Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume VI Part 5

But when we pa.s.s 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 bra.s.s-mounted spectacles astride on their flat noses, and arrayed in green gardening ap.r.o.ns, 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s; the blood-stained standards from the Burgundian wars, and the flag in which n.o.ble 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 seash.o.r.e at Dieppe or Trouville. Before you, limpid and blue, lies the lake, which from the character of its sh.o.r.es, 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 Wa.s.serkirche 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 pa.s.ses 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 Grossmunster loom upon the right, capped by ugly rounded tops, like miters; upon the left, the simple spires of the Fraumunster 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-stra.s.se, 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 Sat.u.r.day the peasant women come trooping in, with their vegetables, fruits, and flowers, to line the Bahnhof-stra.s.se 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 Grossmunster, the church of which Zwingli was inc.u.mbent 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 Wa.s.serkirche, 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 "Ruden," 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 inst.i.tutions. 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 a.s.sociated with the rise of the Swiss Confederation whose position can not be determined from the Rigi. The two Tell's chapels; the Rutli; 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 doc.u.ment 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 nave, 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 cla.s.s 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 mult.i.tude of intermediate, preying n.o.bles.

CHAMOUNI--AN AVALANCHE[37]

BY PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY

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 s.p.a.ce, 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 pa.s.sed. 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 ma.s.ses 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PONTRESINA IN THE ENGADINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MORITZ IN THE ENGADINE]