CHAPTER XV.
LAST DAYS IN SWITZERLAND.
Geneva.—Calvin and jewelry.—Up Lake Leman.—Ouchy and Lausanne.—"Sweet Clarens."—Chillon.—Freyburg.—Sight-seers.—The Last Judgment.—Berne and its bears.—The town like a story.—The Lake of Thun.—Interlaken.—Over the Wengern Alp.—The Falls of Giessbach.—The Brunig Pass.—Lucerne again.
WE dashed up to the hotel upon one of the fine quays at Geneva, and descended from the open diligence with all the appearance of travellers who had crossed a sandy desert. There is an air of experienced travel which only dust can impart.
The most charming sight in the city, to us, was our own names upon the waiting letters here. In truth, there are no sights in Geneva. Tourists visit the city because they have been or are going elsewhere, beyond. If they pause, it is to rest or buy the jewelry so far-famed. To be sure the view from almost any window opening upon the blue Rhone is pleasing, crossed by various bridges as it is, one of which touches Rousseau's Island. But our heads by this time were as full of views as that of a Boston woman.
Calvinists and Arminians alike visit the Cathedral, and sit for a moment in the old reformer's chair, or at least look upon the canopy of carved wood from beneath which he used to preach. There are few monuments here. The interior is bare, and boarded into the stiff pews, which belong by right and the fitness of things, not to these grand, Gothic cathedrals, but to the Puritan meeting-houses, where we gather less to breathe a prayer than to sit solemnly apart and listen to a denunciation of each other's sins.
It is a little remarkable that the city where Calvin made and enforced such rigid laws against luxury and the vanities of the world should, in these latter days, be noted for the manufacture of jewelry. But so it is; and to walk the streets and gaze in at the shop windows would turn the head of any but the strongest-minded woman. Two or three addresses had been given us of manufactories where we could be served at more reasonable rates than at the grand shops. We climbed flight after flight of dingy stone stairs, in dingier buildings, to reach them, and found ourselves at last in little dark rooms, almost filled by a counter, a desk, and a safe or two. Certainly no one would think of looking for beautiful things here! But we had become tolerably accustomed to such places in Paris, and were not at all surprised when one shallow drawer after another was produced from behind the counter, and a blaze of gems and bewildering show of delicately executed gold work met our eyes. If you care for a souvenir only, there are pretty little finger-rings encircled by blue forget-me-nots in enamel, which are a specialty of Geneva. But if you possess the means and disposition, you may gratify the most extravagant desires, and rival Solomon in magnificence.
Twice a day steamers leave Geneva to ascend the lake. It was a bright, summer afternoon when we embarked from the pier beyond our hotel, and steamed away past the villages that lie along its edge. Among them is Coppet, the home of Madame de Staël, the towers of which rise up behind the town. The deck of the steamer was alive with tourists. One party, from meeting at every turn, rests even yet in memory; the ladies stout, red-faced, and showily dressed, with immense "charms" pendent from their chatelaines—shovels, tongs, and pokers, life-size—the result of a sojourn at Geneva, doubtless.