THE MOUNTAIN TOPS.
Climbing the Utleberg--Fat woman on a donkey--First Alpine view--The
valley, lake and hills--Haunts of Lavater, Zimmerman, Klopstock,
Gessner--The work of Escher--Coming Down--Baur Hotel--Lake
Zurich--Lake Zug--Golda--Land-side--Ruin--Ascent of the Rigi--The
best route--Chapels by the way--Mary of the Snow--Convent and
monks--The Summit--The Company--Change of
Temperature--Sunset--Supper--Night--Sunrise--Glory of the
view--Getting down again--Fat man done up.
August 19.
Rankin challenged me this morning to walk to the heights of Utleberg, on
the Albis ridge, to the west of Zurich. The Utleberg is only three
thousand feet high! and that is a small matter in Switzerland. After a
cup of coffee we set off at eight in the morning, and without guide or
mules we wandered out of the town, across the river, and through
beautiful vineyards, with luxuriant grapes, not ripe enough to be
tempting. We climbed along up the hill-side. Other parties were on their
way, some German, some French, some English, none American but
ourselves. At the foot of the hill we met a flock of milk white goats,
which their owner was driving down from the mountains to sell in town;
beautiful creatures; for the first, we learned that beauty could be
affirmed of a goat. Here the lame and the lazy supplied themselves with
mules, and a comical figure of a fat German lady on a miserable little
donkey, will be an amusing memory for many a day. When she was half way
up the mountain she looked so jaded with the jerking, that we thought
she would have suffered less if she had carried the donkey. We cut stout
sticks in the forest, and pushed on, stopping now and then to pick
flowers, or to examine a leech or a lizard, in the pools and streams by
the side of the path, resting when tired, but pressing onward and
upward, steadily and slowly; encouraged often by the splendor of the
scene below, as we caught it from some opening in the woods, and feeling
that we had the day before us and nothing else to do. The ascent became
steeper as we pressed along, and it doubtless seemed steeper to us the
more we were wearied with the way, but we made it in less than two
hours, winding around the mighty rock that caps the apex, and entered
the house of refreshment before we looked off into the world below.
I had not felt myself in Switzerland till on this summit, we saw for the
first time a real Alpine view. It has _points_ of view peculiar to
itself, nationally characteristic; there is nothing got up on the same
scale and the same plan in any other part of God's great world. Why it
pleased him to heap these hills in such "confusion unconfused," in this
little country, we do not know, but they who would see the most
remarkable of his works in mountain-building, must come here and climb
up to some of the highest peaks, where they can take in at once as much
of the majesty of the scene as each man's mind can hold. Rankin and I
reasoned some time on the question whether these lofty ranges were
clouds in the heavens or mountains propping up the sky. Now the problem
is solved. What we thought might be white clouds, are the snowy ridges
of the distant hills, and the dark blue mountains are now facing us as
from one height across the valley we see them without looking up.
The vale of Zurich lies at our feet. The lake for twenty-five miles, and
with a breadth of not more than three, stretches itself more like a
river than a lake, through the valley to the south as far as we can see;
and the hills rise very gradually from the water affording the most
delightful grounds for vineyards; while scores of villages, each with
its church spire, are scattered on each side, and between the villages
so many dwellings are seen, that the whole valley, with its dense
population, seems but one great family; certainly, it is one
neighborhood, where industry, religion, intelligence and happiness,
ought to flourish and have their reward. Thalwyl may be seen away to the
south, near to which Lavater wrote a portion of his work on Physiognomy;
and still farther on is Richtensweil, where Zimmerman lived, whose work
on "Solitude" celebrates the praises of this spot. So does Klopstock in
his ode, and Gessner, the Swiss poet, who was born in Zurich and has a
monument reared to his memory in one of its delightful promenades.
There, too, is Stafa, where Goethe once resided, and Rapperschuyl, with
the longest bridge in the world, it is said, four thousand eight hundred
feet, or three-fourths of a mile; but I think the Cayuga bridge is
longer. There lies a beautiful islet, in which Ulrich Von Hutten, the
friend of Luther, found a refuge and a grave. Look away to Usnach, and
you see a valley out of which the river _Linth_ is flowing; connected
with it is a remarkable story. Yesterday in the churchyard of St. Anne,
we saw a massive rough stone, with a polished spot in the midst of it,
on which was engraved in gilt letters, "Escher, Von der Linth," or
Escher of the Linth. The title had plainly been given him for some work
connected with the Swiss river of that name. Some thirty or forty years
ago the river, coming down from the glaciers, and bringing with it a
vast quantity of stones and soil, had become so much obstructed, that
the valley was repeatedly overflowed, terrible pestilences followed, and
the inhabitants swept off in great numbers. Conrad Escher suggested to
the government the idea of digging a new bed for the river, and turning
its waters off into another lake, the Wallenstadt, where its deposits
would be received without injury. This lake he connected with that of
Zurich by a navigable canal, and so complete was the success of all his
suggestions, that he is looked upon as a national benefactor. Just
there, at the opening of the valley, a tablet has been placed in the
solid rock, with an appropriate inscription. But that is not all. Hard
by it is an institution for the education of the poor of the canton,
which is called after his name; and a factory where the Linth colony are
at work, who were brought here and supported while the great work was in
progress on which they were employed.
Whichever way the eye turns from this point of observation, it finds
something interesting or wonderful on which to rest. We are now in the
morning of our tour in Switzerland, and have been assured again and
again that this is _mere_ beauty, compared with the glory that awaits us
hereafter. But those mighty mountains crowned with eternal snow, and
piercing the very skies with their sharp peaks, or supporting the
heavens with their broad white shoulders, are certainly most majestic
works of God, and what more and greater there can be, it is beyond
imagination to conceive. Not many travellers climb up here. They are in
such haste to see the Rigi and the Passes, and the Vale of Chamouni,
that they do not give a day to Zurich, the most classic and picturesque
of any of the cantons of Switzerland. An English gentleman and lady are
up here with me, who have just been traversing this whole country on
foot. They are full of delight with the view, though they have seen
everything else that is to be seen.
The only incident to give variety to our return was losing the way, and
making the walk a mile longer; but that was of small account to Swiss
pedestrians, ambitious of doing great things, and making nothing of
climbing a mountain, and coming down before dinner.
We are at Zurich now. Mr. _Baur_ has the most elegant "Hotel and
Pension" on the verge of the Lake of Zurich, that I have seen in Europe.
He calls this, as well as the Hotel in front of the Post Office, after
his own name, and gives them a degree of personal attention unequalled
by any landlord into whose hands it was ever my pleasure to fall. In
most of the hotels in Europe, the proprietor keeps himself out of sight,
and trusts the entire management of affairs to his assistants, the head
waiter being the most of a man you are ever able to find. Mr. Baur is
everywhere at once: receives his guests on their arrival, makes himself
acquainted with their wants, and sees that they are attended to without
fail. His new house on the lake with a charming garden in front, is one
of the most delightful places for a weary traveller to rest in for a few
days.
There are many routes to the Rigi. Of course we went by the best. Every
traveller does; at least he thinks so, and that often amounts to the
same thing. But in this as in every other road up hill in life, before a
man gets half way up, he wishes he had taken the other. So it matters
little, if he only reaches the top at last. The steamboat on the
Zurigsee, leaves at eight in the morning, and at least a hundred
passengers crowded the little thing, when with a lovely breeze and a
fine clear day we were off for the Rigi.
The glory of the Rigi is at sunset and sunrise, and then there is none
unless the sky is clear. Nor are you sure of a clear sky up there, if it
were ever so bright when you left the base. The group of mountains known
by the name of Rigi, of which the highest peak is alone the object of
interest to the traveller, stand so isolated by the lakes of Zug and
Lucerne from the rest of the ridges and ranges, that the view from the
summit, especially at the close of the day and at sunrise, is
unequalled. It stands up there alone, as an observatory from which to
see the others. An hour on the boat brought us to the village of Horgen,
where we were carried by stages across the country to Zug, on a lake of
the same name. At Horgen about sixty passengers were landed, and we
found that our tickets had been numbered as they were given to us on
board the boat, and we were to be seated in the coaches accordingly. My
number was forty-seven, very near the end of the list, but it turned up
a very good seat, on the shady side of the stage, a very important
matter in the middle of a hot day for a ride of three hours. Not a
winding but very much of a zig-zag road, led us over the hill country
that divides the lakes. Sometimes we had delightful views, deep ravines
through which the mountain streams were finding their way; on the crest,
the Rigi and Pilatus first meet the eye, and then rapidly we make our
way to the borders of the lake, on which stands the little town of Zug,
the capital of the Canton of that name, the least among the tribes.
After a hasty dinner at the tavern we embarked on another steamboat, and
still smaller than the one on the Zurich Lake. What a lovely sheet of
water is this Lake Zug! It lies eighteen hundred feet higher than the
sea; and all around it except at the head, the richly cultivated shores
are sloping away from the water's edge. But just before us, as we are
going South, the noble Rigi rises from the shore of the Lake, and in the
clear water the whole of that vast mountain clothed with verdure to the
very summit is reflected so perfectly, that instead of looking up to
study the ridges and precipices and forests and flocks on its rugged
sides, it is pleasanter to study it as it lies there in the depths of
this pellucid sea. We reached the South end, or head of the lake about
three in the afternoon, and here we arranged to ascend the mountain.
The ascent from Arth is made by many, but it is far better to push on
through the village to Goldau, and there look at the evidences of the
awful work of ruin and death that was wrought in 1806 by the slide of a
large part of the Rossberg mountain; burying 450 human beings in one
living grave. There is the fresh white side of the mountain, as if the
half of it had fallen away yesterday. It is 5000 feet high; and lies in
great strata of pudding stone, which is very liable to be split asunder
by the water that filters between the layers. You can see the ranges in
the strata as the sun falls on this bare side, and it seems as if what
was left lying there, might one of these days come down to find the half
that left it fifty years ago. Then a portion three miles long and a
thousand feet broad and at least a hundred feet thick broke away from
the rest, after a long succession of heavy rains; and came down into the
valley, teeming with a population of happy peasantry, and overwhelmed
them with the most awful deluge of modern times. So sudden was the rush
of rocks and earth, that a party of travellers going up the Rigi, where
I ascended, were met by the torrent; seven had passed on 200 yards ahead
of the other four and were caught by the descending avalanche, and never
seen again. The valley is now covered with vast rocks and masses of the
conglomerate, which then came down, and with so much force that some of
them now lie scattered some distance up the hill on the other side of
the vale! Fifty years have not restored the valley to its former
fertility and beauty. One of its lakes was nearly filled up, and now
little pools are seen where once was the bed of a handsome sheet of
water. The stories told of individual cases of suffering, of whole
families perishing, and what is on some accounts more distressing, of
some being taken and others left, are so many that I will not attempt to
repeat them now. I walked into the beautiful little church at Goldau, a
gem, and on each side of the front door is a black slab with a record of
names of some of those who perished in that dreadful day. This is a
Roman Catholic Canton, as I had evidence presently.
A new scene opens on the eye of the traveller when for the first time he
arrives at the foot of a mountain with a large party, and prepares to
ascend. We led off on foot from Arth to Goldau, supposing that the fifty
or more from the boat would strike up the hill immediately. But they
followed us: some with guides, some without: some carrying their own
packs, others with a servant to help them: some were ladies ready to
foot it to the summit: some were to be carried in a chair on a bier by
four bearers: the lame and the lazy are expected to ride on horses. I
was in the former class to-day, recovered from my Utleberg tramp, and
was glad to have good company to keep me in countenance, for I was a
little ashamed of myself in taking a horse when so many, and some of
them ladies, were going up on foot.
The path for a mile is gently ascending, and then takes a shaded gorge
in the hills, and on this account is greatly to be preferred to those
paths which lead from Arth and Weggis, around the mountain, exposing the
pilgrim all the way, to the rays of the sun. Now we are mounting
steadily: turning frequently in the saddle to look at the constantly
enlarging and ennobling view. Now and then a little cascade diversifies
the hour: or we stop to refresh ourselves from the many rills that are
gurgling by the path. The noise of running streams and waterfalls is
constantly heard, and on the stillness of the air the tintinabula or
tinkling of the bells on the necks of the dun-colored cows, that are
feeding in numerous herds all up the sides of the mountain, comes gently
to the ear as soft music.
All along up the mountain are small sheds, called chapels or stations,
with some rude image of the Saviour in it, and pilgrims, to whom
indulgences were promised by the Pope in the seventeenth century, are
going from one to the other stopping at each and saying their prayers. I
dismounted and entered one; where the most hideous sight met my eye
which I have yet seen in the miserable Romish worship. A full life size
figure of Christ sinking to the earth beneath the weight of the cross is
carved in wood; the countenance indicating agony, but such a horrid face
to personate the Saviour! and a wig on his head of long dirty hair
hanging over his shoulders! It was sickening, and I was glad to hasten
away from it, as rapidly as possible.
These praying stations, thirteen in number, lead on to a neat church
called "Mary of the Snow," and around it are lodging-houses for pilgrims
who are very numerous in the month of August. A small convent is here,
where four or five monks of the Capuchin order reside; they do service
in the church, and among the mountains where their priestly aid is
required. These lodging-houses are sometimes resorted to by invalids for
the benefit of the mountain air, and the whey of goat's milk, which can
be had in great abundance here. Beggars beset your path from the valley
to the mountain top: old men and old women, young men and young women,
and little children trained to toddle into the road and put out their
hand before they can speak so as to be understood. Many of these are not
in want; but every bit of money that can be extracted from travellers is
clear gain.
The steepest of the ascent is over, long before you reach the summit,
and the last mile of winding way is a very easy and pleasant ride. The
change of atmosphere is great; and an overcoat is needed at once, if you
are warm with walking. Fortunately you have had no chance to get the
view for some time, till it bursts upon you all at once as you plant
your feet on the mountain top, on a piece of table-land, of half an
acre, that forms a magnificent platform from which to behold this scene.
More than two hundred people are there before us: most of them parties
travelling for pleasure from all parts of the civilized world, with
guides, couriers and servants, a singular group to find yourself among
so suddenly and so far above the level of "the world and the rest of
mankind." One large hotel, and one small one are to shelter this company
for the night, and we are so fortunate as to find that we are to have a
small room with three beds, just under the roof, with holes about the
size of a hat to admit light and air! That is better than none, and some
of these people will have none. Still the two hotels on the summit, and
one half an hour down, the Rigi Staffel, afford abundant accommodations
to company, unless as in the present instance, the weather has been bad
for a week, and hundreds have been waiting for a fair day, and the
promise of a good night above. The Album of the house in which visitors
register their names records the disappointment of many who have climbed
up to see nothing but that mysterious mist which so often shrouds the
mountain tops. Probably the greater part of visitors are thus mocked,
for it is cloudy up here more than half the time. One party thus groans:
"Seven weary up-hill leagues we sped,
The setting sun to see;
Sullen and grim he went to bed,
Sullen and grim went we.
Nine sleepless hours of night we passed
The rising sun to see,
Sullen and grim he rose again,
Sullen and grim rose we."
Not such was our fate. The sun was half an hour high when we reached the
highest peak; and the first Alpine panorama was around us. Other views
had been partial: this was a great circle of the heavens and the earth,
three hundred miles in circumference! A few clouds in the western sky
were gorgeously crimson in the declining sun, but the atmosphere was
clear enough to reveal every mountain, every lake, every village, city,
forest and plain, with the cottages innumerable, dotting the valleys. At
our feet the Lakes of Lucerne and Zug are apparently underneath the
mountain, and they stretch themselves so curiously among the hills, that
we can scarcely determine to what sheets of water they belong, or
whether they are new lakes and not those seen before. And away at a
distance are other waters, some of them very small, but giving beauty
and variety to the plains below. The villages lying close by have their
historic interest. All this region is William Tell's. His name is
associated with many a spot on which the eye is resting. A neat little
chapel is built to mark the place where he shot his oppressor Gessler.
Here at the right is the Lake and town of Zug, and just behind it, rises
the spire of the church of Cappel, where Zwingle fell on the field of
battle. But turning from the views at the West and North, and looking to
the South and East, and such a prospect of Alps on Alps is seen as no
one had believed could be piled into sight from a single point. The
Bernese Alps clothed in perpetual robes of snow; those of Unterwalden
and Uri, with the dull blue glaciers in the midst of them; sending up
the peaks of Jungfrau, the Titlis, Rothstock and Bristenstock, are
directly in front, and on to the Eastward, is the broad white head of
the Dodi, the Sentis and the Glarish; but these are a few only of the
many named and unnamed that are now reflecting the sunset from their
white crowns, or retiring into the shades of evening as the sun goes
down. We look to the South East into an opening called the Muotta Thal,
where Suwarrow and Massena with their hostile armies fought bloody
battles in the midst of fearful crags and precipices, and we wonder that
this land of mountains and ice has been selected as the scene for so
much warfare and blood. The sun was now sinking to the edge of the
horizon. A lady standing near me said, "It is fit to light such a scene
as this!" There was a fitness between the sun and the scene that was
truly striking and glorious. The hum of the hundred voices was hushed.
It was also fit that we should be still while the sun took his last look
of our world that night.
It is for a wonder to me that Switzerland has produced so few poets, but
not strange that some of the noblest strains of English poetry have been
penned under the inspiration of these Alpine views. They awaken a train
of emotions so profoundly new, and at the same time so elevating and
sublime, that the heart wishes to utter itself in the passionate
language of poetry rather than in the duller words of prose. "These are
thy works," O God: before the mountains were built, and before the
hills, thou wert here. Thou didst "prepare the heavens, the earth, the
fields, and the highest part of the dust of the world." Thou hast
weighed the Alps in a balance, and held these mountains in the hollow of
thy hand. They shall flow down at thy presence, when thou comest to
shake terribly the earth. They stand now, because thou, Lord, dost hold
them up, for giants as they are, and touching thy heavens, they still
lean on thee.
During this half hour of observation on the summit of the Rigi, we had
been wrapped in our cloaks to protect us from the cold. As soon as the
sun was gone, we were glad to go into the house, where a table for a
hundred guests was spread, with a hot supper sufficient for half the
number; and before ten o'clock we were sound asleep. Those who could not
find beds spent the night in the dining hall, entertaining themselves
and disturbing the rest, but we were so far above them that we heard
nothing till the blast of a wooden horn rung through the halls,
informing us that the sun would be up before us if we did not hasten to
meet him. We hurried on our clothes, wrapped up warmly, and in a few
moments stood with our faces to the East, intently watching, like
worshippers of the Sun, the first signs of his coming. One single peak
was precisely between us and the sun, and as the earliest tints of the
morning began to redden it, the appearance was not unlike that of a
kindling fire in the summit. The blaze gathered around it, and seemed to
shoot away into the regions of ice and snow; and then far into the
clouds above, the bright hues of day were cast, and the crowd stood
still, anxious to enjoy the first view of the emerging sun. The horn was
blown again by the trumpeter, a miserable mode of announcing that the
King was coming, as if he needed a herald as he rode up the East in his
chariot of gold and fire. There was just haze enough in the atmosphere
to dim the sun of his dazzling brightness, and we could look steadily on
his face as he rose behind the mountain, and seemed to pause on the
summit, and calmly to look down on the world he had left in darkness a
few hours before. Then peak after peak, and mountain ridges, and domes
and minarets, fields of fresh snow, and forests of living green, began
to catch the morning tints: gorges in the hill sides would lie there in
deep shadow, and bosoms of virgin snow, bared to the rising sun, would
blush when he looked in upon them, while villages and hamlets in the
vale below are still wrapped in the shades of the gray dawn, and have
not thought of waking yet to begin another day. We spent an hour or two
in the enjoyment of this magnificent prospect, which we are told is one
of the most delightful we are to have in Switzerland; and when the sun
was fairly up to the dwellers in the vale as well as to us on the
mountain top, we turned our backs upon him, took a cup of coffee in the
Rigi Culm, and bade farewell to the most splendid of all the prospects
we had ever seen, or expect to see on earth. I am greatly moved in the
presence of Niagara; and there have formed impressions of the active
power and glory of the great Creator, such as are conveyed by no other
of the works of God. But now I am looking on the silent evidence of his
creating might in a new and wonderful form; and it seems to me but a
short step from those shining glaciers and snow-crowned palaces to the
central throne of Him who sitteth in the circle of the heavens. "O Lord
God of Hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? The heavens are
thine: the earth also is thine; as for the world and the fulness
thereof, thou hast founded them: the north and the south thou hast
created them; Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name. Thou hast a
mighty arm; strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand."
As we had ascended the Rigi from Goldau, on the eastern side, we now
went down on the western to Weggis. We were in no haste: the day was
before us, and we had nothing to do but to walk till we were tired,
choose a shady spot commanding a fine view of the lake of Lucerne and
the surrounding hills, and then rest and enjoy the scene. The bells from
the herds of cattle far below us, and sometimes above us, and the
strains of music from the villages in the vales, would come floating to
us on the morning air, while nature with all her voices was making one
rich psalm. The descent is far less fatiguing than climbing up, but when
continued for two or three hours it becomes exceedingly exhausting. We
provided ourselves with pike staffs having a Chamois horn for a head,
and with these we resisted the too constant downward tendency, using
them as a drag to a wheel, and making the greatest effort to hold back.
On this path to or from the Rigi is a boarding and bathing house, over a
spring of very clear cold water to which invalids resort; and as walking
on the mountain side for an hour or so after bathing is part of the
discipline, I have no doubt that the establishment works many wonderful
cures. A chapel of the Holy Virgin is close by, where prayers are daily
said for the shepherds on the precipices, whose lives are in constant
danger while they pursue the duties to which they are trained. Half an
hour below the chapel, the path leads through a mighty archway formed by
two huge masses of rock supporting a third between them. Some great
convulsion of nature has thrown them into this remarkable position, and
they show in their make the nature of all the upper strata of these hill
sides, which are in constant danger of sliding down when the water works
its way under them, and separates them from the lower. Here we sat down
and refreshed ourselves: a cool breeze rushing through the passage, and
making a delightful resting place for weary travellers.
I said it was easier far to go down than up. So it is, but one who
carries much weight, or who has not considerable powers of endurance
should be cautious of making the experiment. A very heavy gentleman who
came to the foot of the mountain with us yesterday, and rode up, with
his son, a fine lad of fourteen, running along by the side of the horse,
attempted to come down on foot. We overtook him; and just then he lay
down on the grass by the side of a beautiful spring of water: he was
exhausted, and had sent his son down for help. Presently the faithful
and noble boy came running up the mountain with a bottle of wine and a
loaf of bread, and soon four stout men with a chair, whom the lad had
outstripped, came on, and the heavy gentleman was carried by hand the
rest of the way. I met them afterwards at the foot of the hill, and
congratulated the father on his safe arrival; and more on being the
father of such a boy.