SWITZERLAND--SOMETHING MORE ABOUT GENEVA AND THE SWISS OF THAT
ILK--THE LAKE AND RIVER.
Some one remarked to the Rev. Mr. Henry Ward Beecher, before he had the
little difference with Mr. Theodore Tilton, and was editing the
_Independent_, "Mr. Beecher, I like your paper. You had a religious
article in the last number. Now I think it is the correct thing for a
church paper to have, occasionally, a religious article." So, in a
record of travels, I think it entirely proper to say something,
occasionally, about the country the traveler explores.
The lake, at one end of which sits the beautiful though much mixed
Geneva, is known abroad as Lake Geneva, but here as Lake Leman, the name
given it by the Romans who once occupied this country, as they did every
other country they could reach and conquer. The inlet to the lake is the
River Rhone, and so, likewise, is its outlet; which is to say, the lake
is simply a widening of the river, a huge goitre, as it were, on the
lovely neck of that beautiful stream.
The Rhone collects the waters that fall on the south side of the chain
of mountains, as the Rhine does the water drainage of the north side,
and is created originally, and fed as it goes, by the glaciers that
adorn the mountain sides, and support Switzerland by attracting
tourists.
At the top of the mountains there is snow, soft, regular snow, which
slides down fissures, and which, as it gets down the slides, changes
from snow to ice. It melts slowly all the Summer, the water seeking the
bottom of the field of ice, but its thickness being constantly
maintained by fresh supplies of snow from the top.
[Sidenote: THE RHONE.]
This water brings out of the mountains all sorts of material, rocks and
earth, which fill the streams that come down the mountain side in
swiftly flowing streams which lose themselves in the river in the valley
below.
The Rhone flows past Sion, Martigny, Bex, and other points, till it
falls into Lake Leman, as beautiful an inland body of water as there is
in Europe, and almost as beautiful as some of the American lakes.
Before and at its entrance into the lake, the water of the Rhone is as
muddy as the Mississippi at St. Louis. It is about the color of cheap
restaurant coffee, but the lake acts as a great settling bed, or filter,
or both; and by the time the water finds itself in its new location it
becomes the most pure and limpid of any in Europe. The water in the
lake, which was so muddy and discolored in the river above, becomes so
pure and limpid that the fish may be seen disporting themselves in its
lowest depths, and the minute pebbles on the bottom are distinctly to be
seen.
Geneva is at the lower point of the lake, and the Rhone, which was
buried in it at the upper end, is resurrected at Geneva, and issues
therefrom in a stream of fearful rapidity. The waters spring out from
the lake with a fall that would be called rapids in America, and rush
through the city actually singing as if with joy at its deliverance. It
rushes out as if it spurned all impediments of shore that kept it into a
well-behaved and quiet lake, and as if anxious to get the freedom of
rushing through the valleys, over rocks, and tumbling around generally
in a free and easy way till it runs its race and loses itself forever in
the common sepulchre of all rivers, the great sea.
Laundrying is done in Geneva as it is in Paris. Anchored in the river
are large boats arranged for wash houses. In these floating temples are
furnaces which supply hot water, and plank tables at which the
washerwomen do their work. The garment is taken and swashed in the hot
water of the floating laundry, then they are religiously and
conscientiously soaped, and placed upon these thick tables, and pounded
with a wooden paddle till the soap and water is driven completely
through them. Then they are rinsed in the swift running water of the
Rhone, and pounded more, and rinsed and rinsed again, till they come
out as white as the snow from which comes the water.
These nymphs of the paddle and soap-kettle are industrious workers, with
strong muscular arms that seem capable of doing any kind of work, as
indeed they are. It is no small matter to carry down to the river the
enormous bundles of superlatively filthy clothes, and after the soaping
and beating and wringing, carrying them home wet and heavy. But possibly
there are no more pounds to carry home than they brought. There is added
weight in the water they hold, but the dirt is gone down the river to
form bars below and impede navigation. Possibly the loss of the dirt
balances the increased weight of the water. It is a stand-off.
These women earn a good living, for there is any quantity of laundrying
to do, not from the citizens, but from the horde of tourists who throng
the city and make Geneva their headquarters for the Alpine tour, and who
here lay in a fresh stock of linen.
[Illustration: GROUP OF SWISS GIRLS.]
[Sidenote: A GENEVAN BAKERY.]
The Genevan, like all other men of French or partially French
extraction, is a tremendous worker, and this includes the female as well
as the male. The male Genevan is up with the lark, or whatever bird in
Switzerland has the disagreeable habit of early rising, and his labor
continues as long as he can see, and even after. And he works, not in a
perfunctory sort of way, but tackles his business as though he was doing
it for the simple liking of it. He is a most persistent and rapid
worker.
I was exploring the old part of the city one night, and in groping
through the narrow, half-underground passages, I came upon a baker's
shop. As I wanted to get at the secret of the delicious bread for which
the French are famous, I investigated. It was a scorching night, but
nevertheless there was a roaring oven, heated seven times hotter than
any furnace I had ever read of, except one. In front of this furnace,
were the mixing and kneading troughs, and at them, in a space of not
more than twenty feet square, were a score or more of men naked to the
waist, with perspiration pouring from every pore, at work at the stiff
and tenacious dough. They would lift a mass of it half as large as their
bodies, and slap it about, and pull it out, and compress it, and
elongate it, and torture it in all sorts of shapes, and in every way
possible for dough to be tortured. It was as hard manual labor as I had
ever seen performed.
[Illustration: THE SWEAT OF OTHER MEN'S BROWS.]
And finally after the dough had been tormented a sufficient length of
time it was formed into rolls, five or six feet long, and not more than
six inches in diameter, and placed in the oven, from whence it emerged
the most deliciously crisp bread that ever was eaten, and entirely
different from the heavy, soggy English bread which has dyspepsia in
every crumb of it.
The secret of this light, delicious crustiness is not only in the form
in which it is baked, but also in the thoroughness of the kneading. It
is worked over and over, till it is as smooth as silk all the way
through, and as light as a feather. Such bread needs no butter (and, by
the way, very little is used) and may be eaten with gustatory delight
anywhere, and at any time.
Still, a person who has to eat bread had better not go and see it made,
on the same principle that a wise old boarder of experience never
ventures near the kitchen. "Where ignorance is bliss," etc. The industry
and conscientious perseverance of the kneaders cannot be too highly
commended, but the consumer of their product had better remain in
ignorance of the perspiration. I prefer not to live upon the sweat of
other men's brows. There are seasonings more to my taste.
One of the very pleasant things in Switzerland, and France as well, is
the perfect system of roads everywhere, and the care taken to shade the
roads. The road-beds are marvels of excellence, and well would it be for
America could we find it in our people to pay some little attention to
this important matter. Whatever else may be slighted the roads are not.
In making a comparison between Swiss roadways and American, I take into
consideration the fact, that Switzerland is old and America new, and
that the present Swiss road represents the labor of hundreds, or, for
that matter, thousands of years, while the average age of the American
road is not sixty years. Still, we might, and should, with our
enterprise come nearer to continental roads than we do.
[Sidenote: SWISS ROADS.]
Everywhere in Switzerland the earth on the roadway is removed to the
depth of four or more feet, and pounded stone, gravel and sand are
deposited in its stead, gutters on the side are carefully made; till you
have, to travel over, a beautifully rounded way which never can be wet,
and never anything but solid and smooth. Along the entire length there
are, beside the road, small piles of broken stone, and at regular
distances are men with tools, whose business is to keep them clean and
in perfect order. Whenever a depression, no matter how slight, appears,
it is instantly filled, as skillfully as a tailor puts a patch in your
trowsers; thus keeping them, everywhere and always, smooth, uniform and
clean.
The bridges are solid masonry, and on the edge of declivities and
dangerous places are solid walls of stone. Not a point, either for
safety or comfort, is overlooked.
They are rather costly to make, to begin with, and it costs something to
keep them in order, but it pays, after all. Enormous loads are hauled
over these smooth roads, and the wear and tear upon horses, vehicles and
harness is reduced to well-nigh nothing, to say nothing of the comfort
and pleasure. Bad weather makes no difference with their inland traffic,
for just as great a burden can be hauled in wet weather as in dry, nor
does frost affect them.
I would that every American farmer, in the month, say, of March, could
see these roads, could view the enormous loads piled upon the enormous
wagons, and see with what ease they are moved. Then his mind should go
back to his own country, and there should come up a recollection of the
last March, when he was lashing and swearing at his poor horses, who
were doing their level best to pull him, in an empty wagon, through the
rivers of mud we call roads. A Swiss horse would commit suicide were he
taken to Illinois in Winter or Spring.
It would pay America to imitate Switzerland in this particular. Our
half-made roads should be at once abolished, and the money spread out
over ten miles, which the first thaw obliterates, should be used in
making one mile of permanent road, and that mile should be extended just
as fast as the people can bear the burden. The Swiss are not so fast as
we are, but their work, when once done, stays. There is scarcely any
section of America where material of some sort is not attainable to make
better roads than the wretched apologies we have for them. Whoever makes
himself the apostle of good roads in America will have many generations
to rise up and call him blessed.
Next to the perfection of the roads comes the delightful shade that is
over them. This has been done, not spasmodically and at the whim of the
people residing along the roads, but it is a government matter, and as
much care is taken of it as of the roads. On either hand are lines of
beautiful trees, forming a most delightful arch over the road, and the
shade is as grateful to the horses as to the riders. A long vista of
trees, whose branches form an arch over the roadway, is not only a
comfort, but it gratifies all the senses. A Swiss tree-bordered road is
one of the most delightful sights in the country.
We cannot, of course, compel the planting of trees by the roadside, by
law, but if the farmers of America could be made to understand the
beauty and comfort there is in it, they would do it of their own free
will and accord. New England has shaded roads, and some scattering parts
of other sections, but it should be made general. It would add several
per cent. to the value of every farm, to say nothing of the perpetual
gratification it would afford. We have the best shade trees in the
world, and the cost of transplanting is comparatively nothing.
Road shading should be systematically pushed in America, and the sooner
it is commenced the better.
At Geneva you get the first glimpse of the Alpenstock people, male and
female. They are a queer lot. They appear to you at the hotels clad as
follows: The men with a sort of blouse bound by an enormous belt, for
which there is no earthly use, short knee breeches with woolen stockings
reaching above the knee, and the most utterly absurd shoes that ever
annoyed the human foot. The soles of these shoes are an inch thick; they
project beyond the uppers, and are studded with nails, as if the wearer
had joined an exploring party which would require eight years of his
life, and make necessary one pair of shoes that should exist all that
time, inasmuch as he would be far beyond the reach of that important
adjunct of civilization, a cobbler. Then he has a broad-brimmed hat,
with a clout about it, hanging down behind, and a vast assortment of
baskets, flasks and glasses, and all sorts of appliances, provisions
enough to join Livingstone or Stanley for the exploration of the
interior of Africa.
[Sidenote: FEMALE CLIMBERS.]
The women are either misses of seventeen or mature women of
thirty-eight. They have the same outfit of material and differ from the
males only in the matter of dress. Everything that savors of femininity
is religiously eliminated (even the bustle is sacrificed), heavy
underclothing is worn, a most ungraceful skirt, the most barbarous
English shoes appear on feet never too small, and their entire
hideousness is made painfully visible, inasmuch as the straight skirt
never reaches below the ankle.
[Illustration: THE ALPINE GUIDE.]
The Alpenstock is a staff perhaps seven feet long, of ash, very stout,
with a hook upon one end and a spike in the other.
In this hideous garb, in a stern sort of a way, as though they were
leading a forlorn hope and never expected to escape with their lives,
but were doing it as a sort of sacrificial duty, they ride out to the
foot of the Alps somewhere, as safely and in as much luxury as though
they were in rocking chairs in their own homes, and coming to the hotel
thereat they purchase another lot of climbing apparatus, and hire all
sorts of donkeys and mules and guides, and after a day or so commence
the ascent. They go up roads that are so plain as to need no guides, on
donkeys or mules, over paths that could be walked as well, and tiring
half way up, stop and rest and never go farther, but return, with their
mouths full of lies. Every mother's son and daughter of them claim to
have made the full ascent of the peak essayed, and having read
themselves up, talk as glibly about it as though they had lived upon the
mountains all their lives, and knew every glacier as familiarly as they
do their bedrooms.
And then when they come down they are stared at by the last arrivals,
and laughed at by the old ones, and they go to a shop around the corner,
and pay several francs to have the name and date of the ascent of the
mountains in the neighborhood burned in upon their Alpenstocks, which
they cart all over Europe, and finally hang up in their homes as
"souvenirs."
There ought to be an Alpenstock shop in New York, where all this could
be done. It would save a deal of annoyance to a great many people and do
just as well.
[Sidenote: A PROPER ASCENT OF MONT BLANC.]
Did I ascend any of these mountains? I did not. Some of my party did,
but I preferred not to essay it. The heat was intense, the paths are not
good, and lifting one's self by sheer strength up sixteen thousand feet
is not the thing to do, especially when you may read it, see it in
engravings, and even make the ascent yourself--with a telescope--at the
cost of a franc. I did it by telescope, and have never regretted it. I
could buy an Alpenstock just the same, and have burned in it, "Mont
Blanc, July 20, 1881," just as well. And, as they all lie about it,
anyhow, why not, if you are going to lie, commence lying at the
beginning, and save labor? If tongue work is to do it, why not use your
tongue, and save your legs? Were I to lie at all, I would sooner lie
from the door of the hotel than half way up the mountain.
But I will not lie at all. I did go up Mt. Blanc, perhaps five hundred
feet, to the very foot of one of the glaciers, and saw and touched it.
That did me. I had seen all that was to be seen, and I was glad enough
to get back. I was willing that anybody who chose should do the
remaining fifteen thousand feet; five hundred was quite enough for me.
[Illustration: A NON-PROFESSIONAL LADY TOURIST.]
It is a most amusing thing to see a woman with this absurd gown,
actually glorying in looking hideous, with her ghastly blue spectacles,
Alpenstock in hand, ride up to a hotel on a mule, and march boldly into
the grand hall, after one of these fraudulent excursions. She speaks of
the topmost peaks as though she had been there; she talks of chasms in
the glaciers, of the risks she ran because the ropes were not exactly
right; she abuses her guide, and says he was the worst she ever had, as
though she had been climbing Alps from the time she left off short
dresses; and when her little stock is run out, she goes to her room, and
reads up her guide-books and such local printed matter as is
attainable, and commences again. She buys Alpine flowers at the market
in the village, and sends them home as gathered on the mountains; she
has all sorts of carved work which she swears she purchased from the
Alpine dwellers who make it (there are factories of these "souvenirs"
all over Switzerland); and she loads herself with all sorts of rubbish,
all of which her people at home will preserve and cherish as carefully
as though the lies she told about it were truths. There are enthusiasts
who make it the business of their lives to explore the Alps, and as they
alone take the risk, they do no harm if they do no good. But the average
amateur climber is about as absurd a being as is permitted to exist, and
inasmuch as there are thousands of them, one may imagine what an offense
they are.
You meet all sorts of queer people in Europe, and as many in Switzerland
as anywhere, unless it be Paris, which is a common sink for all the
world. I met in Geneva a very curious specimen, whose career is worth a
place in history.
He was the son of one of the most wealthy men of New York. His father
had made some millions of dollars in trade and judicious real-estate
investments, and brought up his family as all rich New Yorkers do. The
young man had gone through college, and had graduated by the skin of his
teeth. He had learned much of boating and base ball, and was one of the
best billiard players in his set. Out of college with a lot of knowledge
that he could make no use of, for he had nothing to do in life, he
became a club man in New York, and commenced the pursuit of pleasure. It
was all well enough for a time. Yachting occupied him for two seasons,
horses took his attention for two more. He once, in desperation, made a
trip in a wagon from New York to Montreal, just to put in a Summer, with
three companions, he footing all the bills. Horses palling on his taste,
he entered upon a life of general and miscellaneous dissipation, and
finally that tired him and he was without an aim in life.
He had hunted pleasure and now pleasure was hunting him.
In despair he took to travel, and for five years he rambled from one
capital to another, seeing everything and being bored by everything.
[Sidenote: FEELING AN INTEREST IN SOMETHING.]
Here he was living at the best hotel, in the best style; he kept a
servant or two, and had oceans of friends, as every man has who has
money, but life to him was a curse. He had nothing to do.
"Why don't you go up the Alps?" I said to him.
"Bless your innocent soul I have been up the Alps a dozen times. There
isn't a dangerous place that I haven't attempted, nor anything that is
regular that I haven't done. It don't pay."
He had seen all the theaters, all the stock places were as familiar to
him as the alphabet, and as for the dissipations he had so tired of them
that he was a saint. He was virtuous from necessity.
One morning I asked him to go with me to inspect a machine shop which
was one of the lions of the place. For sheer want of something else to
do, he put on his coat and went. I was very much interested in some of
the processes which were new to me, but my friend yawned through the
whole of it, in the same _ennuied_ way that was manifest since I knew
him. Finally we came before a machine known in machinery as a shaper. It
was a powerful tool, which went backward and forward, cutting at each
forward movement a thin thread of iron. The work it was doing was
cutting a slot in a shaft of iron. The shaft, before it went into the
shaper, was a round piece of iron. Delancy looked at it with the first
expression of interest I had ever seen in his face.
The man at the machine had nothing to do after the shaft was put into
the "chucks" but to sit and read a novel, the machine doing all the work
with regularity and accuracy.
"Do you forge this shaft originally?" he asked the man.
"Certainly, sir."
"How long does it take you to cut this slot in it?"
"About four hours."
"Then why don't you have the piece of iron forged with this slot made
down to within say a quarter-inch and save nine-tenths of this time?"
"We never did it that way," was the reply of the man; "it won't do."
"But it will do," said Delancy. "That shaft can be forged, to begin
with, something as it should come out, and it's a cussed waste of time
to do it in this way."
The foreman assured him that it could be done in no other way. The
workmen corroborated the foreman, but Delancy was not satisfied.
That evening in his room he had a dictionary of mechanics, and was
intent upon the parts relating to forging. He called my attention to it,
and swore great oaths that the machinists were a set of asses, and that
they hadn't a process which he could not better.
The next morning he was up at six and had an early breakfast and was at
the shop driving the workmen mad with his persistent inquiries. At
dinner he talked of nothing but machines and machinery, and the evening
he devoted to whittling curiously shaped things out of wood.
Suddenly he disappeared. One morning I went to the shops again, and who
should I see in a greasy suit of overalls, with his gold eye-glasses,
but a man who looked like my friend Delancy, at a lathe.
It was a curious transformation, and about the most incongruous
spectacle I had ever seen. Here was a man with gold eye-glasses, a
diamond ring, thin white hands, patent leather boots, with greasy
overalls. It was an earnest mechanic engrafted upon a Broadway
exquisite.
"Do my eyes deceive me?"
"They do not. It is I, Delancy. Not the old Delancy, but an entirely new
one. I have now something to live for."
"Why have you quit the hotel?"
"Because I want to associate with my fellows. I am living with them. I
have been admitted as one of them, and they all know me as well as
though I had been born one of them, which I wish to Heaven I had. I can
eat something now, and their beer--well, with a lot of good fellows it
lays all over the champagne I have always paid for. You see I have made
up my mind to demonstrate to these ignoramuses that a piece of iron can
be forged to any shape, with any depression in it desirable, and that
these men at the lathes and shapers waste ninety per cent. of their
time. We have got to have machinery, and we want it cheap. I have
something to live for. I shall be a machinist."
[Sidenote: A USEFUL MAN AT LAST.]
The man had actually bribed the master of the works to accept him as an
apprentice, and he had made an exceedingly good one. He was at the works
at the regular hour, and stayed as late as the latest. And he developed
wonderful genius in the way of mechanics, and was in a fair way to
arrive at a high position in the business.
The workmen idolized him. He delighted to go with them evenings to the
cafés they frequented, to be a little king among them; he helped the
sick and unfortunate; he took some interest in their concerns, and they
in turn did everything possible to acquaint him with the practical part
of the trade.
"They are a much better lot," he said, "than the leeches who used to
hang upon me."
He invited me to dine with him one day, and the amount of coarse food he
could consume--this man who had not had an appetite for twenty
years--was something wonderful.
For the first time in his life, he declared, he was absolutely happy. He
had something to do.
Before he had been in the shop a week he showed the master how the iron
bar could be forged to the shape required, and how two-thirds of the
time at the machine could be saved, and he succeeded in having his
system introduced.
He vows that he will stick to it till he has learned his trade, then go
home to New York and start the most perfect machine shop on the
continent, and that, moreover, he will be perfectly happy therein. He is
not _ennuied_ any more, for he has found something to do. There are
others who would do well to follow his example.