AN ASCENT OF MONT VENTOUX

By its isolation, which leaves it freely exposed on every side to the influence of atmospheric agencies, and from the height which makes it the culminating point of France on this side of the frontiers of Alps or Pyrenees, the bare Provençal mountain, Mont Ventoux, lends itself remarkably to studies of plant species according to climate. At the base flourish the tender olive and that crowd of small semi-woody plants whose aromatic scent requires the sun of southern regions. On the summit, where snow lies at least half the year, the ground is covered with a northern flora, partly borrowed from the arctic regions. Half a day’s journey in a vertical line brings before one’s eyes a succession of the chief vegetable types met with in the same meridian in long travels from south to north. When you start your feet crush the perfumed thyme which forms a continuous carpet on the lower slopes; some hours later they tread the dusky cushions of Saxifraga oppositifolia, the first plant seen by a botanist who lands in July on the shores of Spitzbergen. In the hedges below you had gathered the scarlet blossoms of the pomegranate, which loves an African sky; up above you find a hairy little poppy sheltering its stalks under a covering of small stony fragments, and which opens its large yellow corolla in the icy solitudes of Greenland and the North Cape, just as it does on the highest slopes of Ventoux.

Such contrasts have always a new charm, and twenty-five ascents have not yet brought me satiety. In August 1865 I undertook the twenty-third. We were eight persons—three who came to botanise, five attracted by a mountain expedition and the panorama of the heights. None of those who were not botanists have ever again desired to accompany me. In truth, the expedition is a rough one, and a sunrise does not atone for the fatigue endured.

The best comparison for Mont Ventoux is that of a heap of stones broken up to mend the roads. Raise this heap steeply up to two kilometres, and give it a base in proportion, cast on the white of its limestone the blackness of forests, and you get a clear idea of the general look of the mountain. This heap of débris—sometimes little chips, sometimes huge masses of rock—rises from the plain without preliminary slopes or successive terraces to render ascent less trying by dividing it into stages. The climb begins at once, by rocky paths, the best of which is not as good as a road newly laid with stones, and rising ever rougher and rougher to the summit, a height of 1912 metres. Fresh lawns, glad rivulets, the ample shade of ancient trees—all that gives such a charm to other mountains is here unknown, replaced by an endless bed of calcareous rock broken [181]into scales which yield under one’s feet with a sharp, almost metallic sound. For cascades Mont Ventoux has streams of stones, the sound of which, as they roll downward, replaces the murmur of falling water.

We have reached Bedoin, at the foot of the mountain, arrangements with the guide are completed, the hour of departure is settled, provisions chosen and prepared. Let us try to sleep, for the next night will be a sleepless one on the mountain. But to fall asleep was the difficulty; I have never achieved it, and this is the chief cause of fatigue. I would therefore advise any readers who propose to botanise on Mont Ventoux not to arrive at Bedoin on a Sunday night. They will thus avoid the bustle of a country inn, endless conversations at the top of the speakers’ voices, the echo of billiard balls, the clinking of glasses, with the drinking-songs, the nocturnal couplets of passers-by, the bellowing of wind instruments at the neighbouring ball, and the other tribulations inseparable from this holy day of rest and enjoyment. Could one sleep there on other nights? I hope so, but cannot answer for it. I never closed an eye. All night long the rusty spit, labouring for our benefit, groaned under my bedroom; only a thin plank separated me from that diabolical machine.

But already the sky was growing light; a donkey brayed under the windows; the hour had come to rise, and we might as well not have gone to bed at all. Provisions and baggage were loaded, our guide cried “Ja! hi!” and we set off. At the head of the caravan walked Triboulet with his mule and ass—Triboulet, the eldest and chief of the Ventoux guides. [182]My botanical colleagues scrutinised the vegetation on either side of the road by the early light; the others talked. I followed the party, a barometer slung over my shoulder, a note-book and pencil in my hand.

My barometer, intended for ascertaining the height of the chief botanical stations, soon became a pretext for attacks on the gourd of rum. “Quick, the barometer!” some one would exclaim every time that a remarkable plant was pointed out, and we would all press round the gourd, the barometer coming later. The freshness of the morning and our walk made us appreciate these references to the barometer so much that the level of the tonic liquid lowered even faster than that of the column of mercury. For the future it would be wise to consult Torricelli’s tube less frequently.

The temperature grew colder; olive and ilex disappear, next vine and almond, then mulberry, walnut, and white oak; box grows plentiful. We enter on a monotonous region, stretching from the limit of cultivation to the lower edge of the beech woods, where the chief plant is Satureia montana, known here as pébré d’asé,—asses’ pepper,—from the acrid smell of its small leaves, impregnated with essential oil. Certain little cheeses which form part of our provisions are powdered with this strong spice, and more than one of us casts a famishing glance at the provision bags carried by the mule. Our rough, early expedition had brought an appetite, nay, better still, a devouring hunger, “latrantem stomachum,” as Horace wrote. I showed my companions how to still this hunger until we came to [183]our next halt, pointing out a little sorrel with arrow-shaped leaves, springing among the loose stones, and to set an example I gathered a mouthful. There was a laugh at the notion. I let them laugh, and soon saw one busier than another gathering the precious sorrel.

While chewing the acid leaves we came to the beeches, first large solitary bushes, sweeping the ground, then dwarf trees, close together, then strong trunks, forming a thick dark forest whose soil is a chaos of limestone blocks. Overloaded in winter by snow, beaten all the year round by fierce gusts of the Mistral, many are branchless, twisted into strange shapes, or even prostrate. An hour or more was passed in traversing the wooded zone, which, seen from a distance, looked like a black girdle on the sides of the mountain. Now again the beeches became stunted and scattered; we had reached their upper limit, and, despite the sorrel, all were right glad to come to the spot chosen for our halt and breakfast.

We were at the fountain of La Grave, a slender thread of water caught, as it issues from the ground, in a line of long troughs made of beech trunks, where the mountain shepherds water their flocks. The temperature of the spring was 7 degrees Cent.—a freshness inestimable for us who came up from the sultry heat of the plain. The cloth was spread over a charming carpet of Alpine plants, among which glittered the thyme-leaved Paronychia, whose large thin bracts are like silver scales. The provisions are taken out of their bags, the bottles out of their bed of hay. On this side are the solid dishes, legs [184]of mutton stuffed with garlic, and piles of bread; there the insipid chickens, good to amuse one’s grinders when serious hunger has been appeased. Not far off, in a place of honour, are the Ventoux cheeses sprinkled with asses’ pepper, and hard by Arles sausages, whose pink flesh is marbled with squares of bacon and whole pepper. In this corner are green olives still dripping with pickle, and black ones seasoned with oil. In another are melons from Cavaillon, some white, some orange, to suit all tastes, and there a pot of anchovies which make a man drink hard and be tireless on the march, and finally the bottles, cooling in the icy water of a trough. Is nothing forgotten? Yes, we have not mentioned the crown of the feast, raw onions eaten with salt. Our two Parisians, for there are two among us, my fellow botanists, are at first taken somewhat aback by this decidedly bracing bill of fare. They will be the first, a little later, to break forth in its praise. All is ready. Let us to table! Then began one of those homeric meals which make an epoch in one’s life. The first mouthfuls have a touch of frenzy. Slices of leg of mutton and bread succeed one another with alarming rapidity. Each of us, without communicating his apprehensions, casts an anxious look on the provender, and says inwardly, “If we go on at this rate, will there be enough for this evening and to-morrow?” However, the craving abated: first we devoured silently, then we ate and talked; fears for the next day abated too; we did justice to him who ordered the bill of fare, and who, foreseeing our voracity, arranged to meet it worthily. Now came the time to appreciate the [185]provisions as connoisseurs; one praises the olives, stabbing them singly with the point of his knife; another lauds the anchovies as he cuts up the little yellow-ochre fish on his bread; a third speaks enthusiastically of the sausages; and one and all agree in praising the asses’-pepper cheeses, no bigger than the palm of one’s hand. Pipes and cigars are lighted, and we lie on our backs in the sun upon the grass.

After an hour’s rest it is, “Up! time presses; we must go on!” The guide and luggage were to go westward, along the wood, where there is a mule path. He will wait for us at Jas or Bâtiment, at the upper limit of the beeches, some 1550 metres above the sea. The Jas is a large stone, but capable of sheltering man and beast at night. We were to go upward to the crest which we should follow so as to reach the highest part more easily. After sunset we would go down to the Jas, where the guide would have long arrived; such was the plan proposed and adopted.

We have reached the crest. Southward extend, as far as eye can see, the comparatively easy slopes by which we ascended on the north. The scene is savagely grand, the mountain sometimes perpendicular, sometimes falling in frightfully steep terraces, little less than a precipice of 1500 metres. Throw a stone, and it never stops till, bound after bound, it reaches the valley where one can see the bed of the Toulourenc wind like a ribbon. While my companions moved masses of rock and sent them rolling into the gulf that they might watch the terrible descent, I discovered under a big stone an old [186]acquaintance in the entomological world—Ammophila hirsuta, which I had always found isolated on banks along roads in the plain, while here, on the top of Mont Ventoux, were several hundreds heaped under the same shelter. I was trying to find the cause of this agglomeration, when the southern breeze, which had already made us anxious in the course of the morning, suddenly brought up a bevy of clouds melting into rain. Before we had noticed them a thick rain-fog wrapped us round, and we could not see a couple of paces before us. Most unluckily one of us, my excellent friend, Th. Delacour, had wandered away looking for Euphorbia saxatilis, one of the botanical curiosities of these heights. Making a speaking trumpet of our hands we all shouted together. No one replied. Our voices were lost in the dense fog and dull sound of the wind in the whirling mass of cloud. Well, since the wanderer cannot hear us we must seek him. In the darkness of the mist it was impossible to see one another two or three paces off, and I alone of the seven knew the locality. In order to leave no one behind, we took each other’s hands, I placing myself at the head of the line. For some minutes we played a game of blindman’s buff, which led to nothing. Doubtless, on seeing the clouds coming up, Delacour, well used to Ventoux, had taken advantage of the last gleams of light to hurry to the shelter of Jas. We also must hurry there, for already the rain was running down inside our clothes as well as outside, and our thin white trousers clung like a second skin. A grave difficulty met us: our turnings and goings and comings while we searched [187]had reduced me to the condition of one whose eyes have been bandaged, and has then been made to pirouette on his heels. I had lost the points of the compass, and no longer knew in the very least which was the southern side. I questioned one and another; opinions were divided and very uncertain. The conclusion was that not one of us could say which was the north and which the south. Never—no, never have I realised the value of the points of the compass as at that moment. All around was the unknown of gray cloudland; below we could just make out the beginning of a slope here or there, but which was the right one? We must make up our minds to descend, trusting to good fortune. If by ill luck we took the northern slope we risked breaking our necks over those precipices the very look of which had so inspired us with fear. Perhaps not one of us would survive. I went through some moments of acute perplexity.

“Let us stay here,” said the majority, and wait till the rain stops. “Bad advice,” said the others, and I was of the number; “bad advice. The rain may last a long while, and drenched as we are, at the first chill of night we shall freeze on the spot.” My worthy friend, Bernard Verlot, come from the Jardin des Plantes at Paris on purpose to ascend Mont Ventoux with me, showed an imperturbable calm, trusting to my prudence to get out of the scrape. I drew him a little on one side so as not to increase the panic of the others, and told him my terrible apprehensions. We held a council of two, and tried to supply the place of the magnetic needle by reasoning. “When the clouds came up,” [188]said I, “was it not from the south?” “Certainly from the south.” “And though the wind was hardly perceptible, the rain slanted slightly from south to north?” “Yes, I noticed that until I got bewildered. Is not that something to guide us? Let us descend on the side whence the rain comes.” “I had thought of that, but felt doubtful; the wind was too light to have a clearly defined direction. It might be a revolving current such as are produced on a mountain top surrounded by cloud. Nothing assures me that the first direction has been continuous, and that the current of air does not come from the north.” “And in that case?” “Ah! there is the crux! I have an idea! If the wind has not changed, we ought to be wettest on the left side, since the rain came on that side till we lost our bearings. If it has changed we must be pretty equally wet all round. We must feel and decide. Will that do?” “It will.” “And if I am mistaken?” “You will not be mistaken.”

In two words the matter was explained to our friends. Each felt himself, not outside, which would not have been sufficient, but under his innermost garment, and it was with unspeakable relief that I heard one and all announce the left side much wetter than the right. The wind had not changed. Very good, let us turn toward the rainy quarter. The chain was formed again, Verlot as rearguard, to leave no straggler behind. Before starting, I said once more to my friend, “Shall we risk it?” “Risk it; I follow you,” and we plunged into the awful unknown.

Twenty of those strides which one cannot moderate on a steep slope, and all fear was over. Under our feet was not empty space but the longed-for ground covered with stones which gave way and rolled down behind us in streams. To one and all this rattle denoting terra firma was heavenly music. In a few minutes we reached the upper fringe of beeches. Here the gloom was yet deeper than on the mountain top; one had to stoop to the ground to see where one was setting foot. How in the midst of this darkness were we to find the Jas, buried in the depth of the wood? Two plants which always follow man, Good King Henry (Chenopodium Bonus Henricus) and the nettle, served me as a clue. I swept my free hand through the air as I walked, and at each sting I knew there was a nettle and an indication. Verlot, our rearguard, made similar lunges, and supplied the want of sight by the burning stings. Our companions showed no faith in this style of research. They talked of continuing the wild descent and of returning if necessary to Bedoin. More confident in the botanical instinct so keen in himself also, Verlot joined with me in persisting in our search, reassuring the most demoralised, and showing that it was possible by questioning plants with our hands to reach our destination in the darkness. They yielded to our reasoning, and shortly after, from one clump of nettles to another, the party arrived at the Jas.

Delacour was there, as well as the guide with the baggage, sheltered in good time from the rain. A blazing fire and change of garments soon restored our usual cheerfulness. A block of snow, brought from the neighbouring valley, was hung in a bag [190]before the hearth. A bottle caught the melted water. This would be our fountain for the evening meal. The night was spent on a bed of beech leaves, well crushed by our predecessors, and they were many. Who knows for how many years the mattress had never been renewed? Now it was a hard-beaten mass. The mission of those who could not sleep was to keep up the fire. Hands were not wanting to stir it, for the smoke, with no other exit than a large hole made by the partial falling in of the roof, filled the hut with an atmosphere made to smoke herrings. To get a mouthful of breathable air one must seek it with one’s nose nearly level with the ground. There was coughing; there was strong language, and stirring of the fire; but vain was every attempt to sleep. By 2 a.m. we were all on foot to climb the highest cone and behold the sunrise. The rain was over, the sky splendid, auguring a radiant day.

During the ascent some of us felt a kind of sea-sickness, caused partly by fatigue and partly by the rarefaction of the air. The barometer sank 140 millimetres; the air we breathed had lost one-fifth of its density, and was consequently one-fifth poorer in oxygen. By those in good condition this slight modification would pass unnoticed, but, added to the fatigue of the previous day and to want of sleep, it increased our discomfort. We mounted slowly, our legs aching, our breathing difficult. Every twenty steps or so one had to halt. At last the summit was gained. We took refuge in the rustic chapel of St. Croix to take breath and counteract the biting cold by a pull at the gourd, which this [191]time we emptied. Soon the sun rose. To the farthest limit of the horizon Mont Ventoux projected its triangular shadow, tinted violet from the effect of the diffracted rays. Southward and westward stretched misty plains, where, when the sun rose higher, one would distinguish the Rhône as a silver thread. On the north and east an enormous cloud-bed spreads under our feet like a sea of cotton wool, whence the dark tops of the lower mountains rise as if they were islets of scoriæ, while others with their glaciers shine glorious on the side where the Alps uplift their chain of mountains.

But botany calls, and we must tear ourselves from this magic spectacle. August, the month when we made our ascent, is somewhat late; many plants were out of blossom. Those who really want to be successful should come up here in the first fortnight of July, and, above all, should forestall the arrival of the herds and flocks on these heights. Where a sheep has browsed one finds but poor remains. As yet spared by the grazing flocks, the stony screes on the top of Mont Ventoux are in July literally a bed of flowers. Memory calls up the lovely dew-bathed tufts of Androsace villosa, with white flowers and rosy centres; Viola cenisia, opening great blue corollas on the shattered heaps of limestone; Valeriana saliunca, with perfumed blossoms, but roots that smell like dung; Globularia cordifolia, forming close carpets of a crude green, starred with little blue heads; Alpine forget-me-not, blue as the sky above it; the iberis of Candolle, whose slender stalk bears a dense head of tiny white flowers and creeps down among the loose stones; Saxifraga oppositifolia and [192]S. muscoides, both making dark thick little cushions, the former with purple blossoms, the latter with white, washed with yellow. When the sun is hotter one sees a splendid butterfly flutter from one blossomed tuft to another, its white wings marked by four patches of vivid rose-carmine encircled with black. It is Parnassius apollo, the graceful dweller in Alpine solitudes, near the eternal snows. Its caterpillar lives on saxifrages. With the Apollo let us end this sketch of the joys which await the naturalist on the top of Mont Ventoux and return to the Ammophila hirsuta, crouching in great numbers under a sheltering stone, when the rain came up and surrounded us.