I had always supposed, from a boy, that Geneva was overflowing with musical box manufacturers, from the fact that all I used to see in the stores at home were stamped with the name of that city. Judge of my surprise in finding scarcely any exhibited in the shop windows here. At the hotel a fine large one played in the lower hall, with drum accompaniment, and finding from the dealer's cards beside it that it was intended as a sample of his wares, we went to his factory across the river, where the riddle was explained in the fact that the retail shopkeepers demanded so large a commission for selling, that the music-box makers had refused to send any more to them for sale. This may be a good move for their jobbing trade, but death to the retail trade with foreigners. Berne is the place for music-boxes.
Returning across the long bridge to our hotel, we saw a specimen of Swiss clothes washing, and which in a measure may constitute some of the reasons why some of the inhabitants of this part of the world change their linen so seldom. Beneath a long wooden shed, with its side open to the swift-flowing stream, were a row of stout-armed, red-cheeked women bending over a long wash-board, which extended into the stream before them. Seizing a shirt, they first gave it a swash into the stream; next it was thoroughly daubed with soap, and received other vigorous swashes into the water, and was then drawn forth dripping, moulded into a moist mass, and beaten with a short wooden bludgeon with a will; then come two or three more swashes and a thrashing by the stalwart washerwoman of the garment down upon the hard board before her with a vigor that makes the buttons spatter out into the stream like a charge of bird shot. After witnessing this, I accounted for the recent transformation of a new linen garment by one washing into a mass of rags and button splinters. This style of washing may be avoided to some extent by particular direction, but the gloss or glazing which the American laundries put upon shirt fronts seems to be unknown on the continent.
The sun beat down fiercely as we started out of Geneva,—one of the hottest places in Switzerland I really believe,—and for fifteen miles or so its rays poured down pitilessly upon the unshaded road. Grateful indeed was a verdant little valley, bounded by lofty mountains, and the cliff road shaded with woods, that we next reached, and rattled through a place called Cluses; and going over a bridge spanning the River Arve, we entered a great rocky gorge, and again began to feel the cold breath of the mountains, and come in sight of grand Alpine ranges, snowy peaks, and rushing waterfalls. Finally we reach Sallanches. Here we have a fine view of the white and dazzling peaks of Mont Blanc towering into the blue sky, apparently within two or three miles from where we stand, but which our driver tells us are nearly fifteen miles away.
Again we are in the midst of the magnificent scenery of the great mountain passes, verdant and beautiful slopes, gray splintered peaks, huge mountain walls, wild picturesque crags, waterfalls dashing down the mountain sides far and near, the whole air musical with their rush; and the breath of the Alps was pure, fresh, and invigorating as cordial to the lungs.
We that a few hours ago were limp, wilted, and moist specimens of humanity, were now bright, cheery, and animated; we quoted poetry, laughed, sang, and exhausted our terms of admiration at the great rocky peaks that seemed almost lost in the heavens, or the fir-clad mountain side that jutted its dark fringe sharply against the afternoon sky. Beyond, as ever, rose the pure frosted peaks, and as they glowed and sparkled, and finally grew rose-colored and pink in the sunset, it became almost like a dream of enchantment, that darkness gradually blotted out from view.
We had started from Geneva with coat and vest thrown aside for a linen duster; we descended into the valley of Chamouny with coat and vest replaced, and covered with a substantial surtout. As we came down to the village, the driver pointed out to us what looked like a great blue steel shield, thousands of feet up in the heavens, hanging sharply out from the dome of impenetrable blackness above, and shining in a mysterious light. It was the first beams of the rising moon, as yet invisible, striking upon the clear, blue ice of a great glacier far above us. It gradually came more distinctly into view, flashing out in cold, icy splendor, as the moon began to frost the opposite mountain, from behind which it seemed to climb into the heavens with a fringe of pale silver. We had expressed disappointment at not being able to enter Chamouny by daylight, but found some compensation in the novel scene of moonlight upon these vast fields of ice, with their sharp points rising up like the marshalled spears of an army of Titans, glittering in the moonlight, or stretching away in other directions in great sheets of blue ice, or ghostly snow shrouds in the dark distance. We reached the Hotel Royal at nine and a half P. M., thoroughly tired with our eleven hours' ride.
Fatigued with travel, I certainly felt no inclination to rise early the next morning; and so, when a sonorous cow-bell passed, slowly sounding beneath our window at about four and a half A. M., I mentally anathematized the wearer, and composed myself for a renewal of sleep. Scarce comfortably settled ere another cow-bell, with a more spiteful clang, was heard approaching; clank, clink, clank, clink, like the chain about a walking ghost, it neared the window at the foot of my couch, passed, and faded off into the distance. That's gone; but what is this distant tinkle? Can it be there is sleighing here, and this is a party returning home? Tinkle, jinkle, tinkle, tinkle—there they come!
"Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open"—the curtain, looked out through the sash,—
"When what to my wondering eyes should appear