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SWITZERLAND
_In the same series_
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
ENGLAND
FRANCE
ITALY
AT LES PLANS IN APRIL.
SWITZERLAND
BY
FRANK FOX
AUTHOR OF "RAMPARTS OF EMPIRE" "PEEPS AT THE BRITISH EMPIRE,"
"AUSTRALIA," AND "OCEANIA"
WITH 32 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1914
PREFACE
In Switzerland, above all other lands of Europe, is the greatness of
Nature manifest. But not even the Alps can overshadow the story of her
gallant people. The Swiss are more interesting even than Switzerland.
In this volume therefore--a volume intended to give the reader who
cannot hope to see Switzerland some idea of its character, as well as
to guide those who hope or intend to undertake a Swiss tour--an
attempt has been made to give a brief sketch of the origins and
achievements of the Swiss people, as well as to describe the natural
beauties of the country. To a very remarkable extent the history of
Switzerland has affected the general current of European history,
partly through the courage of the mercenary soldiers that the Alpine
communities sent abroad in olden times, partly because always
Switzerland has provided a house of refuge for political exiles from
other countries. The deeds of her people cannot but be interesting in
every land where European civilisation rules. They have the interest
not only of their essential heroism but of their near relation to the
development of other countries.
No exhaustive record has been attempted. This volume cannot, for the
serious student, serve either as a history of Switzerland, as a
description of the Swiss Alps, or as a record of those interesting
literary and scientific coteries which grew up beside the Swiss lakes.
Its purpose rather is to give to the reader who cannot devote a
special interest to the country some fairly adequate idea of its
history, its character, and institutions. The illustrations have been
selected to give as comprehensive an impression as possible of the
various beauties of Swiss scenery.
FRANK FOX.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I THE SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER II THE EARLIEST SWISS: THE LAKE-DWELLERS: CHARLEMAGNE
CHAPTER III THE SWISS IN THE MIDDLE AGES
CHAPTER IV MODERN SWITZERLAND
CHAPTER V SOME LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS
CHAPTER VI THE SWISS AND HUMAN THOUGHT
CHAPTER VII THE SWISS PEOPLE TO-DAY
CHAPTER VIII ALPINE CLIMBING
CHAPTER IX NATURAL BEAUTIES OF SWITZERLAND
CHAPTER X AVALANCHES AND GLACIERS
CHAPTER XI THE ALPINE CLUBS
CHAPTER XII THE FLOWERS OF THE ALPS
CHAPTER XIII SWISS SPORTS
CHAPTER XIV SWISS SCHOOLS
CHAPTER XV SOME STATISTICAL FACTS
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
1. At Les Plans in April
2. The Matterhorn from the Riffelberg
3. Looking down the Rhone Valley from Mt. Palerin at the Eastern
end of the Lake of Geneva
4. A distant view of the Jura Range from the south side of the
Lake of Geneva
5. Fluelen at the end of Uri Lake
6. Altdorf
7. A Village on the St. Gothard Railway
8. The Statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the Island in the
Rhone, Geneva
9. Chateau de Prangins
10. Geneva from the Arve
11. L'Eglise de la Madeleine, Geneva
12. An Alpine Village, Grindelwald
13. Alpine Herdsmen
14. Hay Hauling on the Alpine Snow
15. Sunset on Mont Blanc from Geneva
16. The Palu Glacier
17. Winter Sunrise in the Engadine--Cresta, Celerina, and
Samaden
18. The Schiahorn. "The Chalets are like fairy houses or toys"
19. A Mountain Path, Grindelwald
20. Castle of Chillon
21. Davos in Winter--The Home of John Addington Symonds
22. Maerjelen See and Great Aletsch Glacier
23. Looking up Valley towards Zermatt from near Randa
24. The Dents du Midi from Gryon above Bex
25. The Schwartzhorn from the Fluela Hospice
26. An Alpine Meadow in Bloom
27. Hepatica in the Woods at Bex
28. Alpine Garden (La Linnea) at Bourg St. Pierre on the road to
the Great St. Bernard, beginning of August
29. Hunting the Chamois
30. A Corner of Aigle Skating Rink
31. Berne
32. Lausanne
_Sketch Map at end of Volume_
SWITZERLAND
CHAPTER I
THE SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAINS
The Swiss as a people often suffer in the judgment of the tourist by
failure to live up to their reputation as a "mountain people"--to a
glorious "Alpine" character.
The dweller by the shores of the sea or by the riverine plains,
setting his feet along a mountain path towards the peaks which go up
to meet the sky, ordinarily feels a sense of joy and freedom as he
climbs to the higher air. He seems to shake off shackles from his mind
and to enter into an enjoyment of life which is less earthly and
nearer to the spiritual. His imagination is impressed with the thought
that truly he is mounting towards the stars. There is, to aid
imagination, a definite corporal effect due to a slight change in the
nature of the air. A quickening pulse seems to tell of the heart
becoming more generous in response to the spirit of the mountains.
From this feeling of exhilaration of the mind and the body, which
comes when ascending, after a long stay on the plains, to a mountain
height, arises an almost universal belief in human thought that there
is some special spiritual and ennobling influence in the mountains of
the earth. Poets have sung of it again and again: philosophers have
admitted to it with a more discreet but with a no less certain
rapture. Many scientists have explained it with as ingenious
explanations as were offered by those learned men who were set by a
waggish French king to explain to him why it was that: given two
dishes, each full to the brim of water, and two fish of equal size,
but one dead and the other alive: and allowed that the live fish is
put in the one full dish and the dead fish in the other full dish with
equal care: then, whilst the water of the dish in which the dead fish
is placed will overflow at once, the water of the dish in which the
live fish is placed will not overflow.
That king's merry jest on his men of learning who set out to find a
reason for a "fact" before finding out whether it was a fact, was
neatly countered, if my memory of the story be correct, by one
courtier-scientist who ingeniously pleaded that what His Majesty said
on any matter must, by all loyal subjects, be accepted as a fact, and
in truth did, to the loyal mind, become a fact, no unworthy suspicions
being harboured that a king of France could not make, change, or annul
a natural law just as well as any other law.
In truth, though, the idea that dwelling on a mountain-top has a
strengthening effect on the human frame and an ennobling influence on
the human character is mostly fallacious. It may be "explained" but
not proved. Those who hold it, if questioned in the Socratic manner to
give proofs in the first place of the existence of the ennobling
influence they believe in, could well plead a general human consent on
the point--a universal belief. But they would, I think, be hard put to
it, to offer any more real proof than the statements of some poet, or
of some philosopher, or the explanation of some scientist who had
explained a circumstance without first proving it.
Let there be imagined a cross-examination on the point by some modern
follower of Socrates' methods:
_S._ You say that the Swiss people are a noble race because they are a
mountain race. Will you, if you have time, explain to me why that is
so? I am very anxious to know the true reason why the fact of living
on a mountain should have this fine effect on the human character.
_T._ On that point, surely, there is no difference of opinion at all?
Every one knows that the mountain races are the most brave, the most
eager for liberty, the most virtuous of the earth.
_S._ But it happens that I am not so wise as those people. I do not
know, and I am very anxious to learn. Can you show me that it is a
fact that mountain races are as you say? And afterwards, since you
evidently have knowledge on this point and I am anxious to be your
pupil, perhaps you will tell me why it is so.
_T._ You ask a rather difficult question. It is like, almost, raising
the question as to whether the earth is round. Are you not satisfied
to know that nearly all the poets and philosophers who have written
about the mountains seem to be agreed on this point when they refer to
it at all; and that few have written about mountains without making
some reference to the noble nature of mountain peoples?
_S._ To tell you the truth, I am not quite satisfied. It is even
possible that the poets have been mistaken. Probably you have heard of
a German wise man named Schopenhauer and have read his writings.
_T._ (Interrupting.) Yes. But if he writes against mountain people I
would not accept him as an authority on this point about which we are
talking, since there are many men on the other side of so much greater
authority.
_S._ No. I do not wish you to accept him as an authority on the
character of mountain peoples. Indeed I do not know whether he has
ever written at all on that subject. But he has written on the subject
of female and male beauty. He does not think that women are more
beautiful than men, but less beautiful. And when they would argue
against him the words of the great poets, who are all quite agreed
that women are more beautiful than men, he retorts that all these
poets have been men, and that they have been blinded by their
passions for women, and have not been able therefore to come to a
sound and cool judgment. He argues that if the greatest poets had been
women the beauty of men and not of women would have been sung. Does
that not seem to you a rational argument?
_T._ Yes. Certainly it is not absurd. There may be some truth in what
he says.
_S._ So the words of the poets may not always be accepted as proof of
the truth, especially if it can be shown that they may be prejudiced
regarding the matters of which they speak.
_T._ I agree with you there. But I do not see that there is any
necessary application to the point about which we were arguing--the
noble character of mountain peoples.
_S._ I wish to come to that now. I accept what you say that very many
poets and wise men have exalted the character of mountain peoples. But
now, can you tell me were those poets and wise men themselves
generally of mountain peoples?
_T._ No, certainly not. You cannot argue that they were prejudiced in
that way. Indeed in my recollection I can recall no very great poet or
philosopher who was of a mountain people and was brought up and
educated in his own country.
_S._ Now that seems to me to be a very pertinent fact. It is the case,
then, that though mountain peoples are superior to other peoples, they
do not produce and rear poets and philosophers to any extent; that
these praises of the better qualities of mountain peoples come from
the great men whom the peoples of the plains produce? Yet surely the
peoples who produce most plentifully great men, poets and
philosophers, are the greatest peoples?
The dialogue need not be pursued further until T., like Euthyphron,
finds that he is in a hurry and it is time to be off. Its purpose is
to suggest that it is not at all necessary to endorse without question
the very generally accepted idea that there is some specially
beneficent effect on the human character in mountain life. The
exhilaration that one feels in going on a journey from the plains to
the mountains is real, and on it apparently has been built all the
fabric of mountain worship. That exhilaration is in all probability
far more the effect of a change of living conditions than of a passing
to better conditions. Human life primitively flowed fluid, here and
there, in nomadic movements. When it began to congeal in cities and
communities it departed from natural conditions, and Nature often
exacts as a penalty some atrophy of the life impulse. But a change of
environment and of air--any change--brings usually a stimulus. Nature
thinks we are off to be nomad children playing at her skirts again,
and gives back to us as a reward a hint of the old savage energy. I
have felt a keen renewal of energy going up from the plains to the
mountains: and after a year on the tableland a far keener renewal on
going back to the plains. It is in like case with most people, I
think, if they would take the trouble to examine into the matter. But
most of us live on the plains and go for our holidays to the hills (or
the sea) and associate the exhilaration arising from change of air or
surroundings to some special quality of mountain conditions. Those who
live on the mountains and might in turn proclaim the exhilaration of
going down on to the plains are few and not markedly vocal for
securing a public hearing.
There is an early poem of Tennyson, which expresses no more than the
orthodox view of the influence of mountains on our human nature:
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.
There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fullness of her face.
[Illustration: THE MATTERHORN FROM THE RIFFELBERG.]
Our Swiss friends are expected by the traveller to carry themselves in
all things with the pride and dignity of people who are born in the
original home of European liberty. But Tennyson's idea, whilst pretty,
is exactly false. Civilisations and traditions of human freedom have
always begun on the plains--by sea-shore and river-bank. There have
been born the ideas of Freedom and Human Right, and these ideas have
at a later stage made their way to the mountain ranges by various
paths. In one set of cases the course of race history has run that the
people of the plain have become softened by civilisation and luxury,
and hairy savages from the hills have learned to steal first their
cattle and then the riches of their cities, and finally their ideas.
Sometimes in these cases the people of the plain have been aroused to
an old vigour by the robbers of the hills, have beaten them back after
having imposed upon them some ideas of law and order, and have thus
set the foundations for civilised mountain communities. Sometimes,
again, the people of the hills have succeeded in establishing
themselves on the plain, mingling with the civilised people whom they
conquered, and in time learning their culture. In another set of cases
a nation as it perfected its civilisation on a plain has found it
necessary to shed off some of its rougher elements, and these have
taken to robber nests in the hills and carried with them some better
ideas than those of the hill-tribes. Or yet again, one nation of the
plain has been invaded and conquered by another nation of the plain,
and its remnants have sought refuge in the hills, so forming the best
historical type of mountain communities (thus the Celts did in the
Highlands of Scotland and Wales when the Saxon invasion drove them
from the plains of Britain).
But never has any notable civilisation sat first upon the heights and
marched from there down to the plains. Always, on the contrary, human
progress has progressed from the plain to the mountain; and found the
path sometimes very difficult, and very treacherously defended. Where
a mountain range has affected favourably the progress of human thought
it has been because it gave a rampart and a refuge to the remnants of
some civilisation of the plains threatened with submergence by
calamity.
To get a fair impression of Switzerland and the Swiss at the outset,
then, it seems to be advisable to clear away this common misconception
of mountain ranges as being the nurses inevitably of heroic human
natures. The Swiss have been absurdly over-praised by some, largely
because of this root fallacy that a mountain people must have all the
virtues. They have been unfairly over-blamed by others, who seem to
have started with a preconceived idea of an impossibly heroic people
and to have been soured when they found unreasonable illusions
shattered. "The Swiss are stubborn, devoid of all generous sentiment,
not generous nor humane," said Ruskin. There spoke the disappointed
sentimentalist. Obviously he approached the Swiss from the fallacious
"Alpine character" point of view, and vainly expected them to live up
to the super-heroic idea he had formed of the sort of people who ought
to inhabit the slopes of such magnificent mountains. Voltaire, de
Stael, Hugo, Dumas, all abuse the Swiss. They demanded of
them--carried away by that idea of the mountains enduing people with
virtues--an impossible standard, and kicked at them for not living up
to it, as a Chinaman kicks his joss when it does not bring rain under
impossible wind conditions.
To inhabit a mountain country is, if all the facts are taken into
account, a handicap rather than an advantage to a race. In the earlier
stages of civilisation the mountains have imposed upon them the duty
of sheltering alike fleeing patriots and fleeing criminals: and the
criminals are usually the more numerous. In later stages mountains
interfere greatly with the development of the machinery of
civilisation. Always, too, mountain air sharpens the appetite rather
than the wits, and there are some diseases attacking particularly the
brain which are almost peculiar to mountain districts.
The Swiss, then, have to be considered justly rather in the light of a
handicapped than of a favoured people. Their one favouring national
circumstance is that their central position in regard to the great
plains of Europe has put them in the track of all the chief currents
of civilisation. What they have managed to effect in spite of the
handicap of their mountains is one of the marvellous stories of the
human race; and to the mountains they owe in the main their sense of
national unity. They served as the bond of a common misfortune.