If you come to Bale, you should take rooms on the river, or stand on the
bridge at evening, and have a sunset of gold and crimson streaming down
upon the wide and strong Rhine, where it rushes between the houses built
plumb up to it, or you will not care much for the city. And yet it is
pleasant on the high ground, where are some stately buildings, and where
new gardens are laid out, and where the American consul on the Fourth
of July flies our flag over the balcony of a little cottage smothered
in vines and gay with flowers. I had the honor of saluting it that day,
though I did not know at the time that gold had risen two or three per
cent. under its blessed folds at home. Not being a shipwrecked sailor,
or a versatile and accomplished but impoverished naturalized citizen,
desirous of quick transit to the land of the free, I did not call upon
the consul, but left him under the no doubt correct impression that he
was doing a good thing by unfolding the flag on the Fourth.
You have not journeyed far from Bale before you are aware that you are
in Switzerland. It was showery the day we went down; but the ride
filled us with the most exciting expectations. The country recalled
New England, or what New England might be, if it were cultivated and
adorned, and had good roads and no fences. Here at last, after the dusty
German valleys, we entered among real hills, round which and through
which, by enormous tunnels, our train slowly went: rocks looking out
of foliage; sweet little valleys, green as in early spring; the dark
evergreens in contrast; snug cottages nestled in the hillsides, showing
little else than enormous brown roofs that come nearly to the ground,
giving the cottages the appearance of huge toadstools; fine harvests of
grain; thrifty apple-trees, and cherry-trees purple with luscious fruit.
And this shifting panorama continues until, towards evening, behold, on
a hill, Berne, shining through showers, the old feudal round tower and
buildings overhanging the Aar, and the tower of the cathedral over all.
From the balcony of our rooms at the Bellevue, the long range of the
Bernese Oberland shows its white summits for a moment in the slant
sunshine, and then the clouds shut down, not to lift again for two days.
Yet it looks warmer on the snow-peaks than in Berne, for summer sets in
in Switzerland with a New England chill and rigor.
The traveler finds no city with more flavor of the picturesque and
quaint than Berne; and I think it must have preserved the Swiss
characteristics better than any other of the large towns in Helvetia.
It stands upon a peninsula, round which the Aar, a hundred feet below,
rapidly flows; and one has on nearly every side very pretty views of
the green basin of hills which rise beyond the river. It is a most
comfortable town on a rainy day; for all the principal streets have
their houses built on arcades, and one walks under the low arches, with
the shops on one side and the huge stone pillars on the other. These
pillars so stand out toward the street as to give the house-fronts a
curved look. Above are balconies, in which, upon red cushions, sit the
daughters of Berne, reading and sewing, and watching their neighbors;
and in nearly every window are quantities of flowers of the most
brilliant colors. The gray stone of the houses, which are piled up
from the streets, harmonizes well with the colors in the windows and
balconies, and the scene is quite Oriental as one looks down, especially
if it be upon a market morning, when the streets are as thronged as
the Strand. Several terraces, with great trees, overlook the river, and
command prospects of the Alps. These are public places; for the city
government has a queer notion that trees are not hideous, and that a
part of the use of living is the enjoyment of the beautiful. I saw an
elegant bank building, with carved figures on the front, and at
each side of the entrance door a large stand of flowers,--oleanders,
geraniums, and fuchsias; while the windows and balconies above bloomed
with a like warmth of floral color. Would you put an American bank
president in the Retreat who should so decorate his banking-house? We
all admire the tasteful display of flowers in foreign towns: we go
home, and carry nothing with us but a recollection. But Berne has also
fountains everywhere; some of them grotesque, like the ogre that devours
his own children, but all a refreshment and delight. And it has also its
clock-tower, with one of those ingenious pieces of mechanism, in which
the sober people of this region take pleasure. At the hour, a procession
of little bears goes round, a jolly figure strikes the time, a cock
flaps his wings and crows, and a solemn Turk opens his mouth to announce
the flight of the hours. It is more grotesque, but less elaborate, than
the equally childish toy in the cathedral at Strasburg.
We went Sunday morning to the cathedral; and the excellent woman who
guards the portal--where in ancient stone the Last Judgment is enacted,
and the cheerful and conceited wise virgins stand over against the
foolish virgins, one of whom has been in the penitential attitude
of having a stone finger in her eye now for over three hundred
years--refused at first to admit us to the German Lutheran service,
which was just beginning. It seems that doors are locked, and no one
is allowed to issue forth until after service. There seems to be an
impression that strangers go only to hear the organ, which is a sort of
rival of that at Freiburg, and do not care much for the well-prepared
and protracted discourse in Swiss-German. We agreed to the terms of
admission; but it did not speak well for former travelers that the woman
should think it necessary to say, “You must sit still, and not talk.” It
is a barn-like interior. The women all sit on hard, high-backed benches
in the center of the church, and the men on hard, higher-backed benches
about the sides, inclosing and facing the women, who are more directly
under the droppings of the little pulpit, hung on one of the pillars,--a
very solemn and devout congregation, who sang very well, and paid strict
attention to the sermon.
I noticed that the names of the owners, and sometimes their
coats-of-arms, were carved or painted on the backs of the seats, as
if the pews were not put up at yearly auction. One would not call it a
dressy congregation, though the homely women looked neat in black waists
and white puffed sleeves and broadbrimmed hats.
The only concession I have anywhere seen to women in Switzerland, as
the more delicate sex, was in this church: they sat during most of the
service, but the men stood all the time, except during the delivery of
the sermon. The service began at nine o'clock, as it ought to with us in
summer. The costume of the peasant women in and about Berne comes nearer
to being picturesque than in most other parts of Switzerland, where it
is simply ugly. You know the sort of thing in pictures,--the broad hat,
short skirt, black, pointed stomacher, with white puffed sleeves, and
from each breast a large silver chain hanging, which passes under the
arm and fastens on the shoulder behind,--a very favorite ornament. This
costume would not be unbecoming to a pretty face and figure: whether
there are any such native to Switzerland, I trust I may not be put upon
the witness-stand to declare. Some of the peasant young men went
without coats, and with the shirt sleeves fluted; and others wore
butternut-colored suits, the coats of which I can recommend to those who
like the swallow-tailed variety. I suppose one would take a man into
the opera in London, where he cannot go in anything but that sort. The
buttons on the backs of these came high up between the shoulders, and
the tails did not reach below the waistband. There is a kind of rooster
of similar appearance. I saw some of these young men from the country,
with their sweethearts, leaning over the stone parapet, and looking into
the pit of the bear-garden, where the city bears walk round, or sit on
their hind legs for bits of bread thrown to them, or douse themselves in
the tanks, or climb the dead trees set up for their gambols. Years
ago they ate up a British officer who fell in; and they walk round now
ceaselessly, as if looking for another. But one cannot expect good taste
in a bear.
If you would see how charming a farming country can be, drive out on the
highway towards Thun. For miles it is well shaded with giant trees of
enormous trunks, and a clean sidewalk runs by the fine road. On either
side, at little distances from the road, are picturesque cottages and
rambling old farmhouses peeping from the trees and vines and flowers.
Everywhere flowers, before the house, in the windows, at the railway
stations. But one cannot stay forever even in delightful Berne, with its
fountains and terraces, and girls on red cushions in the windows, and
noble trees and flowers, and its stately federal Capitol, and its bears
carved everywhere in stone and wood, and its sunrises, when all the
Bernese Alps lie like molten silver in the early light, and the clouds
drift over them, now hiding, now disclosing, the enchanting heights.