CHAPTER I.
BRETZWYL—BERNE—ZURICH—INTERLAKEN—THE ALMENDS OF THE DELTA OF THE LÜTSCHINE.
Stand, and unfold yourself.—Shakespeare.
On the afternoon of July 30 I found myself at Bretzwyl, a village some twenty miles to the south of Bâle, far from any tourist-beaten track. I had gone there to see M. Heusler, Professeur de Droit in the University of Bâle, and author of a valuable work on the commonable lands of the Canton of Unterwalden. He was then taking his villegiatura at this pleasant and primitive retreat in, as it would appear to English eyes, a farm-house of the ruder sort, though it was in reality the mansion of one of the chief proprietors of the neighbourhood. It was distant about a mile from the village, and known by the name of Sonnen Halle. It was a large, long, rectangular structure. At the end of the ground-plan, furthest from the approach, was the stabling for the cattle; at the other end, that nearest the approach, were the kitchen and store-rooms. Above these departments was the dwelling-house: the best apartments being over the kitchen and store-rooms. It stood on ground that rose all the way from the village, with ground that was much higher behind it. All the land in front of it was in grass, studded thickly with fruit trees; on that behind it, which was higher, and not so well adapted for making hay, were, here and there, small patches of grain, and of potatoes and other culinary vegetables. These patches were unfenced, and seemed taken only for a time out of the grassland.
The Professor and Mme. Heusler were so complaisant as to insist on my spending the evening with them. I showed the Professor a paper of questions on the subject of the Almends, or Swiss commonable land, I had had drawn up in German, and had got put into print, before leaving England. This speedily and completely explained the object I had in view in wishing to see him. He readily gave me all the information, advice, and assistance in his power; including in the latter letters of introduction to several of the leading people in the Cantons of Unterwalden, Uri, Schwyz, and Glarus, who from their position, and knowledge of the subject, might be of use to me in my inquiries. I cannot recall the pleasant evening I spent at Sonnen Halle with the genial Professor and his accomplished wife, without, at the same time, acknowledging the very grateful sense I have of their kindness.
As we returned to the village—for the Professor insisted on accompanying me back to the little Inn at which I had ordered a bed—there was wafted up to us, on the night air, across the meadows, the sound of music. On entering the village I found that the villagers were concluding the day with a dance and concert; songs, in which many voices joined, alternating with dances. This entertainment was being held in a large upper room, which externally bore the appearance of doing duty as the Hotel de Ville of the humble Commune. Those who had not the right of entrée, or who preferred the cooler air outside, were standing in groups in the street. While driving through the village, early in the afternoon, I had found the roadway blocked by a crowd that was collected round the stage of a cheap jack, who was putting up to auction lots of gaudily printed cotton handkerchiefs. I afterwards found that these were not the whole of his stock in trade. The stir was great. I had heard the sound of loud merriment before I reached the crowd; and, when I was passing through it, had observed in the faces of most of those who composed it, much eagerness and animation. Such an advent from the outer world was an event of some magnitude in such a village, which its miniature proprietors can seldom leave. With many it was their only chance, for the twelve months, of investing a little of their precious hoard in a little long-wished-for finery. It was an event that moved every mind—minds masculine as well as feminine; that brought everybody into the street; and that was worthy of being commemorated in the evening with a dance and concert; which, too, would act, in so Arcadian a community, as a safety-valve for carrying off the highly wrought excitement of the day.
On being shown to my bed-room, I found that it was a long corridor with beds set head to foot, reaching from the door to the further end. On each was a loftily puffed out eider-down quilt. The day had been unusually hot, and the night was correspondingly warm. I, therefore, lifted the downy mountain from the bed nearest the door, which I had selected for myself, and deposited it on the next, the second bed. As I did this I looked beyond the mountain of eider-down on the third bed. This led to the discovery, on the pillow beyond the eider-down, of a shock of black hair. I was to be, then, not the sole occupant of the many-bedded corridor. By this time I had made also another discovery: there was in the room an overpowering odour of cows and horses. The corridor, therefore, was only the upper storey, with us it would have been the hay-loft, of a long line of stalls for cattle below. As every bed had a window opposite to it, not a yard distant—the shock of black hair had intended to spend the sultry night, under his eider-down, with every window closed—I set the one over against my bed wide open. This, by allowing the exit of the warm air from the room, and the entrance of fresh air from outside, speedily removed the accumulation of stored up effluvium. The room itself, and everything in it, walls, ceiling, furniture, bedding, &c., were of snowy whiteness, and faultlessly clean.
I was up early next morning: but not so early as the good women of the village, for as I was dressing I heard from many houses the clatter of the shuttle. Bretzwyl, then, is still so primitive as not yet to have abandoned hand-weaving; though even there it must be confined to fabrics of silk, or of wool. Money must be very hard to come at, and a little of it must go a long way, in a place where the human hand can compete with the power-loom. Being a guest of a rather unusual calibre for Bretzwyl—I had even engaged a private carriage to take me some dozen miles to the railway station at Liesthal—my breakfast was served not in the bar room of the little Inn, but in the parlour. The chair was so placed for me at the table as that I should look on the back of the door of the room. On that door was suspended, as a trophy, a work of art, a precious possession, the object which, in the general excitement of yesterday, the mistress of the house had conceived the desire of acquiring, and had bid for in the presence of the village, and paid her money for, and carried home with no ill-founded pride. And now it was displayed on that door for all to contemplate. All would be glad at least to look at it. Perhaps some favoured few might be allowed to take it in their hands, and examine its materials, and structure. It would have shown an unnatural state of mind, and an inability to enter into other people’s feelings, if such an object had forthwith been put away in a box, or drawer. It was done more considerately, and with a truer sense of the conditions of the matter, to place it where all might come, and take their fill of looking at it, and might admire it, and might understand how happy its possessor must be; for was it not—to the possession of which the aspirations of no Bretzwyl dame, or maiden, had previously risen—an embroidered, fringed, riband-trimmed panier?
July 31.—Went to Zurich to see another learned Professor, to whom I had a letter of introduction. I found that he had gone, for his vacation, to the Simmenthal. But I had also a secondary object in going to Zurich, for I wished to take another look at the collection of objects from the sites of the old lake-villages, of which I gave some account in the ‘Month in Switzerland’ I published last year. Again I regarded them with undiminished interest, as everyone would, who has any tincture of history in his composition: for they are an historical record, in which there can be no misrepresentations, or deceptions, of the resources, manners, customs, and life of a branch of our remote progenitors, unconsciously bequeathed to us by themselves, and upon the possession of which we have only lately entered. I missed, however, the custodian of last year, who had spoken of the interest of the objects in the collection, to which he was in succession directing the attention of his visitors, with the bated breath of heartfelt reverence.
August 1.—To Berne, by the first morning train, for a letter from M. Cérésole, the President of the Swiss Confederation—I knew it was awaiting my arrival—in which he would request all Landammans, and other official people, wherever in the country I might go, to give me what aid might be in their power, in furtherance of the inquiries I was desirous of making.
Having reached Berne, and received the President’s letter, which, as I had expected, was ready for me, I ordered an early dinner at the Schweizer Hof, a large new Hotel, the back balcony of which commands an admirable view of the mountains of the Bernese Oberland. I occupied the interval with a walk down the main street to the bridge over the Aare, returning by the parallel street that takes you by the Cathedral. During dinner I looked at the distant snow-capped peaks with some thought of the thousands from many lands, who were at that moment around, and among, and upon them. I reached Interlaken as the evening was closing in, having witnessed some of the effects of a fine sunset from the lake of Thun.
At Interlaken took up my quarters at the Jungfrau, in the dépendance behind the Hotel. My room commanded, even as I lay in bed, a view of the Jungfrau itself. This being the height of the season the place was full with the part then in transitu of the 150,000 travellers who are said to visit it, now, yearly. Sixty years since a carriage could not be found in the place, nor a building that was not of wood. A comparison of these two statements, I do not call them facts, for I have no means of verifying either, will help us in an attempt to measure the progress both the Swiss world, and that beyond, have, in the interval, made in wealth, and in the means of locomotion.
During the night two violent thunderstorms burst on this neighbourhood, separated by a lull of about an hour. They were accompanied by an amount of rain greater, I was told, than any that had fallen, at one time, in living memory. I afterwards saw much of the devastating effects of these storms. I had passed through a very similar one, on the night of the previous Tuesday, between Paris and Bâle. The rain had then come down not so much in drops as in descending jets, and the lightning had appeared to accompany, and invest the train, being before and behind it, to the right and the left of it—everywhere, equally—at the same time. At the end of the following week, I fell in with a third storm of the same kind, to the south of the Alps, again at night. As far, therefore, as travellers, and particularly pedestrians, were concerned, their effects were only advantageous, for they lowered the temperature for a time, and washed away the dust. All this time the weather was unusually warm.
August 2.—Asked the master of the Hotel to see whether he could procure for me a guide, who understood the patois of the Forest Cantons, and could also speak English and French; and then, as the storm of last night had brought a pleasant morning, went out to take a look at what we here at home would call the allotments of the peasants, but which, in those Swiss Cantons, where they are found, are their own immemorial common property. Though, indeed, in the word allotment is embedded the historical fact that such land was, in this country, once common; and that it was from time to time reportioned, and reassigned to the common holders by lot. For the purpose I now had in view I had to walk over the eastern part of the level tract of ground on which Interlaken stands.
But first a few words about this level tract itself. The whole of it was evidently formed by the Lombach and the Lütschine. Originally the two lakes of Brienz and Thun were one continuous sheet of water. At this middle point of the old continuous lake, it happened that, by a convex bend to the south in the mountains that formed its northern boundary, and by a projecting spur, to the north, of the mountains that formed its southern boundary, the width of the old lake had been narrowed from its average of two miles to about three-fourths of a mile. It also happened, by a fortunate coincidence, that, just at this narrowed part, the torrent of the Lombach entered the lake from the north, and that of the Lütschine from the south. Each was impetuous, and often swollen, and so brought down a very large amount of detrital matter. The result was inevitable: the three quarters of a mile of lake must be displaced by transported fragments of rock, sand, and soil. As the two streams worked against one another just where Interlaken and Unterseen stand, this became dry land first; and for the same reason the deposit was here heaped up somewhat higher than it is now, when each is working out only into the still lake. Having jointly in this way put a bar across the lake, they turned their backs upon each other, and the Lombach began to deposit to the west of the bar, and the Lütschine to the east of it; and then they continued their work in these opposite directions, till the Lombach had filled up all the space to the foot of the mountain to the west, and the Lütschine all the space to the foot of the mountain to the east. The alluvial tract thus formed may be spoken of, roughly, as about four miles long, and two miles wide; with the spur, on which stands the Jungfrau Blick Hotel, protruding into it from the south. Of course the Aare kept open for itself a channel through the alluvium. It is obvious that the Lombach, coming from the north, would force down the channel of the Aare as far as possible to the south, and that the Lütschine, coming from the south, would force up the channel of the Aare as far as possible to the north: and this is precisely what each has done. The Lütschine, being by far the larger stream of the two, has done far the greater part of the work. Every particular, as it presents itself to us, is perfectly intelligible. We see what had to be done; and under what conditions, with what means, and in what manner it was done.
What, then, I had gone out to look at was the allotments of the peasants in the eastern side of the Delta of the Lütschine. This eastern side, from Interlaken to Böningen, is about two miles at the base, and about the same length from the base to the apex. Of course the land is highest, driest, and best at the apex, and gradually deteriorates as you approach the base. As you go along the road, which is a straight line not far from the base, on your right hand spade-husbandry preponderates; on your left is grass, worsening into marsh, and ending in swamp. The cultivated part belongs to the villages that surround it. The lower part belongs chiefly to Interlaken. I walked to about the middle of the road; and then turning to the right among the allotments, walked to the apex, that I might see in what way, to what purpose, and with what ideas and feelings, it was cultivated. The wheat, which was not in a large proportion, was of a coarse and unproductive kind, though doubtless it was suited to the rather wet soil. It was nowhere a heavy crop. The ears were small, being only two-set, and with only six lifts. Compared with our English wheats, it would give the miller much offal, and not much flour. The barley varied much in yield. It was a good ear that had twenty-six grains. Maize was a favourite crop. This also varied much: some was very good, and some very indifferent. Potatoes were still more largely cultivated than maize, and formed the chief crop of all. In Switzerland they are generally of a small sort, small both in the haulm and in the tuber. The latter is unusually hard; and, therefore, probably hardy also, which may be its merit, in the eyes of the utilitarian Switzer. There were several patches of haricots, some of cabbages, and a few of hemp. The land was, for the most part, insufficiently manured. In some places it was clean enough, but in quite as many very foul with weeds.
There were here no indications of that love for the land, which, in Switzerland, is so pleasing a sight, wherever it is the absolute property of the man who cultivates it. Nowhere did I see anyone on these allotments, either pulling up weeds, or come to note what damage the heavy storm of last night had done. It was evident that the heart of the cultivator was not in his land. It was regarded not at all as the beloved associate of a life, as a sympathizing helper, as a kindly nursing mother, but was treated, as a slave, with grudging niggardliness, only with the thought of extorting all that it could be compelled to yield to such treatment. It was manifest, at a glance, that the property in this land was common, and that it was reportioned, and reallotted from time to time.
I walked upon, and by the side of the embankment of the Lütschine from the head of the Delta down to the lake. The rapid, turbid stream, five-and-twenty yards wide, was flowing at a height of two, or three feet above the level of the Delta, heavily charged with ash-coloured mud. As much of this as might be required might easily be warped on to the land in the fashion so successfully practised in some parts of England. It might be brought on to the low, marshy, swampy land to the left of the road, so that, when the mud had been deposited, the clear water might then pass off into the lake. This would rapidly raise the low swamps, now producing only reeds and aquatic plants, to such a level as would enable them to produce excellent grass. This is undeniable, for the deposit would be of precisely the same soil, chemically and mechanically, as that of the most productive part of the apex. As the low swamps along the base belong to the municipality of Interlaken, this will probably some day be done. I suggested the scheme to one of the chief people in the town, and found that, as far as he knew, the possibility of turning to such account the mud of the Lütschine had not yet been debated.
Having finished my inspection of this part of the Delta, all, that is to say, that lies on the left-hand bank of the Lütschine, I crossed the bridge to look at the commonable land on the right-hand bank. This belongs to the Commune of Böningen. The only difference I saw here was that the land was somewhat drier and better; and that it had upon it a few fruit trees. This was a pleasing feature, and results from the enforcement of a regulation in this Commune that a certain number of such trees shall be maintained upon the allotments by their shifting and temporary occupants.
On returning to the Jungfrau, was told by the proprietor that the kind of guide I wanted was nowhere to be found in Interlaken. I, therefore, applied to the proprietor of the neighbouring Victoria, the largest Hotel in the place. He advised me to take Heinrich Ammer. As Ammer had been recommended to me at Berne also, and as I could hear of no one else, after some little conversation with him, I engaged him for three weeks, at eight francs a day, tout compris. I had more than misgivings as to Heinrich’s sufficiency for my purpose; but, as will sometimes happen under such circumstances, I was impatient; and so I persuaded myself that I had no time for making further inquiries; and then I went a step further, and said to myself that if he were to prove insufficient, it would be a matter of no great consequence.
Reader, in the foregoing pages we have been whisked along the rail to, and through, some places we visited together last year. What has been said by the way will have given you to understand, that I had in view a special object. You will now also know what that object was, and will see that it was one, which might be sufficiently attended to without much interference with the ordinary objects of a Swiss excursion; if they are, as I take them to be, for the mind the enjoyment of mountain scenery, and for the body more or less vigorous exertion. For an excursion of this mixed kind, carried out in a leisurely fashion, and with some contentment, in the narrative of which the special object will take the position, as it did in fact, of so much collateral by-work, I would now bespeak your friendly company.