Now let us tighten our girdles for our first experience in Swiss
mountain-climbing, for we start for Righi at nine A. M., on the summit
of which we propose to see the sun set, and watch his rising on the
morrow. Out of the handsome railway station we ride in an elegant and
comfortable car, and in two hours are at the steamboat landing at Lake
Zug, one of the most picturesque sheets of water in Switzerland--an
azure pond nine miles in length; and, as we float upon its blue bosom,
we see the object of our excursion, Righi-Kulm, which towers full
forty-two hundred feet above the lake. The "Righi" consists of a group
of mountains lying between the three Swiss lakes of Zug, Lucerne,
and Lowerz, and "Righi-Kulm" is the Righi summit, or highest
peak--fifty-five hundred and forty feet above the level of the sea. We
disembark at Arth, get a bad dinner, or lunch, of tough chicken, poor
soup, and bad claret, and start away for the foot of the mountain in an
open carriage, with our saddle horses, mules, and guides rattling along
behind us, for the ascent. Half an hour brings us to Goldau.
Goldau! And as I stood on the high road, and looked over into what was
once the little valley where stood the village, and marked the track of
the tremendous avalanche of a thousand feet broad and a hundred feet
thick, which started three thousand feet above, from the mountain, on
its resistless career of destruction, my memory went back to days in the
public schools of Boston, where, from that best of compilations as a
school reader, John Pierpont's American First Class Book, we used to
read the "Lament of a Swiss Minstrel over the Ruins of Goldau,"
commencing,--
"O Switzerland, my country, 'tis to thee
I strike my harp in agony,--"
and in which the author describes the catastrophe, more graphically than
grammatically, perhaps, as follows:--
"An everlasting hill was torn
From its primeval base, and borne,
In gold and crimson vapors dressed,
To where a people are at rest.
Slowly it came in its mountain wrath,
And the forests vanished before its path,
And the rude cliffs bowed, and the waters fled,
And the living were buried, while over their head
They heard the full march of their foe as he sped,
And the valley of life was the tomb of the dead."
But this avalanche occurred over half a century ago, and may be it is
too old-fashioned to recall its story, though it will long live in
historic record as destroying four villages, and overwhelming five
hundred of their inhabitants. The sole trace of it now is the track of
the avalanche on the side of the mountain, and some few huge bowlders
piled together here and there in the valley, which have not been covered
by the hand of time with vegetation.
And here our party descended from the carriage, and mounted their horses
preparatory to the ascent. A young physician and the author concluded
that their first experience in Alpine travel should be pedestrian; we
therefore started up our mules, riderless, after the rest of the party,
and, like all fresh tourists, stepped into a house here at the foot of
the mountain to purchase our first alpenstocks. These, as everyone
knows, are stout staffs, about six feet in length, with an iron spike at
one end and a hook of chamois horn at the other--the latter ornament
being generally an imitation, made of the head ornament of the common
goat, blackened and polished. Nevertheless, the alpenstocks are of great
assistance; indeed, the tourist who makes any attempts at pedestrianism
among the Alpine passes will find them almost an absolute necessity.
Away went the string of mules and guides with our merry party on their
winding way. The Swiss guides are excellent, and in many parts of the
country they seem to be formed into associations, and under the best of
regulations to prevent any imposition upon travellers, or the employment
of unskilled guides.
As an illustration of the excellence of their regulations, we copy a few
of those of the Righi guides:--
"The horses must be sound and strong, the gear in good order.
The chief of guides, who holds office under the superintendence
of the burgomaster, is responsible for the observance of the
regulations; and he shall maintain order among the guides,
render assistance to travellers, and inform against any
infraction of the rules. Guides are forbidden to importune
travellers. Civility and sobriety are strictly enjoined, and
guides are personally responsible for luggage intrusted to them.
Guides are forbidden to ask for gratuities in excess of the
regular tariff. The chief of guides has sole right to offer
horses to tourists, without, however, dictating their choice,"
&c.
Having procured our alpenstocks, we follow on over the broad, pleasant
road of the first part of the ascent, through the woods, hearing the
voices of our fellow-tourists, and now and then catching a glimpse of
them, as they zigzag across the hill-side, and beat gradually up its
steep height; we begin to come to the little mountain waterfalls,
foaming and tumbling over the rocks on their way to feed the lake below;
pass through scenery of the character not unlike the commencement of the
ascent of Mount Washington, in New Hampshire, until finally we reach a
halting-place--"Righi Inn." Bread, cheese--pah! the very smell of it
caused all to beat a retreat; and the inevitable Swiss honey, and good
French wine, were offered here. Causing a removal of the cheese, we
refreshed ourselves with the bread, wine, and honey, and, with renewed
vigor, pushed on.
Now the path is more open, we pass little crosses, or praying-places,
and can see them at intervals up the mountain; they mark the
halting-places of pilgrims to a little chapel above us, known as the
chapel of "Our Lady of the Snow;" and their frequency does not argue so
much in favor of the endurance of the pilgrims' powers of wind and
muscle as it does of their devotion. This little chapel is inhabited by
Capuchin monks, was built in 1689, and pilgrimages are generally made to
it and Mass celebrated once a year.
After about two hours' climbing we find ourselves at a place called
Oberes Dächli, and half way up the ascent; now we leave the woods below,
and begin to have a view of huge peaks rising all about us; as we mount
still higher, the air grows pure, bracing, and invigorating. Pedestrians
think climbing the Alps is pastime, songs are sung with a will, and
American songs, especially the choruses, make the guides stare with
astonishment.
Hurrah! Here is Righi Staffel, four thousand nine hundred feet above the
level of the sea, and a good hour's pull from our last halt; and now our
guides lead us out to a sort of bend in the pathway, and we begin to see
what we have climbed to enjoy. From this bend, which overhangs, and
seems to form, as it were, a sort of proscenium box of the scene, we
look down on the grand view below us--Lake Lucerne, Arth, the road we
have passed, the mountains swelling blue in the distance.
What beautiful views we have had as we ascended! An attempt at
description would be but a series of rhapsodies. Let any one who has
seen the view from the Catskill Mountains imagine the scene filled in
with eight Swiss lakes shining in the sunlight, dozens of Swiss villages
in the valleys, chapels on the mountain-sides, ribbons of rivers
sparkling in the distance, the melodious tinkle of cow-bells from the
many herds on the mountain-sides below, coming up like the faint notes
of a musical box, and the whole framed by a lofty chain of mountain
peaks, that seem to rim in the picture in a vast oval. The view changed
twenty times in the ascent, and a faint idea may be had of its grandeur
and beauty.
"But wait till you reach the Kulm, if you want to see a view," says one,
pointing to the tip-top hotel of the mountain, on its great platform
above us.
"Will monsieur ride now?"
"Pshaw! No."
The rest of the distance is so short--just up there--that monsieur,
though breathless and fatigued, will do no such thing, and so sits down
on a broad, flat stone, to look at the view and recover wind for the
last _brief_ "spurt," as he thinks; and the guide, with a smile, starts
on.
We have learned a lesson of the deceptive appearance of distance in the
mountains, for what appeared at most a ten minutes' journey, was a good
half hour's vigorous climb before the hotel of Righi-Kulm was gained;
and we stood breathless and exhausted in the portico, mentally vowing
never to attempt mountain climbing on foot when horses could be had--a
vow with which, perhaps, the last portion of the journey over a path
made slippery by a shower, making the pedestrian's ascent resemble that
of the arithmetical frog in the well, whose retrogression amounted to
two thirds of his progression, had something to do--and a vow which, it
is unnecessary to say, was not rigidly adhered to.
But Righi-Kulm was gained. Here we were, at a large, well-kept hotel.
The rattle of the French, German, Italian, and English tongues tells us
that Switzerland has attractions for all nations, and the fame of her
natural scenery attracts all to worship at its shrine. A brief rest,
after our nearly four hours' journey, and we are called out, one and
all, to see the sun set. Forth we went, and mounted on a high, broad
platform, a great, flat, table-like cliff, which, when contemplating the
scene below, I could liken only to a Titanic sacrificial altar, erected
to the Most High, it jutted out so towards heaven, with all the world
below it.
But were we to be disappointed in the sunset?
Look! huge clouds are rising; one already veils the sun, its edges
crimsoned, and its centre translucent. A moment more and the cloudy veil
is torn aside as by the hand of a genie, and as the red rays of the
great orb of day blaze into our faces like a huge conflagration, a
universal burst of admiration follows at one of the grandest and most
magnificent views the eye of man can look upon. The sudden effect of
the sunburst revealed a spectacle that was like a vision of the promised
land.
We realized now how "distance lends enchantment to the view." That blue
atmosphere of distance, that seems to paint everything with its
softening finish, is exquisite here. Lake Lucerne was at our very feet,
and looked as though we might toss a pebble into it; eight other lakes,
calm and still, and looking like polished blue steel plates resting in
the landscape, flashed in the sunbeams, the little water-craft like
motes upon their surface; silver ribbons of rivers glittered on the
bosom of the mountains like necklaces, while villages appeared like
pearls scattered on the dark-green carpet below, and we looked right
through a great rainbow, "the half of the signet ring of the Almighty,"
at one, and the landscape about it--a singular and beautiful effect.
Villages, lakes, landscapes were seen, as it were, through a river of
light in a great panorama of hundreds of miles in extent, forming a view
the grandeur and splendor of which it is impossible to describe.
But while we are looking at this wondrous picture, the sun sinks lower,
and we raise our gaze to the grand chain of mountains, whose edges are
now fringed with fire, or their snow peaks glowing in rose tints,
sending back reflections from their blue glaciers, or sparkling in the
latent rays.
There rises the great chain of Bernese Alps.
There _are_ mountains--eight, ten, twelve thousand feet into the air.
How sharply they are printed against the sky! and how they roll away off
towards the horizon in a great billowy swell, till lost in the far
distance, the white-topped peak of one tall sentinel just visible,
touched by the arrowy beam of the sun that glances from his icy helmet!
Look which way you may, and a new scene of surpassing beauty chains the
attention. Here rises rugged old Pilatus, almost from the bosom of Lake
Lucerne; beyond Lucerne, the whole canton is spread out to view, with a
little river crinkling through it, like a strip of silver bullion
thread; away off, at one side, the top of the Cathedral of Zurich
catches the eye; down at our very feet, on the lake, is a little
speck--Tell's Chapel; right around us rise the Righi group of mountains,
green to their summits, and in contrast to the perpetual snow mantles of
the distant Bernese. But the sun, which has been like a huge glittering
and red, flashing shield, is now only showing a flaming edge of fire
behind the apparently tallest peak, making it look like the flame
bursting from a volcano; the landscape is deepening in huge shadows,
which we can see are cast by the mountains, half obscuring it from view;
the blaze is fainter--it is extinguished; a few moments of red, fiery
glow where it sank, and anon a great, rushing group of clouds, and the
blackness of night closes in, and the fierce rush of the Alpine wind is
upon us.
We turned and groped our way back to the house, whose brightly-lighted
windows spoke of comfort within; and round the board at the meal, which
served alike for dinner and supper, we exhausted the vocabulary of terms
of admiration over the grand spectacle we had just witnessed, which
seemed worth a journey across the Atlantic to see.
At the supper table, we fraternize with other Americans from different
parts of our country; and even the reserved and reticent Englishman
finds it pleasant to converse, or address a few words to those he has
not been introduced to, it is "so pleasant to talk one's own language,
you know." Out in a little sanded sitting-room, where cigars and warming
fluids were enjoyed before retiring, the attention of us Americans was
attracted to an old and familiar friend, whose unlooked-for presence in
this quarter was no less surprising than it was gratifying to our
national pride. It was nothing more nor less than a print of Trumbull's
well-known picture of the Battle of Bunker Hill, suspended over the
mantelpiece. There were General Warren, falling into the arms of the
shirt-sleeved soldier, and the British captain, pushing aside the
bayonets that were thrust at his prostrate figure. There was Pitcairn,
falling backwards from the redoubt, shot dead in the moment of victory
by the colored soldier in the foreground. And there was old Putnam,
waving his sword over his head at the advancing grenadiers--the very
same old picture that every one of us had seen in our histories and
geographies in school-boy days.
"The thing was neither rich nor rare,
But how the devil it got there,"
away up at the top of one of the Alps, was the wonder.
However, it is not to be wondered at that, after its discovery, the
toast of America and Switzerland was drank, with all the honors. Now
that the night had come down, we could hear the mountain wind roaring
around the house, as if it were clamoring for admittance; but the great
dining-hall was full of light and cheerfulness; tourists of different
nationalities recounted their adventures in little groups, and the Swiss
carved work, which was brought out and spread upon the tables for sale,
found many purchasers among those who desired to preserve a memento of
their visit to the top of Mount Rhigi.
We were warned to retire early, as all would be roused at four A. M.,
next morning, to witness a sunrise, which we were assured was infinitely
more grand than sunset.
It was easier for me to get to bed than to sleep. The fatigue of the
climb, the bracing effect of the atmosphere, the remembrance of the
superb panorama, and, besides this, the rush, roar, and whistle of the
mountain breeze which rattled at the casement, all served to banish
sleep from my eyes till the time arrived when the horn should have
sounded for sunrise; but it did not, because of the thick clouds, as I
heard from the few restless ones who clattered through the corridors;
and so, relieved of the expectancy of the call, I sank into slumber,
broken only by morning's light, although thick clouds veiled the god of
day from view.
There appeared no prospect of clear weather; and so, after a late
breakfast, our horses were ordered, and we began the descent, which, for
the first half hour, was damp and cheerless enough, and made the coats
and water-proofs we had been thoughtful enough to bring comfortable
accessories. But, as we were slowly winding down the mountain, the
clouds began to break; the wind had changed; gap after gap was rent in
the vapor, which was rolled off at one side in great heaps; the bright
blue sky looked through the rifts, and the landscape began to come out
in great patches below; away went the clouds; what had seemed a great,
dull curtain was broken up into sheets of billowy mist and huge patches
of vapor, slowly rolling away in the distance, or heaping up in silvery
banks; and below once more came out the blue, quiet lakes, the white
villages, and the lovely landscape, while above, even above the clouds
themselves, would start great peaks, round which they clung like fleecy
garlands.
The rain-drops sparkled on the grass and bushes as I sat on a projecting
cliff gazing at the scene, and the train of my companions wound out of
sight, their voices growing fainter and fainter, till lost in the
distance, and all was silent. There was no song of bird, or chirp of
insect--a mountain solitude of stillness unbroken, when just below me
came up that peculiar and melodious cry of the Alpine shepherd,
"Ye-o-eo-o-leo-leo-leo-ye-ho-le-o," echoing and winding among the
mountains, clear and bell-like, as it floated away.
The yodlyn! and this was the first time I had ever heard it in
Switzerland.
But listen!
Above where I stand comes a reply, clear and musical, mellowed by
distance, the curious falsetto, the "yo-e-ho-o-leo," is returned, and
scarcely ceases ere taken up, away across the valley, by an answering
voice, so faint in the distance that it quavers like a flute on the ear.
And so the herdsmen in these solitudes call and answer one another
during their journeyings, or their lonely hours in the mountains.
Now we wind down, through trees, herbage, and wild flowers. Here is an
ocean of white and buff garden heliotropes, monkshood, handsome lilac
candytuft, and a flower in abundance which very much resembles the
Mexican ageratum. Now we come to a broad sort of open field, and a
_chalet_, where we halted, and rested upon rustic seats at the door,
while the horses were baited. While we sat here, the officious host
branded our Alpine stocks with the names of Goldau and Righi, showing
that we had passed those points. At this place, the open field was rich
in sweet red-clover, and pretty little flowers, like dwarfed sweet-peas.
As we rode on, the air was melodious with the tinkling of the bells of
the mountain herds, and the woods and fields rich in wild white roses
and numerous other flowers.
At length we reached Kusnacht, on Lake Lucerne; and, embarking on a
little steamboat, we glided along past the beautiful slopes of the Righi
range, having a fine view of the frowning peak of Pilatus, and some
towering snow-clads in the distance. Finally we rounded a point, and
there lay Lucerne, in a sort of natural amphitheatre, fronting on the
blue lake, and between the Righi and Pilatus on either side. Upon the
whole length of the long quay is a broad avenue of shady chestnut trees;
then, strung along behind it, are the great hotels; and in the
background, running over on the heights above the town, are the walls
and watch-towers, the whole forming a most charming and picturesque
scene.
The steamer glides up to the stone pier almost opposite to the great
hotel, where our rooms had been engaged and luggage forwarded, and in a
few minutes more the officious porters have us domiciled in fine
apartments in the "Schweizerhoff," where we proceed to remove the stains
of travel and mountain climbing, enjoy the luxury of a good bath, and in
other ways prepare for the _table d'hote_.
The Schweizerhoff is a splendid hotel, and, with its dependencies,
accommodates some three hundred or more guests. It is admirably kept,
the rooms clean, well furnished, and airy, and the front commanding a
superb view of the lake, Mount Pilatus, Righi, and a whole range of
Alps, green hill-sides, rocky crags, or great snow-clads, running up
five, six, seven, and eight thousand feet high. A picture it seemed we
could never tire gazing at, as we sat at our windows looking at them,
and the blue lake, with its steamboats coming and going, row-boats and
pleasure sail-boats gliding hither and thither. In this house is a
reading-room for ladies and gentlemen, with English, French, German, and
Italian newspapers, books and magazines, a billiard-room, pretty garden,
and great dining-room, with conservatory at one end of it, filled with
plants and birds. A fountain in the room spouts and flashes merrily
during the dinner hour, and a band of music plays. There are waiters and
porters who speak French, German, Italian, and English, and hearing the
latter spoken on every side so frequently, seeing so many Americans, and
the ladies going through with the usual display of dress and flirtations
as at home, it was difficult to imagine that we were not at some
Saratoga, or Newport, and that a few hours by rail would not bear us to
Boston or New York.
The sights in Lucerne are few and easily seen, the principal attraction
being the loveliness of the situation. The River Reuss emerges from the
lake at this point, and rushes off at a tremendous rate, and two of the
curious old wooden bridges that span it are features of the place; they
are roofed over and partially enclosed. In the inner triangular
compartments of the roof of the longest are a series of over a hundred
pictures, illustrating scenes in the lives of saints and in the history
of Switzerland; in the other the Dance of Death is quaintly and rudely
depicted; picturesque old places these bridges, cool and shady for a
summer afternoon's stroll.
The great attraction in the old cathedral in Lucerne is the fine organ,
which all visitors go to hear played; and we strolled in on a quiet
summer's evening, after dinner, to listen to it. The slanting beams of
the sun gleamed through the stained-glass windows, and lighted up some
of the old carved wood reliefs of the stalls in the church, as we took
our seats, with some fifty or sixty other tourists, here and there in
the body of the house; and soon the music began. First there were two or
three hymns, whose pure, simple melody was given with a grace and
delicacy that seemed to carry their sacred sentiment to the very heart;
from these the performer burst into one of the grandest performances of
Mendelssohn's Wedding March I ever listened to. There was the full band,
with hautboy, flute, clarinet, and trumpet accompaniment, introducing
perfect solo obligatos, and closing with the full, grand sweep of
melody, in which, amid the blending of all in one grand harmonious
whole, the strains of each were distinguishable, perfect, pure, and
faultless. The liquid ripple of the flute, the blare of the trumpet, and
the mellow murmur of the clarinet, till the march arose in one grand
volume of harmony that made the vaulted arches of the old cathedral ring
again, and it seemed as if every nook and corner was filled with
exultant melody. It was a glorious performance, and I felt like leaping
to my feet, swinging my hat, and shouting, Bravo! when it was finished.
But, if this was glorious, the last piece, which represented a thunder
storm amid the Alps, was little short of marvellous, and may be regarded
as a masterpiece of organ-playing. It commenced with a beautiful
pastoral introduction; this was succeeded by the muttering of distant
thunder, the fitful gusts of a gradually rising tempest, the sharp
_shirr_ of the wind, and the very rattling and trickling of the rain
drops; mountain streams could be heard, rushing, swollen into torrents;
the mutter of the tempest increased to a gradual and rising roar of
wind; a resistless rush of rain was heard, that made the spectator look
anxiously towards church windows, and feel nervous that he had no
umbrella. Finally the tremendous tempest of the Alps seemed to shake the
great cathedral, the winds howled and shrieked, the rain beat, rushed,
and came down in torrents; the roar of the swollen mountain streams was
heard between the terrific peals of thunder that reverberated among the
mountains, awaking a hundred echoes, and one of those sharp, terrible
rattles, that betokens the falling bolt, made more than one lady sit
closer to her protector, with an involuntary shudder.
But anon the thunder peals grew less and less frequent, and rolled
slowly and grandly off among the mountains, with heavy reverberations,
between which the rush of the mountain streams and the rattle of the
brooks were heard, till finally the peals of heaven's artillery died
away entirely, the streams rushed less fiercely, and the brooks purled
over the pebbles. Then, amid the subsiding of the tempest, the notes of
a little organ, which had been heard only at intervals during the war of
elements, became more clear and distinct: now, as the thunder ceased and
the rush of rain was over, you heard it as in some distant convent or
chapel among the mountains, and there arose a chant so sweet, so clear,
so heavenly as to seem hardly of this earth--a chant of nuns before
their altar; anon it increased in volume as tenor, alto, and even the
full bass of monkish chant joined, and the whole choir burst into a
glorious hymn of praise.
The audience were breathless as they listened to the chant of this
invisible choir, whose voices they could distinguish in sweet accord as
they arose and blended into a great anthem, and then gradually faded in
the distance, as though the meek sisterhood were gliding away amid their
cloisters, and the voices of the procession of hooded monks ceased one
after the other, as they sought the quiet of their cells. The chant
dropped away, voice by voice, into silence; all ceased but the little
chapel organ accompaniment, which lingered and quavered, till, like a
last trembling seraph breath, it faded away in the still twilight,
and--the performance was over.
There was full a moment's spell-bound hush among the listeners after its
conclusion, and then followed one universal burst of admiration and
applause in half a dozen different languages. Some of the ladies of our
party, not dreaming of the wonders of the vox humana stop, desired to
see the choir that sang so sweetly; and to gratify them we ascended to
the organ gallery, where, to their surprise, we met the sole performer
on the wonderful instrument to which they had listened, in the person of
an old German, with scattered gray hairs peeping out beneath his velvet
skull-cap, wearing black knee-breeches and silk stockings, and shoes
with broad buckles--a perfect old virtuoso in appearance, and a genuine
musical enthusiast, trembling with pleasure at our praise, and his eyes
glistening with tears at our admiration of his marvellous skill.
The lion of Lucerne is, in fact, literally the lion; that is, the
celebrated lion sculptured out of the natural rock by the celebrated
Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen, in memory of the Swiss guard that were
massacred in defence of the Tuileries in 1792. The figure is in a
beautiful grotto, a sheet of water, which is fed by springs that trickle
out from the stone that it is carved from, separating it from the
spectator.
The reclining figure of this dying lion, so familiar to all from
pictorial representations, is twenty-eight feet in length, and, as it
lies transfixed with the broken lance, and in the agonies of death,
sheltering the French shield and _fleur de lis_ with its great paws,
forms a most appropriate monument, and one not easily forgotten.
Lake Lucerne, the Lake of the Four Cantons, is the most beautiful in
Switzerland, and the grandeur and beauty of the scenery on every side
are heightened by the historical associations connected with the country
bordering on its waters; for these cantons are the birthplace of
Switzerland's freedom, and the scenes of the struggles of William Tell
and his brave associates. It was a beautiful summer's morning when we
embarked on board one of the little steamers that leave Lucerne four or
five times a day, and steamed out from the pier, leaving the long string
of hotels, the range of hills above them, with the curious walls and
watch-towers, behind us, and grim old Mount Pilatus with his necklace of
clouds standing guard over the whole.
We again pass the green slopes of the Righi, and in the distance the
great Alpine peaks begin to appear, printed against the sky. Soon we
come to Burgenstock, a great forest-clad hill that rises abruptly from
the very lake to the height of over three thousand four hundred feet; we
pass beautiful slopes rimmed with a background of lofty mountain peaks;
here is the picturesque little village of Waggis, from which many make
the ascent of the Righi; next we pass a beautiful little crescent-shaped
village, and then come in sight two great barren, rocky-looking peaks
named Mythen, nearly six thousand feet high; and the boat rounds up to
the pier of Brunnen, a lovely situation, where many tourists disembark
and others come on board. Shortly after leaving here, we pass a
perpendicular rock, nearly a hundred feet high, on which is inscribed,
in huge gilt letters, an inscription signifying it is to "Frederick
Schiller, the Bard of Tell." Just beyond this a passenger directs our
view to a green field, and a few scattered chalets. That is Rutli, what
little we can see of it, and where the founders of Swiss liberty met,
and bound themselves by oath to free the land from the invader.
The steamer glides close to the shore, and gives us an opportunity of
seeing Tell's Chapel, situated upon a rock on the shore, and marking the
place where Tell sprang out of Gessler's boat, as is told in the stories
of the Swiss hero. Leaving this behind, we soon come in sight of
Fluelen, our point of destination, situated in the midst of a
surrounding of grand Alpine scenery. Between two great peaks, in full
view, we can see a glacier, with its white snow and blue ice, and a
great peak, with castle-shaped summit, looms up seventy-five hundred
feet, while behind Fluelen rise two other peaks nearly ten thousand
feet. We are circled by great Alps, with their snowy crowns and glaciers
gleaming in the sunlight.
Landing at Fluelen, we engaged for our party of five a private open
carriage, for the journey through St. Gothard Pass, instead of taking
the great cumbrous ark of a diligence that was in waiting. By this means
we secured a vehicle very much like an open barouche, roomy,
comfortable, and specially designed for the journey, with privilege, of
course, of stopping when and where we liked, driving fast or slow; in
fact, travelling at our own convenience. This is by far the pleasantest
way of travelling the mountain passes accessible to carriages, and where
a party can be made up of four or five, the expense per head is but a
small advance on that charged in the diligence, a dusty, dirty, crowded
vehicle, with but few positions commanding the view, which is what the
tourist comes to see.
Crack, crack, crack! went the driver's whip, like a succession of
pistol-shots, as we rattled out of Fluelen, and, after a pleasant ride
of half an hour, rolled into the romantic little village of Altorf,
embosomed in a lovely valley, with the huge mountains rising all about
it.
Altorf! William Tell! "Men of Altorf!"
Yes; this was the place embalmed in school-boy memories with all that
was bold, heroic, brave, and romantic. Here was where William Tell
defied Gessler, dashed down his cap from the pole, and appealed to the
men of Altorf.
Pleasant little Swiss town. We ride through a narrow street, which
widens out into a sort of market-place, at one end of which stands a
huge plaster statue of the Swiss liberator, which is said to occupy the
very spot that he stood upon when he performed his wondrous feat of
archery, and one hundred and fifty paces distant a fountain marks the
spot where his son Albert stood awaiting the arrow from his father's
bow, though some of the Swiss insist that Albert's position was
thirty paces farther, where a tower now stands, upon which some
half-obliterated frescoes, representing scenes in Tell's life, are
painted.
We descended from our carriage, walked over the space of the arrow
flight, and called to each other from the opposite points; pictured to
ourselves the crowd of villagers, the fierce soldiery that pressed them
back, the anxiety of the father, the twang of the bow, distinctly heard
in the awe-struck hush of the assemblage as the arrow sped on its
flight, and then the shout that went up as the apple was cleft, and the
boy, unhurt, ran to his father's arms.
Away we sped from the town of Altorf, passed a little castle on a
height, said to be that of Gessler, and soon emerged on the broad, hard,
floor-like road of the St. Gothard Pass; and what pen can describe the
grandeur and beauty of this most magnificent of all Alpine passes! One
may read descriptions, see engravings, paintings, photographs, or
panoramas, and yet get no idea of the grandeur of the spectacle.
There were huge walls of splintered crags, so high that they seemed to
be rocky curtains hung down out of the blue heavens. These _were_
mountains, such as I imagined mountains were when a child. We had to
look straight up into the sky to see them. Great rocky walls rose almost
from the road-side sheer up thousands and thousands of feet. A whole
range of peaks is printed against the sky directly before us, half of
them glittering with snow and ice. On we rolled over the smooth road,
and emerged into a vast oval amphitheatre, as it were, the road passing
through the centre, the green slopes the sides, and the huge peaks
surrounding the outer barriers that enclosed it. We all stood up in our
carriage, with exclamations of admiration at the magnificent scene that
suddenly burst upon us.
Just below the broad road we were upon rushed the River Reuss, a foaming
torrent. Beyond it, on the opposite side, all the rest of the distance,
the whole beautiful valley, and along the green slope of the opposite
mountain, for three or four miles, were Swiss chalets, flocks feeding,
men and women at work, streams turning water-wheels, romantic waterfalls
spattering down in large and small ravines. We could see them starting
from their source miles away up among the blue glaciers, where, beneath
the sun's beams, they fluttered like little threads of silver, and
farther down came into view in great brooks of feathery foam, till they
rushed into the river that owed its life to their contributions.
The distance is so enormous, the scenery so grand, that it is beyond
description. I was like Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians, and feared I
never should get my head down to a level with ordinary mortals again. I
discovered, too, how deceptive the distance was among these huge peaks.
In attempting to toss a pebble into the stream that flowed apparently
thirty or forty feet below the road, and, as I thought, about twenty
feet from it, it fell far short. Another and another effort failed to
reach it; for it rolled over three hundred feet below, and more than two
hundred and fifty from us.
Every variety of mountain peak rose before us against the dark-blue
afternoon sky. There were peaks that ran away up into heaven, glittering
with snow; old gray crags, splintered, as it were, with thunder-bolts;
huge square, throne-like walls, the very throne of Jupiter; mountains
that were like great brown castles; and peaks that the blue atmosphere
of distance painted with a hundred softened and varied hues.
The reader may fancy himself viewing this scene, if possible, which we
saw as we rode over this smooth, well-kept road--at our right a ridge of
mountain wall, at our left the great ravine, with the white-foamed
torrent rushing over its rocky bed, every mile or so spanned by arched
stone bridges. On the other side of the stream were the pretty rural
picture of farms, chalets, gardens, herds, and flocks. Every inch of
ground that was available was cultivated, and the cultivation runs up
the mountain side as far as vegetation can exist. All around the air was
filled with the rattle of running water. Rushing torrents leaped from
great ravines, little ribbons tumbled down in silver sheets, brooks
clattered and flashed as they wound in and out of view on their way to
the valley, cascades vaulted over sharp crags, and the sides of this
vast amphitheatre were glistening with silvery veins. I counted over
twenty waterfalls within one sweep of the eye.
We were surprised into admiration at the state of the road. It is a
magnificent specimen of engineering, and, although it is a steady
ascent, it is rendered easy and comparatively imperceptible by numerous
curves. There are forty-six great curves, or zigzags, in the ascent. The
road itself is nearly twenty feet wide, kept in admirable order, free as
a floor from the least obstruction, and protected on the side towards
the precipice by strong stone posts planted at regular intervals. There
are many streets in Boston more difficult of ascent and more dangerous
of descent than the road of the St. Gothard Pass.
The magnificent roads in the mountain passes, the fine hotels, the
regulations respecting guides, and the care and attention bestowed upon
travellers in Switzerland, are all for a purpose; for the Swiss, as I
have remarked, live on the travel of foreigners, and are wise enough to
know that the more easy and pleasant they make travelling to tourists,
the more of them will come, and the more money will be spent. The roads
are almost as great a wonder as the scenery. Sometimes, when a spur of
the mountain juts out, a tunnel, or gallery, is cut right through it;
and really there is comparatively but very little danger in traversing
the Swiss passes, except to those venturesome spirits who persist in
attempting to scale almost inaccessible peaks, or ascending Mont Blanc,
Mont Rosa, or the dangerous Matterhorn.
As we rode on and on, and up and up, we came to a wild scene that seemed
a very chaos--the commencement of creation. We found ourselves in the
midst of great black and iron-rust colored crags, five or six thousand
feet high, jagged, splintered, and shattered into every variety of
shape. The torrent fairly roared hundreds of feet below. I had left the
carriage, and was walking some hundreds of yards in advance alone as I
entered this tremendous pass. The road hugged the great black rocky wall
of the mountain that rose so high as almost to shut out the light. On
the opposite side were mountains of solid black rock, not a spear of
grass, not a speck of verdure, from base to summit. The great rushing
mountain torrent tore, rushed, and leaped madly over the huge boulders
that had rolled into its jagged bed, and its fall was all that broke the
awful stillness and the gloomy grandeur of the place; for the whole
scene, which the eye took in for miles, was lofty masses of everlasting
granite, hurled together and cleft asunder as by supernatural means. I
could think of nothing like it but Gustave Doré's pictures in Dante's
Inferno; and this terrific pass was a good representation of the
approach to hell itself. It is astonishing to notice how the scene
hushes the visitor into an awe-struck silence; for it seems as if in
these wild and awful heights, as on mid-ocean, man stands more
immediately in the presence of the Almighty.
The scene culminates at the bridge itself,--appropriately named the
Devil's Bridge,--where is a tremendously rapid waterfall pouring down,
and where the eye takes in the whole of the black ravine, with the road
like a white snake clinging to the precipitous mountain wall. Thirty or
forty feet below, also spanning the torrent, are the remains of the old
bridge upon which the battle was fought between the French and
Austrians--a terrible place, indeed, for a death struggle. The new
bridge, over which we crossed, is a splendid structure of granite, and
has a single arch of twenty-five feet. Through the mighty ravines we
wound upward and onward, on through a great tunnel, fifteen feet high
and sixteen feet wide, cut through the solid rock a distance of over two
hundred feet, soon after emerging from which we came to a verdant,
broad, level pasture, here up among the mountains, a valley surrounded
by lofty snow-clads. This is the valley of Uri, and its pleasant
verdure, watered by the river which flows through it, is an agreeable
contrast to the savage and gloomy grandeur of the scenery we had left
behind us. There are only about four months of summer here, and the
inhabitants subsist by their herds, and by conveying travellers' baggage
and merchandise over to St. Gothard Pass.
We next came to the little village of Andermatt, and just beyond it, at
nightfall, reached Hospenthal, fatigued and glad to reach the Meyerhof
Hotel, just outside the village. The house, which had accommodations for
seventy or eighty guests, was crowded with tourists, among whom was a
liberal representation of Americans and Englishmen. In the morning,
after discussing a hearty breakfast, we started on our return, having a
fine view of the glacier of St. Anna, rising high above the mountain
ridges, and glittering in the morning sunshine. We drove back through
the same pass, and halted on the Devil's Bridge to watch the waterfall
of the Reuss, that leaps and foams down its descent here of a hundred
feet, as it passes beneath the bridge, and, looking up, saw the spray of
the descending torrent made into beautiful rainbows by the morning
sunbeams. There were the terrible masses of rock, the huge, splintered
peaks, and tremendous ravines; but the grand effect of ascending in the
twilight of afternoon, which is the time chosen, if possible, by
tourists, is lost, to a great extent, in the early part of the day.
Once more, adieu to Lucerne; and this time we start from the door of the
Schweizerhoff in private conveyance for Interlaken, _via_ the Brunig
Pass. We rode along for miles over a smooth, level road, on the very
banks of the Lake of the Four Cantons, the scenery being a succession of
charming pictures of lake and mountain. Our road led us through several
Swiss villages, generally closely built, with narrow and irregular
streets, and very dirty. The Swiss peasants that we meet are browned and
bent with hard toil. Men and women toil alike, in the fields and by the
roadside. All are trained to burden-bearing, which is by means of a long
basket made to fit the back and shoulders, the top higher than the head.
The women over thirty years of age are coarse and masculine, their faces
and hands browned, seamed, and wrinkled with toil. They clamber about in
the mountain passes, and gather grass for their herds, carrying the
burdens in their baskets, or the manure which may be found on the road
during the travelling season, or break stones for mending the roads.
The Brunig road was another one of those wonderful specimens of
engineering, with not a loose pebble upon its floor-like surface, the
scenery romantic and beautiful, but not of so grand a description as the
St. Gothard. We wind through the woods, have occasional glimpses of the
valley below, until finally, at the summit of the pass, the magnificent
scenery of the Meiringen valley bursts upon the view. This is, as it
were, a level, beautiful country, deep between two great ranges of
mountains, and you stand upon one and look down upon it, and across to
the other.
This smiling valley was like a framed picture in the sunshine; the
silver River Aare wound through it, white villages were nestled here and
there, orchards bloomed, and fields were verdant, sheltered by the high
crags from the north wind, and brown roads wound in and out among finely
cultivated farms. Directly opposite us, away over the other side of the
valley, rose up the sheer, rocky sides of the mountain wall, out of
which waterfalls were spurting and cascades dashing in every direction,
to feed the stream below. There were the beautiful falls of the
Reichenbach, rushing over the cliff, and dropping hundreds and hundreds
of feet down to the valley. The different waterfalls that we could see
at the opposite side of the valley seemed like white, waving wreaths
hung upon the mountain-sides. To the rear of these, overtopping all at
intervals, lofty snow-clads lifted their white crowns into the sunshine.
The view of this lovely valley, with its green pastures, meandering
rivers, and picturesque waterfalls; its verdant carpet, dotted with
villages, and the whole fringed with a belt of firs and dark green
foliage, as we looked down into it from our lofty platform, reminded me
of the story of the genius who stamped his foot on the mountain, which
was cleft open, and showed in its depths to an astonished peasant the
lovely country of the elves and fairies, in contrast with the desolation
of the rocky crags and mountains that rose about him.
Down we ride, amid beautiful mountain scenery on every side, and finally
through the town of Brienz, where the beautiful wood carving is wrought.
We have a good view of the Faulhorn in the distance, pass through two or
three little Swiss villages, and finally drive into a beautiful green
valley, with quite a New England appearance to the _pensions_, or
boarding-houses, which passed, we come to a string of splendid hotels
upon one side of the broad road, the other side being open, and
affording an unobstructed view of the Jungfrau and its snowy crown.
Fatigued with a ten-hours' ride, and sight-seeing, we drive up to the
door of the magnificent Hotel Victoria. Price of the carriage hire,
extra horses, driver's fee, horse baiting, and all, for the whole day's
journey, fifty francs,--ten dollars, or two dollars apiece,--and a very
reasonable price it was considered for private conveyance, _première
classe_, at the height of the travelling season.
The hotels at Interlaken are fine establishments, and well kept. The
Victoria, where we were domiciled, has fine grounds in front, and
commands a view of the Jungfrau glacier. It contains two hundred and
forty rooms, and has reading-rooms, parlors, and music-rooms equal to
the hotels at our fashionable watering-places. Prices high--about two
dollars per day, each person. There are numerous other smaller hotels,
where the living is equally good, and the prices are less; and still
others, known as _pensions_, where visitors stay for a few weeks or the
season, which are very comfortable, and at which prices are half the
rate above mentioned.
Interlaken is beautifully and romantically situated, and is a popular
resort for tourists in Switzerland, as a place from which many
interesting excursions may be made. We chose ours to be up over
the Wengernalp to Grindenwald, sending our carriage around from
Lauterbrunnen to Grindenwald, to meet us as we came down by the
bridle-path to that place. The ride to Lauterbrunnen was the
same succession of beautiful Alpine scenery that I have so often
described--lofty mountains, cascades, waterfalls, green slopes, distant
snow-clads, dark pines, blue distance, Swiss _chalets_, and picturesque
landscape.
Beggars now begin to be a serious nuisance, especially when your
carriage stops at different points for you to enjoy the view. Then boys
and girls come with milk, plums, apricots, cheap wood carvings, and
curious pebbles, to sell, till one gets perfectly nervous at their
approach, especially after the halt, the lame, and the blind have
besought you; and one fellow capped the climax, as we were enjoying a
beautiful view, by gracefully swaying a toy flexible snake into our
carriage, to our most intense disgust and indignation. As you progress,
women waylay the carriage at the top of a small ascent, which it must
approach slowly, and bawl Swiss songs, ending with an outstretched palm,
as you reach them. Boys and men, at certain points in the passes, sound
Alpine horns,--a wide-mouthed instrument of wood, six feet in
length,--which gives out a sonorous but mellow sound, peculiarly musical
in the Alpine echoes. The blowers expect that a few sous will be tossed
to them, and children chase you with bunches of mountain flowers to
sell.
How people manage to exist far up in some of these wild mountain defiles
is a wonder; and it seems as though it must be a struggle for some of
them to keep soul and body together: they save every bit of herbage,
scrape up manure from the roads, cultivate all they can in the short
summers, keep goats and cows, and live on travellers.
The Catholic priests have penetrated every pass and defile in the
country, and at their little chapels in the Alps and by the roadsides
are rude and fearfully rough-looking representations of our Saviour on
the cross, and of various saints undergoing all sorts of tortures. Now
and then we meet a party of peasants on foot, men and women travelling
over the mountain pass from one canton to another, the leader holding a
rosary, and all repeating a prayer together, invoking protection from
dangers on the road. The priests, with their long black robes and huge
hats, you meet all over Europe. We had one--a jolly fellow he was,
too--in the same compartment of a railway carriage on one of the Swiss
roads, who laughed, joked, had a pleasant chat with the ladies, asking
all sorts of questions about America, and at parting, bade us adieu with
an air.
As we approached Lauterbrunnen, we rode through the romantic valley of
the River Lutschine, which rushes and boils over the rocks at such a
rate that the cloudy glacier water has exactly the appearance of
soap-suds. Here, on this river's banks, rests the picturesque little
village of Lauterbrunnen, which name, we were told, signified springs.
The little waterfalls and cascades can be seen flashing out in every
direction from the lofty mountains that surround it; but chief among
them is the superb and graceful Staubbach, that tumbles down from a
lofty cliff _nine hundred and twenty-five feet_ in height. The best view
of this beautiful fall is at a point nearly half a mile distant, as the
water, which is not of great volume, becomes converted into a shower of
mist before reaching the ground, after its lofty leap; but at this
point, where we had the best view of it, it was like a wreath of snowy
foam, broadening at the base into a million of beautiful scintillations
in the sunlight, and the effect of the wind was to sway it hither and
thither like a huge strip of snowy lace that had been hung down over the
green side of the mountain.
Now we take horses, after leaving the road that runs through
Lauterbrunnen. Every half hour reveals to us new wonders of Alpine
scenery and beauty; we reach the little village of Wengen, and see great
peaks rising all around us; upward and onward, and from our mountain
path we can look back and down in the valley of Lauterbrunnen, that we
have left far, far below; we see the Staubbach fall dwarfed to a little
glittering line, and, above it its other waterfall, of several hundred
feet, which was not visible from the valley. But still upward and onward
we go, and now come to a long ridge, upon which the bridle-path runs, as
it were on the back-bone of the mountain. Here we have a view as grand,
as Alpine, as Swiss, as one has ever read about or imagined.
Right across the ravine, which appeared like a deep crevasse, scarcely
half a mile wide, was a huge blue wall of ice, seamed with great chasms,
rent into great fissures, cold, still, awful, and terrible, with its
background of lofty mountains covered with eternal snow. Now we had a
view of the Jungfrau in all its majesty, as its snow crest sparkled in
the sunshine, twelve thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven feet in
height. There were the Silverhorn and the Schneerhorn, springing their
lofty peaks out of a vast expanse of snow and ice; a whole chain of
gigantic cliffs, so lofty in height that you seem to look up into the
very heavens at their peaks of dazzling whiteness; the Shreckhorn,
twelve thousand two hundred feet high; the Black Monk, a dark mass of
rocks, twelve thousand feet, in striking contrast with the snowy mantles
that clothe the other mountains.
Great glaciers, miles in extent, put a chill into the air that makes you
shudder. The gap that I thought half a mile wide is a space nearly six
times that distance across; we feel dwarfed amid the immensity and
stupendous grandeur of the scene, and, as we unconsciously become
silent, are struck with the unbroken, awful stillness of the Alps.
We are above the murmur of brooks and the rush of waterfalls; no bird or
insect chirrups here; there is not even a bush for the wind to sigh
through. Now and then a deep, sonorous murmur, as of the sigh of some
laboring gnome in the mountain, or the twang of a gigantic harp-string,
breaks the silence for a moment, and then dies away. It is a distant
avalanche. We listen. It is gone! and all is still, awful, sublime.
We rode on; the view took in a whole chain of lofty mountains: now we
pass great walls of crag, three or four thousand feet high, now looked
across the ravine at the great glaciers, commencing with layers of snow
and ice, and running out till they became a huge sheet of blue ice, the
color deepening till it was blue as vitriol; but we were doomed to pay
one of the penalties of sight-seeing in the Alps, for swiftly came a
thick cloud, shutting out the whole view, and out of it came a heavy
shower, drenching all thoroughly. A quarter of an hour of this, and the
cloud had passed on, and we had nearly reached the little Hotel
Bellevue, our point of destination, and come in sight of a verdant
hill-side, a vast green, sheltered slope, in striking contrast to the
ice and snow of the other part of the pass.
Our guides made us first halt, and look at the herd of cattle that were
feeding upon it, and then pause, and listen to the tinkle of their
bells,--more than three hundred in number,--that sounded like a vast
music-box in the Alpine stillness. Then we looked away across the
valley, and saw the little village of Mürren, the highest village in
Switzerland, five thousand and eighteen feet, on a mountain-side; and
finally we reached the hotel on the highest point of the little
Scheideck, six thousand two hundred and eighty-four feet (Righi is five
thousand five hundred and forty-one feet), and as we approached across
the little plat of level ground in front of it, found we had arrived at
a "reapers' festival;" and there was quite a gathering of peasants, who
assemble here on the first Sunday in August, dressed in the Grindenwald
costume, for dancing, wrestling, and other festivities. They had been
driven in-doors by the rain; the entry of the little hotel was crowded;
and however romantic and picturesque the Swiss mountaineer may look in
his national costume in the picture-books, or poetical he and the Swiss
maiden may be in songs and ballads, there is an odor of garlic and
tobacco about them at close quarters that seriously affects poetic
sentimentality.
As the rain had ceased, the peasants once more betook themselves to
dancing to the music of a cracked clarinet and a melodeon; and another
group got up an extemporaneous fight, two of them tumbling down a dozen
or fifteen feet into a gully without injury, while we put the house
under contribution for wood for a fire in the best room, and were soon
drying our clothes by a blaze of claret-wine boxes. A capital mountain
dinner, in which tea, honey, sweet bread, butter, and chamois chops
figured, was so much better and cheaper than the soggy doughnuts,
indigestible pie, sour bread, and cold beans that used to be set before
the traveller at the Tip Top House, Mount Washington, New Hampshire, for
the tip top price of _one dollar_ a head, that we could not help drawing
the comparison.
A rest and an enjoyment of the grand view of mountain chain, snowy
peaks, and vast glaciers that surround us, and we start for the descent
to Grindenwald. Grand views we had of the Wetterhorn, the Faulhorn, and
the upper and lower glaciers of Grindenwald. We pass where avalanches
have torn down the mountain-side, and thrown huge boulders about like
pebbles, then over patches of open field, where stunted herbage grows,
and Alpine roses redden the ground with their blossoms; then we come to
woods, pastures, and peasants, and reach Grindenwald just before
nightfall, to find our carriage waiting to take us back to Interlaken,
which we reached after an absence of about eleven hours.
Interlaken is a grand depository and mart of the Swiss carved wood work,
Alpine crystals, &c.; and grand stores of this merchandise, after the
fashion of the "Indian stores" at Niagara Falls, attract the tourist.
Some of this carving is very beautifully and artistically done, and
some of it is cheap and not worth the trouble of taking away; but it is
positively amusing to see how some American travellers will load
themselves down with this trash because it _is_ cheap. Some of the smoke
crystals and rock crystals, fashioned into sleeve-buttons and
watch-seals, were both handsome and low priced.
I strolled into the little shop of an honest old Hebrew from Prague, who
had a cheaply-painted little sign, in English, that he sold "Garnets,
real Stones," and found that he did not, or had not learned to charge
extravagant prices; he spoke English, and was teaching it to his little
daughter, from a primer, when we entered, for "English and Americans buy
garnet, and must be talk wis." The old fellow's garnets were excellent
and cheap, and I soon had sleeve-buttons, and scarf-pin, large pin, and
small pin, studs, and the garnet in forms enough to render me ruddy for
the next ten years, and was preparing to take my departure, when leaning
too heavily upon the little show-case, my elbow went through it with a
crash. Here was a chance for damage! To be sure the pane of glass was
little larger than a sheet of foolscap; but we must pay what the
proprietor charged; and was he not a Jew? Well, this Jew thought two
francs would amply reimburse him; but monsieur had been so kind, be
could only charge him one.
After being deceived in the Rue de la Paix, cheated on the Boulevards,
swindled barefacedly in the Grand Hotel, and humbugged outrageously in
the Palais Royal, I rather relished being "Jewed" in this manner; none
the less agreeable and satisfactory from its being so un-Christian-like
a transaction. Accordingly I hailed two other Americans from the street,
men who "bought everything everywhere," one of whom had got one of his
trunks so mixed up, and tightly packed with shirts, curiosities, gloves,
carved wood-work, stockings, photographs, crystals, boots, guide-books,
under clothing, fans, and stereoscopic views, that he denominated it the
Chinese puzzle, gave up trying to find his articles of wearing apparel
in it, and sent it back to Paris. I hailed these two as they were
passing, commended the merchandise and "much kindness in the Jew," and
the old fellow, in less than half an hour, felt that he had brought his
glittering gems from Prague to some purpose, as many of his best jewels
changed places with the gold Napoleons of the Americans.
The little hotel at Giessbach was full when we arrived, although we had
telegraphed a day in advance for rooms; and a polite porter met us at
the pier, as the boat drew up, with regrets, and commended the "Bear,"
which was situated in the village of Brienz, opposite, where we could
sup, lodge, and breakfast, and row over to see the Giessbach Falls.
There was no resource but to go to the Bear, and we went; and after a
bad supper, a boat's crew of two men and a woman rowed us back across
the lake to Giessbach to see the lime light illumination of the falls.
From the landing to the terrace commanding the falls is a good twenty
minutes' climb; but in the darkness, preceded by a couple of guides
bearing lanterns, there is not much opportunity for a critical
examination of the surrounding scenery: however, we determined to
revisit it by daylight, and all agreed that the idea of exhibiting a
waterfall on a dark night, by means of an illumination, at a franc a
head, was an idea worthy a Barnum, or at least the inventive qualities
of an American.
We reached the terrace, and there waited in the blackness of night with
an expectant group. We could hear the torrent dashing and tumbling down
opposite to where we stood, and high above among the cliffs, but our
vision failed to penetrate half a dozen yards into the Cimmerian gloom.
Suddenly a little rocket shot out from below us; another, above, with
momentary flash revealed a tumbling cascade and the dark green foliage,
and then all again was blackness. In a moment or two, however, a bright
glare shot out from below, another above it, another and another flashed
up, and then from out the blackness, like an illuminated picture, we saw
the beautiful fall, a series of seven cascades, leaping and tumbling
down amid the verdant foliage, every twig of which stood out in the
powerful light, while through the romantic and picturesque ravine
poured a mass of foam of molten silver, beneath the colored light, rich,
gleaming and dazzling. But while we gazed, the hue changed, and purple
equal to Tyrian dye for robe of Roman emperor tumbled over purple rocks,
and dashed up violet spray into the air. Once more, and the rocks were
ingots, the stream was Pactolus itself, the bark on trees at the brink
were as if Midas himself had smote them, and the branches bore gold leaf
above the yellow current. But it changed again, and a torrent red as
ruby gushed over the rocks, the ravine was lighted with a red glare as
of a conflagration, and as we gazed on those spurting, tumbling crimson
torrents there was something horribly suggestive in the sight.
"Blood, blood! Iago."
But we did not see it long in that light, for the herbage, trees, and
foliage were next clothed in an emerald hue, till the ravine looked like
a peep into Aladdin's cavern, and the torrent was of that deep green
tinge which marks that great bend of the falling water when it pours
with such majestic sweep over the crag near Table Rock, at Niagara.
The green faded gradually, the torrent leaped a few moments in paler
light, cascade after cascade disappeared; we were again in darkness, and
the exhibition was over. Preceded by our lantern-bearers, we gained the
boat, and our crew started out into the blackness of the lake for the
opposite shore, and for one of the dozen groups of lights that marked
the landings.
We were compelled to bear with the "Bear" for one night, but cannot
commend it as the "Great Bear" or a planet of much brilliancy; so we
bore away from it early in the morning for the opposite shores, again to
see the falls by daylight, ere the steamer started on the return trip to
Interlaken. The ascent is a series of curves up a delightful, romantic
pathway, and when part way up crosses a bridge commanding a view of a
portion of the falls; but from the charming terrace near the hotel, the
sight of the series of six or seven successive leaps or continuous
cascades of the water as it rushes down an impetuous foaming torrent
from a height of three to four hundred feet in the mountain wall is
magnificent. We sat beneath the trees and enjoyed the sight till the
last moment, and saw, by turning towards the lake, that the steamer had
left the opposite shore, then reluctantly tore ourselves away from the
charming scene, and descended to the pier.
A pleasant sail back to Interlaken, an omnibus ride over to a steamboat
landing, and we were once more embarked on another Swiss lake,--Lake
Thun,--a beautiful sheet of water ten miles long, a portion of its banks
covered with vineyards, and the view of Alps on Alps, in every direction
in the distance, most magnificent; there were our old acquaintances, the
Jungfrau, Monk, Eiger, and Wetterhorn, also the Faulhorn, and dozens of
others, with their pure frosted summits and blue glaciers all around us
as we paddled over the little blue lake, till reaching the town of Thun,
we stepped into the railway carriage of the Central Swiss Railway, and
in an hour were at Berne, at the fine hotel known as the Bernerhoff,
which commands a view of the whole line of snow-clad Bernese Alps in one
continuous chain in the distance, looking like gigantic ramparts thrown
up by Titans. This city is on the River _Aare_, or, rather, on the high
bank above it; for the river is more than a hundred feet below, and that
portion of the city towards its bank seems placed, as it were, on a
grand terrace for a lookout to the distant mountains.
If the tourist has not previously learned that the Bear is the heraldic
emblem of Berne, he will learn that fact before he has been in the city
a quarter of an hour. Two granite bears guard the city gates; a shield
in the Corn Exchange is upheld by a pair of them, in wood; fountains
have their effigy carved upon the top; and in the cathedral square,
keeping guard of a large bronze statue of a mounted knight in full
armor, Rudolf von Erlach, are four huge fellows, the size of life, in
bronze, at the four corners of the pedestal. Then the city government
keep a bears' den at the public expense--a huge circular pit, in which
three or four living specimens of their tutelar deity solemnly promenade
or climb a pole for buns and biscuits from visitors.
Wood-carving can be bought at Berne of very pretty and artistic
execution, and the wood-carvers have exhausted their ingenuity in
producing groups of bears, engaged in all sorts of occupations. I had no
idea what a comical figure this clumsy beast makes when put in such
positions. We have stopped at many a shop window and laughed heartily at
the comical groups. Here were a party of bears playing at ten-pins: a
solemn old Bruin is adding up the score; another, with one foot advanced
and the ball poised, is about to make a ten strike, and a bear with body
half bent forward watches the effect of the roll. Another group
represented a couple at the billiard table, with one, a rakish-looking
cub, making a scientific stroke, and his companion, another young
"buster," with arm akimbo and cigar in mouth, watching them. There was a
group of bear students, all drunk, arm in arm; two old bears meeting and
shaking hands on 'Change; whole schools studying, with a master putting
the rod upon a refractory bear; and a full orchestra of bears playing on
every variety of musical instrument; in fact, bears doing almost
everything one had seen men do, and presenting a most irresistibly comic
appearance. These figures were all carved from wood, and were from a
couple of inches to six inches in height. Scarce any tourist leaves
without a bear memento.
The great music-box and carved wood-work stores here are museums in
their way. Of course the more elaborate and best wrought specimens of
wood-carving command high prices, but nothing like the extortions of the
fancy goods stores in America. Berne is a grand place to buy music-boxes
in carved wood-work, and cuckoo clocks; some of these contrivances are
very ingenious. We visited one great "_magasin_" near the hotel, where
they had photograph albums, with carved wood covers, that played three
tunes when you opened them; cigar buffets that performed a polka when
you turned out the weed to your guests; work-boxes that went off into
quadrilles when you lifted the lid, and tables that performed grand
marches when you twisted their drawer-knobs. Every once in a while the
cuckoos darted out of one or two of the threescore clocks, of which no
two were set alike, bobbed their heads, cuckooed, and went back again
with a snap; and there was one clock fashioned like a Swiss _chalet_,
from the door of which at the hour a figure of a little fellow, six
inches in height, emerged, and, raising a horn to his mouth, played an
air of a minute's duration, and retired. Fatigued, I sank into a chair
whose arms were spread invitingly, when I was startled by that
well-known air, the Sailor's Hornpipe, going off as if somebody had put
a band of music into my coat-tail pocket. Springing to my feet, the
music stopped; but as I sat down, away it went again right underneath
me. It was a musical chair, and I _sat_ it playing.
We strolled through the curious old streets with the sidewalks under the
arcades of the buildings, saw the curious old clock-tower, where, a few
minutes before the hour, an automaton cock crows, and then it is struck
by a comical figure with a bell and a hammer, while a troop of automaton
bears appear, and march around on a wooden platform. An old fellow with
an hour-glass turns it over, and the cock concludes the performance by
again flapping his wings and crowing.
One of the most delightful places of promenade in the city is the
cathedral terrace, a broad, shady walk, three or four hundred feet long
and two hundred or more wide. It is one hundred feet above the river,
and about ninety above the city street at the base. This terrace
commands a fine view of the whole range of distant mountains, and is a
favorite resort on summer evenings, where one may enjoy an ice-cream,
cigar, cup of coffee, or light wine, and long after the twilight has
deepened in the valley, watch the rosy hue that varies its tints upon
the shining mountain peaks in the distance.
At the old cathedral we heard a finer and larger organ than that at
Lucerne, but an inferior performer, which made even the beautiful
harmony that pealed beneath the Gothic arches seem tame in comparison.
From Berne by rail, a ride of an hour and a half brought us to Freiburg,
where we tarried a few hours to see its great suspension bridges, and
hear its great organ. The hotel at which we stopped commanded a fine
view of both the bridges, black threads spanning a deep ravine. Freiburg
is upon a steep rocky hill-side, at the base of which winds the river,
and extending over the chasm, to the opposite bank, are the graceful and
wondrous bridges. The first we crossed was nine hundred and eighty-five
feet long, and one hundred and seventy-five feet above the river
beneath, and is suspended by four chains of about twelve hundred feet in
length. The ends of this great bridge are secured by one hundred and
twenty huge anchors, fastened to granite blocks sunk deep into the
earth. After crossing, we took a pleasant walk upon the lofty bank
opposite, from which we had a good view of the town, with the River
Sarine winding close about it. We passed on to some distance above,
where the other bridge, known as the Bridge of Gotteron, spanned a
romantic rocky ravine; and from the centre of this structure we looked
down two hundred and eighty-five feet, into the very streets of a little
village directly under us, jammed in between the cliffs. This bridge is
seven hundred feet long.
The great organ in Freiburg is said to be one of the finest in Europe,
and a little guide-book says it has sixty-seven stops and seven thousand
eight hundred pipes, some of them thirty-two feet in length. We heard
almost the same programme performed as at Lucerne, and had, therefore,
opportunity of comparison. The instrument was not managed with the
consummate skill of that at Lucerne, and the vox humana stop was vastly
inferior; but in the Storm piece the performer, in addition to the music
of the convent organ, faintly heard amid the war of elements, also
introduced the pealing of the convent bell, a wonderfully correct
imitation; and in the Wedding March the blast of the trumpet was blown
with a vigor and naturalness not exceeded even by human lips.
From Freiburg we sped on to Lausanne, and, without stopping in the town,
rode down to the little port of the place, Ouchy, on the very bank of
the very blue and beautiful Lake Leman, and stopped at the Hotel Beau
Rivage. This hotel is another one of those handsome and well-kept
hotels, which, from their comfort, elegant surroundings, and many
conveniences, add so much to the tourist's enjoyment. This house is
three hundred feet long and five stories high, fronts upon the lake, and
has a beautifully laid out garden and park of nearly two acres in front
and about it. My fine double room looks out upon the blue lake, with its
plying steamboats and its superb background of distant mountains. At the
little piers in front of the hotel grounds are row and sail boats for
the use of visitors; and some of the former are plying hither and
thither, with merry parties of ladies and gentlemen beneath their gay
striped awnings. Flowers of every hue bloom in the gardens. A band of
eight or ten pieces performs on the promenade balcony in front of the
house every evening from six to ten o'clock. There are reading-rooms,
parlors, and saloons. The table is excellent, and attention perfect.
Prices--for one of the best rooms looking out on the lake, for two
persons, eight francs; breakfast, three francs each; dinner, four francs
each; service, one franc each; total, for two persons, twenty-one
francs, or four dollars and twenty-five cents, gold, per day; and these
are the high prices at the height of the season for the best rooms.
Reasonable enough here, but which they are fast learning to charge at
inferior inns, in other parts of the country, on account of the
prodigality of "shoddy" Americans.
The view of Lake Geneva, or Lake Leman, as it is called, is beautiful
from Ouchy. The panorama of mountains upon the opposite shore extends as
far as the eye can reach, and in the sunset they assume a variety of
beautiful hues--red, blue, violet, and rose-color. We have been
particularly fortunate in arriving here while the moon is near its full;
and the effect of the silver rays on the lake, mountains, and
surrounding scenery is beautiful beyond description.
Up in Lausanne we have visited the old cathedral, which is built upon a
high terrace, and reached by a dirty, irregular flight of plank steps,
about one hundred and seventy-five in number; at any rate, enough to
render the climber glad to reach the top of them. From the cathedral
terrace we have a view of the tortuous streets of the town, with its
picturesque, irregular piles of buildings, a beautiful view of the blue
lake, and the battlements of the distant peaks of Savoy. The cathedral,
which is now a Protestant church, is very fine, with its cluster columns
supporting the graceful vaulted roof over sixty feet above. It is three
hundred and thirty-three feet long and one hundred and forty-three feet
in width; and at one end, near where the high altar once stood, we were
shown deep marks worn into the stone floor, which the guide averred were
worn by the mailed knees of thousands of crusaders, who knelt there, one
after the other, as they received the priestly blessing as their army
passed through here on its way to do battle with the Saracen, and
recover the Holy Sepulchre.
From the Beau Rivage Hotel we took steamer, and sailed along the shore,
passing Vevay, with its handsome hotels, the romantic village of
Clarens, and finally landing at Villeneuve, rode up to the beautifully
situated Hotel Byron. This hotel, although small compared with the
others, was admirably kept, and is in one of the most romantic and
lovely positions that can be imagined. It is placed upon a broad
terrace, a little above the shore, and, being at the very end of the
lake, commands an extensive view of both sides, with all lovely and
romantic scenery.
There, as we sat beneath the trees, we looked upon the scene, which is
just as Byron wrote about it, and as true to the description as if
written yesterday. The "clear placid Leman" is as blue as if colored
with indigo. There was Jura; there were "the mountains, with their
thousand years of snow;" the wide, long lake below; there, at our left,
went the swift Rhone, who
"cleaves his way between
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted in hate."
At a little distance we could see
"Clarens, sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep love;"
and there, directly before us, was the "small green isle" that the
prisoner of Chillon saw from his dungeon window; and only a quarter of a
mile away is the Castle of Chillon itself. Down the dusty road we
started to visit this celebrated place, which almost every visitor who
has read the poem feels that he is acquainted with.
The castle, which is small, is on a point of land that juts out into the
lake, and its whole appearance realizes an imagination of a gloomy old
feudal castle, or prison. It was formerly surrounded by the waters of
the lake, and is still connected on one side with the land by a
drawbridge, and the lake washes up to its very base, seven hundred feet
deep, on the other. Something of the romance of the place is taken away
by the railway track, within a few rods of the drawbridge, and the
shrieking locomotive rushes past the very point where once stood the
castle outworks.
The massive, irregular walls of this old castle have five or six towers,
with the loopholes and battlements of old times. We crossed the bridge,
passed into the old rooms--the Hall of Knights, and the Chamber of
Question, where the rack and other instruments of torture were used upon
the victims of jealous tyrants. Here we grasped a now useless fragment
of old shattered machinery, which had once been bathed with the sweat of
agony, as the victim's limbs stretched and cracked beneath the terrible
force of the executioner. Here was the huge stone that was fastened to
the sufferer's feet when he was hoisted by the wrists to the iron staple
above. This was the square chamber in the solid masonry, where the
victim's groans were unheard by those without, now transformed into a
peaceful storehouse for an old wagon or two, with the sun streaming in
at a square opening in the thick wall. But a few steps from here, and we
come to the _oubliette_, the staircase down which the victim made three
or four steps, and then went plunging a hundred feet or more into the
yawning chasm of blackness upon the jagged rocks, or into the deep
waters of the lake below.