GENEVA AND CHILLON.
GENEVA AND CHILLON.
Geneva, July 9, 1905.
This little city, now containing nearly 100,000 inhabitants, has been a storm-center in Europe for 2000 years. Cæsar mentions it, and during the early centuries when Rome was conquering and governing most of the known world, Geneva was an important place, both from a strategic standpoint as a gate to Helvetia and as a prosperous and loyal town. It was either the capital of the country or a ruling city during all of the Dark and Medieval ages, and was one of the first where people learned popular sovereignty and applied it to the detriment of the reigning king or duke. By playing one side against another in the struggle for sovereignty the popular leaders fought for freedom of conscience, and about the year 1500 secured practical independence. Then the Reformation commenced, and Calvin fled from Paris to Geneva. The people there were naturally “agin the government,” and they took up Calvin’s doctrine, and during the years of fighting over religion Geneva was the center from which Protestantism drew most of its leadership and inspiration. They fought for freedom of conscience and worship, and if anybody disagreed with them they killed him promptly to convince him of his error. Calvin ruled Geneva during his life, and after his death his cause went marchingon. During the last century Geneva has made a reputation for manufacturing watches, jewelry and musical instruments. It is only fair to say that the best Geneva watches are now made in America. The work here is nearly all done by hand in the home of the workman, and the watchmakers of Geneva have had a hard time competing with Yankee machinery and ingenuity.
The surroundings of Geneva are peaceful and beautiful. The big lake of blue water comes to an end at the Geneva quay and rushes out into the world as the river Rhone, clear and sparkling. Mont Blanc, a quiet old stager of a mountain, whose head is always covered with snow, looks over the city like a stately sentinel at his post. Mountains rise all around the lake and are covered with vineyards, almost the only product of the soil, stretching far up the heights connecting the blue of the lake with the blue of the sky and the snowy peaks and white clouds which watch over them. Amid such surroundings we had decided to rest a few days from our travel, and I found it the best place in the world just to sit in the hotel garden from which the lake, Mont Blanc and the entire picture are visible, and just loaf and loaf and loaf.
THE ALPINE HUNTER OF TO-DAY
THE ALPINE HUNTER OF TO-DAY
The great amusement of tourists who come to Switzerland is mountain-climbing. I have learned the game. Men and women come in at night recounting the wonderful feats they have accomplished and the dangers they have escaped. Everybody carriesan “alpenstock,” which is a sharp-pointed cane with a chamois handle, and whenever he climbs a peak he has a ring burned around the stick, and shows it as proudly as the Indian once did the notches which meant deaths of enemies. I am a little skeptical, and listen to the climbing stories as I do to fish stories at home. It is too much like golf where you keep your own count. Perhaps I shall yield to the demands of environment enough to get me an alpenstock and have a few rings burned in it so I can have a few chips in the game, as it were. The men run to knickerbockers, wear feathers in their hats and carry packs on their shoulders. The women wear short skirts which don’t hang well and big shoes with nails in the soles—I am speaking now of people who do the thing right, and not those who sit on the porch and loaf.
The Swiss themselves are degenerating from the simple-hearted people they were. They have fallen before the temptations of the tourists. They see the American and the Englishman with lots of money to spend, and they find it easier to separate the stranger from his cash than they do to hunt chamois and herd cattle. It is a cause of much regret to the intelligent Swiss that this is so, but I do not notice the intelligent mourners going out into the mountains and setting an example of industry. They sell the jewelry, the souvenirs, the milk and the wine at advanced prices, and they have the greatest number of hotels and boarding-houses of any country on earth. If you enjoy handsome little shops with trinkets and gew-gaws,jewelry and picture cards, carved wood and imitation stones, as I do, you would thoroughly enjoy wandering through Geneva. The Geneva artisan will take a chair-leg and make a musical instrument. Sit down on a sofa and you will be startled to hear a piece of Wagner’s played by the concealed music-box.
The language spoken in Geneva is French. I do not think it is good French, for the people here do not understand the French with the fine Parisian accent I brought from Paris. But a large proportion of the people understand English. I am of the opinion that in spite of the fact that French is still the international language in Europe, the one you can use with educated people nearly anywhere, the English-American is the coming language. Very few people in Europe travel. The Germans do so more than others, but the French seldom do, the Italians rarely, and the Spanish and the Russians practically never. The English come to the continent in great numbers, and the Americans are in droves. In a place like Geneva in the principal shops and on the promenades you would say that fully half the people were English-speaking. In order to take care of these profitable guests the Swiss and others are learning enough of the language to sell them cheap goods at high prices, and they will learn more. It is not an uncommon experience to go into a store and after laboriously constructing a question in alleged French to get an answer in very fair English.
I am told that up to a few years ago the American traveler was regarded with a little contempt by the people of continental Europe, and considered as only so much soil from which to gather wealth. But Americans of experience tell me that since the war with Spain all this has changed. As for myself, these Europeans have always spoken in the friendliest way of America, even when they did not know there were any Yankees around. The theory that we were only a commercial people and would not fight (the world loves a fighter) was disproven so thoroughly that they have rather gone to the other extreme, and Americans are now very popular as Americans and not merely for their money. Europe also has the highest opinion of McKinley and Roosevelt. With a great deal of pride in my heart I read a leading editorial in the London Times saying that Roosevelt’s letter to Russia and Japan urging peace was one of the greatest of state papers. The Times added that it was “straightforward, frank and clear—the American idea of diplomacy.” All of Europe now regards America as a great and friendly power, and an American swells up considerably more over his country when he is in other nations than he does at home, where he is apt to get fussy and cynical. The English are not popular on the continent, though England is feared and respected. The Americans are liked because they are believed to be fair and square.
At the other end of Lake Geneva is the castle of Chillon. It is about as big as the court-house inHutchinson, and looks like the old sugar-mill, only more so. Byron did a great deal for the people in that neck of the woods, for his poem made the castle famous, and tourists come by the hundreds and buy. In return they have named the big hotel the Byron, which shows they are not ungrateful. Byron’s poem had the poor prisoner confined in a dungeon with two brothers, and he had the torture of seeing them die. The facts are that there never was any “prisoner of Chillon” except in the brilliant imagination of Lord Byron. Of course many prisoners were confined in the dungeon. Every castle in Europe has a dungeon, and none of them were constructed with an idea of sanitary conditions or the health of the prisoners. But the dungeon at Chillon is the lightest and airiest dungeon I have seen. It is as comfortable as a good many hotel rooms in the United States. The only prisoner of note that had any such experience was a preacher named Bonnivard, who was kept there for two years because he believed or didn’t believe in Calvin,—I have forgotten which it was. Bonnivard had no brothers, and lived a number of years afterward and said he enjoyed his confinement at Chillon because he had so much time to think. Our guide showed our party the pathway the prisoner’s feet had worn in the rock where he had walked back and forth within the limit of his chains. I couldn’t see the path, although everybody else did. The rest of the castle of Chillon is very interesting, as it was the residence of a fine line of dukes who were always fighting either for or against the king. Our guide,who spoke only French, told us all about it, but I shall not repeat what she said. The people of Hutchinson would not understand her remarks any better than I did.
My idea of a good joke is to have a guide who can only talk French tell an American who can’t understand French something very important or serious. The Frenchman tells his story with rapidity, earnestness and gestures. The American listens with frank impatience and punctuates the French sentences with American ejaculations which have no connection with the subject. The Frenchman acts mad, but he isn’t at all. The American acts pleasant, but he is really mad.
The castle of Chillon is in the lake, about sixty feet from the shore. You reach the entrance over a bridge after fighting your way through the sellers of souvenirs. That is one thing the old dukes did not have to contend with. If they were still doing business I think they would fill up the dungeon with the salesmen and salesladies.