For a while there is traversed a little valley quite embowered in green, but presently this abruptly leads into a wild gorge, with jagged peaks on every side. Soon Monte Cristallo appears. This is the most striking of all the Dolomite peaks. At a tiny village, called Schluderbach, the road forks, that to the right going directly to Cortina, the other to the left proceeding by way of Lake Misurina. Lake Misurina is a pretty stretch of water, pale green in color and at an altitude of about 5,800 feet. On its shores are two very attractive and well-kept hotels, with charming walks, from which one looks on a splendid panorama, picturesque in extreme.

From Misurina, the road again ascends, becoming very narrow and very steep. The top is called "Passo Tre Croci," the Pass of the Three Crosses. The outlook is very lovely, with the three serrated peaks Monte Cristallo, Monte Piano and Monte Tofana, standing as guardian sentinels over the little valley of Ampezzo far below, where lies Cortina sleeping in the sun, while in the distance shine the snow fields of the Marmolata. Just as steeply as it climbed up one side, the road descends on the other side, to Cortina. This place is the capital of the valley and altogether lovely; beautiful in its woods and meadows, beautiful in its mountain views, beautiful in the town itself and beautiful in its people.

Cortina has much to boast of—an ancient church and some old houses; an industrial school in which the villagers are taught the most delicate and artistic (and withal comparatively cheap) filigree mosaic work; and a community of people, handsome in face and figure and possessing a carriage and refinement superior to any seen elsewhere among the mountaineers or peasantry. In the neighborhood of Cortina are many excursions and also extended rock climbs, but those who go there in the summer will be more apt to linger lazily amid the cool shade of the trees than to brave the hot Italian sun on the peaks!

After a few days' stay at Cortina, the drive is continued. There are many ways out. You can return by a new route to Toblach and the Upper Tyrol. Or you can go south to Belluno and thence to northern Italy. Or a third way and perhaps the finest tour of all is that over a series of magnificent mountain passes to Botzen. This last crosses the Ampezzo Valley and then begins the ascent of Monte Tofana, which here is beautifully wooded. Steepness seems characteristic of this region!

It is hard to imagine a carriage climbing a road any steeper than that one on the slopes of Monte Tofana! If narrow and steep is the way and hard and toilsome the climb this Monte Tofana route most certainly repays one when it reaches the Falzarego Pass (6,945 feet high) which is certainly an earthly Paradise! One can not aptly describe a view like that! It is all a picture; as if every part was purposely what it is, here rocky, here green, here snowy, with summits, valleys, ravines and villages and even a partly ruined castle to form a whole such as an artist or poet would revel in.

After a pause on the summit of the Pass, again comes a steep descent, as the drive is resumed, which continues to Andraz, where dejeuner is taken. One can not live on air or scenery and even the most indefatigable sightseer sometimes turns with longing to luncheon! Then one returns with added zest to the feast of eye and soul. And at Andraz, as one lingers awhile after luncheon on that high mountain terrace, a lovelier scene than that spread before the eye could scarcely be imagined. Indeed it is a "dream-scene," and as seen in the sleepy stillness of the early afternoon, when the shadows are already playing with the lights and gradually overcoming them, it seems like fancy, not reality.

Again the carriage is taken and soon the road is climbing once more, this time giving fine views of the Sella group of peaks and going through a series of picturesque valleys. At Arabba (5,255 feet), a pretty little village, the final ascent to Pordoi begins. The scenery undergoes a change. It becomes more wild and barren and the characteristics of the high Alps appear. The hour begins to be late and it becomes cold, but the light still lingers as the carriage reaches the summit of the pass and stops at the new Hotel Pordoi (7,020 feet high) facing the weird, fantastic shapes of the Rosengarten and the Langkofel, on the one side and on the other the snowy Marmolata and the summits about Cortina....

The following morning the start is made for Botzen. The way steadily descends for hours, past the pretty hamlets of Canazei, Campitello and Vigo di Fassa, surrounded by an imposing array of Dolomite peaks. After crossing the Karer Pass the scenery becomes much more soft and pastoral. Below the pass, most beautifully situated is a little green lake called the Karer-See....

At Botzen the drive through the Dolomites ends. At best it gives but a glimpse of this delightful region! That glimpse leaves a lasting impression, not of snowy summits and glistening glaciers, but of wonderful rocks and more wonderful coloring and of great peaks of fantastic form, set in a garden spot of green. And Botzen is a fitting terminus. It dates far back to the Middle Ages. It boasts of churches, houses and public buildings of artistic merit and architectural beauty and over all there lingers an atmosphere of rest and refinement, refreshing to see, where there might have been the noisy bustle and hopeless vulgarity of so many places similarly situated.

There is plenty going on, nevertheless, for Botzen is quite a little commercial center in its own way, but with it there is this charm of dignified repose. One wanders through the town under the cool colonnades, strolls into some ancient cloisters, kneels for a moment in some finely carved church and then goes out again to the open, to see far above the little city that beautiful background of the Dolomite peaks, dominated by the wonderfully impressive and fantastic Rosengarten range, golden red in the western sun. With such a view experience may well lapse into memory, to linger on so long as the mind possesses the power of recalling the past.

CORTINA[27]

BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS

Situate on the left bank of the Boita, which here runs nearly due north and south, with the Tre Croci pass opening away behind the town to the east, and the Tre Sassi Pass widening before it to the west, Cortina lies in a comparatively open space between four great mountains, and is therefore less liable to danger from bergfalls than any other village not only in the Val d'Ampezo but in the whole adjacent district. For the same reason, it is cooler in summer than either Caprile, Agordo, Primiero, or Predazzo; all of which, tho' more central as stopping places, and in many respects more convenient, are yet somewhat too closely hemmed in by surrounding heights. The climate of Cortina is temperate throughout the year. Ball gives the village an elevation of 4,048 feet above the level of the sea; and one of the parish priests—an intelligent old man who has devoted many years of his life to collecting the flora of the Ampezzo—assured me that he had never known the thermometer drop so low as fifteen degrees[28] of frost in even the coldest winters. The soil, for all this, has a bleak and barren look; the maize (here called "grano Turco") is cultivated, but does not flourish; and the vine is unknown. But then agriculture is not a specialty of the Ampezzo Thal, and the wealth of Cortina is derived essentially from its pasture-lands and forests.

These last, in consequence of the increased and increasing value of timber, have been lavishly cut down of late years by the Commune—too probably at the expense of the future interests of Cortina. For the present, however, every inn, homestead, and public building bespeaks prosperity. The inhabitants are well-fed and well-drest. Their fairs and festivals are the most considerable in all the South Eastern Tyrol; their principal church is the largest this side of St. Ulrich; and their new Gothic Campanile, 250 feet high, might suitably adorn the piazza of such cities as Bergamo or Belluno.

The village contains about 700 souls, but the population of the Commune numbers over 2,500. Of these, the greater part, old and young, rich and poor, men, women, and children, are engaged in the timber trade. Some cut the wood; some transport it. The wealthy convey it on trucks drawn by fine horses which, however, are cruelly overworked. The poor harness themselves six or eight in a team, men, women, and boys together, and so, under the burning summer sun, drag loads that look as if they might be too much for an elephant....

To ascend the Campanile and get the near view over the village, was obviously one of the first duties of a visitor; so, finding the door open and the old bellringer inside, we mounted laboriously to the top—nearly a hundred feet higher than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Standing here upon the outer gallery above the level of the great bells, we had the village and valley at our feet. The panorama, tho' it included little which we had not seen already, was fine all around, and served to impress the mainland marks upon our memory. The Ampezzo Thal opened away to north and south, and the twin passes of the Tre Croci and Tre Sassi intersected it to east and west. When we had fixt in our minds the fact that Landro and Bruneck lay out to the north, and Perarolo to the south; that Auronzo was to be found somewhere on the other side of the Tre Croci; and that to arrive at Caprile it was necessary to go over the Tre Sassi, we had gained something in the way of definite topography. The Marmolata and Civetta, as we knew by our maps, were on the side of Caprile; and the Marmarole on the side of Auronzo. The Pelmo, left behind yesterday, was peeping even now above the ridge of the Rochetta; and a group of fantastic rocks, so like the towers and bastions of a ruined castle that we took them at first sight for the remains of some medieval stronghold, marked the summit of the Tre Sassi to the west.

"But what mountain is that far away to the south?" we asked, pointing in the direction of Perarolo.

"Which mountain, Signora?"

"That one yonder, like a cathedral front with two towers."

The old bellringer shaded his eyes with one trembling hand, and peered down the valley.

"Eh," he said, "it is some mountain on the Italian side."

"But what is it called?"

"Eh," he repeated, with a puzzled look, "who knows? I don't know that I ever noticed it before."

Now it was a very singular mountain—one of the most singular and the most striking that we saw throughout the tour. It was exactly like the front of Notre Dame, with one slender aiguille, like a flagstaff, shooting up from the top of one of its battlemented towers. It was conspicuous from most points on the left bank of the Boita; but the best view, as I soon after discovered, was from the rising ground behind Cortina, going up through the fields in the direction of the Begontina torrent.

To this spot we returned again and again, fascinated as much, perhaps, by the mystery in which it was enveloped, as by the majestic outline of this unknown mountain, to which, for want of a better, we gave the name of Notre Dame. For the old bellringer was not alone in his ignorance. Ask whom we would, we invariably received the same vague reply—it was a mountain "on the Italian side." They knew no more; and some, like our friend of the Campanile, had evidently "not noticed it before."



IX

ALPINE RESORTS

THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS[29]

BY FREDERIC HARRISON

Once more—perhaps for the last time—I listen to the unnumbered tinkling of the cow-bells on the slopes—"the sweet bells of the sauntering herd"—to the music of the cicadas in the sunshine, and the shouts of the neat herdlads, echoing back from Alp to Alp. I hear the bubbling of the mountain rill, I watch the emerald moss of the pastures gleaming in the light, and now and then the soft white mist creeping along the glen, as our poet says, "puts forth an arm and creeps from pine to pine." And see, the wild flowers, even in this waning season of the year, the delicate lilac of the dear autumn crocus, which seems to start up elf-like out of the lush grass, the coral beads of the rowan, and the beech-trees just begun to wear their autumn jewelry of old gold.

As I stroll about these hills, more leisurely, more thoughtfully than I used to do of old in my hot mountaineering days, I have tried to think out what it is that makes the Alpine landscape so marvelous a tonic to the spirit—what is the special charm of it to those who have once felt all its inexhaustible magic. Other lands have rare beauties, wonders of their own, sights to live in the memory for ever.

In France, in Italy, in Spain, in Greece and in Turkey, I hold in memory many a superb landscape. From boyhood upward I thirsted for all kinds of Nature's gifts, whether by sea, or by river, lake, mountain, or forest. For sixty years at least I have roved about the white cliffs, the moors, the riversides, lakes, and pastures of our own islands from Penzance to Cape Wrath, from Beachy Head to the Shetlands. I love them all. But they can not touch me, as do the Alps, with the sense at once of inexhaustible loveliness and of a sort of conscious sympathy with every fiber of man's heart and brain. Why then is this so?

I find it in the immense range of the moods in which Nature is seen in the Alps, as least by those who have fully absorbed all the forms, sights, sounds, wonders, and adventures they offer. An hour's walk will show them all in profound contrast and yet in exquisite harmony. The Alps form a book of Nature as wide and as mysterious as Life.

Earth has no scenes of placid fruitfulness more balmy than the banks of one of the larger lakes, crowded with vineyards, orchards, groves and pastures, down to the edge of its watery mirror, wherein, beside a semi-tropical vegetation, we see the image of some medieval castle, of some historic tower, and thence the eye strays up to sunless gorges, swept with avalanches, and steaming with feathery cascades; and higher yet one sees against the skyline ranges of terrific crags, girt with glaciers, and so often wreathed in storm clouds.

All that Earth has of most sweet, softest, easiest, most suggestive of langor and love, of fertility and abundance—here is seen in one vision beside all that Nature has most hard, most cruel, most unkind to Man—where life is one long weary battle with a frost bitten soil, and every peasant's hut has been built up stone by stone, and log by log, with sweat and groans, and wrecked hopes. In a few hours one may pass from an enchanted garden, where every sense is satiated, and every flower and leaf and gleam of light is intoxication, up into a wilderness of difficult crags and yawning glaciers, which men can reach only by hard-earned skill, tough muscle and iron nerves....

The Alps are international, European, Humanitarian. Four written languages are spoken in their valleys, and ten times as many local dialects. The Alps are not especially Swiss—I used to think they were English—they belong equally to four nations of Europe; they are the sanatorium and the diversorium of the civilized world, the refuge, the asylum, the second home of men and women famous throughout the centuries for arts, literature, thought, religion. The poet, the philosopher, the dreamer, the patriot, the exile, the bereaved, the reformer, the prophet, the hero—have all found in the Alps a haven of rest, a new home where the wicked cease from troubling, where men need neither fear nor suffer. The happy and the thoughtless, the thinker and the sick—are alike at home here. The patriot exile inscribed on his house on Lake Leman—"Every land is fatherland to the brave man." What he might have written is—"This land is fatherland to all men." To young and old, to strong and weak, to wise and foolish alike, the Alps are a second fatherland.

INTERLAKEN AND THE JUNGFRAU[30]

B.T. ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES

It is hard to find a prettier spot than Interlaken. Situated between two lovely lakes, surrounded by wooded heights, and lying but a few miles from the snowy Jungfrau, it is like a jewel richly set. From Lucerne over the Brunig, from Meiringen over the Grimsel come the travelers, passing on their way the Lake of Brienz, with the waterfall of the Giessbach, on its southern side.

From Berne over Lake Thun, from the Rhone Valley over the Gemmi or through the Simmenthal come the tourists, seeing as they come the white peaks of the Oberland. And Interlaken welcomes them all, and rests them for their closer relations with the High Alps by trips to the region of the Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, and Muerren, and the great mountain plateaux looking down upon them. Interlaken is not a climbing center. Consequently mountaineering is little in evidence, conversation about ascents is seldom heard, and ice-axes, ropes, and nailed boots are seen more often in shop windows than in the streets.

Interlaken is not like some other Swiss towns. Berne, Geneva, Zurich, and Lucerne are places possessing notable churches, museums, and monuments of the past, having a social life of their own and being distinguished in some special way, as centers of culture and education. Interlaken, however, has little life apart from that made by the throngs of visitors who gather here in the summer. There is little to see except a group of old monastic buildings, and in Unterseen and elsewhere some fine old carved chalets, but none of these receives much attention.

The attraction, on what one may call the natural side, centers in the softly beautiful panorama of woods and meadows, green hills and snow peaks which opens to the eye, and on the social side in the busy little promenade and park of the Hoeheweg, bordered with hotels, shops, and gardens. Here is ever a changing picture in the height of the season, in fact, quite kaleidoscopic as railways and steamboats at each end of Interlaken send their passengers to mingle in the passing crowd. All "sorts and conditions of men" are here, and representatives of antagonistic nations meet in friendly intercourse.

On the hotel terraces and in the little cafes and tea rooms, one hears a babel of voices, every nation of Europe seeming to speak in its own native tongue. Life goes easily. There is a gaiety in the little town that is infectious. It is a sort of busy idleness. "To trip or not to trip" is the question. If the affirmative, then a rush to the mountain trains and comfortable cabs. If the negative, then a turning to the shops, where pretty things worthy of Paris or London are seen side by side with Swiss carvings and Swiss embroidery and many little superficial souvenirs. As the contents of the shops are exhibited in the windows, so the character of the visitors is shown by the crowds, and the life of the place is seen in the constant ebb and flow of the people on the Hoeheweg.

Interlaken is undoubtedly a tourist center, for few trips to Switzerland overlook or omit this delightful spot. Thousands come here, who never go any nearer the High Alps. They are quite content to sit on the benches of the Hoeheweg, listening to the music and enjoying the view. There is a casino, most artistically planned, with plashing fountains, shady paths, and wonderful flowerbeds. Here many persons pass the day, and, contrary to what one might expect, it is quiet and restful, lounging in that parklike garden.

For, notwithstanding "the madding crowd," Interlaken is a little gem of a mountain town, with an undertone of repose and nobility, as if the spirit of the Alps asserted herself, reigning, as one might say, for all not ruling. And always smiling at the people, as it were, is the majestic Jungfrau, ever seeming close at hand, altho' eight miles away....

The pleasures of this little Swiss resort are exhaustless. The wooded hills of the Rugen give innumerable walks amid beautiful forests, with all their wealth of pine and larch and hardwood, their moss-clad rocks and waving ferns. In that pleasant shade hours may be passed close to nature. The lakes not only offer delightful water trips, but also charming excursions along the wooded shores, sometimes high above the lakes, giving varying views of great beauty. While, ever as with beckoning fingers, the great peaks, snow-capped or rock-summitted, call one across the verdant meadows into the higher valleys of Kienthal, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwaid, and Kandersteg, to the terraced heights above or up amid the great wild passes.

Interlaken is, above all, a garden of green. Perhaps the unusual amount of rain which falls to the lot of this valley accounts for its verdure. In any event, park, woods, meadow, garden, even the mountain sides are green, a vari-colored green, and interspersed with an abundance of flowers. Nowhere is the eye offended by anything inartistic or unpicturesque, but, on the contrary, the charm is so comprehensive that the visitor looks from place to place, from this bit to that bit, and ever sees new beauty.

To complete all, to accentuate in the minds of some this impression of green, is the majestic Jungfrau. Other views may be grander and more magnificent, but no view of the Jungfrau can compare in loveliness to that from Interlaken. A great white glistening mass, far up above green meadows, green forests, and green mountains, rises this peak, a shining summit of white. Fitly named the Virgin, the Jungfrau gives her benediction to Interlaken, serenely smiling at the valley and at the town lying so quietly at her feet—the Jungfrau crowned with snow, Interlaken drest in green!

In the golden glory of the sun, in the silver shimmer of the moon, the Jungfrau beckons, the Jungfrau calls! "Come," she seems to say, "come nearer! Come up to the heights! Come close to the running waters! Come." And that invitation falls on no unwilling ears, but in to the Grindelwald and to the Lauterbrunnen and up to Muerren go those who love the majestic Jungfrau! What a wonderful trip this is! It may shatter some ideals in being taken to such a height in a railway train, but even against one's convictions as to the proper way of seeing a mountain, when all has been said, the fact remains that this trip is wonderful beyond words. There is a strangeness in taking a train which leaves a garden of green in the early morning and in a few hours later, after valley and pass and tunnel, puts one out on snow fields over 11,000 feet above the sea, where are seen vast stretches of white, almost level with the summit of the Jungfrau close at hand, and below, stretching for miles, on the one side the great Aletsch Glacier, and on the other side the green valleys enclosed by the everlasting hills!

The route is by way of Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, and the Scheidegg, and after skirting the Eiger Glacier going by tunnel into the very bowels of the mountain. At Eigerwand, Rotstock, and Eismeer are stations, great galleries blasted out of the rock, with corridors leading to openings from which one has marvelous views.[31] Eismeer looks directly upon the huge sea of snow and ice, with immense masses of dazzling white so close as to make one reel with awe and astonishment. In fact, this view is really oppressive in its wild magnificence, so near and so grand is it. The Jungfraujoch is different. One is out in the open, so to speak; one walks over that vast plateau of snow over 11,000 feet high in the glorious sunlight, above most of the nearer peaks and looking down at a beautiful panorama. On one side of this plateau is the Jungfrau, on the other the Moench, either of which can be climbed from here in about three hours.

Yet the eye lingers longer in the direction of the Aletsch Glacier than anywhere else, this frozen river running for miles and turning to the right at the little green basin of water full of pieces of floating ice, called the Marjelen Lake, or See, at the foot of the Eggishorn, which is unique and lovely. Long ago it was formed in this corner of the glacier, and its blue waters are really melted snow, over which float icebergs shining in the sun. In such a position the lake underlaps the glacier for quite a distance, forming a low vaulted cavern in the ice. Every now and then one of these little bergs overbalances itself and turns over, the upper side then being a deep blue, and the lower side, which was formerly above, being a pure white.

Again turning toward the green valleys, one with the eye of an artist, who can perceive and differentiate varying shades of color, can not but admit that the Bernese Oberland is "par excellence" first. Even south of the Alps the verdure does not excel or even equal that to be seen here. There is something incomparably lovely about the Oberland valleys. It is indescribable, indefinable, for when one has exhausted the most extravagant terms of description, he feels that he has failed to picture the scene as he desired. Yet if one word should be chosen to convey the impression which the Oberland makes, the word would be "color." For whether one regards the snow summits as setting off the valleys, or the green meadows as setting off the peaks, it matters not, for the secret of their beauty lies in the richness and variety of the exquisite coloring wherein many wonderful shades of green predominate.

THE ALTDORF OF WILLIAM TELL[32]

BY W.D. M'CRACKAN

Let it be said at once that, altho' the name of Altdorf is indissolubly linked with that of William Tell, the place arouses an interest which does not at all depend upon its associations with the famous archer. From the very first it gives one the impression of possessing a distinct personality, of ringing, as it were, to a note never heard before, and thus challenging attention to its peculiarities.

As you approach Altdorf from Flueelen, on the Lake of Lucerne, by the long white road, the first houses you reach are large structures of the conventional village type, plain, but evidently the homes of well-to-do people, and some even adorned with family coats-of-arms. In fact, this street is dedicated to the aristocracy, and formerly went by the name of the Herrengasse, the "Lane of the Lords." Beyond these fashionable houses is an open square, upon which faces a cosy inn—named, of course, after William Tell; and off on one side the large parish church, built in cheap baroco style, but containing a few objects of interest....

There is a good deal of sight-seeing to be done in Altdorf, for so small a place. In the town hall are shown the tattered flags carried by the warriors of Uri in the early battles of the Confederation, the mace and sword of state which are borne by the beadles to the Landsgemeinde. In a somewhat inaccessible corner, a few houses off, the beginnings of a museum have been made. Here is another portrait of interest—that of the giant Puentener, a mercenary whose valor made him the terror of the enemy in the battle of Marignano, in 1515; so that when he was finally killed, they avenged themselves, according to a writing beneath the picture, by using his fat to smear their weapons, and by feeding their horses with oats from his carcass. Just outside the village stands the arsenal, whence, they say, old armor was taken and turned into shovels, when the St. Gothard Railroad was building, so poor and ignorant were the people.

If you are of the sterner sex, you can also penetrate into the Capuchin Monastery, and enter the gardens, where the terraces that rise behind the buildings are almost Italian in appearance, festooned with vines and radiant with roses. Not that the fame of this institution rests on such trivial matters, however. The brothers boast of two things: theirs is the oldest branch of the order in Switzerland, dating from 1581, and they carry on in it the somewhat unappetizing industry of cultivating snails for the gourmands of foreign countries. Above the Capuchins is the famous Bannwald, mentioned by Schiller—a tract of forest on the mountain-slope, in which no one is allowed to fell trees, because it protects the village from avalanches and rolling stones.

Nothing could be fairer than the outskirts of Altdorf on a May morning. The valley of the Reuss lies bathed from end to end in a flood of golden light, shining through an atmosphere of crystal purity. Daisies, cowslips, and buttercups, the flowers of rural well-being, show through the rising grass of the fields; along the hedges and crumbling walls of the lanes peep timid primroses and violets, and in wilder spots the Alpine gentian, intensely blue. High up, upon the mountains, glows the indescribable velvet of the slopes, while, higher still, ragged and vanishing patches of snow proclaim the rapid approach of summer.

After all, the best part of Altdorf, to make an Irish bull, lies outside of the village. No adequate idea of this strange little community can be given without referring to the Almend, or village common. Indeed, as time goes on, one learns to regard this Almend as the complete expression and final summing up of all that is best in Altdorf, the reconciliation of all its inconsistencies.

How fine that great pasture beside the River Reus, with its short, juicy, Alpine grass, in sight of the snow-capped Bristenstock, at one end of the valley, and of the waters of Lake Lucerne at the other! In May, the full-grown cattle have already departed for the higher summer pastures, leaving only the feeble young behind, who are to follow as soon as they have grown strong enough to bear the fatigues of the journey. At this time, therefore, the Almend becomes a sort of vision of youth—of calves, lambs, and foals, guarded by little boys, all gamboling in the exuberance of early life.

LUCERNE[33]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

A height crowned with embattled ramparts that bristle with loop-holed turrets; church towers mingling their graceful spires and peaceful crosses with those warlike edifices; dazzling white villas, planted like tents under curtains of verdure; tall houses with old red skylights on the roofs—this is our first glimpse of the Catholic and warlike city of Lucerne. We seem to be approaching some town of old feudal times that has been left solitary and forgotten on the mountain side, outside of the current of modern life.

But when we pass through the station we find ourselves suddenly transported to the side of the lake, where whole flotillas of large and small boats lie moored on the blue waters of a large harbor. And along the banks of this wonderful lake is a whole town of hotels, gay with many colored flags, their terraces and balconies rising tier above tier, like the galleries of a grand theater whose scenery is the mighty Alps....

In summer Lucerne is the Hyde Park of Switzerland. Its quays are thronged by people of every nation. There you meet pale women from the lands of snow, and dark women from the lands of the sun; tall, six-foot English women, and lively, alert, trim Parisian women, with the light and graceful carriage of a bird on the bough. At certain hours this promenade on the quays is like a charity fair or a rustic ball—bright colors and airy draperies everywhere.

Nowhere can the least calm and repose be found but in the old town. There the gabled houses, with wooden galleries hanging over the waters of the Reuss, make a charming ancient picture, like a bit of Venice set down amid the verdant landscape of the valley.

I also discovered on the heights beyond the ramparts a pretty and peaceful convent of Capuchins, the way to which winds among wild plants, starry with flowers. It is delicious to go right away, far from the town swarming and running over with Londoners, Germans, and Americans, and to find yourself among fragrant hedges, peopled by warblers whom it has not yet occurred to the hotel-keepers to teach to sing in English. This sweet path leads without fatigue to the convent of the good fathers.

In a garden flooded with sunshine and balmy with the fragrance of mignonette and vervain, where broad sunflowers erect their black discs fringed with gold, two brothers with fan-shaped beards, their brass-mounted spectacles astride on their flat noses, and arrayed in green gardening aprons, are plying enormous watering-cans; while, in the green and cool half-twilight under the shadowy trees, big, rubicund brothers walk up and down, reading their red-edged breviaries in black leather bindings.

Happy monks! Not a fraction of a pessimist among them! How well they understand life! A beautiful convent, beautiful nature, good wine and good cheer, neither disturbance nor care; neither wife nor children; and when they leave the world, heaven specially created for them, seraphim waiting for them with harps of gold, and angels with urns of rose-water to wash their feet!

Lucerne began as a nest of monks, hidden in an orchard like a nest of sparrows. The first house of the town was a monastery, erected by the side of the lake. The nest grew, became a village, then a town, then a city. The monks of Murbach, to whom the monastery of St. Leger belonged, had got into debt; this sometimes does happen even to monks. They sold to King Rudolf all the property they possest at Lucerne and in Unterwalden; and thus the town passed into the hands of the Hapsburgs.

When the first Cantons, after expelling the Austrian bailiffs, had declared their independence, Lucerne was still one of Austria's advanced posts. But its people were daily brought into contact with the shepherds of the Forest Cantons, who came into the town to supply themselves with provisions; and they were not long in beginning to ask themselves if there was any reason why they should not be, as well as their neighbors, absolutely free. The position of the partizans of Austria soon became so precarious that they found it safe to leave the town....

The opening of the St. Gothard Railway has given a new impulse to this cosmopolitan city, which has a great future before it. Already it has supplanted Interlaken in the estimation of the furbelowed, fashionable world—the women who come to Switzerland not to see but to be seen. Lucerne is now the chief summer station of the twenty-two Cantons. And yet it does not possess many objects of interest. There is the old bridge on the Reuss, with its ancient paintings; the Church of St. Leger, with its lateral altars and its Campo Santo, reminding us of Italian cemeteries; the museum at the Town Hall, with its fine collection of stained glass; the blood-stained standards from the Burgundian wars, and the flag in which noble old Gundolfingen, after charging his fellow-citizens never to elect their magistrates for more than a year, wrapt himself as in a shroud of glory to die in the fight; finally, there is the Lion of Lucerne; and that is all.

The most wonderful thing of all is that you are allowed to see this lion for nothing; for close beside it you are charged a franc for permission to cast an indifferent glance on some uninteresting excavations, which date, it is said, from the glacial period. We do not care if they do....

The great quay of Lucerne is delightful; as good as the seashore at Dieppe or Trouville. Before you, limpid and blue, lies the lake, which from the character of its shores, at once stern and graceful, is the finest in Switzerland. In front rises the snow-clad peaks of Uri, to the left the Rigi, to the right the austere Pilatus, almost always wearing his high cap of clouds. This beautiful walk on the quay, long and shady like the avenue of a gentleman's park, is the daily resort, toward four o'clock, of all the foreigners who are crowded in the hotels or packed in the boarding-houses. Here are Russian and Polish counts with long mustaches, and pins set with false brilliants; Englishmen with fishes' or horses' heads; Englishwomen with the figures of angels or of giraffes; Parisian women, daintily attired, sprightly, and coquettish; American women, free in their bearing, and eccentric in their dress, and their men as stiff as the smoke-pipes of steamboats; German women, with languishing voices, drooping and pale like willow branches, fair-haired and blue-eyed, talking in the same breath of Goethe and the price of sausages, of the moon and their glass of beer, of stars and black radishes. And here and there are a few little Swiss girls, fresh and rosy as wood strawberries, smiling darlings like Dresden shepherdesses, dreaming of scenes of platonic love in a great garden adorned with the statue of William Tell or General Dufour.

ZURICH[34]

BY W.D. M'CRACKAN

If you arrive in Zurich after dark, and pass along the river-front, you will think yourself for a moment in Venice. The street lamps glow responsively across the dark Limmat, or trail their light from the bridges. In the uncertain darkness, the bare house walls of the farther side put on the dignity of palaces. There are unsuspected architectural glories in the Wasserkirche and the Rathhaus, as they stand partly in the water of the river. And if, at such times, one of the long, narrow barges of the place passes up stream, the illusion is complete; for, as the boat cuts at intervals through the glare of gaslight it looks for all the world like a gondola....

Zurich need not rely upon any fancied resemblance of this sort for a distinct charm of its own. The situation of the city is essentially beautiful, reminding one, in a general way, of that of Geneva, Lucerne, or Thun—at the outlet of a lake, and at the point of issue of a swift river. Approaching from the lakeside, the twin towers of the Grossmuenster loom upon the right, capped by ugly rounded tops, like miters; upon the left, the simple spires of the Fraumuenster and St. Peter's. A conglomeration of roofs denotes the city houses. On the water-front, extensive promenades stretch, crescent shaped, from end to end, cleverly laid out, tho' as yet too new to quite fulfil their mission of beauty. Some large white buildings form the front line on the lake—notably the theater, and a few hotels and apartment houses. Finally, there where the River Limmat leaves the lake, a vista of bridges open into the heart of the city—a succession of arches and lines that invite inspection.

Like most progressive cities of Europe, Zurich has outgrown its feudal accouterments within the last fifty years. It has razed its walls, converted its bastions into playgrounds, and, pushing out on every side, has incorporated many neighboring villages, until to-day it contains more than ninety thousand inhabitants.[35] The pride of modern Zurich is the Bahnhof-strasse, a long street which leads from the railroad station to the lake. It is planted with trees, and counts as the one and only boulevard of the city. Unfortunately, a good view of the distant snow mountains is very rare from the lake promenade, altho' they appear with distinctness upon the photographs sold in the shops.

Early every Saturday the peasant women come trooping in, with their vegetables, fruits, and flowers, to line the Bahnhof-strasse with carts and baskets. The ladies and kitchen-maids of the city come to buy; but by noon the market is over. In a jiffy, the street is swept as clean as a kitchen floor, and the women have turned their backs on Zurich. But the real center of attraction in Zurich will be found by the traveler in that quarter where stands the Grossmuenster, the church of which Zwingli was incumbent for twelve years.

It may well be called the Wittenberg church of Switzerland. The present building dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries; but tradition has it that the first minster was founded by Charlemagne. That ubiquitous emperor certainly manifested great interest in Zurich. He has been represented no less than three times in various parts of the building. About midway up one of the towers, his statue appears in a niche, where pigeons strut and prink their feathers, undisturbed. Charlemagne is sitting with a mighty two-edged sword upon his knees, and a gilded crown upon his head; but the figure is badly proportioned, and the statue is a good-natured, stumpy affair, that makes one smile rather than admire. The outside of the minster still shows traces of the image breakers of Zwingli's time, and yet the crumbling north portal remains beautiful, even in decay. As for the interior, it has an exceedingly bare and stript appearance; for, altho' there is good, solid stonework in the walls, the whole has been washed a foolish, Philistine white. The Romanesque of the architectural is said to be of particular interest to connoisseurs, and the queer archaic capitals must certainly attract the notice even of ordinary tourists....

It is also worth while to go to the Helmhaus, and examine the collection of lake-dwelling remains. In fact, there is a delightful little model of a lake-dwelling itself, and an appliance to show you how those primitive people could make holes in their stone implements, before they knew the use of metals. The ancient guild houses of Zurich are worth a special study. Take, for instance, that of the "Zimmerleute," or carpenter with its supporting arches and little peaked tower; or the so-called "Waag," with frescoed front; then the great wainscoated and paneled hall of the "schmieden" (smiths); and the rich Renaissance stonework of the "Maurer" (masons). These buildings, alas, with the decay of the system which produced them, have been obliged to put up big signs of Cafe Restaurant upon their historic facades, like so many vulgar, modern eating-houses.

The Rathhaus, or Town Hall, too, is charming. It stands, like the Wasserkirche, with one side in the water and the other against the quay. The style is a sort of reposeful Italian Renaissance, that is florid only in the best artistic sense. Nor must you miss the so-called "Rueden," nearby, for its sloping roof and painted walls give it a very captivating look of alert picturesqueness, and it contains a large collection of Pestalozzi souvenirs.

Zurich has more than one claim to the world's recognition; but no department of its active life, perhaps, merits such unstinted praise as its educational facilities. First and foremost, the University, with four faculties, modeled upon the German system, but retaining certain distinctive traits that are essentially Swiss—for instance, the broad and liberal treatment accorded to women students, who are admitted as freely as men, and receive the same instruction. A great number of Russian girls are always to be seen in Zurich, as at other Swiss universities, working unremittingly to acquire the degrees which they are denied at home. Not a few American women also have availed themselves of these facilities, especially for the study of medicine....

Zurich is, at the present time, undoubtedly the most important commercial city in Switzerland, having distanced both Basel and Geneva in this direction. The manufacturing of silk, woolen, and linen fabrics has flourished here since the end of the thirteenth century. In modern times, however, cotton and machinery have been added as staple articles of manufacture. Much of the actual weaving is still done in outlying parts of the Canton, in the very cottages of the peasants, so that the click of the loom is heard from open windows in every village and hamlet.

But modern industrial processes are tending continually to drive the weavers from their homes into great centralized factories, and every year this inevitable change becomes more apparent. It is certainly remarkable that Zurich should succeed in turning out cheap and good machinery, when we remember that every ton of coal and iron has to be imported, since Switzerland possesses not a single mine, either of the one or the other.

THE RIGI[36]

BY W.D. M'CRACKAN

If you really want to know how the Swiss Confederation came to be, you can not do better than take the train to the top of the Rigi. You might stumble through many a volume, and not learn so thoroughly the essential causes of this national birth.

Of course, the eye rests first upon the phalanx of snow-crests to the south, then down upon the lake, lying outstretched like some wriggling monster, switching its tail, and finally off to the many places where early Swiss history was made. In point of fact, you are looking at quite a large slice of Switzerland. Victor Hugo seized the meaning of this view when he wrote: "It is a serious hour, and full of meditations, when one has Switzerland thus under the eyes." ...

The physical features of a country have their counterparts in its political institutions. In Switzerland the great mountain ranges divide the territory into deep valleys, each of which naturally forms a political unit—the Commune. Here is a miniature world, concentrated into a small space, and representing the sum total of life to its inhabitants. Self-government becomes second nature under these conditions. A sort of patriarchal democracy is evolved: that is, certain men and certain families are apt to maintain themselves at the head of public affairs, but with the consent and cooperation of the whole population.

There is hardly a spot associated with the rise of the Swiss Confederation whose position can not be determined from the Rigi. The two Tell's chapels; the Ruetli; the villages of Schwiz, Altdorf, Brunnen, Beckenried, Stans, and Sarnen; the battlefields of Morgarten and Sempach; and on a clear day the ruined castle of Hapsburg itself, lie within a mighty circle at one's feet.

It was preordained that the three lands of Uri, Schwiz, and Unterwalden should unite for protection of common interests against the encroachment of a common enemy—the ambitious house of Hapsburg. The lake formed at once a bond and a highway between them. On the first day of August, 1291, more than six hundred years ago, a group of unpretentious patriots, ignored by the great world, signed a document which formed these lands into a loose Confederation. By this act they laid the foundation upon which the Swiss state was afterward reared. In their naive, but prophetic, faith, the contracting parties called this agreement a perpetual pact; and they set forth, in the Latin, legal phraseology of the day, that, seeing the malice of the times, they found it necessary to take an oath to defend one another against outsiders, and to keep order within their boundaries; at the same time carefully stating that the object of the league was to maintain lawfully established conditions.

From small beginnings, the Confederation of Uri, Schwiz, and Unterwalden grew, by the addition of other communities, until it reached its present proportions, of twenty-two Cantons, in 1815. Lucerne was the first to join; then came Zurich, Glarus, Zug, Bern, etc. The early Swiss did not set up a sovereign republic, in our acceptation of the word, either in internal or external policy. The class distinctions of the feudal age continued to exist; and they by no means disputed the supreme rule of the head of the German Empire over them, but rather gloried in the protection which this direct dependence afforded them against a multitude of intermediate, preying nobles.

CHAMOUNI—AN AVALANCHE[37]

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

From Servoz three leagues remain to Chamouni—Mont Blanc was before us—the Alps, with their innumerable glaciers on high all around, closing in the complicated windings of the single vale—forests inexpressibly beautiful, but majestic in their beauty—intermingled beech and pine, and oak, overshadowed our road, or receded, while lawns of such verdure as I have never seen before occupied these openings, and gradually became darker in their recesses. Mont Blanc was before us, but it was covered with cloud; its base, furrowed with dreadful gaps, was seen above. Pinnacles of snow intolerably bright, part of the chain connected with Mont Blanc, shone through the clouds at intervals on high. I never knew—I never imagined—what mountains were before.

The immensity of these aerial summits excited, when they suddenly burst upon the sight, a sentiment of ecstatic wonder, not unallied to madness. And, remember, this was all one scene, it all prest home to our regard and our imagination. Tho' it embraced a vast extent of space, the snowy pyramids which shot into the bright blue sky seemed to overhang our path; the ravine, clothed with gigantic pines, and black with its depth below, so deep that the very roaring of the untameable Arve, which rolled through it, could not be heard above—all was as much our own, as if we had been the creators of such impressions in the minds of others as now occupied our own. Nature was the poet, whose harmony held our spirits more breathless than that of the divinest.

As we entered the valley of the Chamouni (which, in fact, may be considered as a continuation of those which we have followed from Bonneville and Cluses), clouds hung upon the mountains at the distance perhaps of 6,000 feet from the earth, but so as effectually to conceal not only Mont Blanc, but the other "aiguilles," as they call them here, attached and subordinate to it. We were traveling along the valley, when suddenly we heard a sound as the burst of smothered thunder rolling above; yet there was something in the sound that told us it could not be thunder. Our guide hastily pointed out to us a part of the mountain opposite, from whence the sound came. It was an avalanche. We saw the smoke of its path among the rocks, and continued to hear at intervals the bursting of its fall. It fell on the bed of a torrent, which it displaced, and presently we saw its tawny-colored waters also spread themselves over the ravine, which was their couch.

We did not, as we intended, visit the Glacier des Bossons to-day, altho it descends within a few minutes' walk of the road, wishing to survey it at least when unfatigued. We saw this glacier, which comes close to the fertile plain, as we passed. Its surface was broken into a thousand unaccountable figures; conical and pyramidical crystallizations, more than fifty feet in height, rise from its surface, and precipices of ice, of dazzling splendor, overhang the woods and meadows of the vale. This glacier winds upward from the valley, until it joins the masses of frost from which it was produced above, winding through its own ravine like a bright belt flung over the black region of pines.

There is more in all these scenes than mere magnitude of proportion; there is a majesty of outline; there is an awful grace in the very colors which invest these wonderful shapes—a charm which is peculiar to them, quite distinct even from the reality of their unutterable greatness.

ZERMATT[38]

BY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES

Those who would reach the very heart of the Alps and look upon a scene of unparalleled grandeur must go into the Valais to Zermatt.



The way up the valley is that which follows the River Visp. It is a delightful journey. The little stream is never still. It will scarcely keep confined to the banks or within the stone walls which in many places protect the shores. The river dances along as if seeking to be free. For the most part it is a torrent, sweeping swiftly past the solid masonry and descending the steep bed in a series of wild leaps or artificial waterfalls, with wonderful effects of sunlight seen in the showers of spray. Fed as it is by many mountain streams, the Visp is always full, and the more so, when in summer the melting ice adds to its volume.

Then it is a sight long remembered, as roaring, rollicking, rushing along it is a brawling mass of waters, often working havoc with banks, road, village, and pastures. If one never saw a mountain, the sight of the Visp would more than repay, but, as it is, one's attention is taxed to the uttermost not to miss anything of this little rushing river and at the same time get the charming views of the Weisshorn, the Breithorn, and the other snow summits which appear over the mountain spurs surrounding the head of the valley.

The first impression on reaching the Zermatt is one of disappointment. Maps and pictures generally lead the traveler to think that from the village he will see the great semicircle of snow peaks which surround the valley, but upon arrival he finds that he must go further up to see them, for all of them are hidden from view except the Matterhorn.

This mountain, however, is seen in all its grandeur, fierce and frowning, and to an imaginative mind bending forward as if threatening and trying to shake off the little snow that appears here and there on its side. It dominates the whole scene and leaves an indelible impress on the mind, so that one can never picture Zermatt without the Matterhorn.

Zermatt as a place is a curious combination; a line of hotels in juxtaposition with a village of chalets, unsophisticated peasants shoulder to shoulder with people of fashion! There are funny little shops, here showing only such simple things as are needed by the dwellers in the Valais, there exhibiting really beautiful articles in dress and jewelry to attract the summer visitors, while at convenient spots are the inevitable tea-rooms, where "The, Cafe, Limonade, Confiserie" minister to the coming crowds of an afternoon....

Guides galore wait in front of all the large hotels; ice-axes, ropes, nailed boots, rucksacks, and all the paraphernalia of the mountains are seen on every side, and a walk along the one main thoroughfare introduces one into the life of a climbing center, interesting to a degree and often very amusing from the miscellaneous collection of people there.

Perhaps the first thing one cares to see at Zermatt is the village church, with the adjoining churchyard. The church, dedicated to Saint Maurice, a favorite saint in the Valais and Rhone district, is plain but interesting and in parts is quite old. Near it is a little mortuary chapel. In most parts of Switzerland, it is the custom, after the bodies of the dead have been buried a certain length of time, to remove the remains to the "charnel house," allowing the graves to be used again and thus not encroaching upon the space reserved and consecrated in the churchyard, but we do not think this custom obtains at Zermatt.

In the churchyard is a monument to Michel Auguste Croz, the guide, and near by are the graves of the Reverend Charles Hudson and Mr. Hadow. These three, with Lord Francis Douglas were killed in Mr. Whymper's first ascent of the Matterhorn.[39] The body of Lord Francis Douglas has never been found. It is probably deep in some crevasse or under the snows which surround the base of the Matterhorn....

For the more extended climbs or for excursions in the direction of the Schwarzsee, the Staffel Alp or the Trift, Zermatt is the starting point. The place abounds in walks, most of them being the first part of the routes to the high mountains, so that those who are fond of tramping but not of climbing can reach high elevations with a little hard work, but no great difficulty. Some of these "midway" places may be visited on muleback, and with the railway now up to the Gorner-Grat there are few persons who may not see this wonderful region of snow peaks.

The trip to the Schwarzsee is the first stage on the Matterhorn route. It leads through the village, past the Gorner Gorges (which one may visit by a slight detour) and then enters some very pretty woods, from which one issues on to the bare green meadows which clothe the upper part of the steep slope of the mountain. As one mounts this zigzag path, it sometimes seems as if it would never end, and for all the magnificent views which it affords, one is always glad that it is over, as it exactly fulfils the conditions of a "grind."

From the Schwarzsee (8,495 feet, where there is an excellent hotel), there is a fine survey of the Matterhorn, and also a splendid panorama, on three sides, one view up the glaciers toward the Monte Rosa, another over the valley to the Dent Blanche and other great peaks, and still another to the far distant Bernese Oberland. Near the hotel is a little lake and a tiny chapel, where mass is sometimes said. The reflection in the still waters of the lake is very lovely.

From the Schwarzsee, trips are made to the Hoernli (another stage on the way to the Matterhorn), to the Gandegg Hut, across moraine and glacier and to the Staffel Alp, over the green meadows. The Hoernli (9,490 feet high) is the ridge running out from the Matterhorn. It is reached by a stiff climb over rocks and a huge heap of fallen stones and debris. From it the view is similar to that from the Schwarzsee, but much finer, the Theodule Glacier being seen to great advantage. Above the Hoernli towers the Matterhorn, huge, fierce, frowning, threatening. Every few moments comes a heavy, muffled sound, as new showers of falling stones come down. This is one of the main dangers in climbing the peak itself, for from base to summit, the Matterhorn is really a decaying mountain, the stones rolling away through the action of the storms, the frosts, and the sun.

PONTRESINA AND ST. MORITZ[40]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

The night was falling fine as dust, as a black sifted snow-shower, a snow made of shadow; and the melancholy of the landscape, the grand nocturnal solitude of these lofty, unknown regions, had a charm profound and disquieting. I do not know why I fancied myself no longer in Switzerland, but in some country near the pole, in Sweden or Norway. At the foot of these bare mountains I looked for wild fjords, lit up by the moon.

Nothing can express the profound somberness of these landscapes at nightfall; the long desert road, gray from the reflections of the starry sky, unrolls in an interminable ribbon along the depth of the valley; the treeless mountains, hollowed out like ancient craters, lift their overhanging precipices; lakes sleeping in the midst of the pastures, behind curtains of pines and larches, glitter like drops of quicksilver; and on the horizon the immense glaciers crowd together and overflow like sheets of foam on a frozen sea.

The road ascends. From the distance comes a dull noise, the roaring of a torrent. We cross a little cluster of trees, and on issuing from it the superb amphitheater of glaciers shows itself anew, overlooked by one white point glittering like an opal. On the hill a thousand little lights show me that I am at last at Pontresina. I thought I should never have arrived there; nowhere does night deceive more than in the mountains; in proportion as you advance toward a point, it seems to retreat from you.

Soon the black fantastic lines of the houses show through the darkness. I enter a narrow street, formed of great gloomy buildings, their fronts like a convent or prison. The hamlet is transformed into a little town of hotels, very comfortable, very elegant, very dear, but very stupid and very vulgar, with their laced porter in an admiral's hat, and their whiskered waiters, who have the air of Anglican ministers. Oh! how I detest them, and flee them, those hotels where the painter, or the tourist who arrives on foot, knapsack on his back and staff in hand, his trousers tucked into his leggings, his flask slung over his shoulder, and his hat awry, is received with less courtesy than a lackey.

Besides those hotels, some of which are veritable palaces, and where the ladies are almost bound to change their dress three times a day, there is a hotel of the second and third class; and there is the old inn; the comfortable, hospitable, patriarchal inn, with its Gothic signboard....

On leaving the village I was again in the open mountain. In the distance the road penetrated into the valley, rising always. The moon had risen. She stood out sharply cut in a cloudless sky, and stars sparkling everywhere in profusion; not like nails of gold, but sown broadcast like a flying dust, a dust of carbuncles and diamonds. To the right, in the depths of the amphitheater of the mountains, an immense glacier looked like a frozen cascade; and above, a perfectly white peak rose draped in snow, like some legendary king in his mantle of silver.

Bending under my knapsack, and dragging my feet, I arrive at last at the hotel, where I am received, in the kindest manner in the world, by the two mistresses of the establishment, two sisters of open, benevolent countenance and of sweet expression.

And the poor little traveler who arrives, his bag on his back and without bustle, who has sent neither letter nor telegram to announce his arrival, is the object of the kindest and most delicate attentions; his clothes are brushed, he gets water for his refreshment, and is then conducted to a table bountifully spread, in a dining-room fragrant with good cookery and bouquets of flowers....

Beyond Campfer, its houses surrounding a third little lake, we come suddenly on a scene of extraordinary animation. All the cosmopolitan society of St. Moritz is there, sauntering, walking, running, in mountain parties, on afternoon excursions. The favorite one is the walk to the pretty lake of Campfer, with its shady margin, its resting places hidden among the branches, its chalet-restaurant, from the terrace of which one overlooks the whole valley; and it would be difficult to find near St. Moritz a more interesting spot.

We meet at every step parties of English ladies, looking like plantations of umbrellas with their covers on and surmounted by immense straw hats; then there are German ladies, massive as citadels, but not impregnable, asking nothing better than to surrender to the young exquisites, with the figure of cuirassiers, who accompany them; further on, lively Italian ladies parade themselves in dresses of the carnival, the colors outrageously striking and dazzling to the eyes; with up-turned skirts they cross the Inn on great mossy stones, leaping with the grace of birds, and smiling, to show, into the bargain, the whiteness of their teeth. All this crowd passing in procession before us is composed of men and women of every age and condition; some with the grave face of a waxen saint, others beaming with the satisfied smile of rich people; there are also invalids, who go along hobbling and limping, or who are drawn, in little carriages.

Soon handsome facades, pierced with hundreds of windows, show themselves in the grand and severe setting of mountains and glaciers. It is St. Moritz-les-Bains. Here every house is a hotel, and, as every hotel is a little palace, we do not alight from the diligence; we go a little farther and a little higher, to St. Moritz-le-Village, which has a much more beautiful situation. It is at the top of a little hill, whose sides slope down to a pretty lake, fresh and green as a lawn. The eye reaches beyond Sils, the whole length of the valley, with its mountains like embattled ramparts, its lakes like a great row of pearls, and its glaciers showing their piles of snowy white against the azure depths of the horizon.

St. Moritz is the center of the valley of the Upper Engadine, which extends to the length of eighteen or nineteen leagues, and which scarcely possesses a thousand inhabitants. Almost all the men emigrate to work for strangers, like their brothers, the mountaineers of Savoy and Auvergne, and do not return till they have amassed a sufficient fortune to allow them to build a little white house, with gilded window frames, and to die quietly in the spot where they were born.... Historians tell us that the first inhabitants of the Upper Engadine were Etruscans and Latins chased from Italy by the Gauls and Carthaginians, and taking refuge in these hidden altitudes. After the fall of the Empire, the inhabitants of the Engadine fell under the dominion of the Franks and Lombards, then the Dukes of Swabia; but the blood never mingled—the type remained Italian; black hair, the quick eye, the mobile countenance, the expressive features, and the supple figure.

GENEVA[41]

BY FRANCIS H. GRIBBLE

Straddling the Rhone, where it issues from the bluest lake in the world, looking out upon green meadows and wooded hills, backed by the dark ridge of the Saleve, with the "great white mountain" visible in the distance, Geneva has the advantage of an incomparable site; and it is, from a town surveyor's point of view, well built. It has wide thoroughfares, quays, and bridges; gorgeous public monuments and well-kept public gardens; handsome theaters and museums; long rows of palatial hotels; flourishing suburbs; two railway-stations, and a casino. But all this is merely the facade—all of it quite modern; hardly any of it more than half a century old. The real historical Geneva—the little of it that remains—is hidden away in the background, where not every tourist troubles to look for it. It is disappearing fast. Italian stonemasons are constantly engaged in driving lines through it. They have rebuilt, for instance, the old Corraterie, which is now the Regent Street of Geneva, famous for its confectioners' and booksellers' shops; they have destroyed, and are still destroying, other ancient slums, setting up white buildings of uniform ugliness in place of the picturesque but insanitary dwellings of the past. It is, no doubt, a very necessary reform, tho' one may think that it is being executed in too utilitarian a spirit. The old Geneva was malodorous, and its death-rate was high. They had more than one Great Plague there, and their Great Fires have always left some of the worst of their slums untouched. These could not be allowed to stand in an age which studies the science and practises the art of hygiene. Yet the traveler who wants to know what the old Geneva was really like must spend a morning or two rambling among them before they are pulled down.

The old Geneva, like Jerusalem, was set upon a hill, and it is toward the top of the hill that the few buildings of historical interest are to be found. There is the cathedral—a striking object from a distance, tho' the interior is hideously bare. There is the Town Hall, in which, for the convenience of notables carried in litters, the upper stories were reached by an inclined plane instead of a staircase. There is Calvin's old Academy, bearing more than a slight resemblance to certain of the smaller colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. There, too, are to be seen a few mural tablets, indicating the residences of past celebrities. In such a house Rousseau was born; in such another house or in an older house, now demolished, on the same site—Calvin died. And toward these central points the steep and narrow, mean streets—in many cases streets of stairs—converge.

As one plunges into these streets one seems to pass back from the twentieth century to the fifteenth, and need not exercise one's imagination very severely in order to picture the town as it appeared in the old days before the Reformation. The present writer may claim permission to borrow his own description from the pages of "Lake Geneva and its Literary Landmarks:"

"Narrow streets predominated, tho' there were also a certain number of open spaces—notably at the markets, and in front of the Cathedral, where there was a traffic in those relics and rosaries which Geneva was presently to repudiate with virtuous indignation. One can form an idea of the appearance of the narrow streets by imagining the oldest houses that one has seen in Switzerland all closely packed together—houses at the most three stories high, with gabled roofs, ground-floors a step or two below the level of the roadway, and huge arched doors studded with great iron nails, and looking strong enough to resist a battering-ram. Above the doors, in the case of the better houses, were the painted escutcheons of the residents, and crests were also often blazoned on the window-panes. The shops, too, and more especially the inns, flaunted gaudy signboards with ingenious devices. The Good Vinegar, the Hot Knife, the Crowned Ox, were the names of some of these; their tariff is said to have been fivepence a day for man and beast."....

In the first half of the sixteenth century occurred the two events which shaped the future of Geneva; Reformation theology was accepted; political independence was achieved. Geneva it should be explained, was the fief of the duchy of Savoy; or so, at all events, the Dukes of Savoy maintained, tho' the citizens were of the contrary opinion. Their view was that they owed allegiance only to their Bishops, who were the Viceroys of the Holy Roman Emperor; and even that allegiance was limited by the terms of a Charter granted in the Holy Roman Emperor's name by Bishop Adhemar de Fabri. All went fairly well until the Bishops began to play into the hands of the Dukes; but then there was friction, which rapidly became acute. A revolutionary party—the Eidgenossen, or Confederates—was formed. There was a Declaration of Independence and a civil war.

So long as the Genevans stood alone, the Duke was too strong for them. He marched into the town in the style of a conqueror, and wreaked his vengeance on as many of his enemies as he could catch. He cut off the head of Philibert Berthelier, to whom there stands a memorial on the island in the Rhone; he caused Jean Pecolat to be hung up in an absurd posture in his banqueting-hall, in order that he might mock at his discomfort while he dined; he executed, with or without preliminary torture, several less conspicuous patriots. Happily, however, some of the patriots—notably Besancon Hugues—got safely away, and succeeded in concluding treaties of alliance between Geneva and the cantons of Berne and Fribourg.

The men of Fribourg marched to Geneva, and the Duke retired. The citizens passed a resolution that he should never be allowed to enter the town again, seeing that he "never came there without playing the citizens some dirty trick or other;" and, the more effectually to prevent him from coming, they pulled down their suburbs and repaired their ramparts, one member of every household being required to lend a hand for the purpose.

Presently, owing to religious dissensions, Fribourg withdrew from the alliance. Berne, however, adhered to it, and, in due course, responded to the appeal for help by setting an army of seven thousand men in motion. The route of the seven thousand lay through the canton of Vaud, then a portion of the Duke's dominions, governed from the Castle of Chillon. Meeting with no resistance save at Yverdon, they annexed the territory, placing governors of their own in its various strongholds. The Governor of Chillon fled, leaving his garrison to surrender; and in its deepest dungeon was found the famous prisoner of Chillon, Francois de Bonivard. From that time forward Geneva was a free republic, owing allegiance to no higher power.

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON[42]

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Here I am, sitting at my window, overlooking Lake Leman. Castle Chillon, with its old conical towers, is silently pictured in the still waters. It has been a day of a thousand. We took a boat, with two oarsmen, and passed leisurely along the shores, under the cool, drooping branches of trees, to the castle, which is scarce a stone's throw from the hotel. We rowed along, close under the walls, to the ancient moat and drawbridge. There I picked a bunch of blue bells, "les clochettes," which were hanging their aerial pendants from every crevice—some blue, some white....

We rowed along, almost touching the castle rock, where the wall ascends perpendicularly, and the water is said to be a thousand feet deep. We passed the loopholes that illuminate the dungeon vaults, and an old arch, now walled up, where prisoners, after having been strangled, were thrown into the lake.

Last evening we walked through the castle. An interesting Swiss woman, who has taught herself English for the benefit of her visitors, was our "cicerone." She seemed to have all the old Swiss vivacity of attachment for "liberte et patrie." She took us first into the dungeon, with the seven pillars, described by Byron. There was the pillar to which, for protecting the liberty of Geneva, Bonivard was chained. There the Duke of Savoy kept him for six years, confined by a chain four feet long. He could take only three steps, and the stone floor is deeply worn by the prints of those weary steps. Six years is so easily said; but to live them, alone, helpless, a man burning with all the fires of manhood, chained to that pillar of stone, and those three unvarying steps! Two thousand one hundred and ninety days rose and set the sun, while seed time and harvest, winter and summer, and the whole living world went on over his grave. For him no sun, no moon, no stars, no business, no friendship, no plans—nothing! The great millstone of life emptily grinding itself away!

What a power of vitality was there in Bonivard, that he did not sink in lethargy, and forget himself to stone! But he did not; it is said that when the victorious Swiss army broke in to liberate him, they cried,

"Bonivard, you are free!"

"And Geneva?"

"Geneva is free also!"

You ought to have heard the enthusiasm with which our guide told this story!

Near by are the relics of the cell of a companion of Bonivard, who made an ineffectual attempt to liberate him. On the wall are still seen sketches of saints and inscriptions by his hand. This man one day overcame his jailer, locked him in his cell, ran into the hall above, and threw himself from a window into the lake, struck a rock, and was killed instantly. One of the pillars in this vault is covered with names. I think it is Bonivard's pillar. There are the names of Byron, Hunt, Schiller, and many other celebrities.

After we left the dungeons we went up into the judgment hall, where prisoners were tried, and then into the torture chamber. Here are the pulleys by which limbs are broken; the beam, all scorched with the irons by which feet were burned; the oven where the irons were heated; and there was the stone where they were sometimes laid to be strangled, after the torture. On that stone, our guide told us, two thousand Jews, men, women, and children, had been put to death. There was also, high up, a strong beam across, where criminals were hung; and a door, now walled up, by which they were thrown into the lake. I shivered. "'Twas cruel," she said; "'twas almost as cruel as your slavery in America."[43]

Then she took us into a tower where was the "oubliette." Here the unfortunate prisoner was made to kneel before an image of the Virgin, while the treacherous floor, falling beneath him, precipitated him into a well forty feet deep, where he was left to die of broken limbs and starvation. Below this well was still another pit, filled with knives, into which, when they were disposed to a merciful hastening of the torture, they let him fall. The woman has been herself to the bottom of the first dungeon, and found there bones of victims. The second pit is now walled up....

To-night, after sunset, we rowed to Byron's "little isle," the only one in the lake. O, the unutterable beauty of these mountains—great, purple waves, as if they had been dashed up by a mighty tempest, crested with snow-like foam! this purple sky, and crescent moon, and the lake gleaming and shimmering, and twinkling stars, while far off up the sides of a snow-topped mountain a light shines like a star—some mountaineer's candle, I suppose.

In the dark stillness we rode again over to Chillon, and paused under its walls. The frogs were croaking in the moat, and we lay rocking on the wave, and watching the dusky outlines of the towers and turrets. Then the spirit of the scene seemed to wrap me round like a cloak. Back to Geneva again. This lovely place will ever leave its image on my heart. Mountains embrace it.

BY RAIL UP THE GORNER-GRAT[44]

BY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES

To see the splendid array of snow peaks and glaciers which makes the sky line above Zermatt, one must leave the valley and walk or climb to a higher level. An ideal spot for this is the Hotel Riffel Alp. Both the situation and the Hotel outrival and surpass any similar places in the Alps. "Far from the madding crowd," on a little plateau bounded by pines and pastures stands the Hotel, some two thousand feet above Zermatt and at an altitude of over 7,000 feet. The outlook is superb, the air splendid, the quiet most restful. Two little churches, the one for Roman Catholics, the other for members of the Church of England minister to the spiritual needs of the visitors and stamp religion upon a situation grand and sublime.

Those who come here are lovers of the mountains who enjoy the open life. It is a place not so much for "les grands excursions" as for long walks, easy climbs and the beginnings of mountaineering. Many persons spend the entire day out, preferring to eat their dejeuner "informally," perched above some safe precipice, or on a glacier-bordered rock or in the shade of the cool woods, but there are always some who linger both morning and afternoon on the terrace with its far expanse of view, with the bright sunshine streaming down upon them.

One great charm of the Riffel Alp is the proximity to the snow. An hour will bring one either to the Gorner Glacier or to the Findelen Glacier, while a somewhat longer time will lead to other stretches of snow and ice, where the climber may sit and survey the seracs and crevasses or walk about on the great frozen rivers. This is said to be beneficial to the nervous system as many physicians maintain that the glaciers contain a large amount of radium.

Before essaying any of the longer or harder trips however, the traveler first of all generally goes to the Gorner-Grat, the rocky ridge that runs up from Zermatt to a point 10,290 feet high. Many people still walk up, but since the railroad was built, even those who feel it to be a matter of conscience to inveigh against any kind of progress which ministers to the pleasures of the masses, are found among those who prefer to ascend by electricity. The trip up is often made very amusing as among the crowds are always some, who knowing really nothing of the place, feel it incumbent upon themselves to point out all of the peaks, in a way quite discomposing to anybody familiar with the locality or versed in geography! Quite a luxurious little hotel now surmounts the top of the Gorner-Grat. In it, about it and above it, on the walled terrace assembles a motley crowd every clear day in summer, clad in every variety of costume, conventional and unconventional....

An ordinary scene would be ruined by such a crowd, but not so the Gorner-Grat. The very majesty and magnificence of the view make one forget the vaporings of mere man, and the Glory of God, so overpoweringly revealed in those regions of perpetual snow, drives other impressions away. And if one wishes to be alone, it is easily possible by walking a little further along the ridge where some rock will shut out all sight of man and the wind will drive away the sound of voices.

It is doubtful if there is any view comparable with that of the Gorner-Grat. There is what is called a "near view," and there is also what is known as a "distant view," for completely surrounded by snow peak and glacier, the eye passes from valley to summit, resting on that wonderful stretch of shining white which forms the skyline. To say that one can count dozens of glaciers, that he can see fifty summits, that Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm, the Twins, the Breithorn, the Matterhorn, the Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, with many other mountains of the Valais and Oberland form a complete circle of snow peaks, may establish the geography of the place but it does not convey any but the faintest picture of the sublime grandeur of the scene....

An exciting experience for novices is to go with a guide from the Gorner-Grat to the Hohtaeligrat and thence down to the Findelen Glacier. It looks dangerous but it is not really so, if the climber is careful, for altho there is a sheer descent on either side of the arete or ridge which leads from the one point to the other, the way is never narrow and only over easy rocks and snow.

The Hohtaeligrat is almost 11,000 feet in altitude and has a splendid survey of the sky line. One looks up at snow, one looks down at snow, one looks around at snow! From the beautiful summits of Monte Rosa, the eye passes in a complete circle, up and down, seeing in succession the white snow peaks, with their great glistening glaciers below, showing in strong contrast the occasional rock pyramids like the Matterhorn and the group around the Rothhorn.

THROUGH THE ST. GOTHARD INTO ITALY[45]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

This is Geschenen, at the entrance of the great tunnel, the meeting place of the upper gorges of the Reuss, the valley of Urseren, of the Oberalp, and of the Furka. Geschenen has now the calm tranquility of old age. But during the nine years that it took to bore the great tunnel, what juvenile activity there was here, what feverish eagerness in this village, crowded, inundated, overflowed by workmen from Italy, from Tessin, from Germany and France! One would have thought that out of that dark hole, dug out in the mountain, they were bringing nuggets of gold.

On all the roads nothing was to be seen but bands of workmen arriving, with miners' lamps hung to their old soldier's knapsacks. Nobody could tell how they were all to be lodged. One double bed was occupied in succession by twenty-four men in twenty-four hours. Some of the workmen set up their establishments in barns; in all directions movable canteens sprung up, built all awry and hardly holding together, and in mean sheds, doubtful, bad-looking places, the dishonest merchant hastened to sell his adulterated brandy....

The St. Gothard tunnel is about one and two-third miles longer than that of Mount Cenis, and more than three miles longer than that of Arlberg. While the train is passing with a dull rumbling sound under these gloomy vaults, let us explain how the great work of boring the Alps was accomplished.

The mechanical work of perforation was begun simultaneously on the north and south sides of the mountain, working toward the same point, so as to meet toward the middle of the boring. The waters of the Reuss and the Tessin supplied the necessary motive power for working the screws attached to machinery for compressing the air. The borers applied to the rock the piston of a cylinder made to rotate with great rapidity by the pressure of air reduced to one-twentieth of its ordinary volume; then when they had made holes sufficiently deep, they withdrew the machines and charged the mines with dynamite. Immediately after the explosion, streams of wholesome air were liberated which dissipated the smoke; then the debris was cleared away, and the borers returned to their place. The same work was thus carried on day and night, for nine years.

On the Geschenen side all went well; but on the other side, on the Italian slope, unforseen obstacles and difficulties had to be overcome. Instead of having to encounter the solid rock, they found themselves among a moving soil formed by the deposit of glaciers and broken by streams of water. Springs burst out, like the jet of a fountain, under the stroke of the pick, flooding and driving away the workmen. For twelve months they seemed to be in the midst of a lake. But nothing could damp the ardor of the contractor, Favre.

His troubles were greater still when the undertaking had almost been suspended for want of money, when the workmen struck in 1875, and, when, two years later, the village of Arola was destroyed by fire. And how many times, again and again, the mason-work of the vaulted roof gave way and fell! Certain "bad places," as they were called, cost more than nine hundred pounds per yard.

In the interior of the mountain the thermometer marked 86 degrees (Fahr.), but so long as the tunnel was still not completely bored, the workmen were sustained by a kind of fever, and made redoubled efforts. Discouragement and desertion did not appear among them till the goal was almost reached.

The great tunnel passed, we find ourselves fairly in Italy. The mulberry trees, with silky white bark and delicate, transparent leaves; the chestnuts, with enormous trunks like cathedral columns; the vine, hanging to high trellises supported by granite pillars, its festoons as capricious as the feats of those who partake too freely of its fruits; the white tufty heads of the maize tossing in the breeze; all that strong and luxuriant vegetation through which waves of moist air are passing; those flowers of rare beauty, of a grace and brilliancy that belong only to privileged zones;—all this indicates a more robust and fertile soil, and a more fervid sky than those of the upper villages which we have just left.



X

ALPINE MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

FIRST ATTEMPTS HALF A CENTURY AGO[46]

BY EDWARD WHYMPER

On the 23d of July, 1860, I started for my first tour of the Alps. At Zermatt I wandered in many directions, but the weather was bad and my work was much retarded. One day, after spending a long time in attempts to sketch near the Hoernli, and in futile endeavors to seize the forms of the peaks as they for a few seconds peered out from above the dense banks of woolly clouds, I determined not to return to Zermatt by the usual path, but to cross the Goerner glacier to the Riffel hotel. After a rapid scramble over the polished rocks and snow-beds which skirt the base of the Theodule glacier, and wading through some of the streams which flow from it, at that time much swollen by the late rains, the first difficulty was arrived at, in the shape of a precipice about three hundred feet high. It seemed that there would be no difficulty in crossing the glacier if the cliff could be descended, but higher up and lower down the ice appeared, to my inexperienced eyes, to be impassable for a single person.