A Chamois Hunt at Anzeindaz in 1770

The story which follows contains one of the most entertaining hunting adventures of the eighteenth century. The writer was a young theological student, Johannes Gabriel Fayod, of Bex, a correspondent of the elder Phillipe Bridel. The latter included the facts in a sketch entitled “Excursion de Bex a Sion par le Mont Anzeindaz,” which appeared in Mélanges Helvetiques (Basle, 1792, ii, 305) and in the Conservateur Suisse (Lausanne, 1813, ii, 126).

The manuscript, now in my collection, consists of eight leaves, a beautiful example of eighteenth-century handwriting. The French text was published by Alex Jullien in L’Echo des Alpes (1921—No.5), but has not been translated previously. Montagnier considered it the earliest description of the route over the Pas de Cheville, from Bex to Sion.—[Ed.]

ON the 19th of August, 1770, Pastor Fayod of Bex joined some friends to make an excursion in the mountains and see the curiosities there. We got together the necessary provisions, which were carried by two men who acted as guides, and after six hours of slow and deliberate walking arrived at the chalets of the mountain of Anzendaz, belonging to the community of Bex and bordering on upper Valais.

Our eyes beheld an immense plain embroidered in vivid colours, and deliciously perfumed, covered with numerous flocks gamboling at the thought of succulent repasts on these rich pastures. This interesting and varied scene held our attention during the remainder of the day, which we spent agreeably at the chalets of the fruit-vendors, discussing different phases of their business, with which we were unacquainted and about which we were delighted to hear them speak. In the midst of all this the milking time arrived and each man ran to his flock, leaving us to momentary reflection on the many advantages of such a rural, rustic life.

Our pleasure was renewed on seeing the flocks arrive at the chalet to leave their precious product there. No sooner had they given their milk than each of them took the path back to those lovely pastures, which were preparing refreshment for them. When the cowherds met together again they hastened to offer us their beds and their best milk, and we could not accept the invitation of one without arousing jealousy on the part of the others, so eager were they to share their possessions with us.

Next morning, after breakfast, our guides took us to a little stream, produced by a bubbling spring issuing from the base of a steep cliff. This curious source at once aroused our wonder, which increased to astonishment when we saw our guides take off their coats, roll up their shirt-sleeves, get down on their stomachs on the bank of the stream, dip in their arms to the very shoulder, and lift them out with hands full of fine gravel in which were many stones of different shapes and sizes. Some were in the form of snails, others like shellfish and insects; a discovery so curious that we wanted to do as much ourselves. So we took off our coats in the presence of the guides, who laughed heartily without our knowing the reason. We were not long in discovering it, since their mirth increased on watching our vain attempts to plunge our arms into a brook whose water was so cold that it froze us to the point of obstructing circulation and respiration. Yet they say that in winter the water never steams in freezing, while this, on the contrary, was like a spring of hot water in that it melted the snow banked around it.

From there our guides, wishing to raise our surprise to its highest pitch, led us onto a rock several hundred feet high where we could climb only with great difficulty. This, however, was soon forgotten at the sight of an immense number of stones like those in the brook, but still larger, more varied and exact in their resemblances. We supplied ourselves, to share with our friends, and, after many reflections on this curious production of nature, came down from the rock to the valley itself, which we afterwards followed as far as the extremity of the mountain, on the Valais side, where we encountered other uncommon things of great interest to the traveller.

There our guides, taking our hands, made us go forward one by one onto an enormous steep rock called Sevegneulaz, which commands a valley of immense depth and forms the mountain of Cheville whose chalets seem like beehives and the flocks like swarms to whomever has the courage to look down upon them.

While we were gazing at the many herds descending in zigzag along a very steep hill, we were interrupted suddenly by the sound of a fresh erupution from a sort of volcano on the Diablerét rock, which was so active during the year 1714 that the falling pieces of stone could be heard at a distance of many leagues on the Valais side, covering a large number of fine pastures, burying people and animals.1 The river of Luzerne, which formerly flowed into the Rhone nearly opposite Pissevache, in Valais, was turned from its course and remains so from that day to this.

This volcano, which still at every hour of the day throws out a mass of small stones that fall with a great noise upon its sides, caused many discussions as to its origin. Our leaders then informed us that a great controversy was raised between the Valais cowherds and those of Anzendaz, to decide the question why the falling of this immense Diablerét rock took place more on the Valais than the Bernese side. At last, after many arguments in their own style, the conclusion adopted by both parties, and accepted because of the name, was that in the Diablerét rock, which serves as a boundary between the two cantons, there took place a general conflict between the Bernese devils and the Valaisan devils, the vanquished being thrown down into their country and the summit of the said rock with them.

On the third day we hunted white hares, and marmots which are found here in abundance in two species, grey and red. The hunting was quite amusing and we came back to the chalets at evening worn with fatigue and loaded with game, which they prepared for our supper and on which we made a delicious meal, although the cooking was not of the best. After supper we went to sleep in the straw, where we rested perfectly, resolved upon rising very early to go and seek the chamois—the delights of whose chase they had praised to us, without mentioning the danger to which one is exposed. But the weather threatening rain, we stayed all day with our good hosts, in the midst of a fog whose lifting we waited impatiently; an actual occurrence a few hours later, revealing the heights covered with a light snow—the most favourable weather condition for a chamois hunt.

It was decided to start next day, and it was not yet light before we were on the way to the famous glacier of Paneyrossaz. The sun had scarcely shed its first rays when we discovered a herd of fourteen chamois on the ice, sliding like children one after the other, each trying to outrun the rest. During this exercise there were two, remaining at quite a distance from the others, who acted as sentinels, so that no enemy should surprise them. We were convinced of this, for the moment we arose, after watching them at our ease, body to the ground, the two sentinels discovered us and twice uttered a piercing cry, like a whistle, to inform their comrades of the danger confronting them. Play ceased, they reunited like a cavalry squadron and disappeared like lightning over the crest of the rocks, the largest one in front as if he had been the captain.

Then, despairing of seeing them again, one of our guides, an old hunter who knew every possible defile of those rocks, reassured us by saying that if we would be very patient it would suffice if we crossed their path by making a long detour, and thus make them retrace their steps in such a manner that we might be able to shoot down at them. The decision was accepted and after assigning each one to the post he should hold, we started forward, taking the route we had planned. That our effort might not be in vain, it was decided to shoot only at chamois and never at any other game. This done, and each having gone to take his position, I was alone on the glacier, watching the outlet where the chamois had disappeared. With great difficulty I moved forward, with the help of the pike at the end of my gun, when a flock of red partridges appeared, hopping slowly before me along the fresh snow that covered the glacier.

I stood still for a moment watching them, burning with desire to shoot, when the flock left with a great whirring and put off toward the place where the chamois had been sliding that morning. I watched and was pleasantly surprised to see a chamois slowly leave the centre of the group, go off kicking the stones, lie down again on the snow and stretch out its head with the greatest sense of security. Supposing that it must be wounded, and that I could shoot from above, I advanced toward its side, my gun up, quite occupied with the pleasure of killing the game. I lay down in jubilation and was about to shoot, when, by a singular chance, being all unbeknownst on a hidden gulf bridged with a crust of snow, I found myself swallowed up in a profound abyss.

Here is my description of it, in so far as emotion allowed me to judge and remember: it was a crack, or crevasse, very narrow, which crosses the breadth of the glacier, and which, separating two walls of ice nineteen-and-a-half feet apart (I took the measurement afterwards), leads horizontally to a kind of little glacial sea where the bottom has not been found. Thrown suddenly into such a pond filled with endless icicles, God alone could know my plight. He offered to lend me a helping hand in giving me enough strength and presence of mind to use the one and only means of extricating myself.

I came up to the surface of the water where I floated with the ice fragments, spat out the water I had swallowed in my plunge, and had the good fortune to discover a sort of little staircase formed by the drops of water filtering down from the glacier above to the foot of the sombre walls of my cold prison, and congealing and accumulating in such a way that I could make a support of them in the manner of chimney-sweeps. By resting my back on one side and my knees on the other I reached, with great effort, the top of the crevasse. I breathed with much difficulty and waved my arms in an effort to attract attention.

But, by a double misfortune which seemed likely to put an end to me, this same snow surface again gave way under my weight and I was once more thrown down to the bottom of that frightful gulf. I reached the water again as the result of my fall, and cold and terror had so frozen me as to lessen my strength; but Providence, which no doubt watches over my safety, intentionally placed me across a block of ice several feet in circumference and prevented me from sinking. I had time in that grave moment to come to my senses, and feeling myself seized with general numbness which without doubt was a warning of death, I made a last effort to raise myself once more from the canal of my prison. It was smoother and steeper than at my first attempt, and my strength was exhausted, so I am sure it cost me much more effort to get out the second time; and this was made possible only by extraordinary exertion and at the price of my finger-nails. When I finally gained the top, as I had done the first time—without being able to release myself from the gulf which seemed to call me back to it—there I was, without strength or voice, incapable of calling for help or of saving myself, since my arms yielded to the weight of my body, and some icicles which were attached to my clothing, like vultures on their prey, allowed no glimpse of me except the top of my head above the snow.

My eyes became dim, when suddenly I felt myself seized by the hair and thus pulled from the frightful abyss which so nearly engulfed me forever. What was being done for me at that moment no doubt was to remove me from that dreadful grave and to render me all assistance that the situation allowed. I was, they said, long unconscious, as though in a lethargic drowsiness, from which my liberators at last forcibly aroused me to drink some brandy which they had in their pockets.

I saw then that they were my hunting companions, among others the old hunter, our guide, who, having encountered the chamois as he had hoped, had seen them go back toward the place he had shown me. Not hearing me fire he was surprised and feared that some evil had overtaken me—a fortunate suspicion for me, and one which induced him to come and look for me. I should otherwise have perished, and, without aid in a moment or two, have been hidden forever.

Brought back to life, my first thought naturally was to thank God for the deliverance He had accorded me, and so to prove to my liberator my sincere recognition of the important service he had rendered me. Afterward we returned to the chalets where everyone marveled at the luck that had enabled me to get myself out of the chasm. A number went with poles, which they had joined together in a length of sixty-three feet, to fish for my hat and gun. They succeeded in securing the former as it floated; but my gun remains there as a monument to my deliverance, although hunters since then repeatedly have been bold enough to lower themselves with ropes as far as the water. There, with a hook at the end of a string of great length, their further attempts were as fruitless as the first, and bottom was never found.

On the second day, having partially recovered my strength, I returned pale and wan to Bex, accompanied by my friends, the witnesses of my misfortune. I told them myself what had happened to me; one would never have believed it without seeing the pallor of my face and the sad state of my hands, without skin, and with nails torn to the quick.

So I made a solemn vow, to this time rigourously observed, never again to hunt the chamois or to climb rocks or glaciers.

There, Monsieur, is the detailed story of my fortunate and unfortunate mountain tour. Incredible and supernatural as it may seem to you, it is not at all exaggerated and contains only the most precise truth. Better written, it would no doubt be more interesting; but it requires a pen such as yours to give it the salt of eloquence. In this hope it will give me great pleasure to have it reach you, without alteration, as you have requested.

Note: In 1927 I noticed a rifle with single barrel and two hammers hanging above the fireplace in the main room of the Montanvert Hotel. On

inquiry I was told that it was the ancient type used for chamois hunting. At Zermatt, in the same summer, I secured one of these firearms (with the assistance of my guide, F. J. Biner) from Josef Sigrist, chalets of Furi, at the foot of the Matterhorn. It had been in his family for three generations, and it created a sensation when I carried it into the Monte Rosa Hotel.

Since then I have found the following description by de Saussure (Voyages 736) : “Ce fusil est une carabine rayée dans laquelle la balle entre à force, & souvent ces carabines sont à deux coups, quoqu’à un seul canon; les coups sont placés l’un sur l’autre, & on les tire successivement.” Weapons of this type were then being made at Bex.

Bourrit (Journey to the Glaciers, 188) says: “The Chamois-hunter’s gun is of a very peculiar construction, it consists of a single-rifled barrel with two locks, one before the other, and receives two charges of powder and ball at the same time, the bullet of the first charge being either screwed down, or rammed so tight, as to serve for a breech-pin to the second charge, and prevent the communication of the fire to it, upon pulling down the lock nearest the muzzle. The difficulty of pursuing these animals over the heights of the mountains, renders it necessary to have the piece as light as possible, consistent with the advantage of a double charge.”

Von Salis and Steinmüller in Alpina (1806), ii, 132, mention the use of such weapons in the Valais: “Im untern Wallis hingegen haben sie Flinten mit zwei Schlössern hintereinander, die nur Einen Lauf haben, in welchen man zwey Schtüsse einen auf den andern ladet. Der Lauf is gezogen, und die Kugel wird mit Gewalt hineingetrieben, so dass die Kugel des ersten oder untersten Schusses bloss auf den Pulver liegt und der zweyten Ladung statt des Bodenstückes dient. Der erste Schuss kann nicht heraus ehe der zweyte oder vordeste weg ist, aber wenigstens nicht eher, als man den Hahn, der am weitesten von der Kolbe entfernt ist, abgedrückt hat, welches eine sehr dienliche Vorsicht ist, um üble Zufälle zu verhüten. Wenn aber das Zünd- pulver auf der vordersten Pfanne abblitzt, so wagen es die kühnen Schützen auch wohl mit dem hinteresten Schloss beyde Schüsse hinauszutreiben. Die Laiife sind sehr stark und ganz geschickt, die Gewalt des untersten Pulvers gegen beyde Kugeln auszuhalten; das Pulver in der Mitte zwischen den beyden Kugeln entzündet sich alsdann nicht mit.”

Similar accounts occur in de Luc, Recherches sur l’atmosphere, ii, 302; and in Höpfner’s Magazin für die Naturkunde Helvetiens, iv, 353. In M. A. J. Couturier’s monumental monograph, Le Chamois (Grenoble, 1938), one finds that the famous hunter of the Engadine, J. M. Colani (1772-1837), who was himself a gun-smith, used “un fusil à un seul canon, à deux chiens, avec deux charges, l’une devant 1’autre.” It is evident, therefore, that singlebarreled rifles carrying two charges were in general use among chamois hunters of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

J. M. T.

1“In the month of June, 1714, a part of the mountain of Diablerét in Valais, fell suddenly, between two and three o’clock in the afternoon. The sky was very serene; the mountain was of conical figure, and destroyed fifty-three huts belonging to the boors, and crushed to death fifteen people, and more than a hundred head of large, and much more of small cattle, covering a square league with the ruins it occasioned. A profound darkness was caused by the dust; the heaps of stones thrown together were above thirty perches; these heaps stopped the current of the water, which formed new and very deep lakes. In all this there was not the least trace of bituminous matter, sulphur, lime, nor consequently any subterranean fire; and apparently the base of this great rock was worn away, or perished and reduced to dust.” Hutton, W., Buffon’s Natural History Abridged (London, 1821), i, 39; Histoire de l’Academie des Sciences, 1715, 4; Echo des Alpes, 1887, 72; A.J. 46, 13.