Fog--Fancy pictures--Boy soldiers--Boat's billet--Eating--Lake
Zurich--Crinoline--Hot walk--Staring--Lake Zug--Swiss
shots--Fishing Britons--Talk-book.
In the morning there was a most curious change of air; all around was in
a dense white fog. Truly it was now to be "sensation rowing;" so we
hastened to get off into this milky atmosphere. I have an idea that we
passed under a bridge; at least the usual cheers sounded this time as if
they were above me, but the mist was as thick as our best November
Cheshire-cheese fogs, and quite as interesting. On several occasions I
positively could not see the bow of my boat, only a few feet from my
nose. The whole arrangement was so unexpected and entirely
novel,--paddling on a fast invisible stream--that I had the liveliest
emotions of pleasure without seeing anything at all.
But then fancy had free play all the time, and the pictures it drew were
vivid and full of colour, and, after all, our impressions of external
objects are only pictures, so say the philosophers; and why not then
enjoy a tour in a fog, with a good album of pictures making the while in
the brain?
Sounds too there were, but like those of witches and fairies--though
perhaps it was only the cackling of some antique washerwomen on the
banks. However, I addressed the unseen company in both prose and poetry,
and was full of emphasis, which now and again was increased by my boat
running straight into the shore.
The clearing away of the fog was one of the most interesting evolutions
of nature to be seen. In one sort or other every traveller has enjoyed
the quick or gradual tearing up of a fog curtain on mountain or moor,
but here it was on a beauteous river.
I wish to describe this process, but I cannot. It was a series of
"Turner pictures," with glimpses right and left, and far overhead, of
trees, sky, castles, each lightened and shown for a moment, and then
gauzed over again and completely hidden; while the mind had to imagine
all the context of the scenery, and it was sure to be quite wrong when
another gleam of sun disclosed what was there in reality. For it cleared
away at last, and Father Sol avenged himself by an extra hot ray, for
thus trifling with his beams.
The Rhine banks here were sloping but steep, with pleasant meadows,
vineyards, and woods, mingled with tolerable fairness to all three. In
short, though I appreciate scenery with an eager admiration, any scenery
seemed good when the genial exercise of the canoe was the medium for
enjoying it.
Soon afterwards the woods thickened, the mountains rose behind them, the
current got faster and faster, the houses, at first dotted on the
knolls, got closer and more suburb like, and at last a grand sweep of
the stream opened up Schaffhausen to the eye, while a sullen sound on
the water warned of "rapids ahead." As I intended to keep them always in
front, some caution was needed in steering, though there is no
difficulty here, for steamboats navigate thus far, and of course it is
easy for a canoe.
But when I glided down to the bridge there was the "Goldenen Schiff"
hotel, and I resolved to patronise it on account of its name, and
because there was a gigantic picture of a Briton on the adjoining wall.
He was in full Highland costume, though the peculiar tartan of his kilt
showed that there is still one clan we have not yet recognised.
Here began a novel kind of astonishment among the people; for when, on
my arrival, they asked, "Where have you come from?" and were told,
"From England," they could not understand how my course seemed as if in
reality from Germany.
The short morning's work being soon over, there was all the day before
me to wander about.
Drums and a band presently led me to a corps of little boys in full
uniform, about 200 of them, all with real guns and with boy officers,
most martial to behold, albeit they were munching apples between the
words of command, and pulling wry faces at urchins of eight years old,
who strove in vain to take long steps with short legs.
They had some skirmishing drill, and used small goats' horns to give the
orders instead of bugles. These horns are used on the railways too, and
the note is very clear, and may be heard well a long way off. Indeed I
think much might be done in our drill at home by something of this sort.
It is a short three miles to the Belle Vue, built above the falls of
Schaffhausen, and in full view of this noble scene. These great falls of
the Rhine looked much finer than I had recollected them some twelve
years before; it is pleasant, but unusual, for one's second visit to
such sights to be more striking than the first. At night the river was
splendidly illuminated by Bengal lights of different colours, and the
effect of this on the tossing foam and rich full body of ever pouring
water--or fire as it then seemed to be--was to present a spectacle of
magical beauty and grandeur, well seen from the balcony of the hotel, by
many travellers from various lands. On one side of me was a Russian, and
a Brazilian on the other.
Next day, at the railway-station, I put the sharp bow of the Rob Roy in
at the window of the "baggages" office, and asked for the "boat's
ticket." The clerk did not seem at all surprised, for he knew I was an
Englishman, and nothing is too odd, queer, mad in short, for Englishmen
to do.
But the porters, guards, and engine-drivers made a good deal of talk
before the canoe was safely stowed among the trunks in the van; and I
now and then visited her there, just for company's sake, and to see that
the sharp-cornered, iron-bound boxes of the American tourists had not
broken holes in her oaken skin. One could not but survey, with some
anxiety, the lumbering casks on the platform, waiting to be rolled in
beside the canoe; and the fish baskets, iron bars, crates, and clumsy
gear of all sorts, which at every stoppage is tumbled in or roughly
shovelled out of the luggage-van of a train.
This care and sympathy for a mere boat may be called enthusiasm by
those who have not felt the like towards inanimate objects linked to our
pleasures or pains by hourly ties of interest; but others will
understand how a friendship for the boat was felt more every day I
journeyed with her: her strong points were better known as they were
more tried, but the weak points, too, of the frail traveller became now
more apparent, and the desire to bring her safely to England was rapidly
increased when we had made the homeward turn.
The mere cost of the railway ticket for the boat's carriage to Zurich
was two or three shillings,--not so much as the expense of taking it
between the stations and the hotels.
Submitting, then, to be borne again on wheels and through tunnels in the
good old railway style, we soon arrive among the regular Swiss
mountains, and where gather the Swiss tourists, for whom arise the Swiss
hotels, those huge establishments founded and managed so as best to
fatten on the wandering Englishman, and to give him homoeopathic
feeding while his purse is bled.
For suffer me again to have a little gossip about _eating_. Yes, it is a
mundane subject, and undoubtedly physical; but when the traveller has to
move his body and baggage along a route by his own muscles, by climbing
or by rowing, or by whipping a mule, it is a matter of high moment, to
him at least, that fibrine should be easily procurable.
If you wish, then, to live well in Switzerland and Germany go to German
hotels, and avoid the grand barracks reared on every view-point for the
English tourist.
See how the omnibus, from the train or the steamer, pours down its
victims into the landlords' arms. Papa and Mamma, and three daughters
and a maid: well, of course _they_ will be attended to. Here is another
timid lady with an alpenstock, a long white cane people get when they
arrive in Switzerland, and which they never know what on earth to do
with. Next there will issue from the same vehicle a dozen newly-fledged
Londoners; and the whole party, men and women, are so demure, so afraid
of themselves, that the hotel-keeper does just what he likes with them,
every one.
Without a courier, a wife, heavy baggage, or young ladies, I enter too,
and dare to order a cutlet and potatoes. After half-an-hour two chops
come and spinach, each just one bite, and cold. I ask for fruit, and
some pears are presented that grate on the knife, with a minute bunch of
grapes, good ones let us acknowledge. For this we pay 2_s._
Next day I row three miles down the lake, and order, just as before, a
cutlet, potatoes, and fruit, but this time at a second-rate German inn.
Presently behold two luscious veal cutlets, with splendid potatoes, and
famous hot plates; and a fruit-basket teeming gracefully with large
clusters of magnificent grapes, peaches, pears all gushing with juice,
and mellow apples, and rosy plums. For this I pay 1_s._ 6_d._ The secret
is that the Germans won't pay the prices which the English fear to
grumble at, and won't put up with the articles the English fear to
refuse.
Nor may we blame the hotel-keepers for their part in this business. They
try to make as much money as they can, and most people who are making
money try to do the same.
In the twilight the Rob Roy launched on the Lake of Zurich, so lovely by
evening, cool and calm, with its pretty villages painted again on the
water below, and soft voices singing, and slow music floating in the
air, as the moon looked down, and the crests of snow were silvered on
far-off hills.
The canoe was now put up in a boathouse where all seemed to be secure.
It was the only time I had found a boathouse for my boat, and the only
time when she was badly treated; for, next morning, though the man in
charge appeared to be a solid, honest fellow, I saw at once that the
canoe had been sadly tumbled about and filled with water, the seat cast
off and floating outside, the covering deranged, the sails untied, and
the sacred paddle defiled by clumsy hands.
The man who suffered this to be perpetrated will not soon forget the
Anglo-German-French set-down he received (with a half-franc), and I
shall not forget in future to observe the time-honoured practice of
carrying the canoe invariably into the hotel.
Another piece of experience gained here was this, that to send your
luggage on by a steamer, intending to regain it on your arrival, adds
far less of convenience than it does of anxiety and trouble, seeing that
in this sort of travel you can readily take the baggage with you always
and everywhere in your boat.
Much of the charm of next day's paddle on the lake consisted in its
perfect independence of all previous arrangements, and in the absence of
such thraldom as, "You must be here by ten o'clock;" or, "You have to
sleep there at night." So now, let the wind blow as it likes, I could
run before it, and breakfast at this village; or cross to that point to
bathe; or row round that bay, and lunch on the other side of the lake,
or anywhere else on the shore, or in the boat itself, as I pleased. I
felt as a dog must feel on his travels who has no luggage and no
collar, and has only one coat, which always fits him, and is always
getting new.
When quite sated with the water, I fixed on Horgen to stop at for a
rest, to the intense delight of all the Horgen boys. How they did jump
and caper about the canoe, and scream with the glee of young hearts
stirred by a new sight!
It was one of the great treats of this voyage to find it gave such hours
of pleasure to the juvenile population in each place. Along the vista of
my recollection as I think over the past days of this excursion, many
thousand childish faces brimming with happiness range their chubby or
not chubby cheeks.
These young friends were still more joyous when the boat was put into a
cart, and the driver got up beside it, and the captain of the canoe
began his hot walk behind.
A number of their mammas came out to smile on the performance, and some
asked to have a passage to England in the boat, to which there was the
stock reply, given day by day, "Not much room for the crinoline." Only
once was there the rejoinder, that the lady would willingly leave her
expansion at home; though on another occasion (and that in France, too)
they answered, "We poor folks don't wear crinoline."
In every group there were various forms of inquisitiveness about the
canoe. First, those who examined it without putting questions; and then
those who questioned about it without examining. Some lifted it to feel
the weight; others passed their hands along its smooth deck to feel the
polished cedar; others looked underneath to see if there was a keel, or
bent the rope to feel how flexible it was, or poised the paddle (when I
let them), and said, "How light!" and then more critical inquirers
measured the boat's dimensions, tapped its sides with their knuckles,
and looked wise; sketched its form, scrutinized its copper nails, or
gently touched the silken flag, with its frayed hem and colour fading
now; in all places this last item, as an object of interest, was always
the first exclaimed about by the lady portion of the crowd.
It is with such little but pleasant trivialities that a traveller's day
may be filled in this enchanting atmosphere where simply to exist, to
breathe, to gaze, and to listen, are enough to pass the sunny hours, if
not to engage the nobler powers of the mind.
The Lakes of Zurich and Zug are not far separate. About three hours of
steady road walking takes you from one to the other, over a high neck of
forest land, and a hot walk this was from twelve to three o'clock, in
the brightest hours of the day. The heat and the dust made me eager
again to be afloat. By the map, indeed, it seemed as if one could row
part of this way on a river which runs into Zug, but maps are no
guidance as to the fitness of streams for a boat. They make a black line
wriggling about on the paper do for all rivers alike, and this tells you
nothing as to the depth or force of the current, nor can the drivers or
innkeepers tell much more, since they have no particular reason for
observing how a river comports itself; their business is on the road.
The driver was proud of his unusual fare, a boat with an English flag,
and he gave a short account of it to every friend he met, an account no
doubt frightfully exaggerated, but always accepted as sufficient by the
gratified listener. The worthy carter, however, was quite annoyed that I
stopped him outside the town of Zug (paying thirteen francs for the
cart), for I wished to get the canoe into the water unobserved, as the
morning's work had left me yet no rest, and sweet repose could best be
had by floating in my boat. However, there was no evading the
townspeople's desire to see "the schiff in a cart from England." We took
her behind a clump of stones, but they climbed upon the stones and
stood. I sat down in a moody silence, but they sat down too in
respectful patience. I tried then another plan, turned the canoe bottom
upward, and began lining a seam of the planks with red putty. They
looked on till it was done, and I began the same seam again, and told
them that all the other seams must be thus lined. This, at last, was too
much for some of the wiser ones, who turned away and murmured about my
slowness, but others at once took their places in the front row. It
seemed unfriendly to go on thus any longer, and as it was cooler now, I
pushed the boat into the lake, shipped my luggage on board, and after
the usual English speech to them all from the water, bid every one
"adieu."[XIX.]
[XIX.] This word, like other expressive French words, is commonly
used in Germany and Switzerland.
New vigour came when once the paddle was grasped again, and the soft
yielding water and gentle heaving on its bosom had fresh pleasure now
after the dusty road. It seems as if one must be for ever spoiled for
land travel by this smooth liquid journeying.
Zug is a little lake, and the mountains are over it only at one end, but
then there are glorious hills, the Rigi and a hundred more, each behind
another, or raising a peak in the gaps between. I must resolutely
abstain from describing these here. The sight of them is well known to
the traveller. The painted pictures of them in every shop window are
faithful enough for those who have not been nearer, and words can tell
very little to others of what is seen and felt when you fill the
delighted eye by looking on the snowy range.
Near one end of the lake I visited the line of targets where the
Switzers were popping away their little bullets at their short ranges,
with all sorts of gimcrack instruments to aid them, lenses, crooks, and
straps for the arms, hair-triggers, and everything done under cover too.
Very skilful indeed are they in the use of these contrivances; but the
weapons look like toy-guns after all, and are only one step removed from
the crossbows you see in Belgium and France, where men meet to shoot at
stuffed cockrobins fixed on a pole, and do not hit them, and then
adjourn for beer.
The Swiss are good shots and brave men, and woe be to their invaders.
Still, in this matter of rifle shooting their _dilettanti_ practice
through a window, at the short range of 200 yards, seems really childish
when compared with that of the manly groups at Wimbledon, where, on the
open heath, in sun or drifting hail, the burly Yorkshireman meets with
the hardy Scot, and sends his heavier deadly bullet on its swift errand
right away for a thousand yards in the storm.
Leaving the shooters to their bulls' eyes, I paddled in front of the
town to scan the hotels, and to judge of the best by appearances. Out
came the boats of Zug to examine the floating stranger. They went round
and round, in a criticising mood, just as local dogs strut slowly in
circles about a new-come cur who is not known to their street, and
besides is of ambiguous breed. These boats were all larger than mine,
and most of them were brighter with plenty of paint, and universally
they were encumbered with most awkward oars.
A courteous Frenchman in one of the boats told me all the Zug news in a
breath, besides asking numerous questions, and giving a hasty commentary
on the fishing in the lake. Finally, he pointed out the best hotel, and
so the naval squadron advanced to the pier, led by the canoe. A gracious
landlady here put my boat safe in the hotel coachhouse, and offered to
give me the key of the padlock, to make sure. In the _salle à manger_
were some English friends from London, so now I felt that here was an
end of lone wanderings among foreigners, for the summer stream of
tourists from England was encountered at this point.
An early start next morning found the mists on the mountains, but they
were quickly furled up out of the way in festoons like muslin curtains.
We skirted the pretty villas on the verge of the lake, and hauled in by
some apple-trees to rig up the sails. This could be done more easily
when the boat was drawn ashore than when it was afloat; though, after
practice, I could not only set the mast and hoist the sails "at sea,"
but could even stand up and change my coat, or tie the flag on the
masthead, or survey a difficult channel, while the boat was rocking on
the waves of a rapid.[XX.]
[XX.] This is so very useful in extending the horizon of view,
and in enabling you to examine a whole ledge of sunken rocks at once,
that it is well worth the trouble of a week or two's practice.
Sailing on a lake in Switzerland is a full reward for carrying your mast
and sails unused for many a long mile. Sometimes, indeed, the sails
seemed to be after all an encumbrance, but this was when they were not
available. Every time they came into use again the satisfaction of
having brought them was reassured.
In sailing while the wind is light you need not always sit, as must be
done for paddling. Wafted by the breeze you can now recline, lie down,
or lie up, put your legs anyhow and anywhere, in the water if you like,
and the peak of the sail is a shade between the sun and your eyes,
while the ripples seem to tinkle cheerfully against the bow, and the
wavelets seethe by smoothly near the stern. When you are under sail the
hill tops look higher than before, for now you see how far they are
above your "lofty" masthead, and the black rocks on the shore look
blacker when seen in contrast with a sail like cream.
[Illustration: "Sailing on Lake Zug."]
After a cruise that left nothing more to see of Zug, we put into port at
Imyn, and though it is a little place, only a few houses, the boys there
were as troublesome as gnats buzzing about; so the canoe had to be
locked in the stable out of sight.
Three Britons were waiting here for the steamer. They had come to fish
in Switzerland. Now fishing and travelling kill each other, so far as my
experience goes, unless one of them is used as a _passetemps_ because
you cannot go on with the other. Thus I recollect once at the town of
Vossevangen, in Norway, when we had to wait some hours for horses, it
was capital fun to catch three trout with a pin for a hook fastened on
the lash of a gig-whip, while a fellow-traveller shot with a pistol at
my Glengarry cap on a stone.
The true fisherman fishes for the fishing, not for the fishes. He
himself is pleased even if he catches nothing, though he is more pleased
to bring back a full basket, for that will justify him to his friends.
Now when you stop your travelling that you may angle, if you catch
nothing you grudge the day spent, and keep thinking how much you might
have seen in it on the road. On the other hand, if you do happen to
catch one or two fish, you don't like to leave the place where more
might be taken, and your first ten miles after departure from it is a
stage of reflection about pools, stones, bites, and rises, instead of
what is going on all around. Worst of all, if you have hooked a fish and
lost him, it is a sad confession of defeat then to give up the sport and
moodily resume the tour.
As for the three visitors at Imyn, they had just twenty minutes sure, so
they breakfasted in five minutes, and in the next three minutes had got
their rods ready, and were out in the garden casting as fast as
possible, and flogging the water as if the fish also ought to be in a
hurry to get taken. The hot sun blazed upon the bald head of one of
these excited anglers, for he had not time to put on his hat. The other
had got his line entangled in a bush, and of course was _hors de
combat_. The third was a sort of light skirmisher, rushing about with
advice, and pointing out shoals of minnows everywhere else but where his
companions were engaged. However, they managed to capture a few monsters
of the deep, that is to say, a couple of misguided gudgeons, probably
dissipated members of their tribe, and late risers, who had missed
their proper breakfasts. Ardent as I am with the rod I could not enjoy
fishing after this sort.
To be in this tide of wandering Britons, and yet to look at them and
listen to them as if you were distinct--this is a post full of interest
and amusement; and if you can, even for one day, try to be (at least in
thought) a Swiss resident or a Parisian, and so to regard the English
around you from the point they are seen from by the foreigners whom they
visit, the examination becomes far more curious. But this has been done
by many clever tourists, who have written their notes with more or less
humour, and with more rather than less severity; so I shall not attempt
to analyse the strange atoms of the flood from our islands which
overflows the Continent every year.
It is the fashion to decry three-fourths of this motley company as
"snobs," "spendthrifts," or "greenhorns." With humble but firm voice I
protest against this unfairness; nor can I help thinking that much of
the hard criticism published by travellers against their fellows is a
crooked way of saying, what it does not do to assert directly, that the
writer has at any rate met some travellers inferior to himself.
Of course, among the Englishmen whom I met now and then in the course
of this voyage there were some strange specimens, and their remarks were
odd enough, when alluding to the canoe. One said, for example, "Don't
you think it would have been more commodious to have had an attendant
with you to look after your luggage and things?" The most obvious answer
to this was probably that which I gave, "Not for me, if he was to be in
the boat; and not for him, if he had to run on the bank."
Another Englishman at home asked me in all seriousness about the canoe
voyage, "Was it not a great waste of time?" And when I inquired how _he_
had spent his vacation, he said, "Oh, I was all the time _at Brighton_!"
In returning once more to English conversation, one is reminded how very
useless and unpractical are all the "Talk-books" published to facilitate
the traveller's conversation in foreign languages. Whether they are
meant to help you in French, German, Italian, or Spanish, these little
books, with their well-known double columns of words and phrases, and
their "Polite Letter-writer" at the end, all seem to be equally
determined to force words upon you which you never will need to use;
while the things you are always wanting to say in the new tongue are
either carefully buried among colloquies on botany or precious stones,
or among philosophical discussions about metaphysics, or else the
desirable phrases are not in the book at all.
This need of a brief and good "Talk-book" struck me particularly when I
had carefully marked in my German one all the pages which would never be
required in the tour, so that I could cut them out as an unnecessary
addition to the weight of my ship's library. Why, the little book, when
thus expurgated, got so lamentably thin that the few pages left of it,
as just possible to be useful, formed only a wretched skeleton of the
original volume.
Another fault of these books is that half the matter in them is made up
of what the imaginary chatting foreigner says _to you_, the unhappy
Englishman, and this often in long phrases, or even in set speeches.
But when, in actual life, the real foreigner speaks to you, he somehow
says quite a different set of words from any particular phrases you see
in the book, and you cannot make out his meaning, because it does not
correspond with anything you have learned.
It is evident that a dictionary is required to get at the English
meaning of what is said to you by another; while a talk-book will
suffice for what you wish to say to him; because you can select in it
and compose from it before you utter any particular phrase.
The Danish phrase-book for Norway and Sweden is a tolerably good one,
and it holds in a short compass all the traveller wants; but I think a
book of this kind for each of the other principal languages might well
be constructed on the following basis.
First, let us have the expression "I want," and then the English
substantives most used in travel talk, arranged in alphabetical order,
and with their foreign equivalents. Next, put the request "Will you,"
and after it place each of the verbs of action generally required by
travellers. Then set forth the question, "Does the," with a column of
events formed by a noun, verb, and preposition in each, such as "coach
stop at," "road lead to," "steamer start from," &c.; and, lastly, give
us the comprehensive "Is it," with a long alphabetical list of
adjectives likely to be employed. Under these four heads, with two pages
of adverbs and numerals, I think that the primary communications with a
foreigner can be comprised; and as for conversations with him on special
subjects, such as politics, or art, or scenery, these are practically
not likely to be attempted unless you learn his language, and not merely
some of its most necessary _words_; but this study of language is not
the purpose for which you get a talk-book.
Having now delivered a homily on international talking, it is time to be
on the move again.