the distance)]
[Illustration: ROOFED WOODEN BRIDGE AT LUCERNE]
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF CHILLON]
[Illustration: CLOUD EFFECT ABOVE INTERLAKEN Courtesy Swiss Federal
Railway]
[Illustration: DAVOS IN WINTER]
The way up the valley is that which follows the River Visp. It is a
delightful journey. The little stream is never still. It will scarcely
keep confined to the banks or within the stone walls which in many
places protect the shores. The river dances along as if seeking to be
free. For the most part it is a torrent, sweeping swiftly past the
solid masonry and descending the steep bed in a series of wild leaps or
artificial waterfalls, with wonderful effects of sunlight seen in the
showers of spray. Fed as it is by many mountain streams, the Visp is
always full, and the more so, when in summer the melting ice adds to its
volume.
Then it is a sight long remembered, as roaring, rollicking, rushing
along it is a brawling mass of waters, often working havoc with banks,
road, village, and pastures. If one never saw a mountain, the sight of
the Visp would more than repay, but, as it is, one's attention is taxed
to the uttermost not to miss anything of this little rushing river and
at the same time get the charming views of the Weisshorn, the Breithorn,
and the other snow summits which appear over the mountain spurs
surrounding the head of the valley.
The first impression on reaching the Zermatt is one of disappointment.
Maps and pictures generally lead the traveler to think that from the
village he will see the great semicircle of snow peaks which surround
the valley, but upon arrival he finds that he must go further up to see
them, for all of them are hidden from view except the Matterhorn.
This mountain, however, is seen in all its grandeur, fierce and
frowning, and to an imaginative mind bending forward as if threatening
and trying to shake off the little snow that appears here and there on
its side. It dominates the whole scene and leaves an indelible impress
on the mind, so that one can never picture Zermatt without the
Matterhorn.
Zermatt as a place is a curious combination; a line of hotels in
juxtaposition with a village of chalets, unsophisticated peasants
shoulder to shoulder with people of fashion! There are funny little
shops, here showing only such simple things as are needed by the
dwellers in the Valais, there exhibiting really beautiful articles in
dress and jewelry to attract the summer visitors, while at convenient
spots are the inevitable tea-rooms, where "Thé, Café, Limonade,
Confiserie" minister to the coming crowds of an afternoon....
Guides galore wait in front of all the large hotels; ice-axes, ropes,
nailed boots, rucksacks, and all the paraphernalia of the mountains
are seen on every side, and a walk along the one main thoroughfare
introduces one into the life of a climbing center, interesting to a
degree and often very amusing from the miscellaneous collection of
people there.
Perhaps the first thing one cares to see at Zermatt is the village
church, with the adjoining churchyard. The church, dedicated to Saint
Maurice, a favorite saint in the Valais and Rhône district, is plain
but interesting and in parts is quite old. Near it is a little mortuary
chapel. In most parts of Switzerland, it is the custom, after the bodies
of the dead have been buried a certain length of time, to remove the
remains to the "charnel house," allowing the graves to be used again
and thus not encroaching upon the space reserved and consecrated in the
churchyard, but we do not think this custom obtains at Zermatt.
In the churchyard is a monument to Michel Auguste Croz, the guide, and
near by are the graves of the Reverend Charles Hudson and Mr. Hadow.
These three, with Lord Francis Douglas were killed in Mr. Whymper's
first ascent of the Matterhorn.[39] The body of Lord Francis Douglas
has never been found. It is probably deep in some crevasse or under the
snows which surround the base of the Matterhorn....
For the more extended climbs or for excursions in the direction of the
Schwarzsee, the Staffel Alp or the Trift, Zermatt is the starting point.
The place abounds in walks, most of them being the first part of the
routes to the high mountains, so that those who are fond of tramping but
not of climbing can reach high elevations with a little hard work, but
no great difficulty. Some of these "midway" places may be visited on
muleback, and with the railway now up to the Gorner-Grat there are few
persons who may not see this wonderful region of snow peaks.
The trip to the Schwarzsee is the first stage on the Matterhorn route.
It leads through the village, past the Gorner Gorges (which one may
visit by a slight détour) and then enters some very pretty woods, from
which one issues on to the bare green meadows which clothe the upper
part of the steep slope of the mountain. As one mounts this zigzag path,
it sometimes seems as if it would never end, and for all the magnificent
views which it affords, one is always glad that it is over, as it
exactly fulfils the conditions of a "grind."
From the Schwarzsee (8,495 feet, where there is an excellent hotel),
there is a fine survey of the Matterhorn, and also a splendid panorama,
on three sides, one view up the glaciers toward the Monte Rosa, another
over the valley to the Dent Blanche and other great peaks, and still
another to the far distant Bernese Oberland. Near the hotel is a little
lake and a tiny chapel, where mass is sometimes said. The reflection in
the still waters of the lake is very lovely.
From the Schwarzsee, trips are made to the Hörnli (another stage on the
way to the Matterhorn), to the Gandegg Hut, across moraine and glacier
and to the Staffel Alp, over the green meadows. The Hörnli (9,490 feet
high) is the ridge running out from the Matterhorn. It is reached by a
stiff climb over rocks and a huge heap of fallen stones and debris. From
it the view is similar to that from the Schwarzsee, but much finer, the
Théodule Glacier being seen to great advantage. Above the Hörnli towers
the Matterhorn, huge, fierce, frowning, threatening. Every few moments
comes a heavy, muffled sound, as new showers of falling stones come
down. This is one of the main dangers in climbing the peak itself, for
from base to summit, the Matterhorn is really a decaying mountain, the
stones rolling away through the action of the storms, the frosts, and
the sun.
PONTRÉSINA AND ST. MORITZ[40]
BY VICTOR TISSOT
The night was falling fine as dust, as a black sifted snow-shower, a
snow made of shadow; and the melancholy of the landscape, the grand
nocturnal solitude of these lofty, unknown regions, had a charm profound
and disquieting. I do not know why I fancied myself no longer in
Switzerland, but in some country near the pole, in Sweden or Norway. At
the foot of these bare mountains I looked for wild fjords, lit up by the
moon.
Nothing can express the profound somberness of these landscapes at
nightfall; the long desert road, gray from the reflections of the starry
sky, unrolls in an interminable ribbon along the depth of the valley;
the treeless mountains, hollowed out like ancient craters, lift their
overhanging precipices; lakes sleeping in the midst of the pastures,
behind curtains of pines and larches, glitter like drops of quicksilver;
and on the horizon the immense glaciers crowd together and overflow like
sheets of foam on a frozen sea.
The road ascends. From the distance comes a dull noise, the roaring of a
torrent. We cross a little cluster of trees, and on issuing from it the
superb amphitheater of glaciers shows itself anew, overlooked by one
white point glittering like an opal. On the hill a thousand little
lights show me that I am at last at Pontrésina. I thought I should
never have arrived there; nowhere does night deceive more than in the
mountains; in proportion as you advance toward a point, it seems to
retreat from you.
Soon the black fantastic lines of the houses show through the darkness.
I enter a narrow street, formed of great gloomy buildings, their fronts
like a convent or prison. The hamlet is transformed into a little town
of hotels, very comfortable, very elegant, very dear, but very stupid
and very vulgar, with their laced porter in an admiral's hat, and their
whiskered waiters, who have the air of Anglican ministers. Oh! how I
detest them, and flee them, those hotels where the painter, or the
tourist who arrives on foot, knapsack on his back and staff in hand, his
trousers tucked into his leggings, his flask slung over his shoulder,
and his hat awry, is received with less courtesy than a lackey.
Besides those hotels, some of which are veritable palaces, and where the
ladies are almost bound to change their dress three times a day, there
is a hotel of the second and third class; and there is the old inn; the
comfortable, hospitable, patriarchal inn, with its Gothic signboard....
On leaving the village I was again in the open mountain. In the distance
the road penetrated into the valley, rising always. The moon had risen.
She stood out sharply cut in a cloudless sky, and stars sparkling
everywhere in profusion; not like nails of gold, but sown broadcast like
a flying dust, a dust of carbuncles and diamonds. To the right, in the
depths of the amphitheater of the mountains, an immense glacier looked
like a frozen cascade; and above, a perfectly white peak rose draped in
snow, like some legendary king in his mantle of silver.
Bending under my knapsack, and dragging my feet, I arrive at last at the
hotel, where I am received, in the kindest manner in the world, by the
two mistresses of the establishment, two sisters of open, benevolent
countenance and of sweet expression.
And the poor little traveler who arrives, his bag on his back and
without bustle, who has sent neither letter nor telegram to announce his
arrival, is the object of the kindest and most delicate attentions; his
clothes are brushed, he gets water for his refreshment, and is then
conducted to a table bountifully spread, in a dining-room fragrant with
good cookery and bouquets of flowers....
Beyond Campfer, its houses surrounding a third little lake, we come
suddenly on a scene of extraordinary animation. All the cosmopolitan
society of St. Moritz is there, sauntering, walking, running, in
mountain parties, on afternoon excursions. The favorite one is the walk
to the pretty lake of Campfer, with its shady margin, its resting places
hidden among the branches, its châlet-restaurant, from the terrace of
which one overlooks the whole valley; and it would be difficult to find
near St. Moritz a more interesting spot.
We meet at every step parties of English ladies, looking like
plantations of umbrellas with their covers on and surmounted by immense
straw hats; then there are German ladies, massive as citadels, but
not impregnable, asking nothing better than to surrender to the young
exquisites, with the figure of cuirassiers, who accompany them; further
on, lively Italian ladies parade themselves in dresses of the carnival,
the colors outrageously striking and dazzling to the eyes; with
up-turned skirts they cross the Inn on great mossy stones, leaping
with the grace of birds, and smiling, to show, into the bargain, the
whiteness of their teeth. All this crowd passing in procession before us
is composed of men and women of every age and condition; some with the
grave face of a waxen saint, others beaming with the satisfied smile of
rich people; there are also invalids, who go along hobbling and limping,
or who are drawn, in little carriages.
Soon handsome façades, pierced with hundreds of windows, show themselves
in the grand and severe setting of mountains and glaciers. It is St.
Moritz-les-Bains. Here every house is a hotel, and, as every hotel is
a little palace, we do not alight from the diligence; we go a little
farther and a little higher, to St. Moritz-le-Village, which has a much
more beautiful situation. It is at the top of a little hill, whose sides
slope down to a pretty lake, fresh and green as a lawn. The eye reaches
beyond Sils, the whole length of the valley, with its mountains like
embattled ramparts, its lakes like a great row of pearls, and its
glaciers showing their piles of snowy white against the azure depths of
the horizon.
St. Moritz is the center of the valley of the Upper Engadine, which
extends to the length of eighteen or nineteen leagues, and which
scarcely possesses a thousand inhabitants. Almost all the men emigrate
to work for strangers, like their brothers, the mountaineers of Savoy
and Auvergne, and do not return till they have amassed a sufficient
fortune to allow them to build a little white house, with gilded
window frames, and to die quietly in the spot where they were born....
Historians tell us that the first inhabitants of the Upper Engadine were
Etruscans and Latins chased from Italy by the Gauls and Carthaginians,
and taking refuge in these hidden altitudes. After the fall of the
Empire, the inhabitants of the Engadine fell under the dominion of the
Franks and Lombards, then the Dukes of Swabia; but the blood never
mingled--the type remained Italian; black hair, the quick eye, the
mobile countenance, the expressive features, and the supple figure.
GENEVA[41]
BY FRANCIS H. GRIBBLE
Straddling the Rhone, where it issues from the bluest lake in the world,
looking out upon green meadows and wooded hills, backed by the dark
ridge of the Salève, with the "great white mountain" visible in the
distance, Geneva has the advantage of an incomparable site; and it
is, from a town surveyor's point of view, well built. It has wide
thoroughfares, quays, and bridges; gorgeous public monuments and
well-kept public gardens; handsome theaters and museums; long rows
of palatial hotels; flourishing suburbs; two railway-stations, and a
casino. But all this is merely the façade--all of it quite modern;
hardly any of it more than half a century old. The real historical
Geneva--the little of it that remains--is hidden away in the background,
where not every tourist troubles to look for it. It is disappearing
fast. Italian stonemasons are constantly engaged in driving lines
through it. They have rebuilt, for instance, the old Corraterie, which
is now the Regent Street of Geneva, famous for its confectioners' and
booksellers' shops; they have destroyed, and are still destroying, other
ancient slums, setting up white buildings of uniform ugliness in place
of the picturesque but insanitary dwellings of the past. It is, no
doubt, a very necessary reform, tho' one may think that it is being
executed in too utilitarian a spirit. The old Geneva was malodorous, and
its death-rate was high. They had more than one Great Plague there, and
their Great Fires have always left some of the worst of their slums
untouched. These could not be allowed to stand in an age which studies
the science and practises the art of hygiene. Yet the traveler who wants
to know what the old Geneva was really like must spend a morning or two
rambling among them before they are pulled down.
The old Geneva, like Jerusalem, was set upon a hill, and it is toward
the top of the hill that the few buildings of historical interest are to
be found. There is the cathedral--a striking object from a distance, tho'
the interior is hideously bare. There is the Town Hall, in which, for
the convenience of notables carried in litters, the upper stories were
reached by an inclined plane instead of a staircase. There is Calvin's
old Academy, bearing more than a slight resemblance to certain of the
smaller colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. There, too, are to be seen a
few mural tablets, indicating the residences of past celebrities. In
such a house Rousseau was born; in such another house or in an older
house, now demolished, on the same site--Calvin died. And toward these
central points the steep and narrow, mean streets--in many cases streets
of stairs--converge.
As one plunges into these streets one seems to pass back from the
twentieth century to the fifteenth, and need not exercise one's
imagination very severely in order to picture the town as it appeared
in the old days before the Reformation. The present writer may claim
permission to borrow his own description from the pages of "Lake Geneva
and its Literary Landmarks:"
"Narrow streets predominated, tho' there were also a certain number of
open spaces--notably at the markets, and in front of the Cathedral,
where there was a traffic in those relics and rosaries which Geneva was
presently to repudiate with virtuous indignation. One can form an idea
of the appearance of the narrow streets by imagining the oldest houses
that one has seen in Switzerland all closely packed together--houses at
the most three stories high, with gabled roofs, ground-floors a step or
two below the level of the roadway, and huge arched doors studded with
great iron nails, and looking strong enough to resist a battering-ram.
Above the doors, in the case of the better houses, were the painted
escutcheons of the residents, and crests were also often blazoned on the
window-panes. The shops, too, and more especially the inns, flaunted
gaudy signboards with ingenious devices. The Good Vinegar, the Hot
Knife, the Crowned Ox, were the names of some of these; their tariff is
said to have been fivepence a day for man and beast."....
In the first half of the sixteenth century occurred the two events
which shaped the future of Geneva; Reformation theology was accepted;
political independence was achieved. Geneva it should be explained, was
the fief of the duchy of Savoy; or so, at all events, the Dukes of Savoy
maintained, tho' the citizens were of the contrary opinion. Their view
was that they owed allegiance only to their Bishops, who were the
Viceroys of the Holy Roman Emperor; and even that allegiance was limited
by the terms of a Charter granted in the Holy Roman Emperor's name by
Bishop Adhémar de Fabri. All went fairly well until the Bishops began
to play into the hands of the Dukes; but then there was friction,
which rapidly became acute. A revolutionary party--the Eidgenossen, or
Confederates--was formed. There was a Declaration of Independence and a
civil war.
So long as the Genevans stood alone, the Duke was too strong for them.
He marched into the town in the style of a conqueror, and wreaked his
vengeance on as many of his enemies as he could catch. He cut off the
head of Philibert Berthelier, to whom there stands a memorial on the
island in the Rhone; he caused Jean Pecolat to be hung up in an absurd
posture in his banqueting-hall, in order that he might mock at his
discomfort while he dined; he executed, with or without preliminary
torture, several less conspicuous patriots. Happily, however, some of
the patriots--notably Besançon Hugues--got safely away, and succeeded in
concluding treaties of alliance between Geneva and the cantons of Berne
and Fribourg.
The men of Fribourg marched to Geneva, and the Duke retired. The
citizens passed a resolution that he should never be allowed to enter
the town again, seeing that he "never came there without playing the
citizens some dirty trick or other;" and, the more effectually to
prevent him from coming, they pulled down their suburbs and repaired
their ramparts, one member of every household being required to lend a
hand for the purpose.
Presently, owing to religious dissensions, Fribourg withdrew from the
alliance. Berne, however, adhered to it, and, in due course, responded
to the appeal for help by setting an army of seven thousand men in
motion. The route of the seven thousand lay through the canton of Vaud,
then a portion of the Duke's dominions, governed from the Castle of
Chillon. Meeting with no resistance save at Yverdon, they annexed the
territory, placing governors of their own in its various strongholds.
The Governor of Chillon fled, leaving his garrison to surrender; and in
its deepest dungeon was found the famous prisoner of Chillon, François
de Bonivard. From that time forward Geneva was a free republic, owing
allegiance to no higher power.
THE CASTLE OF CHILLON[42]
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
Here I am, sitting at my window, overlooking Lake Leman. Castle Chillon,
with its old conical towers, is silently pictured in the still waters.
It has been a day of a thousand. We took a boat, with two oarsmen, and
passed leisurely along the shores, under the cool, drooping branches of
trees, to the castle, which is scarce a stone's throw from the hotel. We
rowed along, close under the walls, to the ancient moat and drawbridge.
There I picked a bunch of blue bells, "les clochettes," which were
hanging their aerial pendants from every crevice--some blue, some
white....
We rowed along, almost touching the castle rock, where the wall ascends
perpendicularly, and the water is said to be a thousand feet deep. We
passed the loopholes that illuminate the dungeon vaults, and an old
arch, now walled up, where prisoners, after having been strangled, were
thrown into the lake.
Last evening we walked through the castle. An interesting Swiss woman,
who has taught herself English for the benefit of her visitors, was our
"cicerone." She seemed to have all the old Swiss vivacity of attachment
for "liberté et patrie." She took us first into the dungeon, with the
seven pillars, described by Byron. There was the pillar to which, for
protecting the liberty of Geneva, Bonivard was chained. There the Duke
of Savoy kept him for six years, confined by a chain four feet long. He
could take only three steps, and the stone floor is deeply worn by the
prints of those weary steps. Six years is so easily said; but to live
them, alone, helpless, a man burning with all the fires of manhood,
chained to that pillar of stone, and those three unvarying steps! Two
thousand one hundred and ninety days rose and set the sun, while seed
time and harvest, winter and summer, and the whole living world went
on over his grave. For him no sun, no moon, no stars, no business, no
friendship, no plans--nothing! The great millstone of life emptily
grinding itself away!
What a power of vitality was there in Bonivard, that he did not sink in
lethargy, and forget himself to stone! But he did not; it is said that
when the victorious Swiss army broke in to liberate him, they cried,
"Bonivard, you are free!"
"And Geneva?"
"Geneva is free also!"
You ought to have heard the enthusiasm with which our guide told this
story!
Near by are the relics of the cell of a companion of Bonivard, who made
an ineffectual attempt to liberate him. On the wall are still seen
sketches of saints and inscriptions by his hand. This man one day
overcame his jailer, locked him in his cell, ran into the hall above,
and threw himself from a window into the lake, struck a rock, and was
killed instantly. One of the pillars in this vault is covered with
names. I think it is Bonivard's pillar. There are the names of Byron,
Hunt, Schiller, and many other celebrities.
After we left the dungeons we went up into the judgment hall, where
prisoners were tried, and then into the torture chamber. Here are the
pulleys by which limbs are broken; the beam, all scorched with the irons
by which feet were burned; the oven where the irons were heated; and
there was the stone where they were sometimes laid to be strangled,
after the torture. On that stone, our guide told us, two thousand Jews,
men, women, and children, had been put to death. There was also, high
up, a strong beam across, where criminals were hung; and a door, now
walled up, by which they were thrown into the lake. I shivered.
"'Twas cruel," she said; "'twas almost as cruel as your slavery in
America."[43]