STANZ-BECKENRIED--SCHWYZ--THE HACKEN PASS--EINSIEDLN.
Silence is only commendable
In a neat’s tongue dried.--SHAKESPEARE.
_August 16._--Stayed at Engelberg till 10 P.M. to see something
more of the place. The monks declined to show us their library, or
anything within their walls. To have admitted us would have been a
violation of their rules. I was afterwards told that they do show their
library on certain stated days: but as few people would be able, or
disposed, to remain at Engelberg some days for the purpose of seeing
a library, my inference was that it was not--which may be no fault of
theirs--particularly worth seeing; for monks, in this respect like the
rest of the world, if they have anything worth showing, are seldom
indisposed to show it. In this way you may escape the unpleasant
necessity of having to condemn them for churlishness.
Engelberg, as the books tell us, is 3,343 feet above the sea level:
an elevation which gives it a fine, invigorating air, and a pleasant
temperature in August. This, and the mountain excursions that may be
made from it, among which is chief the ascent of the grand Titlis,
are its attractions in these days; and there are many who feel their
force. But of all those who yesterday were coming and going, none
excepting ourselves came or went by the Surenen Pass. This appears to
be a district that is not greatly in favour with pedestrians; and of
those who are attracted to it, but few would wish to undertake so long
a day without any snow-work, and even without any hard climbing. The
Pass admits of being taken on horseback; but on the eastern side the
path would be very rough for riding, and as this would also be a very
tedious way of doing it, I, for one, would very much prefer doing it on
foot.
Our immediate destination was Beckenried. We went by way of Stanz. The
distance is given at thirteen and a half miles. The descent is nearly
2,000 feet, and is made in the first half of the road, much of which is
through pleasant woods. The remaining part, that nearer to Stanz, is
very much on a level, through meadows and orchards. The valley is not
wide; and the mountain-ranges which inclose it are at a distance which
enables you to see with distinctness every object on large expanses of
their slopes, from the bottom to the top.
At Stanz we stopped for an early dinner. We put up at the Angel. I had
spent an afternoon, and slept there, on my outward journey; and, as in
the case of _La Croix Blanche_ of Am Stag, had agreeable recollections
of a pleasant-mannered and conversible manageress. At her suggestion,
almost request, we visited the studio, hard by, of M. Deschwanden,
the best known, at all events in his own locality, of living Swiss
painters. One is glad to find an artist in Switzerland. Confining my
remarks to the specimens of his work I saw in churches, and elsewhere
than in his studio, I would hazard the criticism that his figures are
not sufficiently suggestive of a substratum of bones and muscles, and
that his colouring is too suggestive of lilies and roses. Of course
the sacred subjects, in which chiefly he deals, generally require the
expression of humble resignation, and of rapt devotion: still it is the
resignation and the devotion of men and women, that is of organisms of
bones, muscles, and nerves; and furthermore, resignation and devotion
are, after their kind, action; and their surface, if one may so put it,
presupposes the recognition, and anatomically correct disposition, of
the inner mechanism. The external must be built on the internal.
In the afternoon we went on to Beckenried. Here we found that our
_voiturier_ and ourselves had formed very dissimilar estimates of the
pecuniary value of the services he had rendered us. At Engelberg we
had agreed with him for the payment of a certain fixed sum for taking
us to Stanz, but had omitted this precaution for the stage from Stanz
to Beckenried. For this his demand was unjustifiably extortionate. It
was still early in the afternoon, and as I wished to see how matters
of this kind are arranged in Switzerland, I was for laying the case
before the Landamman. For this purpose I had not far to go; for this
functionary was, as it happened, the landlord of the hotel at which
we had just engaged apartments. The case was settled then and there,
off-hand, as soon as stated, by the Landamman, standing in the middle
of the road, without his hat, and with his hands in his pockets. He
taxed the demand to the amount of four francs. The deduction should
have been greater according to the tariff; but I was satisfied with the
exposure of the man’s roguery, and with the expression exhibited in his
face of baffled and impotent spite.
Had this _voiturier_ been a good-natured vagabond, who, in making his
exorbitant demand had betrayed some consciousness of its character, I
should probably have compounded his roguery--and at the same time paid
the due penalty for my carelessness in taking an article without asking
the price of it--by giving him half the fictitious excess he demanded.
I here record his attempted imposition not at all as an instance of
what people must expect in Switzerland (though, of course, there,
as elsewhere, they ought to be on their guard against the possible
occurrence of such cases); for this youth--small-headed, hatchet-faced,
low-browed, with small cold gray eyes, meagre bony nose, and thin
bloodless lips--would have been as bad anywhere else: nature had gone
wrong with him in his original composition, and had denied him all
human feeling except that for a franc. My mention of the matter is
rather intended as a reply to the loud and frequent charges we have
lately heard against the administration of justice in Switzerland. We
have been told that it is so tardy as to amount to a denial of justice.
This little affair, as far as it goes, points in the opposite direction.
As to the charges, about which, too, one hears much, of greed and
roguery in the people one has to deal with while travelling in
Switzerland, I for my part am surprised at finding so little of this
kind of thing; and that what I do find of it is not carried further.
In England--for of course our standard of comparison is ourselves; I
say nothing of Scotland, for the Scotch are a peculiar and privileged
people, to be judged only by Scotchmen--I believe that innkeepers,
lodging-house keepers, horse-jobbers, and porters, are in the matters
complained of, a long way ahead of the corresponding classes in
Switzerland. Let us, too, make a little allowance for ordinary human
nature, when tempted beyond the ordinary human capacity for resisting
temptation. Here are people who have been brought up under conditions
of life, confirmed by long traditions, which oblige them to believe
that there is nothing in the world like francs; and who then have for
three or four months in the year such temptations to act on this belief
as assail no other people. During these three or four months, mobs of
travellers from all parts of the world are bidding against each other
for every horse, porter, and apartment in the country. Those who have
what is wanted know that many of those who want these things are rich,
many in a hurry, and that all must have what they want. My astonishment
is that the Swiss who cater for travellers have so much forbearance, so
much honesty, are so obliging, and give themselves so much trouble to
please. Most people, I think, would be of opinion that in this country,
under such circumstances, there would be a general break-down in these
virtues. Let any one recall what he has himself experienced at home in
matters of this kind. We are a very exemplary people in the knowledge
of virtue. In its practice, too, we can resist everything except
temptation: but here the Swiss go beyond us, for they can, to some
little extent, resist even that.
Our first care on reaching Beckenried had been to telegraph to the
Sonnenberg Hotel, on the Seelisberg, for rooms for Saturday. The answer
had been immediately returned that we could not be accommodated till
Saturday next, the 23rd. In the matter of time we could not afford
a week at Beckenried; and so, with regret, we gave up the idea of
staying a few days at the Sonnenberg for the purpose of visiting and
investigating its interesting neighbourhood. Being, then, obliged to
drop this out of our programme, we determined to go on next day to
Einsiedln, which stood next after Sonnenberg in our plans.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon and the next morning at
Beckenried. It is a pleasant place. There is the lake to be looked at,
and to be turned to account for bathing, boating, and fishing. All
the hotels have bathing-houses. There is the view across the lake;
charming walks up the mountains behind and beyond it; and a great many
excursions to be made by steamboat to places on the lake. As to the
fishing, as you see people fishing, and as the hotels are supplied with
fish, we must infer that there are fish that may be caught. But we have
no reason for supposing that any in this part of the lake ever allow
themselves to be caught; for all this afternoon, and the following
morning, we saw, on the terrace of our hotel, patient Germans watching
their floats, but did not see anything come of their patient watching;
nor do I suppose that they would have got anything by watching through
other afternoons and mornings. As I looked at them I was reminded of
the patience with which the same good people had laboured and waited
for the resurrection of the Fatherland--patience worthy of the energy
and determination they exhibited when the time came for action. I
fancied that I saw in the patience of these unrequited anglers some of
the honest pride late events had made justifiable. One can understand
their feelings. The day many generations had desired to see, but
had not seen, had come at last; and when it had come they showed
themselves not unequal to the supreme occasion. They had plenty to
ruminate upon. At Beckenried, for them the fishing was enough without
the fish.
_August 17._--When, yesterday, we had telegraphed to Sonnenberg, we had
supposed that it was Friday. We had therefore thought that the answer
returned, that we could not be accommodated before Saturday next,
the 23rd, was wrongly expressed; for was not the next day, the 16th,
Saturday? It had never crossed the mind of any one of the party that
yesterday was Saturday, the 16th; and so this morning no one was aware
that it was Sunday, the 17th. We had lost our time-reckoning; otherwise
we should have arranged for staying this day at Beckenried. The first
suggestion we had of our mistake was seeing Ammer, on the steamboat
pier, in his Sunday attire. We had given up our apartments at Telfer’s,
which, indeed, had over night been engaged, by telegraph, over our
heads; and as we had on the previous evening been rejected both at the
Sun and at the Moon, the two chief hotels of the place, which were full
to overflowing, there was now nothing for us to do but to remain where
we were, on the pier, for the steamboat. This loss of time-reckoning is
a common occurrence in travelling; at least I generally find it to be
so. At home every day has its appointed work. The work, therefore, of
the day of itself informs you what day of the week it is. You are kept
au courant of the almanac by the work you have to do. In travelling
you have no work at all except to go on. This is the same for every
day. You cannot, therefore, remember the days of the week without a
continual effort, which would be disagreeable, and of no advantage.
The steamer in somewhat less than an hour from Beckenried--we wished
it had been longer about it--deposited us at Brunnen, having by the
way touched at sunny Gersau, and at tiny Trieb--it is but a little
_châlet_, the landing place for the Sonnenberg, adhering to the
perpendicular side of the big mountain, where it dips into the lake. In
half an hour more the diligence, _en correspondance_ with the steamer,
took us on to Schwyz. Here we had an early dinner at the Rössli. At
12.30 my wife and the little man went on by _char_ to Einsiedln. Ammer
and I started at the same time, for the same destination, by way of the
Hacken Pass.
As to the Hacken Pass, it is a very small affair, but a very pleasant
walk. You begin the ascent as soon as you are out of the town of
Schwyz. It is over the depression between the Hochstock on the north,
and a spur of the Great Mythen on the south. The ascent, from the town
to the top, requires two hours. It frequently brings you in sight of
the lake of Lowerz, and of the two branches of the lake of the Four
Cantons, which at Brunnen make an angle. Grass and woods alternate to
the top; the former being in excess of the latter. As you look down,
occasionally, on Schwyz, you think of the history of the men, who in
old times made it a home for freedom. And, as you note the countless
divisions of the plain below, you think that its existing state is not
unworthy of attention; for there is evidence before you not only that
the old freedom has been maintained, unimpaired, on the two bases of
general possessive, and of universal political, equality, but also that
unflagging industry, the associate of much manly virtue, has aided
in its maintenance. You see that every little plot of prairie, or of
corn land, and every fruit tree, you are looking upon, is watched,
and tended, with an interest none but small proprietors can feel.
You sympathize in the emotions with which the members of the little
community below you regard their history, their freedom, and the modest
rewards of their unflagging industry.
As you, toilsomely, climb up the mountain, in the bright sunshine,
frequently shaking off, with a toss of your head, the briny drops,
which are trickling down your face, and finding their way into your
eyes, you will perhaps ask yourself, whether this is pleasure. Do you,
honestly, like it? That you find it pleasant to be at rest in the cool
shade, does not necessarily imply that you do not like exertion in the
warm sun, if the exertion neither distress your lungs, nor blister your
feet. There is a kind of enjoyment to the mind at all events, if not to
the body also, in violent effort, when you find that you can sustain
it. It is pleasant to feel that the bodily mechanism is being made
to respond to the will. But be this as it may with many, there is no
disputing about individual tastes. Each must be allowed his own; with
respect to which he is a law to himself, without appeal to any higher
tribunal.
There is something almost startling, from its instantaneousness, and
completeness, in the change of view on reaching the summit of a _col_.
You have been, for a long time, struggling up against the mountain:
that side of it, and the mountains right and left of that side, have
all the time been filling your eye. Without giving the matter a
thought, you step upon the summit. Every object you have so long been
looking at is out of sight; is gone; is down behind you. All that you
are now looking upon is new, and generally very different--another
valley; other ranges of mountains. That in the twinkling of an eye such
vast objects should disappear, and such vast ones take their places,
staggers you for the moment that is necessary for the comprehension of
the new situation.
Having now accomplished the short, and sharp ascent of the Pass, the
long and easy descent lay before me; and easy enough it is at first,
being almost level, and over short springy turf. After a time you
enter the pine forest, which along the path clothes an underlying
ridge of the Hochstock. Here you have a made road; and before the
great storm of a fortnight back you would have had a bridge over the
torrent--at this time of the year usually little more than a torrent
channel--which comes down from the mountain. The storm, however, had
not only carried away the bridge, but had also dug out a ravine in the
loose rocky _débris_ of the mountain side, to the depth, just about
where the bridge had stood, of twenty feet, or more. I had, therefore,
to scramble down to the bottom of the ravine, and to scramble up the
other side, having in the bottom stepped over the little thread of
water, to which the mighty raging torrent of a fortnight back had now
shrunk. These excavations are easily formed by unusually heavy storms,
because the mountain sides are generally only a talus of loose detrital
matter that has, in the course of ages, fallen from the summits, and
accumulated at the bottom, and on the flanks of the mountain, and
eventually become covered with forests, and turf. This torrent, and
many others on each side of the valley, had, on the occasion of the
late storm, carried down hundreds of thousands of tons of stones and
earth to the valley bottom, and into the Alpbach, the stream that
drains the whole valley. Much of this freshly brought down stone had
been spread out over the bottom of the broad channel of the Alpbach.
In this way the new deposit has for a time raised its bed, that is to
say till the pieces of which it is composed shall be ground down, and
worn away. But while they, and the additional volume of storm-water,
had to be provided with space, the Alpbach had been obliged in many
places to widen its channel. This I saw it had done, sometimes on one
side, sometimes on the other, by cutting away its banks. The lighter
particles, those which the galloping freshet maintained in a state of
suspension, had, of course, been carried down to the lake of Zurich.
Near the village of Alpthal I saw old stumps of alders and firs, that
had been disinterred from grips, lately cut for the drainage of some
damp prairies. These prairies, then, had been, at no very remote date,
forest. In other places I have seen similar evidence of a change,
which has of late been largely brought about in Switzerland in the
uses to which land is put. As population increases, and, too, as more
distant markets, by extended and improved means of communication,
are brought within reach, more cows are kept. More milk and cheese
are wanted at home; and can, profitably, be disposed of abroad. The
forest, therefore, is cleared away; the rocks are quarried; and the
land is laid down to grass. In this way more money is made of it.
This conversion, however, by diminishing the amount of fuel brought
to market, enhances its cost, which had already been enhanced by the
increase of population. It is obvious that the poor, or rather those
who have no land, are the chief sufferers by this change.
The scarcity, and consequent enhancement of the price of fuel, have
now become in many parts of Switzerland, very considerable. In some
places this has reached such a point that, as a check on its further
progress, the Communes have ceased to supply their burgers with timber
for new constructions, obliging them for this purpose to use stone.
Great attention is now paid, pretty generally, to the maintenance
of existing forests; and the profession of foresting is becoming
an important one. The traveller, as he passes through the country,
will, often, be struck with the care, he cannot but observe, has been
bestowed on arboriculture. He sees that the rocky mountain side is
supporting as many trees as could possibly be made to grow together
on the space devoted to them; and that each individual tree has been
carefully looked after, and scientifically pruned and trained, so that
they shall not interfere with each other, but each have its fair share
of space and light. In this work nature aids man’s labour and thought
by giving to the forests abundance of moisture; and, between the
frequent storms and showers, abundant floods of sunlight and warmth. It
is this, that, on the mountain sides, enables trees to take root, and
grow to considerable size, on what apparently is little more than bare
rock. I often observed far from insignificant conifers on the summit of
detached blocks of granite--situations which, in this country, could
not have kept them alive.
The same cause it is that gives to the Swiss their abundance of grass.
Grass, under such conditions of moisture and warmth, will grow
anywhere. You see it in Switzerland rapidly establishing itself on the
tops of roadside walls. If a heap of stones has been piled up in a
field, lichens and moss soon appear upon it; and, by their decay, in
time, fill the interstices. Then trees spring up upon it, or a mantle
of turf creeps over it. This may be the work of a century, or two. I
noted multitudes of instances of every step of the process. And in
excavations on hill sides I saw evidence of how the process had been
repeated, again and again, as the mountain torrents had brought down
successive avalanches of rocky _detritus_. Each successive layer, in
turn, and in time, had become in this way consolidated with mould, and
then covered with forest, or turf: only for the steps of the process
to be again repeated. Indeed, the greater part of the prairies, and
of the workable land in the valleys, consists of nothing but a thin
film of soil, superimposed on fragments of rock. If a tree in such
situations is blown over, its roots tear up this thin film of soil, and
leave the substratum of fragments of rock exposed to view. The industry
of petty proprietors, who both have much time at their disposal, and
will, themselves, reap the whole benefit of their labour, aided by
the climatic conditions of the country, has created the cultivated
surface of south-eastern, and no small part of that of north-western,
Switzerland.
On the way to Einsiedln I met several parties of pilgrims, almost
exclusively Valaisans, it would be more correct to say Valaisannes,
returning from their devotions before the shrine of the black-faced
Virgin. Ammer recognized them by their costume. The day was warm, and
they were going up hill. The women of between fifty and sixty years of
age were, I observed, suffering less from their exertions than, and
were not looking so much heated as, their younger and more vigorous
companions. For the last three, or four, miles the road is very much on
a level. I reached Einsiedln at 4.30 P.M.--just four hours out. As the
carriage-road from Schwyz makes a large loop, my wife and the little
man were about the same time--only ten minutes less--on the way.