Truth is mighty. We have been up the Rigi Railway, and in spite of the
beauty before our eyes, instead of experiencing grand and elevated
emotions, instead of remembering the words of some noble poet, instead
of doing anything we ought to have done, we could only, prompted by a
perverse spirit, say over and over to ourselves,--
"General Gage was very brave,
Very brave, particular;
He galloped up a precipice,
And down a perpendicular."
Our Rigi experience, taken all in all, was an agreeable and a very
amusing outing. We had waited long till skies were fair enough for us to
venture, but at last Pilatus looked benign, and we had the loveliest of
sails across that lovely lake, Lucerne; happy sunlight falling on blue
water and exquisite shores, shadows of floating clouds reflected in the
depths; and all the noble army of mountains thronging before us, and
beside us, and behind us; bold barren hills rising sharply against rich
and varied foliage; superb white heights afar off. At Vitznau we waited
a short time for our train, and employed ourselves happily in watching a
great group of fruit-sellers, who stood with huge baskets of fine
grapes, and poor peaches, and figs, before the bench where we were
sitting. After the fashion of idle travellers, we audibly made our
comments upon the pretty scene:--
"If I had not already bought this fruit, I should buy it of that little
boy; I _always_ like to buy my fruit of little boys."
"And if I had not already bought mine, I should buy it of the man with
the long tassel on his cap: I dote on buying fruit of good-looking young
men with tassels on their caps."
Who could dream that this utterly inane conversation would be
understood? But the face of the youth with the tassel--he looked
Italian, although he was speaking German--suddenly gleamed and sparkled
mischievously, and showed a row of white teeth, as he pointed at his
head and touched his tassel and said, "Cap! cap!" with huge satisfaction
and pride. Not another English word could he say, but the similarity
between this and the German _Kappe_, and his quick intuition, told him
that we were alluding, and not unpleasantly, to him.
Traveller, beware! Don't buy fresh figs at Vitznau. We each pursued one
to the bitter end; then politely presented what remained in our paper to
a small fruit-seller, to devour if she liked, or to sell over again to
the next guileless person who has never eaten fresh figs, and wants to
be Oriental. This civility on our part was received with laughter by the
whole group of men, women, and children, who all seemed to perfectly
appreciate the point of the joke. It at least was consoling. Being
cheated in buying fruit is an evil that can be borne, but it is an
utterly crushing sensation when people won't smile at your jokes.
The carriage which was to take us up the precipice we surveyed with
curiosity and pleasure,--one broad car with open sides, affording
perfect command of the views, the seats running quite across it and
turned towards the locomotive, which, going up, runs behind. Between the
ordinary rails are two rails with teeth, upon which a cog-wheel in the
locomotive works. The train runs very slowly, only about three miles an
hour, which is both safe and favorable to enjoyment of the scenery, and
in case of accident the car can be instantly detached from the
locomotive and stopped. No one need think that I am giving these few
facts as information, the very last thing one wants to find in a letter
from Europe. I would not presume,--and of course almost everybody knows
how the Rigi Railway works; only, it happens, _I_ did not know, and I
mention these things merely to refresh my own memory.
So far as views are concerned, it is of course preferable to make the
ascent on foot. But where one is bewildered by the affluence of beauty
in Switzerland, one feels willing to sacrifice something of it to the
new experience of this curious ride. Some people, it is true, like to
_say_ they walked up the Rigi. But why shall we indulge in so small a
vanity, when we can easily indulge in a greater one,--several thousand
feet greater, in fact? When any one boasts, "I walked up the Rigi," we
shall return quietly, "We ascended Piz Languard in the Engadine." For
all the world knows the Rigi is only 5,905 feet high, and Piz Languard
is 10,715 feet. We felt that we could afford to ride up the Rigi, then.
It was all extremely spirited and enjoyable, and we could never forget
how strongly we resembled General Gage. The views were beautiful and
ever varying. The atmosphere was slightly hazy, so that the dark
Buergenstock beyond the lake, which lay in loveliness before us, became
more and more shadowy as we ascended; and the Stanserhorn and Pilatus,
and all the Alps of the Uri, Engelberg, and Bernese Oberland, though
distinct, had yet the thinnest possible veil before their faces; and the
precipice above us was amazing to see, and the perpendicular reached
down, down into deep ravines, where the narrow waterfalls looked like
silver threads among the trees and bushes and gray, jagged rocks.
Reaching the hotels that stand on the tip-top of the Kulm, we went to
the one that had stoves, which is the Schreiber, for "bitter chill it
was." We had barely time to see the whole magnificent prospect, before
the clouds closed in upon us, enveloping us in such a thoroughgoing way
that we could only allude to the sunset with shrieks of laughter. And up
to the time of the arrival of the latest train came pilgrims from every
quarter, also bent on seeing the sunset from the Rigi Kulm. Group after
group came up through the mist from the little station to the hotel,
everybody very merry over his own blighted hopes. Towards evening it
rained heavily, and there was nothing to do but amuse one's self within
doors. This is not difficult at the Schreiber, an unusually large and
well arranged hotel. To find such spacious, brilliant _salons_ up here
is a surprise; and when you look about in them and see persons from many
different grades of society, many nations, and hear almost every
language of Europe, and realize that you are all here together on a
mountain-top and fairly in the clouds, it is quite entertaining enough
without the books and papers which are at your service. There were even
two Egyptian princes there. The small boy of our party, whom every one
notices and pets, and who, though speaking absolutely nothing but
English, has a miraculous way of being understood and of conversing
intimately with Russians, Poles, Greeks, etc., was on friendly terms
with the Egyptians at once, and, after five minutes' acquaintance, had
made his usual demand for postage-stamps. By the grace of childhood much
is possible.
Truly this Rigi Kulm is a curious place. It is said the spectacle of
sunrise rarely deigns to appear before the expectant mortals who throng
there to see it. Half an hour before sunrise, in fair weather, an Alpine
horn rouses the sleepers, and people rush out, often in fantastic garb,
with blankets round them and a generally wild-Indian aspect. There is
actually a notice on every bed-room door in the Rigi Kulm House,
requesting guests to be good enough not to take the coverings from the
beds when they go to see the sunrise.
A strange, wild place was the Kulm as the night advanced. The wind
howled, and shrieked, and moaned, and witches on broomsticks flew round
and round the house and tapped noisily on our window-panes. If you don't
believe it, stay there one night in a storm, and then you will believe
anything. But though storm and night and cloud encircled us, we saw
vividly, as we sank into our dreams, the whole superb
landscape,--forests, lakes, hills, towns, villages, plains, the waves of
mist in the valleys, the ever-changing light and shade, the little
fleecy clouds wreathing the glistening snowy peaks, the sunshine and the
glorious sky. The wide, calm picture was before us still.
It was a night of witchy noises, of starts and fears that we should
oversleep and so lose the sunrise, which, in spite of the storm, the
predictions of the weather-wise, and the promptings of common-sense, it
was impossible for our party not to confidently expect, so strong an
element in it was the sanguine temperament. From midnight on, one figure
or another might have been seen standing by the window, two excited,
staring eyes peering wildly through the shutters, anxious to discern the
first glimmerings of dawn; and from every restless nap we would awake
with a start, thinking we surely heard that "horn." If the other people
were as absurd as we, they were quite absurd enough. That Rigi sunrise,
whether it comes or is only anticipated, is enough to shake a
constitution of iron.
But no horn sounded, and the lazy sun only struggled through the clouds
as late as eight o'clock, when the view once more opened before us,
grand and beautiful in the sudden gleam of morning sunshine. The Bernese
Alps magnificently white,--the Jungfrau, Finster-Aarhorn, many
well-known peaks in raiment of many colors; the lakes of Lucerne and Zug
directly below, and seven or eight more lakes visible,--in all, a
beautiful prospect, and remarkable from the fact that the gaze sweeps
over an expanse of three hundred miles.
Very soon the clouds rolled in again. Not a vestige of view remained,
and a persistent drizzle sent several car-loads of disappointed but
amused beings down the mountain. We all began to be sceptical about that
Rigi Kulm sunrise which we had heard described in glowing words. We were
inclined to doubt whether any one, even the oldest inhabitant, had ever
seen it.
Some writer says it is dismal on the Kulm in wet weather. I think if
there were only one poor, drenched, frozen mortal up there aspiring to
gaze upon the glory that is denied him, it would be dismal in the
extreme; but when so many, scores, hundreds, go, and so few attain their
object,--for the summit of the Rigi is often surrounded with clouds,
even in fairest weather,--it is not in the least dismal; on the
contrary, highly enlivening, and the trip well worth taking, though it
end in clouds.
In the language of a young Russian gentleman who is learning English, "I
have made a little tripe, and enjoyed my little tripe delicious."