Sailing on Lucerne--Seeburg--River scenes--Night and snow--The
Reuss--A dear dinner--Seeing a rope--Passing a fall--Bremgarten
rapids.
When the steamer at Imyn had embarked the three sportsmen, and the
little pier was quiet, we got a cart out for the Rob Roy, and bargained
to have it rumbled over the hill to the Lake of Lucerne for the sum of
five francs--it is only half-an-hour's walk. The landlord himself came
as driver, for he was fully interested about the canoe, and he did not
omit to let people know his sentiments on the subject all along the way,
even calling out to the men plucking fruit in the apple-trees, who had
perhaps failed to notice the phenomenon which was passing on the road
beneath them. There was a permanent joke on such occasions, and, oddly
enough, it was used by the drivers in Germany as well as in Switzerland,
and was of course original and spontaneous with each of them as they
called out, "Going to America!" and then chuckled at the brilliant
remark.
The village we came to on Lucerne was the well-known Kussnacht, that
is, _one_ of the well-known Kussnachts, for there are plenty of these
honeymoon towns in Central Europe; and with the customary assembly of
_quidnuncs_, eloquently addressed this time by the landlord-driver, the
canoe was launched on another lake, perhaps the prettiest lake in the
world.
Like other people, and at other times, I had traversed this beautiful
water of the Four Cantons, but those only who have seen it well by
steamer and by walking, so as to know how it juts in and winds round in
intricate geography, can imagine how much better you may follow and
grasp its beauties by searching them out alone and in a canoe.
For thus I could penetrate all the wooded nooks, and dwell on each
view-point, and visit the rocky islets, and wait long, longer--as long
as I pleased before some lofty berg, while the ground-swell gently
undulated, and the passing cloud shaded the hill with grey, and the red
flag of a steamer fluttered in a distant sunbeam, and the plash of a
barge's oar broke on the boatman's song; everything around changing just
a little, and the stream of inward thought and admiration changing too
as it flowed, but, all the time, and when the eye came back to it again,
there was the grand mountain still the same,
"Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved."
How cool the snow looked up there aloft even in the heat of summer! and,
to come down again to one's level on the water, how lively the steamer
was with the music of its band and the quick beat of its wheels curling
up white foam. Let us speed to meet it and to get a tossing in the
swell, while Jones and Smith, under the awning, cry out, "Why, to be
sure, that's the Rob Roy canoe," and Mrs. Jones and the three Miss
Smiths all lift up their heads from their "Murrays," where they have
been diligently reading the history of Switzerland from A.D. 1682, and
then the description in words of all the scenery around, although they
have suffered its speaking realities in mountain, wood, and lake to pass
unnoticed.
As I was quite fresh (having worked chiefly the sails on Zug) and now in
good "training," so as to get on very comfortably with ten or twelve
hours' rowing in the day, I spent it all in seeing this inexhaustible
Lake of Lucerne, and yet felt that at least a dozen new pictures had
been left unseen in this rich volume of the book of nature.
But as this book had no page in it about quarters for the night it was
time to consider these homely affairs, and to look out for an hotel; not
one of the big barracks for Englishmen spoken of before, but some quiet
place where one could stop for Sunday. Coming suddenly then round a
shady point, behold the very place! But can it be an hotel? Yes, there
is the name, "Seeburg." Is it quiet? Observe the shady walks. Bathing?
Why, there is a bath in the lake at the end of the garden. Fishing? At
least four rods are stretched over the reeds by hopeful hands, and with
earnest looks behind, watching for the faintest nibble.
Let us run boldly in. Ten minutes, and the boat is safely in a shed, and
its captain well housed in an excellent room; and, having ordered
dinner, it was delicious to jump into the lake for a swim, all hot with
the hot day's work, and to stretch away out to the deep, and circle
round and round in these limpid waters, with a nice little bath-room to
come back to, and fresh dry clothes to put on. In the evening we had
very pretty English music, a family party improvised in an hour, and
broken up for a moonlight walk, while, all this time (one fancied), in
the big hotel of the town the guests were in stiff _coteries_, or each
set retired to its sitting-room, and lamenting how unsociable everybody
else had become.
I never was more comfortable than here, with a few English families "en
pension," luxuriating for the sum of six francs per day, and an old
Russian General, most warlike and courteous, who would chat with you by
the hour, on the seat under the shady chestnut, and smiled at the four
persevering fishermen whose bag consisted, I believe, of three bites,
one of them allowed on all hands to have been _bonâ fide_.
Then on Sunday we went to Lucerne, to church, where a large congregation
listened to a very good sermon from the well-known Secretary of the
Society for Colonial and Continental Churches. At least every traveller,
if not every home-stayed Englishman, ought to support this Association,
because it many times supplies just that food and rest which the soul
needs so much on a Sunday abroad, when the pleasures of foreign travel
are apt to make only the mind and body constitute the man.
I determined to paddle from Lucerne by the river Reuss, which flows out
of the lake and through the town. This river is one of four--the Rhine,
Rhone, Reuss, and Ticino, which all rise near together in the
neighbourhood of the St. Gothard; and yet, while one flows into the
German ocean, another falls into the Mediterranean, both between them
having first made nearly the compass of Switzerland.
The walking tourist comes often upon the rapid Reuss as it staggers and
tumbles among the Swiss mountains. To me it had a special interest, for
I once ascended the Galenhorn over the glaciers it starts from, and with
only a useless guide, who lost his head and then lost his way, and then
lost his temper and began to cry. We groped about in a fog until snow
began to fall, and the snowstorm lasted for six hours--a weary time
spent by us wandering in the dark and without food. At length we were
discovered by some people sent out with lights to search for the
benighted pleasure-seeker.
The Reuss has many cascades and torrent gorges as it runs among the
rough crags, and it falls nearly 6,000 feet before it reaches the Lake
of Lucerne, this lake itself being still 1,400 feet above the sea.
A gradual current towards the end of the lake entices you under the
bridge where the river starts again on its course, at first gently
enough, and as if it never could get fierce and hoarse-voiced when it
has taken you miles away into the woods and can deal with you all alone.
The map showed the Reuss flowing into the Aar, but I could learn nothing
more about either of these rivers, except that an intelligent man said,
"The Reuss is a mere torrent," while another recounted how a man some
years ago went on the Aar in a boat, and was taken up by the police and
punished for thus perilling his life.
Deducting from these statements the usual 50 per cent. for exaggeration,
everything appeared satisfactory, so I yielded my boat to the current,
and, at parting, waved my yellow paddle to certain fair friends who had
honoured me with their countenance, and who were now assembled on the
bridge. After this a few judicious strokes took the Rob Roy through the
town and past the pleasant environs, and we were now again upon running
water.
The current, after a quiet beginning, soon put on a sort of "business
air," as if it did not mean to dally, and rapidly got into quick time,
threading a devious course among the woods, hayfields, and vineyards,
and it seemed not to murmur (as streams always do), but to sing with
buoyant exhilaration in the fresh brightness of the morn.
It certainly was a change, from the sluggish feeling of dead water in
the lakes to the lively tremulous thrilling of a rapid river like the
Reuss, which, in many places, is as wide as the Rhine at Schaffhausen.
It is a wild stream, too fast for navigation, and therefore the villages
are not built on the banks, and there are no boats, and the lonely,
pathless, forest-covered banks are sometimes bleak enough when seen from
the water.
For some miles it was easy travelling, the water being seldom less than
two feet deep, and with rocks readily visible by the eddy bubbling about
them, because they were sharp and jagged. It is the long smooth and
round-topped rock which is most treacherous in a fast river, for the
spray which the current throws round such a rock is often not different
from an ordinary wave.
Now and then the stream was so swift that I was afraid of losing my
straw hat, simply from the breeze created by great speed--for it was a
day without wind.
It cannot be concealed that continuous physical enjoyment such as this
tour presented is a dangerous luxury if it be not properly used. When I
thought of the hospitals of London, of the herds of squalid poor in
foetid alleys, of the pale-faced ragged boys, and the vice, sadness,
pain, and poverty we are sent to do battle with if we be Christian
soldiers, I could not help asking, "Am I right in thus enjoying such
comfort, such scenery, such health?" Certainly not right, unless to get
vigour of thought and hand, and freshened energy of mind, and larger
thankfulness and wider love, and so, with all the powers recruited, to
enter the field again more eager and able to be useful.
In the more lonely parts of the Reuss the trees were in dense thickets
to the water's edge, and the wild ducks fluttered out from them with a
splash, and some larger birds like bustards often hovered over the
canoe. I think among the flying companions I noticed also the bunting,
or "ammer" (from which German word comes our English "yellow hammer"),
wood-pigeons, and very beautiful hawks. The herons and kingfishers were
here as well, but not so many of them as on the Danube.
Nothing particular occurred, although it was a pleasant morning's work,
until we got through the bridge at Imyl, where an inn was high up on the
bank. The ostler helped me to carry the boat into the stable, and the
landlady audaciously charged me 4_s._ 6_d._ for my first dinner (I
always had two dinners on full working days), being pretty sure that she
need not expect her customer to stop there again.
The navigation after this began to be more interesting, with gravel
banks and big stones to avoid, and a channel to be chosen from among
several, and the wire ropes of the ferries stretched tightly across the
river requiring to be noticed with proper respect.
You may have observed how difficult it is, sometimes, to see a rope when
it is stretched and quite horizontal, or at any rate how hard it is to
judge correctly of its distance from your eye. This can be well noticed
in walking by the seashore among fishing-boats moored on the beach, when
you will sometimes even knock your nose against a taut hawser before you
are aware that it is so close.
This is caused by the fact that the mind estimates the distance of an
object partly by comparing the two views of its surface obtained by the
two eyes respectively, and which views are not quite the same, but
differ, just as the two pictures prepared for the stereoscope. Each eye
sees a little round one side of the object, and the solid look of the
object and its distance are thus before the mind.
Now when the rope is horizontal the eyes do not see round the two sides
in this manner, though if the head is leant sideways it will be found
that the illusion referred to no longer appears.
Nor is it out of place to inquire thus at length into this matter, for I
can assure you that one or two blunt slaps on the head from these ropes
across a river make it at least interesting if not pleasant to examine
"the reason why." And now we have got the philosophy of the thing, let
us leave the ropes behind.
The actual number of miles in a day's work is much influenced by the
number of waterfalls or artificial barriers which are too dry or too
high to allow the canoe to float over them.
[Illustration: "Shirking a Fall."]
In all such cases, of course, I had to get out and to drag the boat
round by the fields, as has been already described (p. 80); or to lower
her carefully among the rocks, as is shown in the accompanying sketch,
which represents the usual appearance of this part of the day's
proceedings. Although this sort of work was a change of posture, and
brought into play new muscular action, yet the strain sometimes put on
the limbs by the weight of the boat, and the great caution required
where there was only slippery footing, made these barriers to be
regarded on the whole as bores.
Full soon however we were to forget such trifling troubles, for more
serious work impended.
The river banks suddenly assumed a new character. They were steep and
high, and their height increased as we advanced between the two upright
walls of stratified gravel and boulders.
A full body of water ran here, the current being of only ordinary force
at its edges, where it was interrupted by rocks, stones, and shingle,
and was thus twisted into eddies innumerable.
To avoid these entanglements at the sides, it seemed best, on the whole,
to keep the boat in mid-channel, though the breakers were far more
dangerous there, in the full force of the stream.
I began to think that this must be the "hard place coming," which a wise
man farther up the river had warned me was quite too much for so small a
boat, unless in flood times, when fewer rocks would be in the way. In
reply, I had told him that when we got near such a place I would pull
out my boat and drag it along the bank, if requisite. To this he said,
"Ah! but the banks are a hundred feet high." So I had mentally resolved
(but entirely forgot) to stop in good time and to climb up the rocks and
investigate matters ahead before going into an unknown run of broken
water.
Such plans are very well in theory, but somehow the approach to these
rapids was so gradual, and the mind was so much occupied in overcoming
the particular difficulty of each moment, that no opportunity occurred
for rest or reflection. The dull heavy roar round the corner got louder
as the Rob Roy neared the great bend. For here the river makes a turn
round the whole of a letter S, in fact very nearly in a complete figure
of 8, and in wheeling thus it glides over a sloping ledge of flat rocks,
spread obliquely athwart the stream for a hundred feet on either hand,
and just a few inches below the surface.
The canoe was swept over this singular place by the current, its keel
and sides grinding and bumping on the stones, and sliding on the soft
moss which here made the rock so slippery and black.
The progress was aided by sundry pushes and jerks at proper times, but
we advanced altogether in a clumsy, helpless style, until at length
there came in sight the great white ridge of tossing foam where the din
was great, and a sense of excitement and confusion filled the mind.
I was quite conscious that the sight before me was made to look worse
because of the noise around, and by the feeling of the loneliness and
powerlessness of a puny man struggling in a waste of breakers, where to
strike a single one was sure to upset the boat.
From the nature of the place, too, it was evident that it would be
difficult to save the canoe by swimming alongside it when capsized or
foundered, and yet it was utterly impossible now to stop.
Right in front, and in the middle, I saw the well-known wave which is
always raised when a main stream converges, as it rushes down a narrow
neck. The depression or trough of this was about two feet below, and the
crest four feet above the level, so the height of the wave was about six
feet.
Though rather tall it was very thin and sharp-featured, and always
stationary in position, though the water composing it was going at a
tremendous pace. After this wave there was another smaller one, as
frequently happens.
It was not the _height_ of the wave that gave any concern; had it been
at sea the boat would rise over any lofty billow, but here the wave
stood still, and the canoe was to be impelled against it with all the
force of a mighty stream, and so it _must_ go through the body of water,
for it could not have time to rise.
And so the question remained, "What is _behind_ that wave?" for if it is
a rock then this is the last hour of the Rob Roy.[XXI.]
[XXI.] I had not then acquired the knowledge of a valuable fact,
that a sharp wave of this kind _never_ has a rock behind it. A sharp
wave requires free water at its rear, and it is therefore in the safest
part of the river so far as concealed dangers are concerned. This at
least was the conclusion come to after frequent observation afterwards
of many such places.
The boat plunged headlong into the shining mound of water as I clenched
my teeth and clutched my paddle. We saw her sharp prow deeply buried,
and then (I confess) my eyes were shut involuntarily, and before she
could rise the mass of solid water struck me with a heavy blow full in
the breast, closing round my neck as if cold hands gripped me, and quite
taking away my breath.[XXII.]
[XXII.] See a faithful representation of this incident, so far as
relates to the water, in the Frontispiece.
Vivid thoughts coursed through the brain in this exciting moment, but
another slap from the lesser wave, and a whirl round in the eddy below,
told that the battle was over soon, and the little boat slowly rose from
under a load of water, which still covered my arms, and then, trembling,
and as if stunned by the heavy shock, she staggered to the shore. The
river too had done its worst, and it seemed now to draw off from
hindering us, and so I clung to a rock to rest for some minutes, panting
with a tired thrilling of nervousness and gladness strangely mingled.
Although the weight of water had been so heavy on my body and legs, very
little of it had got inside under the waterproof covering, for the whole
affair was done in a few seconds, and though everything in front was
completely drenched up to my necktie, the back of my coat was scarcely
wet. Most fortunately I had removed the flag from its usual place about
an hour before, and thus it was preserved from being swept away.
Well, now it is over, and we are rested, and begin with a fresh start;
for there is still some work to do in threading a way among the
breakers. The main point, however, has been passed, and the difficulties
after it look small, though at other times they might receive attention.
Here is our resting-place, the old Roman town of Bremgarten, which is
built in a hollow of this very remarkable serpent bend of the rapid
Reuss. The houses are stuck on the rocks, and abut on the river itself,
and as the stream bore me past these I clung to the doorstep of a
washerwoman's house, and pulled my boat out of the water into her very
kitchen, to the great amusement and surprise of the worthy lady, who
wondered still more when I hauled the canoe again through the other side
of her room until it fairly came out to the street behind!
It must have astonished the people to see a canoe thus suddenly
appearing on their quiet pavement. They soon crowded round and bore her
to the hotel, which was a moderately bad one. Next morning the bill was
twelve francs, nearly double its proper amount; and thus we encountered
in one day the only two extortionate innkeepers met with at all.[XXIII.]
[XXIII.] However, I made the landlord here take eight francs as a
compromise.
This quaint old place, with high walls and a foss, and several
antiquities, was well worth the inspection of my early morning walk next
day, and then the Rob Roy was ordered to the door.