Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume VI Part 4

"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 gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.s 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, pa.s.sing 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 Murren, 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 Hoheweg, 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 pa.s.sengers to mingle in the pa.s.sing 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 Hoheweg.

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 Hoheweg, 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.bility, as if the spirit of the Alps a.s.serted 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 pa.s.sed close to nature. The lakes not only offer delightful water trips, but also charming excursions along the wooded sh.o.r.es, 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 pa.s.ses.

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 ma.s.s, 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 Murren 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 pa.s.s 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 ma.s.ses 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 Monch, 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 a.s.sociations 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 Fluelen, 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 Herrenga.s.se, 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 Puntener, 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 carca.s.s. Just outside the village stands the a.r.s.enal, 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 s.e.x, 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 inst.i.tution 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 b.u.t.tercups, the flowers of rural well-being, show through the rising gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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.