I spent some time, the evening before, studying the face of the cliff we
were to ascend, to discover the path; but I could only trace its zigzag
beginning. When we came to the base of the rock, we found a way cut, a
narrow path, most of the distance hewn out of the rock, winding upward
along the face of the precipice. The view, as one rises, is of
the break-neck description. The way is really safe enough, even on
mule-back, ascending; but one would be foolhardy to ride down. We met a
lady on the summit who was about to be carried down on a chair; and
she seemed quite to like the mode of conveyance: she had harnessed her
husband in temporarily for one of the bearers, which made it still more
jolly for her. When we started, a cloud of mist hung over the edge of
the rocks. As we rose, it descended to meet us, and sunk below, hiding
the valley and its houses, which had looked like Swiss toys from our
height. When we reached the summit, the mist came boiling up after us,
rising like a thick wall to the sky, and hiding all that great mountain
range, the Vallais Alps, from which we had come, and which we hoped
to see from this point. Fortunately, there were no clouds on the other
side, and we looked down into a magnificent rocky basin, encircled by
broken and overtopping crags and snow-fields, at the bottom of which was
a green lake. It is one of the wildest of scenes.
An hour from the summit, we came to a green Alp, where a herd of cows
were feeding; and in the midst of it were three or four dirty chalets,
where pigs, chickens, cattle, and animals constructed very much like
human beings, lived; yet I have nothing to say against these chalets,
for we had excellent cream there. We had, on the way down, fine views
of the snowy Altels, the Rinderhorn, the Finster-Aarhorn, a deep valley
which enormous precipices guard, but which avalanches nevertheless
invade, and, farther on, of the Blumlisalp, with its summit of
crystalline whiteness. The descent to Kandersteg is very rapid, and in
a rain slippery. This village is a resort for artists for its splendid
views of the range we had crossed: it stands at the gate of the
mountains. From there to the Lake of Thun is a delightful drive,--a rich
country, with handsome cottages and a charming landscape, even if the
pyramidal Niesen did not lift up its seven thousand feet on the edge
of the lake. So, through a smiling land, and in the sunshine after the
rain, we come to Spiez, and find ourselves at a little hotel on the
slope, overlooking town and lake and mountains.
Spiez is not large: indeed, its few houses are nearly all picturesquely
grouped upon a narrow rib of land which is thrust into the lake on
purpose to make the loveliest picture in the world. There is the old
castle, with its many slim spires and its square-peaked roofed tower;
the slender-steepled church; a fringe of old houses below on the lake,
one overhanging towards the point; and the promontory, finished by a
willow drooping to the water. Beyond, in hazy light, over the lucid
green of the lake, are mountains whose masses of rock seem soft and
sculptured. To the right, at the foot of the lake, tower the great snowy
mountains, the cone of the Schreckhorn, the square top of the Eiger, the
Jungfrau, just showing over the hills, and the Blumlisalp rising into
heaven clear and silvery.
What can one do in such a spot, but swim in the lake, lie on the shore,
and watch the passing steamers and the changing light on the mountains?
Down at the wharf, when the small boats put off for the steamer, one can
well entertain himself. The small boat is an enormous thing, after all,
and propelled by two long, heavy sweeps, one of which is pulled, and the
other pushed. The laboring oar is, of course, pulled by a woman; while
her husband stands up in the stern of the boat, and gently dips the
other in a gallant fashion. There is a boy there, whom I cannot make
out,--a short, square boy, with tasseled skull-cap, and a face that
never changes its expression, and never has any expression to change; he
may be older than these hills; he looks old enough to be his own father:
and there is a girl, his counterpart, who might be, judging her age by
her face, the mother of both of them. These solemn old-young people are
quite busy doing nothing about the wharf, and appear to be afflicted
with an undue sense of the responsibility of life. There is a
beer-garden here, where several sober couples sit seriously drinking
their beer. There are some horrid old women, with the parchment skin and
the disagreeable necks. Alone, in a window of the castle, sits a lady
at her work, who might be the countess; only, I am sorry, there is no
countess, nothing but a frau, in that old feudal dwelling. And there is
a foreigner, thinking how queer it all is. And while he sits there, the
melodious bell in the church-tower rings its evening song.