REFORM AT ST. GERVAIS.
“Returning to the Cure we thought it unfair not to patronize it. We did—twice.“St. Gervais offers inducements for those really trying to reform.“We went to our room and sat down to a quiet game of poker. It was suggested that it would be dry work, and a bottle of cognac was ordered, and if I remember, there wasn’t enough left to make a cocktail for a flea. The very smell was gone.“For absolute absence of temptation to drink, St. Gervais is the place. I will write you concerning the water when I have tasted some.“P. S.—I forgot to mention that another thing you come here for is to get regular sleep, and plenty of it, in the early part of the night. Having resolved upon this, we played poker till three in the morning.“If you have a friend who desires to reform, by all means advise him to come to St. Gervais. There is no such place on the continent for reform. A man in the next room, with acute inflammatory rheumatism, actually complained of us this morning. He said he couldn’t sleep with us near him. We sent word to him that there were other hotels, but that we couldn’t peril our chances of reform by moving. We were determined to persevere till we had made new men of ourselves. We were very positive, and would not move.“We could hear the rheumatic gentleman swear, through the wall, but we sat there reforming all the same, and smiling at his irascibility. Why will such men come to places intended as reformatories? What is a man with rheumatism, inflammatory or otherwise, to five men trying to mend their ways? I think we played an hour longer than we would, for the pleasure of hearing him profane.“St. Gervais is a good place to come to to get away from rum, but it is of no account for rheumatism. This man thought so, for he left the house in the morning. I will write you about the baths to-morrow. I have no doubt they are good. It is said they do away with the rum appetite.”
“Returning to the Cure we thought it unfair not to patronize it. We did—twice.
“St. Gervais offers inducements for those really trying to reform.
“We went to our room and sat down to a quiet game of poker. It was suggested that it would be dry work, and a bottle of cognac was ordered, and if I remember, there wasn’t enough left to make a cocktail for a flea. The very smell was gone.
“For absolute absence of temptation to drink, St. Gervais is the place. I will write you concerning the water when I have tasted some.
“P. S.—I forgot to mention that another thing you come here for is to get regular sleep, and plenty of it, in the early part of the night. Having resolved upon this, we played poker till three in the morning.
“If you have a friend who desires to reform, by all means advise him to come to St. Gervais. There is no such place on the continent for reform. A man in the next room, with acute inflammatory rheumatism, actually complained of us this morning. He said he couldn’t sleep with us near him. We sent word to him that there were other hotels, but that we couldn’t peril our chances of reform by moving. We were determined to persevere till we had made new men of ourselves. We were very positive, and would not move.
“We could hear the rheumatic gentleman swear, through the wall, but we sat there reforming all the same, and smiling at his irascibility. Why will such men come to places intended as reformatories? What is a man with rheumatism, inflammatory or otherwise, to five men trying to mend their ways? I think we played an hour longer than we would, for the pleasure of hearing him profane.
“St. Gervais is a good place to come to to get away from rum, but it is of no account for rheumatism. This man thought so, for he left the house in the morning. I will write you about the baths to-morrow. I have no doubt they are good. It is said they do away with the rum appetite.”
From Sallanches the road is through a most beautiful country. As we approach St. Martin the carriage is stopped, so that we can have one last look at the dazzling peaks of Mt. Blanc. They are at the very head of the valley, and although twelve miles away, in a straight line, they loom up so magnificently that they seem only a short distance from where we stand. It is a sight never to be forgotten.
The valley now assumes a more barren appearance, with but little to interest one. An occasional waterfall, a handsome hedge or two, relieves the dull monotony of the ride, till Bonneville, a picturesque town, the capital of the province, is reached. There we have dinner, and then on towards Geneva, passing the two ruined towers of the ancient castle of Fancingny, after which the province was named. Crossing thelong substantial bridge of the Foron river, we come to Annemasse, and then rush through a number of pretty little villages, reaching the suburbs of Geneva, and, after having been on the road since seven o’clock, finally draw up at the hotel on the lake, a thoroughly tired, hot and dusty party.
MONT BLANC AND THE VALLEY OF CHAMONIX FROM SALLANCHES.
MONT BLANC AND THE VALLEY OF CHAMONIX FROM SALLANCHES.
MONT BLANC AND THE VALLEY OF CHAMONIX FROM SALLANCHES.
THE SWISS SYSTEM OF BEGGING.
This is the especial part of Switzerland where beggary isreduced to a science. Your carriage is going at a very rapid rate, but in advance you notice one of those ugly Swiss cottages. The mother is in the door, holding well in hand four children, ranging in age from five to ten, boys and girls. As you get opposite the door, she looses her hold upon them, and then commences the chase. These children, trained as they are, can keep up with a carriage at a seven-mile an-hour pace, and, bare-headed and bare-footed, they do it, two on each side. They make no appeal; they say nothing, either by word or look; they simply run by the side of the carriage, as though it were a race intended as a test of the endurance of Swiss children against Swiss horses. After ten minutes of this, you begin to feel some concern for the children, and you ask the courier what they want.
“Vat dey vant? Oof you vants to kit rid mit dem, fling ’em some sous. Dey vill run into Zhenave oof you ton’t.”
And so, merely to get them out of your sight, knowing that they dare not go home to their mother without something, a shower of sous fall in the dust, which the children gather, and return to the cottage to wait for the next coach. Sometimes they catch one on the return trip, which is good luck.
It is the most systematic begging I have yet encountered. The strong point in it is the not asking. There is no professional whine, no story; nothing but a sturdy assault upon your sympathies. They make the legs take the place of the tongue. It is very well done, and, as carriages loaded with tourists pass every half hour, it must pay well. I presume the rent of these cottages is fixed with reference to their facilities for begging. An advertisement of one of them reads as follows, I suppose:
For Rent—An eligible begging station, on the route from Chamonix to Geneva. Regular diligence route, and the favorite route for carriages of rich English and Americans. There are no hills near, the course in each direction is level for miles, permitting children to run a long distance without exhaustion. Especially recommended for very young children. Half hour after dining station, which ensures good nature on the part of passengers. The most certain and profitable location on the route. Owner will take a percentage of the collections for rent, or will rent for a certainty.
For Rent—An eligible begging station, on the route from Chamonix to Geneva. Regular diligence route, and the favorite route for carriages of rich English and Americans. There are no hills near, the course in each direction is level for miles, permitting children to run a long distance without exhaustion. Especially recommended for very young children. Half hour after dining station, which ensures good nature on the part of passengers. The most certain and profitable location on the route. Owner will take a percentage of the collections for rent, or will rent for a certainty.
The journey by cars from Geneva to Interlaken is delightful.The road follows the left bank of Lake Geneva until Lausanne is reached. Now and then a break in the woods gives a glimpse of the blue waters of the lake, with the mountains beyond, then a long, dark tunnel shuts off every view, but only for a few minutes. Then we enter a country that is magnificent in its quiet beauty. The hillsides are cultivated to the summit. Rich vineyards with their luscious grapes fast ripening in the sun, fine farms with the variegated fields hide from sight the cold gray stone that makes the Chamonix valley so desolate.
After passing Lausanne, Lake Leman is left behind and we go nearly due north to Friburg, a beautiful town situated on a rocky eminence and nearly surrounded by the River Sarine.
Friburg, like every Swiss city, has its organ and legend. The organ is one of the finest of Europe, and is played every afternoon and evening, provided the admissions amount to twenty francs. If there is not the vast amount of four dollars in the house the curtain does not go up, or rather, there is no performance. However, there are generally enough tourists present to justify the performance, and the listener is well rewarded for the expenditure of time.
In front of the council house is an immense lime tree, partly supported by stone pillars. It has its legend. It is said that a young man of Friburg—a participant in the great victory of Morat, in the year 1476, was sent after the battle to convey the glad news to his townsmen. He arrived, breathless and exhausted, so much so that he had just strength left to gasp the word “Victory!” and expired. There was in his lifeless hand a lime twig which the citizens planted, and it grew to be the patriarch of trees it now is, and it is guarded with as much care as though the legend were actually true.
How many in our late war ran from battle-fields, who might have had lime twigs in their hands if they had waited long enough to get them. But they did not. They were in too great a hurry to reach Canada, from which they will all (1882) return to claim pensions under the arrearages of pensions act.
BERNE AND BEARS.
It would have been well for the country if all of this class had imitated the example of the young man of Friburg, andexpired. The citizens could well have afforded the time to plant the twigs in their hands.
Only a short stop is made here, and then to Berne, one of the most interesting cities in Switzerland.
Berne is the city of bears, and were it located in Wisconsin would be called Bearville. A bear was its origin. Berthold DeZahringen, some centuries ago, killed a tremendous bear on the ground now occupied by the pretty city, and founded a town in commemoration of the event, and so the bear became as common in Berne as the lion is in England, or the eagle in America. There is bear everywhere. The public decorations are in the form of bears, the flags have bears on them, the bread is stamped with bears, the pot you drink your beer out of is in form a bear; the children’s toys are all bears, and the city keeps two bear-pits, in which a dozen, more or less, fine specimens are kept. Not many years ago an English officer, who, with his lately wedded bride, were doing Switzerland, fell into one of these pits, and after a desperate struggle with the ferocious brutes, was literally torn to pieces in the sight of his agonized wife. I could not learn who it was the heart-broken wife married the next year, or whether she married well or not.
It is a quaint and curious old city, and well worth a day or two. The situation is particularly beautiful, and as it has preserved the peculiar characteristics of the long ago, it is an instructive place.
In the older section the streets have no sidewalks, the ground floors being made into arcades, with the houses above supported upon arches, under which you walk. It is always well for an American to visit the older portions of these cities, that he may more fervently thank heaven that his lot was cast in a new country, where there is no ancient and inconvenient rubbish to worry him. There is more of convenience in any one modern American house than there is in all of the old part Berne, or, for that matter, of any ancient city. They do well to look at, but that is all the use they should be put to. I have a profound sympathy for the people condemned to live in them.
Berne is the capital of the little Republic, and here its Congress meets. Its sessions last a month, as a rule, and thenCongress adjourns, and the members go home. The country is too poor to have much to steal, and consequently a short session is sufficient.
I was shaved in Berne, and, speaking of shaving and barbers generally, I want to say all I have to say on that subject at once.
There is no barber like the American barber, and no such comfort anywhere in barbers as we enjoy at home. Tourists have complained of the straight chairs, the dull razors, and all that sort of thing, and with some reason, though it is not as bad as represented. I have never known of any one being absolutely killed by an European barber, either at sight or sixty days.
It is true that you do not have the luxurious reclining chair, nor the soothing manipulations of a deft artist, nor the delightful hair dressing, and all that. In England you are seated in a common, straight-backed chair, a napkin is adjusted closely about your neck, a dab of soap, three strokes of a bad razor, and you are permitted to staunch the blood and wash off the soap yourself. If you desire your hair dressed, as a very clumsy brushing is called, it is “tuppence extra.”
In France the operation is the same, only the barber, being always a statesman, talks you to the verge of madness. He knows that you do not understand a word of his language, but he talks on cheerfully just the same, till he is through, and really believes he has entertained you.
The German barber does not talk you to death, for he is by nature phlegmatic. He stays by you longer, however, and leaves less of your face to carry away than either the English or French torturer. He wants to earn his money, and he does.
The Swiss is less airy than the Frenchman, and more active than the German, for, very likely, he is of both nationalities. He is more careful, likewise. When his razor enters the flesh, he does not slice the whole side of the face off, for his time is not occupied with talk, as is the Frenchman, nor is he so heavy as the German. No, indeed! When he sees that his razor has cut through the skin, and is entering the flesh, he stops right there, and calls your attention to the fact that he has stopped, and claims some credit for not carving off a half pound or more.
BARBERS.
French, German, and Swiss allow you to wash your own face, and comb your own hair, and otherwise fix yourself, but the Swiss is the best of the three.
But even in Switzerland, it is better for the tourist if he has his own shaving material, and does it himself. He may cut and scar himself, but he will have some skin left, and may console himself that the cutting was the result of his own lack of skill, and not that of another.
THE CONSCIENTIOUS BARBER.
THE CONSCIENTIOUS BARBER.
THE CONSCIENTIOUS BARBER.
The continental barber has much to learn in the matter of shaving. The English barbers say they would like to adopt the American system, but their English customers will not. I understand it. Their fathers were scarified, and why should they not be? It would be un-English to change. And so they go on with the same straight-backed chairs, the same clumsy contrivances, and they will so go on, till the end of time. The last Englishman will be so shaved, when he might have had comfort and luxury all his life.
FROMBerne to Thun the scenery is less bold and rugged, although the horizon is always filled with great peaks that are to be seen from every quarter.
At Thun we take steamer across Lake Thun, one of the most beautiful of all the Swiss lakes. It is not so large as Lake Geneva, and is not fringed with such enormous mountain chains, but it abounds with unexpected views of rare beauty, resembling very much our own picturesque Lake George.
As the steamer skirts the north bank of the lake, which is a succession of vineyards, we suddenly come upon a magnificent view of the Jungfrau, almost as impressive as Mt. Blanc. From that time on the great range gradually unfolds itself like the views of a panorama, until at length we have all the highest peaks in full sight.
At Därlingen we leave the steamer, and, after a short wait, see a peculiar looking train dash through the tunnel, at the head of the lake, and then come puffing noisily into the station. This is the celebrated Bödeli railway, the second shortest in the world. It runs from Därlingen to Interlaken, a distance of a mile and a half. Its cars are especially adapted to sight seeing, being constructed in two stories, so that every one can have an outside seat, to fully enjoy the picturesque scenery between the two stations.
INTERLAKEN.
The one main street of Interlaken is chiefly devoted to hotels, especially the upper portion of it, for from this location one has the best view of the celebrated Jungfrau, that stands head and shoulders above the high Silberhorn on the right andthe Schneehorn on the left. Further down, the street is occupied with tempting stores filled with Swiss wood carvings. From this time on nothing can be seen but wood carving, save perhaps an occasional bit of chamois horn.
It is a quaint old town, full of odd nooks and corners, that would afford interesting study for weeks at a time. While there are no particular attractions, Interlaken is a favorite resort of tourists, and is always full of strangers, who enjoy the mild, equable climate and find pleasure in resting.
THE JUNGFRAU, FROM INTERLAKEN.
THE JUNGFRAU, FROM INTERLAKEN.
THE JUNGFRAU, FROM INTERLAKEN.
The broad walnut-lined Höheweg, a beautiful avenue, leads down across an old-fashioned, massive stone bridge to a street set aside for markets. Here, during the forenoon, is a miniature Petticoat Lane, only the people are all clean, picturesquely dressed and decent. There are no rum shops, reeking with the vile odors of stale liquors and still staler tobacco smoke; there are no intoxicated men and women. Everything is quiet, orderly and well conducted. But the variety of articles offered for sale is something astonishing. Here an enterprising woman, as stiff and formal as the high white cap she wears, has a small stock of dry goods spread out on the pavement for the inspectionof the picturesquely dressed peasants, who trade their milk and farm products for clothing material. A little further on you will find a complete assortment of boots and shoes, of all kinds and conditions. There a man has a hat store and a junk shop combined. At any place, almost, you can buy specimens of Swiss skill in carving. These stores or exchanges are all on the street, along which it is difficult to thread one’s way, so crowded is it with buyers and sellers.
These narrow, crooked streets are lined with houses built the Lord only knows how long ago. The long beams that cross each other in the front of the houses are carved and cut in every conceivable shape. Sometimes the artist was a little ambitious and attempted very elaborate work, not always successfully, however, for the heads and figures that adorn the fronts of some of them are grotesque to a degree.
Interlaken is the starting point for most of the mountaineering parties that visit the Bernese Oberland, the chief point of interest centering about the Jungfrau, which is forty-one hundred and sixty-seven feet high. The ascent of this mountain, which, though very fatiguing, is not dangerous, was first made in 1811, and between that time and 1856 it was only accomplished five times. Since the latter date, however, it has been made very frequently. We did not attempt to explore the icy regions, so far above the clouds, being perfectly content with our experience at Mont Blanc.
Interlaken is the great distributing point for the vast quantities of carved goods made in this vicinity. There are a number of large factories in the city, but the greater part of the work is done in the little towns near there. The displays made in the large stores are wonderful, some of the pieces being the work of genius. While every possible subject is treated, the carvers have a passion for bears, the heraldic emblem of some of the Cantons. You will see bears of every conceivable size, and in every attitude. Whole parties of them, playing billiards or cards, or dancing a quadrille; bears standing, sitting, lying down; bears everywhere and doing everything. Some of this work is wonderfully well done, the lines and spaces being so delicately cut that it seems as though a breath would break them.
WOOD CARVING.
On the way from Interlaken to Brienz we passed through little villages, whose one street is filled with wood carving establishments, and almost every house between the two places has a small factory for the manufacture of these pretty trifles.
WOOD CARVING.
WOOD CARVING.
WOOD CARVING.
At Brienz we went through a very large factory and saw the patient Swiss chipping away tirelessly at the huge piece ofwood that was soon to be a medallion portrait. It is an art that requires great skill and delicacy of touch to produce fine work. In this factory there were some four hundred or five hundred men employed, and the work they turned out was marvelously beautiful. In fact one cannot sufficiently admire the wood carving of the region. The patient workers do everything artistic in the material, and it is artistic. Landscapes, portraits, hunting scenes, animals, angels, scriptural subjects, everything that is done on canvas or in marble, is done in wood, and many of the pieces are purchased by crowned heads, and at a very high price.
THE HOME OF THE CARVER.
THE HOME OF THE CARVER.
THE HOME OF THE CARVER.
THE ROMANCE OF THE WOOD CARVER.
The artists in wood are, however, very poorly paid, even for Switzerland. In America their wages would be consideredas close to starvation as possible, without touching it. Think of a man capable of doing the most artistic work laboring at four francs a day, or eighty cents! This is as high as any, except an occasional phenomenal genius, gets, and they appear to be content with it. For this miserable sum they work so long as they can see, commencing at daylight and ending at dark.
True, living is very cheap, and such as it is it ought to be. The wretched beer of the region is only about a cent a glass, and the black bread of the country costs next to nothing, and so the artist works all day and at night sits himself in his little café, and with his cheap wine and cheaper beer, plays cards contentedly, and enjoys himself thoroughly.
After all he is as well as though he got ten dollars a day. He couldn’t drink any more wine than he does, and neither would additional pay enlarge his capacity for black bread, and what does he want of anything more? It isn’t what you want—it’s what you don’t want that makes you rich. Even in little wood carving Brienz, romance gets in.
We saw on the street, there is only one in Brienz, a young man whose demoralized clothing, fiery eyes and unsteady steps, all bore evidence to the terrible fact of dissipation. He was the first drunken man of the genus loafer we had struck in Switzerland. The Young Man who Knows Everything looked at him and promptly remarked:—
“That young man has wisdom. He is cultivating a vice. When he wants to economize he has a basis for economy. Suppose he had always lived a perfectly correct life, and some emergency should come to him that demanded economy, what would he have to economize on? Every man should so live that he can, if he must, better himself. I admire that young man, for he leaves himself room for development.”
The landlord gave us his history. The young man was ruined by prosperity. He was an industrious and very skillful carver, and had attained sixty cents a day with an immediate prospect of a raise of twenty cents, which is the summit of a legitimate Brienz ambition.
He was engaged to be married to the daughter of a poor Swiss farmer, who had three cows and a goat or two, and therewas no reason under heaven why he should not have been happy. He had health, strength, skill; Josepha was beautiful, and there was nothing to prevent his marrying her, and settling down quietly to watch the development of her goitre, and passing a long and happy life.
But evil was hanging over them. An uncle of Rudolph’s, who was a cook in Paris, died without issue, and left his entire estate, sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents, to his nephew, our Rudolph, in Brienz.
Immediately Rudolph grew cold towards Josepha. He did not meet her on the little bridge after his work; he did not take her to fairs where the two drank beer lovingly out of the same mug; he did not always have some little present for her; in short, he avoided her. To use the strong though not elegant English of the wild and untamed West, he “shook” her.
FEMALE COSTUMES IN APPENZELL.
FEMALE COSTUMES IN APPENZELL.
FEMALE COSTUMES IN APPENZELL.
Josepha noticed this change, and wept in her enforced solitude. With true womanly instinct she felt what was coming. There was now an inseparable bar between them. Could she, a plain country girl, with no dowry to speak of, hope to wed a man with a fortune of sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents?
And so she wept her lost love, her first love, which never comes again. One may love twice, but the second love has not the twang, the flavor, as it were, of the first. It is the difference of a meal on an empty stomach and the tail end of a feast.
They met and Josepha made one appeal to him. He answered her briefly, brutally:
JOSEPHA’S WOE.
“I did love you, Josepha,” he said, “and could love youagain, were it possible. But you must remember, my girl, that circumstances have changed; I am a man of fortune—you are the daughter of a poor farmer with but three cows, and those to be divided among ten children. And the price of cheese is sadly going down, and must still go down, owing to the competition of the factory system in America, where they can imitate even our most penetrating Limburger, and sell it cheaper here than we can produce it. It is no use to talk of buying our own product, all people buy where they can buy the cheapest. That is political economy.
“Had you an uncle, a cook in Paris, and liable to die, with sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents, the aspect of things would be changed. But you have no such uncle, and really, Josepha, you cannot expect me, in my altered condition, to so throw myself away. No indeed. But I wish you well. Forget me, if you can, and marry some one in your own sphere, and be happy. You would not want to wed me, and see me miserable! Life would then be a burden to both. Be ye not unequally yoked.”
Josepha, weeping, turned away, for despite her love, she realized the truth of what he said. And Rudolph, whistling an air, gaily went into the café, and sought to drown his feelings in wine.
He knew he had done a very mean thing, but he felt it to be impossible for a youth of his prospects to marry a penniless girl.
Reveling in his wealth he pursued his mad career and came to grief, as such men always do. He quit work, he dressed extravagantly, and finally he made an unlucky investment in stocks, which swept off every sou he had. His sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents were irrevocably gone, and Rudolph the Gay found himself without money, with an expensive appetite for wine and an extreme disposition to do no work of any kind.
One morning he heard a wild rumor that a brother of Josepha in America had made a strike in oil and had sent Josepha five hundred dollars. Then his feelings toward that young lady changed. He went to her and remarked that he forgave her for her treatment of him; that the cloud that had come between them and obscured their happiness had passedaway, and that there was no reason now why they should not realize the dreams of their youth and wed.
It was now Josepha’s turn. She remarked that sentiment was all well enough, but that there was something in viewing matters from a mere worldly standpoint. Love was sweet, but fortunately the stock of the article in the world was not limited. It was not to be expected in her altered condition that she should unite her fortunes with those of a penniless man. She quite agreed with what he (Rudolph) had said to her on a former occasion, “Be ye not unequally yoked.” She (Josepha) had now five hundred dollars. He (Rudolph) had not a sou. Had he (Rudolph) five hundred dollars, and had he the good habits of his youth when he was an humble worker in wood, she would wed him gladly, but as he (Rudolph) was, in the language of the world, short of that amount, and as she (Josepha) had any quantity of coin, she rather thought she wouldn’t. She should always regard him in the light of a friend, and should weep with great regularity when she thought of their severed loves, but there was a young farmer up the mountain who had twelve cows, and with her capital could double the stock, and she believed that her best show was with him.
And so Rudolph, penniless, loveless, and with an appetite which, like jealousy, makes the meat it feeds on, is a mere cumberer on the earth about Brienz, the wreck we saw.
And Josepha, she married the young grazier, and has two children and one of the largest goitres in the neighborhood, and the two have prospered to the point of seriously contemplating the starting of a small inn, near a convenient waterfall, that they may fleece strangers, which is a more lucrative business in Switzerland than cheese-making or wood-carving.
In the evening we were rowed across the Lake of Brienz to the Giessbach, the regular sight of the locality. The lake is twenty feet higher than Lake Thun, from which it is separated by a narrow strip of low land only two miles wide. It is thought that at one time the two lakes were joined. Lake Brienz is from five hundred to nine hundred feet deep, its water being of a very dark blue.
THE GIESSBACH.
The Giessbach consists of seven falls, the highest being onethousand one hundred and forty-seven feet above the lake. The water comes from a lake in the summit of the mountain, and tumbles from rock to rock till it finds its level in the lake below. All the seven are visible at once, and the sight is one of the most delightful in all Switzerland. Opposite the falls, on the other side of the enormous chasm, is a magnificent hotel, as a matter of course, where you are charged very reasonably—not more than twice what the same accommodations would cost you in a first-class hotel anywhere else. For this reasonableness you try to feel very thankful. One has to see the Giessbach, anyhow; and, as there is but one place to stop, the proprietor’s facilities for swindling are unlimited. A mere double charge may be classed as reasonable, there; especially as the sight is worth almost any expenditure.
It was nearly dark when we reached the Geissbach shore, so that we had but an imperfect view of the lovely falls, as we climbed up the steep path leading to the terrace, three hundred and nine feet above the lake. But even in the half twilight they were wondrously beautiful, as they dashed from rock to rock, hundreds of feet apart.
OUR PARTY AT THE GIESSBACH.
OUR PARTY AT THE GIESSBACH.
OUR PARTY AT THE GIESSBACH.
As it grew darker, the green foliage on each side threw out the silvery cascades, dancing from one to the other, in bold relief. Gradually darkness completely enveloped them, andwe could see nothing but the dark, gloomy mass of mountains down whose side for a thousand feet the water fell, from one pool to another.
The terrace on which the hotel stands was brilliantly lighted, and was filled with tourists who were spending some little time here, visiting the many beautiful spots that make the Giessbach one of the favorite resorts in Switzerland.
Suddenly, about nine o’clock, a rocket flew skyward, from a point on the mountain opposite us. Then one went up from the terrace, and while we were admiring its flight high in air, the lights about the hotel and on the terrace were extinguished and we were left in utter darkness. A long drawn “Oh-h-h” involuntarily burst forth as the lowest cascade suddenly stood before us, a brilliant, beautiful sheet of water, of a delicate light blue tint. Then simultaneously the other cascades above shone forth in all their splendor. The scene was wonderful. It was fairy land.
Bengal lights of different colors were arranged back of the sheets of water, so that each cascade was brilliantly lighted, producing an effect exquisitely and indescribably beautiful.
Gradually the lights under the water went out, the gas at hotel was relighted, and we were rowed back to Brienz with a picture of wondrous beauty printed indelibly on our minds.
Tibbitts, who has rejoined the party after his attempt at reformation at the St. Gervais baths, (by the way his personal appearance is not a good advertisement for the waters,) got an idea at Giessbach, which he developed thus:
“I have at last got my fortune made. What is wanted in Switzerland is more waterfalls, with legends, more mineral springs, and more ruins, secular and sacred. As soon as I get back to New York I am going to organize a company for a Waterfall, Ruin and Spring Company.”
“But all the eligible waterfalls are taken.”
“Very true, and to get one we should have to pay too large a price. This is the very essence of my idea—I am going to create a waterfall. What is a waterfall, anyway? Nothing more than water pouring over a rock or other material. All that is necessary to a waterfall is an elevation and water. Turn on the water, and it can’t help falling, and there you are.
A MODEL WATERFALL.
“How shall we get water? Easily enough. A side of a precipice, with a notch in it big enough for a hotel, can be bought anywhere along the Lake of Brienz for almost nothing. What is more easy than to construct a reservoir on the top, put a ninety-horse power engine in at the lake, and pump the water to the reservoir on the summit, and when visitors are there turn it on, and give them the best waterfall in all Switzerland.
“Keep the water on till after they all go to bed, and for an hour or so after, so the roar’ll soothe them to sleep; and if any rich Americans choose to stay up all night, and buy wine, keep it on all night. We must have nothing mean about our waterfall.
PEASANTS OF EASTERN SWITZERLAND.
PEASANTS OF EASTERN SWITZERLAND.
PEASANTS OF EASTERN SWITZERLAND.
“There are a great many advantages in this over the natural article. The water can be turned off while the lights are being placed behind the sheet for illuminations, and the flow can be regulated so as to suit every taste. If the party is made up of young ladies who delight in the soft and beautiful, we can make a Minnehaha of it; if it is strong men and old maids who hunger for the grand, why, whack on more steam, and we can have a Niagara.
“About a mile or so away I am going to have a castle in ruins—ruins ain’t expensive where there is so much rock—and I can have any newspaper man write me a proper legend of it for ten dollars. This for the history crank. For the more devout we want the ruins of an ancient church, which was destroyed by whoever you choose. This will fetch allthose who are on their way to the Holy Land. They don’t spend as much money for wine as the other classes, but we can make it up in charges for board and guides. The ruins must be so built as to make a guide necessary, and so extensive that two days will be necessary to get the proper views of them, and to study their history understandingly.
NEAR BRIENZ.
NEAR BRIENZ.
NEAR BRIENZ.
“But this speculation will not be complete without mineral springs in the valley below. This is the easiest thing of the lot. You will build a reservoir and chuck into it a few barrels of salt, and a few bushels of rusty iron filings with sulphuric acid, a ton or so of sulphur (we must be liberal with sulphur for it is cheap), and any other articles that smell—asafœtida isn’t bad—get it so thundering strong that it would drive a yellow dog out of a tanyard, and have it cure anything, from original sin to corns. We want a gorgeous cure, and a corps of distinguished physicians, and an analysis of the water, and all that, and we can just rope in the money. We commence them at the falls, we deplete them at the ruined castle, and dig into them at the ruined church, and finally finish them at the medicinal springs. We want a bank at the latter place, and, if the law permits it, a faro bank. Anyhow, we can get a Swiss hotel man, and if every blessed tourist doesn’t have to draw more money before he gets out, then the race has lost its cunning.
“I am going to be the president of this company, with a brother-in-law I have in Wisconsin for treasurer. There’s money lying around loose, and this scheme will corral all of it I shall ever want.”
Tibbitts talked of his joint-stock Waterfall, Ruin and Medicinal Spring Company all the way into Lucerne.
THEroad from Brienz to Lucerne, over the Brünig Pass, follows the valley of Meiringen for a long distance, and gives some very pretty views of Lake Brienz, the River Aare, and a number of cascades in the mountains across the valley. As the ascent of the pass begins the road is frequently overshadowed by hanging rocks, which seem about to topple over every minute.
As we wind around the mountains occasional glimpses are obtained of the valley far below, and then, after having gone over the summit of the pass, we have a long almost level stretch along the side of the mountain, from which we have a magnificent view of the valley of Sarnea, with its pretty little lakes and rivers, its long, straight, white roads, and its queer little towns.
Two hours later we come in sight of Pilatus rearing its lofty head high above Lake Lucerne, as though it were the guardian of that beautiful body of water. Then a long drive on the banks of the lake, where the road is cut out of the solid rocks, and in a short time we rattle over the rough stones of a pavement, across the Reuss River, and are in Lucerne.
This city, which is to Switzerland what Saratoga is to America, is prettily built at the head of Lake Lucerne, or, as the Swiss call it, the Vierwaldstätter See, which resembles somewhat in shape a Roman cross, Lucerne being at the head. It is situated in an amphitheater, if the term might be so applied, facing the snow capped Alps of Uri and Engelberg, with Rigi on one side and Pilatus on the other. Around it are massive walls and watch towers, built in 1385, and still in a good state of preservation.
The hotels are nearly all located on the Schweizerhof Quays, which occupies the site of an arm of the lake that was filled up some fourteen years ago. From any one of these mammoth hotels magnificent views may be obtained on any clear day. Directly in front is the lake; to the right the Rigi group, with its hotel-crowned summit; in the center the Reussstock chain, and to the extreme right Pilatus. All of these mountains are full of points of interest, and are annually visited by thousands of tourists, who make up their parties at Lucerne. The sail across the lake to any part of the town on its borders, makes a delightful excursion that is always new and interesting.
LION OF LUCERNE.
LION OF LUCERNE.
LION OF LUCERNE.
The show sight here is the celebrated Lion of Lucerne, which photographs and pictures have made famous the world over. It is an immense figure, cut in the side of a great rock, about a quarter of a mile from the quay, in memory of the twenty-six officers and seven hundred soldiers who were massacred in the Tuileries, Paris, on the tenth of August, 1792, when the Commune obtained control of the government, and compelled King Louis to fly for his life. An immense lion, twenty-eight feet in length, lies dying in a grotto, transfixed with a broken lance. Under one paw, as though he would shelter it even in death, is the Bourbon lily. On either side of the lion are the names of the officers, and an inscription. The idea is a simple one, but the work was done by a master hand, (the Danish sculptor Thorwalsden being the artist) and is very impressive.
THE SWISS SOLDIERS ABROAD.
As a rule, people thrill when they look upon this famous Lion of Lucerne, but I declined to do anything of the kind. The death of these Swiss, in Paris, was a purely commercial matter. They were the hirelings of an infamous despot, who was crushing the life out of the French people by their aid. I have no sympathy for king, queen or noble, and when one dies I have a hosanna to sing immediately. And I cannot imagine anything more disgraceful than a man, Swiss, or of any other nationality, who would sell himself to a despot. These fellows, who fell in defense of Louis, had but one merit: they sold their blood, bones and sinews, and they carried out their contract. They were simply honest butchers, who contracted to do certain work for a lecherous French king, and did it. But the monument at Lucerne to these hirelings is an insult to humanity, and all the good I got out of it, was the contemplation of a wondrously carved lion, and the drawback to that satisfaction was the frightful fact that the men, to whose memory it stands, never should have had any monument erected at all. This inscription is the only one they deserved:
“Sacred to the memory of some hundreds of hired soldiery, who fought for pay only, had too much animal courage to run, and who died to carry out a contract.”
“Sacred to the memory of some hundreds of hired soldiery, who fought for pay only, had too much animal courage to run, and who died to carry out a contract.”
As a work of art, Thorwalsden’s lion is worth seeing—as a piece of sentiment, excuse me. I have seen too many soldiers in Europe who sell their sinews for pay, and I have seen too many starving people who are kept poor to support them. I do not like any soldiers but volunteers, and whenever the people get the upper hand of the other kind, I want to contribute for a monument to the people, not to their oppressors.
Aside from the bridges, whose only merit is their age, and one or two rather scantily furnished churches, there is but little of interest in Lucerne.
The Glacier Mills are an attraction, and are well worth seeing. There is no humbug about nature. You climb a hill after looking at the lion, and you come to a garden in which are a series of the great pits known as Glacier Mills.
These are simply great holes in solid rock thirty or forty feet deep, and about the same in diameter. In the ages gone by when this country was covered with glaciers, the action of water wore holes in the rock, great stones lost themselves inthese cavities, the water came in and the stones, weighing many tons, revolved by the action of the water, wore away the rock and enlarged the pit at every revolution.
This work went on for ages. The water forced itself into the pit, the great rock revolved, by its action enlarging the cavity at every revolution, until finally the glacier disappeared and the rocks were at rest.
And here they are to-day, round as marbles, lying at the bottom of the pits they made, so many evidences of the irresistible forces of nature.
In this enclosure there are, perhaps, twenty of them, varying in depth from thirty to fifty feet, and about the same distance across.
Tibbitts believed they were artificial, and said he should dig a few for his Hotel and Ruin Company, but he is entirely mistaken. The glacier mills are genuine and the same forces are at work to-day under every ice-field, and doing the work precisely as this was done. However, there is no reason why he should not manufacture a few—tourists would take them just the same, and be just as well satisfied. He claims that with nitro-glycerine he can do in five hours the work that requires centuries to accomplish with water and rock, which demonstrates the supremacy of mind over matter.
Mont Pilatus, just out of Lucerne, is something you must see whether you want to or not. It isn’t a very remarkable mountain, but the astute hotel keeper and the more rapacious hackman, has made it necessary for you to spend more money than you want to, by seeing Mont Pilatus. It is a proper mountain to see, nothing extraordinary, as a mountain, but you are compelled to go anyhow, and you do. And this is why you go.