Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/308

 302

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 8. in. MAY, 1917.

and La Roche is only 2,516 ft. high. The mention of the " bridge of La Roche " led MB. EDGCUMBE, evidently d contre cceur, to adopt this route No. 2, though he wonders rightly why, in that case, did Byron's party make such a great detour to the north ?

Two of the three possible routes being thus excluded, there remains the third to consider, and this, I feel sure, was the one actually followed. This third route mounts the Sarine valley, passes by Chateau d'Oex (3,153 ft.) and then Saanen or Gessenay (3,327 ft.) before crossing the swampy plain of the Saanenmoser (4,209 ft.), and then descending to Zweisimmen (3,163ft.), in the upper Simme valley, where the two branches of that river unite. Some 5i miles on is Boltigen (2,703 ft.), and 9 miles further the big village of Erlenbach, at the south foot of the Stockhorn (7,192 ft.) and at the west foot of the Niesen (7,763 ft.), where probably Byron slept, as next day he passes very lightly over his route to Thun, save the narrow gorge beyond Erlenbach, leading to Wimmis, and so to Thun.

Now we know for certain that this route from Montbovon to Erlenbach was in 1816

Eassable for carriages. The French trans- ( ition (1811), vol. iv. p. 159, of Ebel's ' Guide ' (the " Murray " of the period), says distinctly :

" De Saanen a Zweysimmen le chemin est pra- ticable pour les ventures. ... De Saanen on peut prendre par la valise prinoipale, en suivant la grande route ou passent les chariots, par Rouge- mont et Chateau d'Oex."

Next, I have open before me three oldish Swiss maps: those of Weiss (1797), of Mallet (1798), and of Keller (an edition between 1815 and 1820). Now all three agree that from Montbovon the carriage road (clearly marked on them) kept along the left bank of the Sarine to Les Moulins, just below Chateau d'Oex, when it crossed to the right bank, which was henceforth followed to Saanen, where it leaves the river to the south in order to cross the Saanenmoser Pass.

The two later of these maps mark a side-road mounting to the now well- known hamlet of Rossinieres. This side- road (like the new railway) crosses the Sarine by a bridge (2,743 ft.) at the upper end of the splendid rock gorge of La Tine, and this bridge is, in my opinion, the one which Byron " saw " -" the bed of the river very low and deep, between immense rocks, and rapid as anger."

In short, Byron, by a slip of the pen, wrote the better-known name of Roche for

Tine, and his route from Montbovon to Erlenbach is precisely that now so well known to travellers by the " Montreux- Oberland " railway, the great highway between these two regions.

W. A. B. COOLIDGE. Grindelwald.

BRISTOL CHANNEL FROZEN OVER,

(12 S. iii. 189.)

THE passage in ' Lorna Doone ' to which MR. ARTHUR MEE refers is no doubt the one found in chap. xlv. :

" And speaking of the sea reminds me of a thing reported to us, and on good authority ; though people might be found hereafter who would not believe it, unless I told them that from what I myself beheld of the Channel I place perfect faith in it ; and this is, that a dozen sailors at the beginning of March crossed the ice, with the aid of poles, from Clevedon to Penarth, or where the Holm rocks barred the flotage."

I am not able to find the authority for the statement Blackmore makes in the above passage, but I can produce considerable evidence which makes it highly probable that the narrative is correct.

The winter of 1683-4 was the winter of the great frost. A very hard spell began a day or so before Christmas Day, and lasted many weeks. There is no need to repeat the ample details which have from time to time ap- peared in various books relating to this terrible winter. Isaac Walton was one of a large number of persons who perished owing to its severity. I shall give details which will show that at various places round the coast the sea was frozen. Between Clevedon and Penarth there is only a comparatively narrow channel of deep water at low tide, and with the aid of poles, as stated in ' Lorna Doone,' a clever sailor would be able to jump from one floating piece of ice to another in places where the ice was broken or not completely frozen over. The first authority I shall quote is Henry Luttrell's ' Diary.' Luttrell was of West - Country origin, and in his delightful record he usually brings in all he can of events occurring in the western counties. He says :

" This frost was so severe that the harbours of several places were frozen up that no ship could goe out or come in : no packet boats went out : the sea was frozen some miles out from the shore. Vast flakes of ice were seen floating on the sea : nay, divers ships were so besett with ice that they could not sail backward or forward, but driven to great distresse " (' Diary,' vol. i. p. 297).