One of these green spots, high among the rocks, forms a sloping meadow, touching the water at last. It is an oasis in the surrounding desert of barren rock. Do you know why the grass is greener here than elsewhere? why the sun bestows its kisses more warmly? why the foliage upon the scattered walnut and chestnut trees is thicker, darker, than upon those on other mountain-sides? It is because this is Grütlii—the birthplace of Swiss liberty. Here, more than five hundred years ago, the three confederates met at night to plan the throwing off of the Austrian yoke.
Not far from Grütlii, resting apparently upon the water, at the base of one of these cliffs, is what appears at first sight to be a pretty green and white summer-house, open towards the lake. It is Tell's Chapel, built upon a shelf of rock, and only approachable from the water. Here—so the story runs—William Tell sprang ashore, and escaped the tyrant Gessler. We sweep around this promontory and gain the last bay where lies Fluellen—a ragged village, swarming with tourists, vetturinos, and diligences. Among the carriages we find our own. It is a roomy landau, luxuriously lined with scarlet velvet, drawn by three horses which wear tinkling bells, and is capable of carrying six passengers. The top is thrown back, but a kind of calash-shade screens from the sun the occupants of what we should call the driver's seat. Our driver's place is a narrow board behind the horses. One crack of a long whip, and we are off at a rattling pace over the hard road, smooth as a floor.
For the first day we are to follow the pass of St. Gothard—that well-travelled highway which leads through mountain defiles into Italy. We dashed by Altorf, where the family of Queen Victoria's husband originated, passing the open square in which William Tell shot the apple from the head of his son. An old man is watering a horse at the basin of the stone fountain which marks the spot where the father stood. All this valley is sacred to the memory of William Tell. In a village near by he was born; in the mountain stream, just beyond, he is said to have lost his life in the attempt to save a drowning child. After Altorf, the road winds among the meadows, though the mountains rise on every side, with châlets perched upon points which seem inaccessible, so steep are their sides. It is haying time, and men and women are at work in the fields and upon the mountain-sides, carefully securing every blade of grass. Once, when we had begun to wind up the mountains, where a grass-grown precipice fell almost sheer to the valley below, a girl clung to its side, and pulled with one hand the grass from between the rocks, thrusting it into a bag that hung about her neck. She paused to gaze after us as we dashed by, a kind of dull awe that never rose to envy lighting her face for an instant. O, the hungry, pitiful faces of these dwellers upon the heights! the pinched, starved faces of the little ones especially, who forgot to smile—how they haunted us! At noon we sweep up to the post-house at Amsteg, with a jingle of bells, a crack of the whip, and an annunciatory shout from the driver. There is no village that we can see. The piazza of the post-house is filled with travellers, lunching before a long table; half a dozen waiting carriages stand in the open space before it; as many hostlers, with knit caps upon their heads, from which hang long, bright-colored tassels, are busy among the horses. At a short distance the Reuss River rushes past the house; upon its bank is a little shop, with its store of Swiss curiosities and trinkets. A couple of girls fill a tray with the dainty wares, and cross the space to tempt us. One has a scarlet handkerchief knotted under her handsome, dark face. She turns her brown cheek to her shoulder, tossing a word back as the young hostlers contrive to stand in her way.
One by one the carriages take up their loads and go on. We soon follow and overtake them, winding slowly up among the rocks, which seem ready to fall upon us. We form a long train, a strange procession, bound by no tie but that of common humanity. The meadows and soft, green mountain-slopes are left behind as we ascend, crossing from one side to the other by arched bridges thrown over the chasm, at the foot of which foams the torrent. Higher and higher rise the rent rocks—bare, black walls, seamed, and scarred, and riven, their summits reaching to the sky. They close about us, shutting out everything of earth and heaven, save a narrow strip of blue far above all. Even the sweet light of day departs, and a gloom and darkness as of a brooding tempest falls upon us as the way narrows. Suddenly a mad, foaming torrent, with angry roar, leaps from the rocks above, to toss, and writhe, and moan upon the rocks below the arch upon which we stand. The water rushes over them, and dashes against them. It swirls, and pants, and foams, while high above it all we stand, our faces wet with the spray, our ears deafened by the terrible roar. Truly, this is "The Devil's Bridge."
Think of armies meeting here, as they did in the old Napoleonic wars, contending for the passage of the bridge below. Think of the shrieks of the wounded and dying, mingling with the raging of the waters. Think of the white foam surging red among the rocks; of the angry torrent beating out the ebbing life of those who checked its flow. Think of the meeting of hosts in mortal conflict where no eye but God's could witness it, upon which not even bird or startled beast looked down. It was like a dreadful dream from which we passed—as through deep sleep—by a way cut in the solid rock out into God's world again. Still, from one side of the road rose the rocks that began to show signs of scanty vegetation now; from the other fell the precipice to the torrent. We had left the carriages at the bridge, and singly or in companies toiled up the road that doubled back upon itself continually. Often we climbed from one of these windings to the next above, by paths among the rocks, leaving the carriages to make the turn and follow more slowly. Often our way was the bed of a last year's torrent, or our feet touched the borders of the stream, as we pulled ourselves up by the shrubs that grew among the rocks. The ice-chill in the air brought strength for the time, and perfect exhilaration. It seemed as if we could go on forever, scaling these mountain heights.
At last the carriages overtake us, and we reluctantly resume our places. The road is built out upon the mountain-side. It offers no protection against the fall of the precipice. It narrows here. We look down, and say, "How dreadful a careless driver might make this place!" and, shuddering, draw back. Suddenly the train pauses, and down the long hill runs a shout, "A carriage has gone over." We spring out, and run to the front. "Is any one killed?" "No; thank God, no one is harmed." We gather upon the edge of the precipice. Upon the rocks below lies the body of a horse—dead, with his fore feet raised, as though pawing the air; and mingling with the white waters, and tossed about in the raging stream, are the shattered remains of a carriage and its contents.
It seems that two young men from Canton Zurich essayed to make a tour of the mountains with their own horse and carriage—a foolhardy experiment, since none but tried horses, used to these passes, are considered safe here. All went well, however, until they reached this point, where a torrent falls down the mountain-side to the road, under which it passes with a fearful noise. It might, indeed, startle the strongest nerves. The horse, young and high-spirited, shied to the edge of the precipice, then reared high in the air. They saw that he must go over when his fore feet came down, and springing out, barely escaped a similar fate. We all passed the spot with some trepidation, the most of us preferring to walk; but our horses, accustomed to the road, were utterly unmoved by the swooping torrent. At night we reached Andermatt—only an untidy little village, lying in one of these upper valleys, bustling and all alive around the door of its one inn; but how green and beautiful were the mountains, shutting us in all around, after the desolation through which much of our way had led! Upon the side of the nearest was a triangular patch of wood-land,—firs and spruces,—said to divide and break the force of the avalanches that sweep down here in the spring. It can be nothing but a story of what had been true formerly, when the wood was more extensive. Down these mountains, as night closed in, straggled a herd of goats to the milking, tinkling countless little bells, while the roar of the Reuss, which we had followed until it was now hardly more than a mountain brook, mingled with our dreams as it ran noisily through the village.
On we went the next morning, wrapping ourselves warmly, for the air was chill as November, though at Lucerne, only twenty-four hours before, we had suffered a torrid heat. Just beyond Andermatt, at Hospenthal, we left the St. Gothard, to follow the Furka pass. All around was barren desolation, as we went on, still ascending, leaving every sign of human life behind. Rocky and black the mountains rose, bearing only lichens and ferns. Occasional patches of snow appeared, lying in the beds of the last year's torrents, or scattered along beside the road. But here, where Nature had bestowed little to soften and beautify, she had spread upon the barren land, and tucked in among the rocks, a covering of exquisitely delicate flowers. You cannot realize, until you have seen them, the variety, beauty, and profusion of the Alpine flowers. Looking back in memory upon the bare rocks, doomed to stand here through all time in solitude and in the midst of desolation, as though in expiation of some sin, it is pleasant to remember that at their feet and in their clefts these little flowers nestle and bloom.
We gathered nosegays and made snowballs, and at noon gained the summit of the Furka, and rested an hour or two at the inn—the only sign of house or hut we had seen since morning. The rough salons, the passage, the doorway, even the space outside, were alive with tourists. It is a continual jar upon one's sense of the fitness of things, something to which you never become thoroughly accustomed, until all freshness of sight-seeing is passed—this coming suddenly upon the world in the midst of the unutterable solitude of nature; this plunging into a crowd dressed in the latest style, and discussing universal frivolities where the very rocks and hills seem to stand in silent adoration. But after the first moment you, too, form one of the frivolous throng, the sight and sound of which shock the sensibilities of the next comer.
From the inn a tongue of land, green and dotted with flowers, falls into the valley below. On either side rises a mountain, scarred by the torrents dried away now, and stained this day with the last year's snow, while beyond—ever beyond, like some heavenly heights we vainly strove to gain—rose the Bernese Alps.