Rollo in Geneva Part 12

When the time approaches for a boat to sail, which is in half an hour after she arrives, we have a counterpart of this scene, the direction of the current only being reversed. The tourists now go to the boat, the porters, with their baggage, preceding them. A soldier stands at the entrance to the plank, to look at the pa.s.sports. Lines of officials on each side guard the way. On the deck of the steamer, as soon as you get on board, you find a great variety of picturesque looking groups, all, however, having the air of being travellers for pleasure. Some are arranging themselves in good seats for seeing the scenery. Others take out their maps and guide books, and prepare to read the descriptions of the places that they are going to see. Here and there children are to be seen--the boys with little knapsacks, and the girls wearing very broad-brimmed Swiss hats--neither paying any attention to the scenery, but amusing themselves with whatever they find at hand to play with--one with a little dog, another with a doll which has been bought for her at Geneva, and a third, perhaps, with a whip, or a little wagon.

Rollo took his seat by the side of his father and mother, in the midst of such a scene as this, on the day of their embarkation, and occupied himself sometimes by looking at the sh.o.r.es of the lake and the mountains beyond, and sometimes by watching the movements and actions of the various groups of tourists before him. In the mean time, the boat left the landing, and began to glide along rapidly on her way over the surface of the water.

The sh.o.r.es of the lake are very fertile and populous, and at every eight or ten miles, especially on the northern sh.o.r.e, you come to a large town. The steamboats stop at these towns to take and leave pa.s.sengers.

They do not, in such cases, usually land at a pier, but the pa.s.sengers come and go in large boats, and meet the steamer at a little way from the sh.o.r.e. Rollo used to take great pleasure in going forward to the bows of the steamer, and watch these boats as they came out from the sh.o.r.e. If there were two of them, they would come out so far that the track of the steamer should lie between them, and then, when the steamer stopped her paddles, they would come up, one on one side and the other on the other, and the pa.s.sengers would come up on board by means of a flight of steps let down from the steamer, just abaft the paddle boxes.

When the pa.s.sengers had thus come up, the baggage would be pa.s.sed up too; and then those pa.s.sengers who wished to go ash.o.r.e at that place would go down the steps in the boats, and when all were embarked, the boats would cast off from the steamer, and the steamer would go on her way as before. The boats then would row slowly to the land, with the pa.s.sengers in them that were to stop at that place.

The way of paying for one's pa.s.sage on board these boats was very different from that adopted in America. There was no colored waiter to go about the decks and saloons ringing a bell, and calling out, in a loud and authoritative voice, Pa.s.sengers who haven't settled their fare will please call at the captain's office and settle. Instead of this, the clerk of the boat came himself, after each landing, to the new pa.s.sengers that had come on board at that landing, and, touching his hat to them, in the most polite manner, asked them to what place they wished to go. He had a little slate in his hand, with the names of all the towns where the steamer was to touch marked upon it. As the several pa.s.sengers to whom he applied gave him the name of the place of their destination, he made a mark opposite to the name of the place on his slate. When he had in this way applied to all the new comers, he went to the office and provided himself with the proper number of tickets for each place, and then went round again to distribute them. In going around thus a second time, to distribute the tickets, he took a cash box with him to make change. This cash box was slung before him by means of a strap about the neck.

"How much more polite and agreeable a mode this is of collecting the fares," said Mrs. Holiday to her husband, "than ours in America! There a boy comes around, dinging a bell in every body's ears, and then the gentlemen have to go in a crowd and elbow their way up to the window of the captain's office. I wish we could have some of these polite and agreeable customs introduced into our country."

"They are very agreeable," said Mr. Holiday, "and are very suitable for pleasure travel like this, where the boats are small, and the number of pa.s.sengers few; but I presume it would be very difficult to collect the fares in this way on a North River steamer, where there are sometimes a thousand pa.s.sengers on board. Here there are usually not more than eight or ten pa.s.sengers that come on board at a time, and they mix with only fifty or sixty that were on board before. But in America we often have fifty or sixty come on board at a time, and they mix with eight hundred or a thousand. In such a case as that I think that this plan would be well nigh impracticable."

"I did not think of that," said Mrs. Holiday.

"The difference between the circ.u.mstances of the case in Europe and in America is very often not thought of by travellers who find themselves wishing that the European customs in respect to travelling and the hotels could be introduced into our country. In Europe the number of travellers is comparatively small, and a very large proportion of those who make journeys go for pleasure. The arrangements can all, consequently, be made to save them trouble, and to make the journey agreeable to them; and the price is increased accordingly. In America, people travel on business, and they go in immense numbers. Their main object is, to be taken safely and expeditiously to the end of their journey, and at as little expense as possible. The arrangements of the conveyances and of the hotels are all made accordingly. The consequence is, a vast difference in the expense of travelling, and a corresponding difference, of course, to some extent, in ease and comfort. The price of pa.s.sage, for instance, in the Geneva steamboats, from one end of the lake to the other, a distance of about fifty miles, is two dollars, without berth or meals; whereas you can go from New York to Albany, which is more than three times as far, for half a dollar. This difference is owing to the number of travellers that go in the American boats, and the wholesale character, so to speak, of the arrangements made for them.

"In other words, the pa.s.sengers in a public conveyance in Europe are not only conveyed from place to place, but they are waited upon by the way, and they have to pay both for the conveyance and the attendance. In America they are only conveyed, and are left to wait upon themselves; and they are charged accordingly. Each plan is good, and each is adapted to the wants and ideas of the countries that respectively adopt them.

"Shall we go to the end of the lake to-day?" said Mr. Holiday, "or only part of the way? The clerk will come pretty soon to ask us."

"Are there any pretty places to stop at on the way?" asked Mrs. Holiday.

"Yes," said her husband; "all the places are pretty."

"Tell us about some of them," said Rollo.

"First there is Lausanne," said his father. "Lausanne is a large town up among the hills, a mile or two from the water. There is a little port, called Ouchy, on the sh.o.r.e, where the steamer stops. There there is a landing and a pier, and some pretty boarding houses, with gardens and grounds around them, and a large, old-fashioned inn, built like a castle of the middle ages, but kept very nicely. We can stop there, and go up in an omnibus to Lausanne, which is a large, old town, two miles up the side of the mountain.

"Then, secondly," continued Mr. Holiday, "there is Vevay, which is famous for a new and fashionable hotel facing the lake, with a beautiful terrace between it and the water, where you can sit on nice benches under the trees, and watch the steamers going by over the blue waters of the lake, or the row boats and sail boats coming and going about the terrace landing, or the fleecy clouds floating along the sides of the dark mountains around the head of the lake."

"I should like to stop at both places," said Mrs. Holiday.

"Then we will stop at Ouchy to-night," said Mr. Holiday, "for that comes first."

So it was decided that they should take tickets for Ouchy.

The boat at Ouchy did not land pa.s.sengers by boats, but went up to the pier. Only a few pa.s.sengers went ash.o.r.e. The pier was at some little distance from the hotel, the way to it being by a quiet and pleasant walk along the sh.o.r.e.

There was an omnibus marked Lausanne standing at the head of the pier.

"Now, we can get into the omnibus," said Mr. Holiday, "and go directly up to Lausanne, or we can go to the hotel here, and take lodgings, and then go up to Lausanne to see the town after dinner."

It was at this time about four o'clock. The usual time of dinner for travellers in Switzerland is five.

Mrs. Holiday, observing that the hotel at Ouchy was very prettily situated, close to the water, and recollecting that her husband had said that it resembled in its character a castle of the middle ages, concluded that she would like as well to take rooms there.

A woman with a queer-shaped basket on her back, which she carried by means of straps over her shoulders, here came up to Mr. Holiday, and asked if she should take _the baggages_ to the inn. Mr. Holiday said yes. So she put the valise and the carpet bag into her basket, and walked away with them to the inn.

Women often act as porters in France and Switzerland, and they perform, also, all sorts of out-door work. They use these baskets, too, very often, for carrying burdens. Rollo afterwards saw a woman take her child out to ride in one of them.

Mrs. Holiday was extremely pleased with the inn at Ouchy. She said that she should like to remain there a week. It seemed precisely, with its antique-looking rooms, and long stone paved corridors, like the castles which she had read about when she was a girl in the old romances.

After dinner, Mr. Holiday sent for a carriage, and took Mrs. Holiday and Rollo to ride. They went up the ascent of land behind the town, the road winding as it went among green and beautiful glades and dells, but still always ascending until they came to Lausanne. This was nearly two miles from the lake, and very much above it. From Lausanne they went back still farther, ascending all the time, and obtaining more and more commanding views of the lake at every turn.

When the sun went down, they turned their faces homeward. They came down, of course, very fast, the road winding continually this way and that, to make the descent more gradual. At length, about half past eight, they returned to the inn.

The landlady of the inn, who was very kind and obliging to them, took them to see a room in her hotel where Lord Byron wrote his celebrated poem ent.i.tled the PRISONER OF CHILLON. Chillon is an ancient castle which stands on the sh.o.r.e, twenty or thirty miles beyond, and very near, in fact, to the extremity of the lake. Byron has made this castle renowned throughout the world by spending a few days, while he was stopped at this inn at Ouchy by a storm, when travelling on the lake, in writing a poem in which he describes the emotions and sufferings of some imaginary prisoners whom he supposed to be confined there.

"Can we go to see the Castle of Chillon?" said Mrs. Holiday.

"Yes," said Mr. Holiday. "We shall sail directly by it in going to the head of the lake, and if we stop there we can go to it very easily."

The head of the lake--that is, the eastern end of it--is surrounded with mountains, the slopes of which seem to rise very abruptly from the water, and ascend to such a height that patches of snow lie on the summits of them all the summer. These mountains, especially if overshadowed by clouds, give a very dark and sombre expression to the whole region when seen from a distance, in coming in from the centre of the lake. This sombre expression, however, entirely disappears when you arrive at the head of the lake, and land there.

You would not suppose, when viewing these sh.o.r.es from a distance, that there was any place to land, so closely do the precipitous slopes of the mountains seem to shut the water in. But on drawing near the sh.o.r.e, you see that there is a pretty broad belt of land along the sh.o.r.e, which, though it ascends rapidly, is not too steep to be cultivated. This belt of land is covered with villages, hamlets, vineyards, orchards, and gardens, and it forms a most enchanting series of landscapes, from whatever point it is seen, while the more precipitous slopes of the mountains, towering above in grandeur and sublimity, complete the enchantment of the view.

The Castle of Chillon stands on the very margin of the lake, just in the edge of the water. Indeed, the foundations on which it stands form a little island, which is separated by a narrow channel from the sh.o.r.e.

This channel is crossed by a drawbridge. It is possible, however, that it may be in some measure artificial. The island may have originally been a small rocky point, and it may have been made an island by the cutting of a ditch between it and the main land.

The steamer pa.s.sed along the sh.o.r.e, very near to this castle, in going to the head of the lake, as you see represented in the engraving.[F]

There is no steamboat landing at the castle itself, but there is one at the village of Montreux, a little before you come to it, and another at Villeneuve, a little beyond. Numbers of tourists come in every steamer to visit the castle, and stop for this purpose at one of these landings or the other. The distance is only twenty minutes' brisk walking from either of them.

[Footnote F: See Frontispiece.]

Villeneuve, the last landing mentioned above, is at the very extremity of the lake. We see it in the distance in the engraving. Here travellers who are going to continue their journey up the valley of the Rhone, either for the purpose of penetrating into the heart of Switzerland, or of going by the pa.s.s of the Simplon into Italy, leave the boat and take the diligence to continue their journey by land, or else engage a private carriage, and also a guide, if they wish for one. Mr. Holiday did not intend at this time to go on far up the valley, but he purposed to stop a day or two at Villeneuve, to visit Chillon, and perhaps make some other excursions, and also to enjoy the views presented there, on all sides, of the slopes and summits of the surrounding mountains.

CHAPTER XI.

VILLENEUVE.

At Villeneuve, a pretty long, though small and very neatly made pier projects out from the sh.o.r.e, for the landing of pa.s.sengers from the steamer.

Exactly opposite this pier, and facing the water, stands the inn. It is placed very nearly on a level with the water. This can always be the case with buildings standing on the margin of a lake, for a lake not being subject to tides or inundations, all buildings, whether houses, bridges, or piers, may be built very near the water, without any danger of being overflowed.

Before the inn is an open s.p.a.ce, extending between it and the sh.o.r.e; so that from the front windows of the inn you can look down first upon this open s.p.a.ce, and beyond, upon the margin of the lake and upon the pier, with the steamer lying at the landing-place at the head of it.

The sides of this square, Rollo observed, were formed of the ends of two buildings which stood on the sh.o.r.e, and along this s.p.a.ce were wooden benches, which were filled, when the steamer arrived, with guides, postilions, voituriers, and other people of that cla.s.s, waiting to be engaged by the travellers that should come in her.

There were also two or three omnibuses and diligences waiting to receive such persons as were intending to travel by the public conveyances. One of these omnibuses belonged to a large hotel and boarding house which stands on the sh.o.r.e of the lake, not far from Villeneuve, between it and the Castle of Chillon. You can see this hotel in the engraving. It is the large building in the middle distance, standing back a little from the lake, and to the left of the castle. This hotel is beautifully situated in a commanding position on the sh.o.r.es of the lake, and is a great place of resort for English families in the summer season.

The travellers that landed from the steamer at Villeneuve soon separated, after arriving at the open square before the inn. Some took their seats in the diligences that were standing there; some got into the omnibuses to go to the hotel; some engaged voituriers from among the number that were waiting there to be so employed, and, entering the carriages, they drove away; while a party of students, with knapsacks on their backs and pikestaves in their hands, set off on foot up the valley. Mr. Holiday and his party, not intending to proceed any farther that night, went directly to the inn.

They went first into the dining room. The dining room in the Swiss inns is usually the only public room, and travellers on entering the inn generally go directly there.