streets, most being of military men. ‘A Corinthian pillar surmounted by an eagle, absurdly called National Krieger Denkmal, has been set up in the Invalids’ Garden, as a monument to the 475 soldiers whose names are inscribed on the marble tablets around its base, who fell in defending the city and their sovereign from the brutal revolutionary rioters of 1848 and 1849.’

  Our traveller, if an officer in the army, may be interested in the Grand Review of the garrison, which takes place in the neighbourhood of Berlin during the autumn: ‘20,000 troops are sometimes collected, and the manoeuvres last several days. To see the reviews to advantage a uniform is desirable, though not absolutely necessary. A good horse warranted to stand fire may be hired for a louis a day; with these you may ride on the ground and join the staff, which sometimes amounts to 500 officers of all nations. The field manoeuvres usually last several days, the regiments bivouacking at night. Ladies in carriages are enabled to see the whole by the good arrangement of the gendarmerie.’

  So a fortnight of boredom will see our traveller on the train to Dresden, and accommodated in the new Hotel Victoria, or if by now looking after his pocket, at Eichler’s Boarding House, ‘in the English quarter’. Dresden was known as ‘the German Florence’, and Murray grudgingly agrees, telling us: ‘Few European capitals contain a greater number of objects calculated to gratify the curiosity of an intelligent traveller. The opera is good, and music is much cultivated; the climate is generally mild and agreeable, fo
od and lodgings are not dear. It has been much resorted to since 1830 by the English for education and economy; and for those who are not alarmed by the recent revolutionary events in Germany, is eligible as a residence.’

  Perhaps life was a little too regimented for the locals, because if any wanted to cross to the other side of the Elbe on foot they had always to ‘take the path on the right hand, “a rule of the road” which is enforced by the police, and prevents collision and confusion’.

  Murray recommends a visit to nearby Saxon Switzerland, and especially to the fortress of Königstein, to which one is admitted on showing a passport and paying a small fee. ‘This fortress once served as a state prison: it was scaled for the first time in 1848 by a chimney-sweep, at mid-day; he reached the top half dead with fatigue.’

  Between Dresden and Chemnitz lies the coal district of Saxony, where a somewhat sinister picture is given of local life. The miners, of a rather primitive class, ‘are enrolled in a sort of semi-military corps, of which the common workmen are the privates, and the superintendents and managers the officers. They are called out several times a year for inspection or parade, and in addition assemble in a body at certain stated times to attend miners’ prayers in the church, at the funeral of a superior officer, during the visit of a royal personage, and on days of rejoicing for the discovery of a rich vein. On these occasions they appear in uniform, their leather aprons fastened on behind, leather pockets in the place of cartouche-boxes, and a large knife stuck in the girdle. The common miners march with their pickaxes shouldered, the carpenters with their axes, and the smiths with their hammers borne in the same fashion. These processions have a martial appearance, are headed by a band playing a miners’ march, and accompanied by flying colours. The officers have similar uniforms, distinguished according to their rank.’