Rollo in Switzerland Part 3

Rollo saw a great many beautiful views and witnessed a great many strange and striking scenes as he was whirled onward by the train across the country from Paris towards Strasbourg. We cannot, however, stop to describe what he saw, but must hasten on to the Swiss frontier. The travellers arrived at Strasbourg in the evening. They spent the night at a hotel; and the next morning they took another railway which led along the bank of the Rhine, up the river, towards Switzerland. The country was magnificent. There was the river on one side, and a range of mountains rising sublimely in the interior on the other. The mountains were at a distance of several miles from the river; and the country between was an extremely fertile and luxuriant plain, covered with villages, castles, parks, pleasure grounds, gardens, and cultivated fields, which presented every where most enchanting pictures of rural beauty. This province is called Alsatia.

The terminus of the railway was at the city of Basle, which lies just within the confines of Switzerland. A short distance before reaching the gates of Basle, the train stopped at what seemed at first to be a station. It was, however, only the custom house, where the trunks and pa.s.sports were to be examined.

"What are we to do here," asked Rollo.

"_I_ am going to do what I see other people do," replied Mr. George.

"You can do whatever you please."

At this moment a guard, dressed, like all the other railway servants, in a sort of uniform, opened the door of the car in which Mr. George and Rollo were sitting, and said in a very respectful manner, in French,--

"The custom house, gentlemen."

Mr. George observed that the pa.s.sengers were getting out from all the other cars; so he stepped out too, and Rollo followed him.

When they reached the platform they observed that a company of porters were employed in carrying all the trunks and baggage from the cars to the custom house, and that the pa.s.sengers were going into the custom house too, though by another door. Mr. George and Rollo went in with them. They found an office within, and a desk, where one or two secretaries sat and examined the pa.s.sports of the travellers as they successively presented them. As fast as they were examined they were impressed with a new stamp, which denoted permission for the travellers to pa.s.s the Swiss frontier. The several travellers, as fast as their pa.s.sports were examined, found right, and stamped, were allowed to pa.s.s between two soldiers through a door into another hall, where they found all the trunks and baggage arranged on a sort of counter, which extended around the centre of the room, so as to enclose a square place within.

The custom-house officers who were to examine the baggage were within this enclosure, while the travellers who owned the baggage stood without. These last walked around the counter, looking at the trunks, boxes, bundles, and carpet bags that covered it, each selecting his own and opening the several parcels, in order that the officers within might examine them.

The object of examining the trunks of pa.s.sengers in this way is, to ascertain that they have not any _goods_ concealed in them. As a general thing, persons are not allowed to take _goods_ from one country to another without paying a tax for them. Such a tax is called technically a _duty_, and the avails of it go to support the government of the country which the goods are carried into. Travellers are allowed to take with them all that is necessary _for their own personal use, as travellers_, without paying any duty; but articles that are intended for sale as merchandise, or those which, though intended for the traveller's own use, are not strictly _personal_, are liable to pay duty. The principle is, that whatever the traveller requires for his own personal use, _in travelling_, is not liable to duty. What he does not so require must pay duty, no matter whether he intends to use it himself or to sell it.

Many travellers do not understand this properly, and often get into difficulty by not understanding it, as we shall see in the sequel.

Mr. George and Rollo went into the baggage room together, showing their pa.s.sports as they pa.s.sed through between the soldiers. They then walked slowly along the room, looking at the baggage, as it was arranged upon the counter, in search of their own.

"I see _my_ trunk," said Mr. George, looking along at a little distance before him. "There it is."

"And where do you suppose mine is?" asked Rollo.

"I have not the least idea," said Mr. George. "I advise you to walk all around the room and see if you can find it; and when you find it, get it examined."

Rollo, taking this advice, walked on, leaving Mr. George in the act of taking out his key in order to open his trunk for the purpose of allowing an officer to inspect it as soon as one should be ready.

Rollo soon found his trunk. It was in a part of the room remote from his uncle's. Near his trunk was a very large one, which the officers were searching very thoroughly. They had found something in it which was not personal baggage and which the lady had not declared. Rollo could not see what the article was which the officers had found. It was something contained in a pretty box. The lady had put it into the bottom of her trunk. The officers had taken it out, and were now examining it. The lady stood by, seemingly in great distress.

Rollo's attention, which had begun to be attracted by this scene, was, however, almost immediately called off from it by the voice of another officer, who pointed to his trunk and asked him if it was his.

"Is that yours?" said the officer, in French.

"Yes," replied Rollo, in the same language, "it is mine;" and so saying, he proceeded to take out his key and unlock the trunk.

"Have you any thing to declare?" asked the man.

Rollo looked perplexed. He did not know what the officer meant by asking him if he had any thing to declare. After a moment's hesitation he said,--

"I don't know; but I will go ask my uncle."

So Rollo went to the place where he had left his uncle George, and accosted him by saying,--

"They want to know if I have any thing to _declare_. What do they mean?"

"They mean whether you have any goods in your trunk that are liable to pay duty. Tell them no."

So Rollo went back and told the officer that he had not any thing to declare. He then opened his trunk; but the officer, instead of examining it, shut down the lid, saying, "Very well;" and by means of a piece of chalk he marked it upon the top with some sort of character. A porter then took the trunk and carried it back to the train.

Rollo perceived that the difficulty about the lady's baggage had been settled in some way or other, but he feared it was settled in a manner not very satisfactory to the lady herself; for, as the porters took up her trunk to carry it back, she looked quite displeased and out of humor.

Rollo went back to the place where he had left his uncle George, and then they went together out to the platform. Here Rollo found the lady who had had difficulty about her baggage explaining the case to some friends that she found there. She seemed to be very indignant and angry, and was telling her story with great volubility. Rollo listened for a moment; but she spoke so rapidly that he could not understand what she said, as she spoke in French.

"What does she say?" he asked, speaking to Mr. George.

"She says," replied Mr. George, "that they were going to seize something that she had in her trunk because she did not declare it."

"What does that mean?" said Rollo.

"Why, the law is," said Mr. George, "that when people have any thing in their trunks that is dutiable, if they _declare_ it, that is, acknowledge that they have it and show it to the officers, then they have only to pay the duty, and they may carry the article in. But if they do not declare it, but hide it away somewhere in their trunks, and the officers find it there, then the thing is forfeited altogether. The officers seize it and sell it for the benefit of the government."

"O, uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "that is what they do; and it is right. If people wish to bring any thing that is subject to duty into any country they ought to be willing to pay the duty, and not, by refusing to pay, make other people pay more than their share."

"If one man does not pay his duty," rejoined Rollo, "do the others have to pay more?"

"Yes," said Mr. George, "in the end they do. At least I suppose so.

Whatever the amount of money may be that is required for the expenses of government, if one man does not pay his share, the rest must make it up, I suppose."

"They did not look into my trunk at all," said Rollo. "Why didn't they?

I might have had ever so many things hid away there."

"I suppose they knew from the circ.u.mstances of the case," said Mr.

George, "that you would not be likely to have any smuggled goods in your trunk. They saw at once that you were a foreign boy, and knew that you must be coming to Switzerland only to make a tour, and that you could have no reason for wishing to smuggle any thing into the country. They scarcely looked into _my_ trunk at all."

While Mr. George and Rollo had been holding this conversation they had returned to their places in the car, and very soon the train was in motion to take them into the town.

Thus our travellers pa.s.sed the Swiss frontier. In half an hour afterwards they were comfortably established at a large and splendid hotel called the Three Kings. The hotel has this name in three languages, English, French, and German, as people speaking those several languages come, in almost equal numbers, to Switzerland. Thus when you leave the station you may, in your directions to the coachman, say you wish to go to the Three Kings, or to the Trois Rois, or to the Drei Konige, whichever you please. They all mean the same hotel--the best hotel in Basle.

CHAPTER III.

BASLE.

The city of Basle stands upon the banks of the Rhine, on the northern frontier of Switzerland. The waters of the Rhine are gathered from hundreds of roaring and turbid torrents which come out, some from vast icy caverns in the glaciers, some from the melting debris of fallen avalanches, some from gushing fountains which break out suddenly through crevices in the rocks or yawning chasms, and some from dark and frightful ravines on the mountain sides, down which they foam and tumble perpetually, fed by vast fields of melting snow above. The waters of all these torrents, being gathered at last into one broad, and deep, and rapid stream, flow to a vast reservoir called the Lake of Constance, where they repose for a time, or, rather, move slowly and insensibly forward, enjoying a comparative quiescence which has all the characteristics and effects of repose. The waters enter this reservoir wild and turbid. They leave it calm and clear; and then, flowing rapidly for one hundred miles along the northern frontier of Switzerland, and receiving successively the waters of many other streams that have come from hundreds of other torrents and have been purified in the repose of other lakes extending over the whole northern slope of Switzerland, they form a broad and rapid river, which flows swiftly through Basle, and then, turning suddenly to the northward, bids Basle and Switzerland farewell together.

"And then where does it go?" said Rollo to Mr. George when his uncle had explained this thus far to him.

"Straight across the continent to the North Sea," said Mr. George.

Thus the whole northern slope of Switzerland is drained by a system of waters which, when united at Basle, form the River Rhine.