“For pallid autumn once again
Hath swell’d each torrent of the hill;
Her clouds collect, her shadows sail,
And watery winds that sweep the vale
Grow loud and louder still.”
_Campbell._
Churches of Basel--Storks--Rheinfelden--Frick--Baden--Zurich: the
Cathedral--Fondness of the Swiss for Bright Colours--Lake of
Zurich--Rapperswyl--Linth Canal--A Wayside Inn--Wesen.
At Basel we engaged a voiturier to take us to Baden, whence the only
Swiss railway was to have the privilege of conveying us to Zurich. Our
scheme for reaching Italy was to pass by the lakes of Zurich and
Wallenstadt, and then, following the valley of the Rhine, to cross over
the pass of the Splügen to Chiavenna, and so to reach Lake Como.
We left Basel at two o’clock in the afternoon, hoping to reach Baden by
about nine; the weather looked threatening, but we took a cheerful view
of this, as of everything else, as all good travellers should, and
comforted ourselves with the thought that at any rate we could better
afford to have a wet day between Basel and Baden than between Zurich and
the Splügen.
The view of the city as you leave it is certainly very striking; the
cathedral spires are picturesque in their outline, and the number of
churches with turrets and steep roofs combine with them to produce a
most ecclesiastical-looking town. Nor need any one interested in
architecture despair of finding much pleasure in a more careful
inspection of its buildings. They are full of interest, though generally
passed too rapidly by people in a hurry to get on to enjoy the pleasures
which await them beyond.
The roofing of the cathedral is worthy of notice as being composed of
variously coloured tiles, arranged in diamond patterns over the surface
of the roof, and giving a degree of richness to the colouring of this
generally heavy part of the building which is very admirable.
In another fine church of the early part of the fourteenth century here,
I remember being amused to see how quietly the storks possess themselves
of all kinds of places for their nests, and think even the ridge of the
steep roof of a church a proper place for their abode. The good people
at Basel build their chimneys with flat tops for the express benefit of
their long-legged friends; who, from their elevated and well-warmed
abodes, look down sedately, and with a well-satisfied air upon their
unfledged brethren below.
Why the people here love storks, the people of Venice pigeons, and the
people of Berne bears, I leave to more industrious inquirers to decide,
satisfied only to notice the fact that it is so, as each of these
fancies adds one to the list of local peculiarities so valuable in the
recollections of a journey.
The road from Basel to Baden is for the first half of the way very
pretty; we came in, unfortunately, for rather drenching rain, and so
lost all beyond the suggestion of some striking views. The towns through
which we passed were not of much interest, though there were many
picturesque and pleasant-looking subjects for the pencil. The most
striking place on the road was Rheinfelden, a largish village (or
perhaps I ought to say small town, as it rejoices in a Rath-haus of
some pretension), surrounded by very high walls, and entered by tall
stone gate-towers, pierced with pointed arches, and surmounted by upper
stages of timber, with tiled roofs of quaint and effective character;
and here and at Stein and Baden I noticed that almost all the houses
were old and very little altered. I observed particularly the old
shop-windows of very simple design, closed with folding shutters, and
taking one back to old times most decidedly in their design.
[Illustration: SHOP-WINDOW, RHEINFELDEN.]
Beyond Rheinfelden the road, which so far has skirted the Rhine rather
closely, leaves it again for a few miles until it touches it for the
last time at the small town of Stein.
From Stein we saw an imposing-looking church on the other side of the
river at Sekingen. It has a great western front with two bulbous-topped
steeples, and is of very considerable length. The division between choir
and nave is marked by a delicate turret, and the whole church, as far as
one can judge by a distant view, looks as though it would well repay a
visit. There are six bays in the nave, five and an apse in the choir.
The former has very simple windows, whilst in the latter they are rather
elaborate. There is no aisle to the choir and no transept.
The rain continued incessantly until we reached the long straggling
village of Frick, a quaint and antique-looking place, where our
voiturier stopped for an hour to bait his horses, who, however, at
Rheinfelden had enjoyed a treat in the shape of a loaf of very brown
bread, a kind of food second only, in the estimation of foreign steeds,
to the precious _morceaux_ of lump sugar with which Swiss voituriers are
so fond of encouraging and petting them.
We were nothing loth to stretch our legs; and finding that the church
was worthless--one of those unhappy bulbous-spired and bulbous-roofed
erections so common in some parts of the Continent, and the roof of even
the eastern apse of which was twisted into a most ingenious and ugly
compound curve--we took up our quarters in the respectable hostelry and
“Bierbrauerei” of the Angel, and devoted ourselves to the consumption of
coffee and beer of no bad quality. Our host wished sadly to see us
located under his roof for the night, but we were resolute in our
determination to reach Baden that night, and so persisted in going,
though to our subsequent regret.
It was soon dark, and the new moon, which shone cheerfully upon us, gave
us just a glimpse occasionally of the scenery, which about Brugg, where
we crossed the Aar, and again at Königsfelden, seemed to be remarkably
good.
At last, at about half-past ten o’clock, we reached what we fondly hoped
was to be our resting-place. But Baden chose not to take us in, and to
our horror, as we drove up to the chief and only available inn, we were
met with the dismal announcement from the mouth of the civil landlord,
that all the rooms were full.
However, we dismounted, and found that there was no other inn in Baden
proper, but that at the Baths there were several; at them our landlord
assured us that he knew we should find no room, and so we thought it
useless to return and try. Our only course seemed to be to feed our
horses again and then go on to Zurich; and as Swiss drivers and Swiss
horses never seem to tire of trotting on slowly and drowsily along the
road, there was no difficulty in at once coming to an arrangement with
our coachman.
Accordingly, at midnight we started again, hoping at some early hour in
the morning to reach Zurich. It was sufficiently provoking to be toiling
on slowly and sleepily for nearly four hours almost alongside of a
railroad which would have taken us early the next morning in
three-quarters of an hour; but there was no help for it, and so we did
the best we could, by sleeping whenever we were able, to pass the weary
hours away.
At last, just as the day began to dawn, we came in sight of Zurich and
its lake, and last, not least, we reached the great hotel. Here we
pulled up, knocked desperately, awoke the slumbering porter--but, alas!
only to hear again the unwelcome sounds which had greeted our ears at
Baden! He suggested, however, that at the Hôtel Belle Vue we should
probably find beds, and so on we drove, rather in despair at our
prospects, though, happily, unnecessarily so, for the Belle Vue gladly
opened its arms for our reception, and ere long we were, oblivious of
all our toil, comfortably ensconced in bed. From our windows we had a
pleasant view of our quarters; it was broad daylight, and the prospect
was--as from such a position, looking up a lake, it always is--very fair
and charming.
We were up again soon after eight, and were glad to find the morning
fine, though the clouds were low, and we saw, consequently, nothing of
the distant view of mountains which lends its greatest charms to Zurich.
The town is, however, pretty and striking. The picturesque houses, with
wooded hills on all sides beyond them, and very charming views of the
lake, if they do not make its attractions first-rate, at any rate make
them very considerable.
The main feature of interest for me was the cathedral, a fine Romanesque
church, very fairly perfect, but mutilated in its interior arrangements
by the Calvinists, in whose hands it now is. In plan, it has a nave with
aisles of six bays, a
[Illustration: 2.--CLOISTER, ZURICH CATHEDRAL. Page 19]
short choir, and east of this a square-ended sanctuary, the aisles
having apses, roofed with semi-domes. In the nave two of the
aisle-arches make one groining bay. The transverse groining-ribs are of
a simple square section, the diagonal ribs having in addition a large
round member. The triforium is very large and fine, and is made use of
for congregational purposes, being fitted up with seats, which,
curiously enough, are all made to turn up as misereres. There are no
transepts. The sanctuary arch is loftier than the choir arch, and seems
to have been intended to be very distinctly marked. In the clerestory
there are two simple round-headed lights in each bay; the choir is
arcaded all round internally, and for frigidity of effect cannot be
surpassed; the internal fittings comprise an immense pulpit, but, so far
as I could see, not even an apology for an altar.
The exterior has two western steeples,[1] and a north doorway, each jamb
of which has three detached shafts, standing considerably in advance of
the wall, which is entirely covered with diapers. The arch itself is
semi-circular, and very simple in its moulding; but this simplicity
rather adds to than detracts from its general grandeur of effect. The
whole is inserted in an additional thickness of wall, set on, as it
were, against the original wall, and the extreme width of the doorway
itself is no less than eighteen feet nine inches. The cloisters were
remarkable, and very good of their kind; the arches rested on detached
shafts, the capitals of which were elaborately carved in a very peculiar
manner, but very effectively. The whole design was unlike any Northern
Romanesque, and bore much more similarity to the best Lombard work.
Unfortunately, the whole of this cloister was rebuilt in 1851, the
carving having been re-worked, or renewed throughout in imitation of the
original. It will be seen, however, that, in spite of alterations, this
is a very fine church, of a very early type, and peculiarly valuable in
a country which, like Switzerland, has comparatively little left that is
really good in the way of architectural examples.
There are other churches in Zurich, but I believe not old, and at any
rate I had no time to examine them. One of them is appropriated to the
use of the Roman Catholics; and there is one desecrated, rising from the
edge of the lake, and forming a prominent object in the general view of
the town as you leave by the steamer; this is of good outline, but has
no details remaining of any value. The point chiefly to be noticed in
the churches of Zurich appears to be the way in which their spires are
all painted red, looking in the full sunshine very bright and
picturesque.
The Swiss have a great feeling for bright colour, and on our way from
Basel to Baden we noticed one of the many instances of this in several
turrets covered with brightly-coloured glazed tiles. A light green seems
to be the favourite colour, and is commonly used without mixture with
any other. They look best with their lower side rounded, and when of
small size; and are constantly used in turrets rising out of roofs which
are entirely covered with plain tiles. I remember, two years before,
noticing with extreme pleasure the beauty of some dark green tiles used
at Schaffhausen; and I have already had occasion to mention those on the
cathedral at Basel with equal commendation. Unhappily, we have to lament
that English people, in their insane hatred of bright colours, if they
saw such tiles used in England, would be horrified at such a violation
of the correct simplicity and uniformity of colour to which the
cheapness of slate has made them accustomed. Some modern attempts,
however, at introducing coloured tiles have not been so successful as
could be wished; and of all, perhaps the least so is the roof of the new
Maria Hilf church at Munich, on which tiles of light blue colour are
used in such large masses, that at first sight it seems that half the
roof is stripped, and that the pale blue sky is seen instead of roof.
At ten o’clock we left our hotel by the steamer for Schmerikon at the
head of the Lake of Zurich. The weather still looked doubtful, though
much better than on the previous day, and our host of the Belle Vue,
taking a good view of this, as is a landlord’s duty, conducted us to the
boat with smiling anticipations of fine days to come.
The shores of the lake are, for the greater part of its length,
literally fringed with houses all painted white, and contrasting
violently with the trees, vineyards, and green hills by which they are
backed. On the north the shore is low and gradually shelving down to the
water; on the south it is rather more precipitous, but after all not
very striking. At the head of the lake heavy dark round clouds hung upon
the hills, and left us in pleasant doubt as to whether or no we had fine
mountains to discover when they cleared away; a doubt, as it happened,
not settled, as far as we were concerned, save by certain lively and not
too trustworthy representations which we afterwards met with, in the
shape of advertisements of the Zurich hotels, and which showed a line of
snow mountains as the ordinary horizon of their visitors.
The churches on the lake are very numerous and very similar. The
steeples are almost always gabled, and from these gables rise spires
painted red, and very thin and taper in their form. The gabled sides of
the towers are generally made useful rather than ornamental by the
introduction of enormous clock-dials. The only decidedly mediæval church
which I saw between Zurich and Rapperswyl was at one of the villages on
the north shore of the lake, I think at Meilen, but I am rather
uncertain as to the name. Its design is both novel and very good; the
pinnacles on the gable being unusual in saddle-backed steeples, and
giving considerable picturesqueness of outline. The accompanying woodcut
will show the general character of the design, and it will be seen that
the tower is on the north side of the choir. The steeple roof is covered
with greyish-red tiles, with a pattern marked on them with yellow tiles.
[Illustration: CHURCH ON THE LAKE OF ZURICH.]
The steamers on this, as on most Swiss lakes, are somewhat tedious in
their journeys, as they take a most zigzag course, first calling on one
side of the lake and then on the other, until one doubts whether one
will ever reach the journey’s end. At Horgen of course we discharged a
large proportion of our English passengers, who were all bound for the
Rigi, but their places were soon occupied by the umbrella-loving
natives, who flocked in and out of the boat in great numbers at every
station, and by the time we reached Rapperswyl we had no more
fellow-countrymen in the boat, and perhaps, like many Englishmen, to say
the truth, we then first thoroughly realised that we were abroad. Much
as one loves one’s country, certainly one source of pleasure when abroad
is the not hearing too much English spoken or seeing too many English
faces.
At Rapperswyl, famous for having the longest bridge in the world, there
is a most conspicuous group of buildings on rising ground above the
lake, very picturesquely thrown together; it consists of a church and a
castle; the latter has several towers capped with pyramidal and
saddle-backed roofs, and the former has two towers in the position of
transepts, with saddle-back roofs gabled north and south, the southern
tower being considerably the larger of the two. Altogether, the group is
one of uncommon variety and picturesqueness of outline. Below, in the
town, is a small church, with a most happily-conceived though very
simple bell-turret rising out of the roof, square in its plan, but
capped with an octagonal spirelet. This is a not uncommon plan in this
part of Switzerland, and is always most agreeable in its effect. The
views from the terrace by the side of this castle are of singular
beauty. It is high enough above the lake to command a good view of its
whole expanse, and to secure a not too distant view of some of the
mountain peaks of Glarus. Rapperswyl is a good point to stop at, for the
sake of a visit to the famous pilgrimage church at Einsiedeln, certainly
one of the spots in Switzerland most curious and interesting, though its
buildings have no claims to our regard on the score of architectural
beauty.
Passing under, or rather through, the bridge, we found that it was very
narrow and had no side railing of any kind, so that it appears to be far
from a pleasant contrivance for crossing the mile or two of shallow
water which here scarce serves to keep up the appearance even of a lake;
and perhaps it is upon the score of the absence of real danger of
drowning if one fell over that they dispense with any protection. At
Schmerikon, which we reached in four hours from Zurich, we left our
steamer, and immediately embarked on a barge in order to go by the Linth
canal to Wesen; but we found that, however expeditious this might be in
descending, it was a kind of conveyance not to be recommended highly to
any one wishing to ascend the canal, inasmuch as--unlike ordinary
canals--this is neither more nor less than the glacier-torrent of the
Linth bringing down the melting snow from the Glärnitsch and Todi
glaciers, and rushing along at a really tremendous pace; to those,
however, who have time, it may be commended as affording magnificent
views of the mountains of Glarus and of those which rise so grandly
above the Lake of Wallenstadt.
As we entered the canal from the lake we were amused by the unsuccessful
attempts of our crew to secure some wild-fowl, two of which they
succeeded in shooting, and then, without any kind of regard for the
feelings of passengers panting to arrive at Wesen in the promised two
hours and a half, they deliberately proceeded--of course in vain--to
chase the unhappy birds, which, though wounded, were quite able to dive
much deeper than their enemies could reach, and so the only consequence
of the chase was a hearty laugh at the expense of the baffled sportsmen,
half an hour’s delay, and much lost ground to be made up.
The entrance to the canal was very striking; a low hill covered with
larch and birch rose from the water’s edge, and above this, the
mountains, gradually shelving upwards, were terminated in a line of
rocky ridges of very grand and rugged character. Whilst we were admiring
the view a slight shower passed over us, and the sun suddenly breaking
out, produced one of those lovely effects of colour so peculiar to
mountain scenery; a rainbow seemed exactly to fill up one of the great
basins formed by the undulations of the mountains, and, after bathing a
great sweep of mountain-side in the richest and most distinctly marked
colours, gradually died away.
The canal, which at first looks more like a river, soon takes a bend to
the S.W., and then, passing under a quaint wooden bridge, over which
passes the road to Uznach, we found ourselves in what certainly looked
sufficiently canal-like. The stream is so rapid that the walls built up
on either side are preserved from being washed away by stone groins
running out into the stream, and acting as so many breakwaters to keep
the water in the centre. Slowly and steadily our horses pulled us up,
whilst we, mounted on the top of the cabin, were able to see over the
walled sides of the canal, and to enjoy the glorious prospect before us.
Before long our captain blandly informed us that he was going to stop
for dinner at a wayside house, so we, anxious to make the same good use
of our time, attempted to follow his example. Unfortunately the
landlord, though very jolly-looking, had a very badly stocked larder,
and we had to satisfy ourselves with bread, honey, and wine. It is true,
indeed, that our host did produce some cold meat--portion, as I
imagined, of a goat dressed some ten days back--but this was not
eatable, and was valuable only as furnishing an opportunity to him of
showing his perfect power of making the best of a bad thing. To season
the goat he brought in vinegar and oil, and, putting them upon the
table, exclaimed with some _empressement_, “Voilà, monsieur; mais le
vinaigre n’est pas bon!” just as if this was the strongest
recommendation he could give us! We laughed heartily, avoided the
vinegar, and parted good friends with our host, thanking him from our
hearts for having saved us the painful operation of making the discovery
about its quality for ourselves!
Our not very satisfying repast finished, we embarked again upon our
barge, and in the occasional intervals, when sudden and heavy storms of
rain obliged us to seek shelter in the cabin, we were much amused in
watching the proceedings of some men belonging to the boat, who spent
the whole of the five hours consumed in the journey in an unceasing game
of cards; I must do them the justice to say that they played very
good-humouredly, and laughed without ceasing. Under no circumstances
could we have seen the scenery more gloriously; occasional bright gleams
of sunshine broke in upon and followed clouds of the most inky hue, and
then came pelting down heavy showers, accompanied by howling wind and
darkness; and as we reached the opening of the valley, looking up beyond
Glarus to the great mountains which close in its upper end, I think the
effect was really more grand and terrific than anything I have ever
seen. The mountains are of very fine outline, and of great height, as we
saw by the more than occasional glimpses which we had of snow about
their summits. By the time we reached Wesen the wind was so violent that
we found it difficult to keep our places upon the top of the cabin; and
we disembarked just before dark, in time to see the fine mountains on
each side of the Lake of Wallenstadt here and there through the
storm-clouds, and its waters beaten by the wind into not insignificant
waves. We had to walk through the entire length of the village--a
picturesque, quaint little place, sheltered under the almost overhanging
rocks at the side of the water--and arrived at last at the capital and
thoroughly Swiss inn, the Hôtel de l’Epée, where we were to sleep.
Travellers now speed very differently along this country, and, I fear,
see less than they ought of its beauties. Steamboats no longer attempt
to pass beyond Rapperswyl, and the railway hurries one along by the
beautiful Lake of Wallenstadt to the valley of the Rhine, only earning
one’s gratitude when one is in violent haste, and because by a branch
line it makes a détour to Glarus and Stachelberg much more possible than
it was when first I made the journey. On the whole I fear, where
railways pass through beautiful scenery, the tourist loses more than he
can possibly gain, not only in the views of the country, but equally in
the incidents of travel, which are becoming only too monotonous and
similar everywhere.