SWITZERLANDFair Switzerland, thou art my theme,Thy praise by day, by night my dream.My swelling heart with rapture speaks;I love thy lakes and snow-capped peaks.Thy wooded glens my thought recalls,Thy mountain paths and waterfalls.With praises I my verse adornOf Jungfrau and the Matterhorn.Thy moon-lit nights and sun-lit days,For thee in song, my voice I raise.Thy name for right and freedom stand—I love thee, dear old Switzerland.Roland Phelps Marks.LUCERNE:Ah, Kate!dear old friend of my childhood! How little I thought that night in June, when you stood up and told the audience, "Beyond the Alps lies Italy," that some day those same Alps would lie between us. We have not only been "beyond," butoverthem.The soft pink glow of the early dawn hung over the village of Domodossola as the start was made for Switzerland.Our caravan consisted of four diligences, two luggage vans, and a mounted guide,who knew every inch of the pass. He galloped from coach to coach, hurling his instructions to occupants and drivers.Above the blowing of horns, the ringing of bells, and the answering shouts from the coaches, this guide's last command rang out loud and clear: "Keep close together! Follow me! Come!"It was all as uncertain as life itself. How blindly and with what enthusiasm we enter the race, knowing nothing of what the day may bring!The creaking diligences started away with their freight of human souls, to follow—follow to what? God only knows.Again, as in life—up and up, on and on, higher and higher—until the summit is reached at noon-day, and as the shadows lengthened in the waning of the day, we began the descent.That morning as the purple village was left behind, the road grew narrow and clung close to the mountainside. So close it was, did we but stretch the hand ever so little, we would touch its ruggedness. Sometimes the road widened into a mountain village, but ever and always on the other side was the deep, dark abyss. It varied in depth and blackness, or wasfilled with some mountain torrent, but the gloom was always there.The mountains themselves often smiled down on us, or laughed outright, as some sparkling, bubbling cascade could no longer keep within the channel time had worn for it in the rocky slope; yet the same rippling waterfall that had danced right merrily down from its snowy source, became stern and cruel after it had crossed the road under us and joined the somberness of the cavern.If the glare of the sun partially dispelled the glamour the moon had cast over Venice, how vastly more does close proximity to the Alpine village of song and story dissipate its charm. As every gleam of sunshine must cast a shadow somewhere, so the splendor of the Alps must needs be balanced by the materiality of its inhabitants.Of the forty miles from Domodossola, Italy, to Brigue, Switzerland, the first ten perhaps are inhabited. These people live on the road, their huts snuggling close to the mountain. The little patches of ground that are tilled lie straight up the mountainside, and upon these sides, too, their sheep graze. One of the witcheries of theregion is the tinkling of the tiny bells tied around the necks of the sheep.Before reaching Iselle, where the Customs are paid, the longest of the Simplon tunnels is passed through, and a block of granite marks the boundary line between the two countries.Along the route the drivers had often to call out, that the women and children might make way for the coaches. The children, offering fruit or flowers, would run along with the vehicles and call out the little English that had been picked up: "Good-a-bye!" "Kiss-a-me!" "Hur-rah-up!" But the smiles soon turned to tears if no pennies were thrown to them.Sometimes in the distance there seemed to be a mammoth pile of rock or debris obstructing the roadway, which, on being approached, was found to be part of an avalanche tunneled out for the passageway. These are termed "galleries" to distinguish them from the usual tunnels.Away up on a high point is an oldhospicewhich can be reached only by pedestrians,—a refuge for the mountain climbers.Far up among the clouds is a bridge resembling a tiny toy. Long hours afterwards,when the summit of the peak is reached, and when the road seems to end abruptly, the bridge comes into view again spanning some yawning gulf.Once while crossing from one peak to another, the gorge below seemed filled with white smoke. It was the clouds. Some thousands of feet below, these same clouds had been above us—we were now above them.The sensation was awful. "Look! Look!" cried the guide, pointing down into themoraine. The clouds had separated, and the rain could be seen pouring on a little village far below, while the sun shone bright on us.The sunshine is not warm among these snow-clad peaks. It was bitterly cold. The crunching of the snow under the iron hoofs of the horses was the only sound to be heard.At the village of Simplon where luncheon was served, and where the horses were changed, the luggage vans were raided for warm wraps and rugs.Half a mile from the village of Simplon the remains of a big avalanche were encountered. Men were at work clearing the roadway, and the guide ordered everyone to dismount and walk across, the drivers leading the horses.When "the road grew wider," it should not make a mental picture of a broad roadway. It is wide only in comparison with the narrow mountain pass, cut out of the side of the cliff, making a sort of ridge of sufficient width to permit but one vehicle at a time. There are places cut deeper into the rock so that two may pass. A stone parapet runs along the ledge next to the precipice to prevent accidents should the wheels come too near the edge.At the highest point this parapet was broken. The workmen who were repairing the wall had been called to assist in clearing the lower road of the avalanche over which we had been obliged to walk.It was at this point that one of our horses balked. The road, so narrow that it scarcely permitted the passage of the diligence,—the parapet entirely gone for a distance of many feet—the gorge, deep and black, with a roaring torrent, too far down to be seen—the very heavens weeping at our misery,—here it was the horse chose to become unmanageable.The two in the box seat behind the driver did not realize what was happeninguntil a shriek from some one in the body of the coach caused the entire party to turn. The driver yelled, "Jump! Jump toward the mountainside!"God grant that rarely on human sight may dawn such a scene, horrible only to those who had occupied the coach a second before. The back wheels were over that fearful ledge, the diligence just tottering. One moment more, made heavy by its human load, one quiver of the now terrified beasts, and the whole would have been engulfed in the depths of that seething torrent.We had jumped at the first word of command—jumped as one body. One second and it would have been too late. And the old coach, relieved of its burden, had balanced itself in an almost human manner, as if it, too, clung to life.We stood crouching away from the gorge against the wet side of the rock, the driver unnerved, one horse unruly and the leader balky. The entire cavalcade had begun the descent, and there was no stopping when once under way until a valley was reached some seven miles below. There was nothing to do but wait, and pray that the guide would miss us and send help.The awesomeness of that scene had time to imprint itself on my very soul, for the hours spent on that Alpine peak I count as the most stirringyearsof my life.Help came, or I should not be writing this. But, grateful and overjoyed as we were to see a fresh horse and two men on its back coming to our aid, the result was even more terrifying than the past experience.The guide had missed us when, as was his wont, at the first stop, he galloped back from coach to coach. Fortunately it was near ahospice, where he procured two men and a powerful horse, and sent them after us. Surely God had—"One arm 'round thee,And one 'round me,To keep us near."The driver and his helper had hardly dismounted from the back of the new horse when the wild creature reared around, and started on a mad gallop down the slope. He tripped, thank heavens, on a strap that had become loosened from his trappings, and was caught.That the new driver was a fiend was apparent from the cruel manner in whichhe treated the runaway. I am still uncertain what his excuse was for living. He was so hideous he was unique. After he had pounded the horses he turned his attention to the passengers.Ruth and I were ordered out of the box seat into the coach. It was impossible to crowd us all inside, and he was obliged to submit to our remaining above. The hood was closed, the boot drawn up, and we were strapped securely to our seats. The doors were locked on those inside. These were his instructions from the guide.The three drivers mounted in front of us, and, while we were thankful to be in the open air and to be able to view the wonderful scenery around us, we were also compelled to witness the inhuman treatment of the animals.In this manner we began the descent.The fiend had the reins and the long whip, the others had prods, and used them on the horses. The fresh horse took the lead, dragging the others after him. On, and on, and on we flew, now under wild-roaring cataracts, whose waters thundered down on the rocky roof of the tunnels under them—now over frail bridges, which trembled with our speed—now down slippery,ice-covered stretches. They did not stop at the first plateau, fearing, I suppose, they would never get the horses started again.The fiendish shouts of the drivers, the cries of the occupants locked inside the coach, the swaying and groaning of the old diligence, and the almost human moans of the horses blended with the warning cries of the natives, who stood aside, aghast at our mad speed.Down, down, down! The white peaks grow fainter and fainter, until they are lost in the blue mist. The incline becomes less steep. The little farms look like window-panes set up in air, and the sun sinks behind the purple mountains. The beautiful valley of the Rhone spreads out below, like a celestial vision.Suddenly, after a long curve has been rounded, the Rhone, bathed in a flood of golden fire, comes into view. Across the yawning gulf the mountains, on the other side, take on the same glorious hue.It is the Alpine glow!Yet on and down we go, never stopping the wild pace until the horses dash into the courtyard of the inn at Brigue!We had crossed the Alps!We were in Switzerland!Switzerland is one of the places whose charm is enhanced by the glare of the sun. But Switzerland does not have many opportunities to endure glare of anything, for it rains almost continually. The "weeping skies of Ireland" cannot compare with it.Lake Geneva, as it winds around Lausanne, is extremely pretty, and Lake Lucerne has quite the most picturesque surroundings possible. It nestles down among the Alps, with Rigi on one side and the beautiful town on the other. And Lucerneisa beautiful town, built in a curve in the Alps, with towers and battlements on its walls. Sailing away from it, it presents a picture altogether different from anything else I have seen.It took some days for me to recover from that mad ride down the mountains. After the effects of it had passed, I could but think how very near the ludicrous is the sublime.Death by climbing up or falling down these Alpine heights would be, perhaps, romantic; but to be backed over a precipice by a common balky horse could not be otherwise than ignominious.Now, too, I recall some of those senseless questions women ask. One woman cried, "Oh, where will we go if that harness breaks?""We will go right on from the heights to which our thoughts have risen", answered a beautiful voice from within the diligence. It was Mrs. F.'s friend, she who had first told her how foolish it was to live a lie. Now I know why the old coach had kept up.
Fair Switzerland, thou art my theme,Thy praise by day, by night my dream.My swelling heart with rapture speaks;I love thy lakes and snow-capped peaks.Thy wooded glens my thought recalls,Thy mountain paths and waterfalls.With praises I my verse adornOf Jungfrau and the Matterhorn.Thy moon-lit nights and sun-lit days,For thee in song, my voice I raise.Thy name for right and freedom stand—I love thee, dear old Switzerland.Roland Phelps Marks.
Fair Switzerland, thou art my theme,Thy praise by day, by night my dream.My swelling heart with rapture speaks;I love thy lakes and snow-capped peaks.Thy wooded glens my thought recalls,Thy mountain paths and waterfalls.With praises I my verse adornOf Jungfrau and the Matterhorn.Thy moon-lit nights and sun-lit days,For thee in song, my voice I raise.Thy name for right and freedom stand—I love thee, dear old Switzerland.Roland Phelps Marks.
Fair Switzerland, thou art my theme,
Thy praise by day, by night my dream.
My swelling heart with rapture speaks;
I love thy lakes and snow-capped peaks.
Thy wooded glens my thought recalls,
Thy mountain paths and waterfalls.
With praises I my verse adorn
Of Jungfrau and the Matterhorn.
Thy moon-lit nights and sun-lit days,
For thee in song, my voice I raise.
Thy name for right and freedom stand—
I love thee, dear old Switzerland.
Roland Phelps Marks.
Ah, Kate!dear old friend of my childhood! How little I thought that night in June, when you stood up and told the audience, "Beyond the Alps lies Italy," that some day those same Alps would lie between us. We have not only been "beyond," butoverthem.
The soft pink glow of the early dawn hung over the village of Domodossola as the start was made for Switzerland.
Our caravan consisted of four diligences, two luggage vans, and a mounted guide,who knew every inch of the pass. He galloped from coach to coach, hurling his instructions to occupants and drivers.
Above the blowing of horns, the ringing of bells, and the answering shouts from the coaches, this guide's last command rang out loud and clear: "Keep close together! Follow me! Come!"
It was all as uncertain as life itself. How blindly and with what enthusiasm we enter the race, knowing nothing of what the day may bring!
The creaking diligences started away with their freight of human souls, to follow—follow to what? God only knows.
Again, as in life—up and up, on and on, higher and higher—until the summit is reached at noon-day, and as the shadows lengthened in the waning of the day, we began the descent.
That morning as the purple village was left behind, the road grew narrow and clung close to the mountainside. So close it was, did we but stretch the hand ever so little, we would touch its ruggedness. Sometimes the road widened into a mountain village, but ever and always on the other side was the deep, dark abyss. It varied in depth and blackness, or wasfilled with some mountain torrent, but the gloom was always there.
The mountains themselves often smiled down on us, or laughed outright, as some sparkling, bubbling cascade could no longer keep within the channel time had worn for it in the rocky slope; yet the same rippling waterfall that had danced right merrily down from its snowy source, became stern and cruel after it had crossed the road under us and joined the somberness of the cavern.
If the glare of the sun partially dispelled the glamour the moon had cast over Venice, how vastly more does close proximity to the Alpine village of song and story dissipate its charm. As every gleam of sunshine must cast a shadow somewhere, so the splendor of the Alps must needs be balanced by the materiality of its inhabitants.
Of the forty miles from Domodossola, Italy, to Brigue, Switzerland, the first ten perhaps are inhabited. These people live on the road, their huts snuggling close to the mountain. The little patches of ground that are tilled lie straight up the mountainside, and upon these sides, too, their sheep graze. One of the witcheries of theregion is the tinkling of the tiny bells tied around the necks of the sheep.
Before reaching Iselle, where the Customs are paid, the longest of the Simplon tunnels is passed through, and a block of granite marks the boundary line between the two countries.
Along the route the drivers had often to call out, that the women and children might make way for the coaches. The children, offering fruit or flowers, would run along with the vehicles and call out the little English that had been picked up: "Good-a-bye!" "Kiss-a-me!" "Hur-rah-up!" But the smiles soon turned to tears if no pennies were thrown to them.
Sometimes in the distance there seemed to be a mammoth pile of rock or debris obstructing the roadway, which, on being approached, was found to be part of an avalanche tunneled out for the passageway. These are termed "galleries" to distinguish them from the usual tunnels.
Away up on a high point is an oldhospicewhich can be reached only by pedestrians,—a refuge for the mountain climbers.
Far up among the clouds is a bridge resembling a tiny toy. Long hours afterwards,when the summit of the peak is reached, and when the road seems to end abruptly, the bridge comes into view again spanning some yawning gulf.
Once while crossing from one peak to another, the gorge below seemed filled with white smoke. It was the clouds. Some thousands of feet below, these same clouds had been above us—we were now above them.
The sensation was awful. "Look! Look!" cried the guide, pointing down into themoraine. The clouds had separated, and the rain could be seen pouring on a little village far below, while the sun shone bright on us.
The sunshine is not warm among these snow-clad peaks. It was bitterly cold. The crunching of the snow under the iron hoofs of the horses was the only sound to be heard.
At the village of Simplon where luncheon was served, and where the horses were changed, the luggage vans were raided for warm wraps and rugs.
Half a mile from the village of Simplon the remains of a big avalanche were encountered. Men were at work clearing the roadway, and the guide ordered everyone to dismount and walk across, the drivers leading the horses.
When "the road grew wider," it should not make a mental picture of a broad roadway. It is wide only in comparison with the narrow mountain pass, cut out of the side of the cliff, making a sort of ridge of sufficient width to permit but one vehicle at a time. There are places cut deeper into the rock so that two may pass. A stone parapet runs along the ledge next to the precipice to prevent accidents should the wheels come too near the edge.
At the highest point this parapet was broken. The workmen who were repairing the wall had been called to assist in clearing the lower road of the avalanche over which we had been obliged to walk.
It was at this point that one of our horses balked. The road, so narrow that it scarcely permitted the passage of the diligence,—the parapet entirely gone for a distance of many feet—the gorge, deep and black, with a roaring torrent, too far down to be seen—the very heavens weeping at our misery,—here it was the horse chose to become unmanageable.
The two in the box seat behind the driver did not realize what was happeninguntil a shriek from some one in the body of the coach caused the entire party to turn. The driver yelled, "Jump! Jump toward the mountainside!"
God grant that rarely on human sight may dawn such a scene, horrible only to those who had occupied the coach a second before. The back wheels were over that fearful ledge, the diligence just tottering. One moment more, made heavy by its human load, one quiver of the now terrified beasts, and the whole would have been engulfed in the depths of that seething torrent.
We had jumped at the first word of command—jumped as one body. One second and it would have been too late. And the old coach, relieved of its burden, had balanced itself in an almost human manner, as if it, too, clung to life.
We stood crouching away from the gorge against the wet side of the rock, the driver unnerved, one horse unruly and the leader balky. The entire cavalcade had begun the descent, and there was no stopping when once under way until a valley was reached some seven miles below. There was nothing to do but wait, and pray that the guide would miss us and send help.
The awesomeness of that scene had time to imprint itself on my very soul, for the hours spent on that Alpine peak I count as the most stirringyearsof my life.
Help came, or I should not be writing this. But, grateful and overjoyed as we were to see a fresh horse and two men on its back coming to our aid, the result was even more terrifying than the past experience.
The guide had missed us when, as was his wont, at the first stop, he galloped back from coach to coach. Fortunately it was near ahospice, where he procured two men and a powerful horse, and sent them after us. Surely God had—
"One arm 'round thee,And one 'round me,To keep us near."
"One arm 'round thee,And one 'round me,To keep us near."
"One arm 'round thee,
And one 'round me,
To keep us near."
The driver and his helper had hardly dismounted from the back of the new horse when the wild creature reared around, and started on a mad gallop down the slope. He tripped, thank heavens, on a strap that had become loosened from his trappings, and was caught.
That the new driver was a fiend was apparent from the cruel manner in whichhe treated the runaway. I am still uncertain what his excuse was for living. He was so hideous he was unique. After he had pounded the horses he turned his attention to the passengers.
Ruth and I were ordered out of the box seat into the coach. It was impossible to crowd us all inside, and he was obliged to submit to our remaining above. The hood was closed, the boot drawn up, and we were strapped securely to our seats. The doors were locked on those inside. These were his instructions from the guide.
The three drivers mounted in front of us, and, while we were thankful to be in the open air and to be able to view the wonderful scenery around us, we were also compelled to witness the inhuman treatment of the animals.
In this manner we began the descent.
The fiend had the reins and the long whip, the others had prods, and used them on the horses. The fresh horse took the lead, dragging the others after him. On, and on, and on we flew, now under wild-roaring cataracts, whose waters thundered down on the rocky roof of the tunnels under them—now over frail bridges, which trembled with our speed—now down slippery,ice-covered stretches. They did not stop at the first plateau, fearing, I suppose, they would never get the horses started again.
The fiendish shouts of the drivers, the cries of the occupants locked inside the coach, the swaying and groaning of the old diligence, and the almost human moans of the horses blended with the warning cries of the natives, who stood aside, aghast at our mad speed.
Down, down, down! The white peaks grow fainter and fainter, until they are lost in the blue mist. The incline becomes less steep. The little farms look like window-panes set up in air, and the sun sinks behind the purple mountains. The beautiful valley of the Rhone spreads out below, like a celestial vision.
Suddenly, after a long curve has been rounded, the Rhone, bathed in a flood of golden fire, comes into view. Across the yawning gulf the mountains, on the other side, take on the same glorious hue.
It is the Alpine glow!
Yet on and down we go, never stopping the wild pace until the horses dash into the courtyard of the inn at Brigue!
We had crossed the Alps!
We were in Switzerland!
Switzerland is one of the places whose charm is enhanced by the glare of the sun. But Switzerland does not have many opportunities to endure glare of anything, for it rains almost continually. The "weeping skies of Ireland" cannot compare with it.
Lake Geneva, as it winds around Lausanne, is extremely pretty, and Lake Lucerne has quite the most picturesque surroundings possible. It nestles down among the Alps, with Rigi on one side and the beautiful town on the other. And Lucerneisa beautiful town, built in a curve in the Alps, with towers and battlements on its walls. Sailing away from it, it presents a picture altogether different from anything else I have seen.
It took some days for me to recover from that mad ride down the mountains. After the effects of it had passed, I could but think how very near the ludicrous is the sublime.
Death by climbing up or falling down these Alpine heights would be, perhaps, romantic; but to be backed over a precipice by a common balky horse could not be otherwise than ignominious.
Now, too, I recall some of those senseless questions women ask. One woman cried, "Oh, where will we go if that harness breaks?"
"We will go right on from the heights to which our thoughts have risen", answered a beautiful voice from within the diligence. It was Mrs. F.'s friend, she who had first told her how foolish it was to live a lie. Now I know why the old coach had kept up.