Over the Ocean; or, Sights and Scenes in Foreign Lands

by Curtis Guild

At length we reached Kusnacht, on Lake Lucerne; and, embarking on a little steamboat, we glided along past the beautiful slopes of the Righi range, having a fine view of the frowning peak of Pilatus, and some towering snow-clads in the distance. Finally we rounded a point, and there lay Lucerne, in a sort of natural amphitheatre, fronting on the blue lake, and between the Righi and Pilatus on either side. Upon the whole length of the long quay is a broad avenue of shady chestnut trees; then, strung along behind it, are the great hotels; and in the background, running over on the heights above the town, are the walls and watch-towers, the whole forming a most charming and picturesque scene.

The steamer glides up to the stone pier almost opposite to the great hotel, where our rooms had been engaged and luggage forwarded, and in a few minutes more the officious porters have us domiciled in fine apartments in the "Schweizerhoff," where we proceed to remove the stains of travel and mountain climbing, enjoy the luxury of a good bath, and in other ways prepare for the table d'hote.

The Schweizerhoff is a splendid hotel, and, with its dependencies, accommodates some three hundred or more guests. It is admirably kept, the rooms clean, well furnished, and airy, and the front commanding a superb view of the lake, Mount Pilatus, Righi, and a whole range of Alps, green hill-sides, rocky crags, or great snow-clads, running up five, six, seven, and eight thousand feet high. A picture it seemed we could never tire gazing at, as we sat at our windows looking at them, and the blue lake, with its steamboats coming and going, row-boats and pleasure sail-boats gliding hither and thither. In this house is a reading-room for ladies and gentlemen, with English, French, German, and Italian newspapers, books and magazines, a billiard-room, pretty garden, and great dining-room, with conservatory at one end of it, filled with plants and birds. A fountain in the room spouts and flashes merrily during the dinner hour, and a band of music plays. There are waiters and porters who speak French, German, Italian, and English, and hearing the latter spoken on every side so frequently, seeing so many Americans, and the ladies going through with the usual display of dress and flirtations as at home, it was difficult to imagine that we were not at some Saratoga, or Newport, and that a few hours by rail would not bear us to Boston or New York.

The sights in Lucerne are few and easily seen, the principal attraction being the loveliness of the situation. The River Reuss emerges from the lake at this point, and rushes off at a tremendous rate, and two of the curious old wooden bridges that span it are features of the place; they are roofed over and partially enclosed. In the inner triangular compartments of the roof of the longest are a series of over a hundred pictures, illustrating scenes in the lives of saints and in the history of Switzerland; in the other the Dance of Death is quaintly and rudely depicted; picturesque old places these bridges, cool and shady for a summer afternoon's stroll.

The great attraction in the old cathedral in Lucerne is the fine organ, which all visitors go to hear played; and we strolled in on a quiet summer's evening, after dinner, to listen to it. The slanting beams of the sun gleamed through the stained-glass windows, and lighted up some of the old carved wood reliefs of the stalls in the church, as we took our seats, with some fifty or sixty other tourists, here and there in the body of the house; and soon the music began. First there were two or three hymns, whose pure, simple melody was given with a grace and delicacy that seemed to carry their sacred sentiment to the very heart; from these the performer burst into one of the grandest performances of Mendelssohn's Wedding March I ever listened to. There was the full band, with hautboy, flute, clarinet, and trumpet accompaniment, introducing perfect solo obligatos, and closing with the full, grand sweep of melody, in which, amid the blending of all in one grand harmonious whole, the strains of each were distinguishable, perfect, pure, and faultless. The liquid ripple of the flute, the blare of the trumpet, and the mellow murmur of the clarinet, till the march arose in one grand volume of harmony that made the vaulted arches of the old cathedral ring again, and it seemed as if every nook and corner was filled with exultant melody. It was a glorious performance, and I felt like leaping to my feet, swinging my hat, and shouting, Bravo! when it was finished.

But, if this was glorious, the last piece, which represented a thunder storm amid the Alps, was little short of marvellous, and may be regarded as a masterpiece of organ-playing. It commenced with a beautiful pastoral introduction; this was succeeded by the muttering of distant thunder, the fitful gusts of a gradually rising tempest, the sharp shirr of the wind, and the very rattling and trickling of the rain drops; mountain streams could be heard, rushing, swollen into torrents; the mutter of the tempest increased to a gradual and rising roar of wind; a resistless rush of rain was heard, that made the spectator look anxiously towards church windows, and feel nervous that he had no umbrella. Finally the tremendous tempest of the Alps seemed to shake the great cathedral, the winds howled and shrieked, the rain beat, rushed, and came down in torrents; the roar of the swollen mountain streams was heard between the terrific peals of thunder that reverberated among the mountains, awaking a hundred echoes, and one of those sharp, terrible rattles, that betokens the falling bolt, made more than one lady sit closer to her protector, with an involuntary shudder.

But anon the thunder peals grew less and less frequent, and rolled slowly and grandly off among the mountains, with heavy reverberations, between which the rush of the mountain streams and the rattle of the brooks were heard, till finally the peals of heaven's artillery died away entirely, the streams rushed less fiercely, and the brooks purled over the pebbles. Then, amid the subsiding of the tempest, the notes of a little organ, which had been heard only at intervals during the war of elements, became more clear and distinct: now, as the thunder ceased and the rush of rain was over, you heard it as in some distant convent or chapel among the mountains, and there arose a chant so sweet, so clear, so heavenly as to seem hardly of this earth—a chant of nuns before their altar; anon it increased in volume as tenor, alto, and even the full bass of monkish chant joined, and the whole choir burst into a glorious hymn of praise.

The audience were breathless as they listened to the chant of this invisible choir, whose voices they could distinguish in sweet accord as they arose and blended into a great anthem, and then gradually faded in the distance, as though the meek sisterhood were gliding away amid their cloisters, and the voices of the procession of hooded monks ceased one after the other, as they sought the quiet of their cells. The chant dropped away, voice by voice, into silence; all ceased but the little chapel organ accompaniment, which lingered and quavered, till, like a last trembling seraph breath, it faded away in the still twilight, and—the performance was over.

There was full a moment's spell-bound hush among the listeners after its conclusion, and then followed one universal burst of admiration and applause in half a dozen different languages. Some of the ladies of our party, not dreaming of the wonders of the vox humana stop, desired to see the choir that sang so sweetly; and to gratify them we ascended to the organ gallery, where, to their surprise, we met the sole performer on the wonderful instrument to which they had listened, in the person of an old German, with scattered gray hairs peeping out beneath his velvet skull-cap, wearing black knee-breeches and silk stockings, and shoes with broad buckles—a perfect old virtuoso in appearance, and a genuine musical enthusiast, trembling with pleasure at our praise, and his eyes glistening with tears at our admiration of his marvellous skill.

The lion of Lucerne is, in fact, literally the lion; that is, the celebrated lion sculptured out of the natural rock by the celebrated Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen, in memory of the Swiss guard that were massacred in defence of the Tuileries in 1792. The figure is in a beautiful grotto, a sheet of water, which is fed by springs that trickle out from the stone that it is carved from, separating it from the spectator.