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 willo 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.