Swiss allmends, and a walk to see them

by F. Barham Zincke

As you leave the bay of Buochs you find that the mountains on all sides show well from the lake. Behind is Obburgen, at which we have just now been looking. On your immediate right is Buochserhorn. Beyond it is Seelisberg, though not yet itself visible, but only the way to it by Beckenried, on the east face of which is the Sonnenberg Hotel, a head-quarters for much that is good and interesting. On your left is the Rigiberg. Before you, in sight of which you soon come, is Brunnen, the port of Schwyz, which is seen three miles back, at the foot of the rocky and precipitous Mythen. A fair expanse, how fair! of bluest crystal, set in a glorious frame of multiform mountains, superficially more or less subdued by long ages of human industry: this, however, being possible only to such a degree as to diversify, and enrich the interest of the scene. In itself a glorious scene! but there is, besides, all about it the glamour of the memory that it was the cradle of Swiss liberty.

Along the beach at Buochs I had seen several peasant women, turning over in the bright sun to dry, as if it were so much wet hay, the roots and fragments of wood they had collected from what the storm of Friday night last had swept from the mountains into the Engelberg Aa, which had brought them down to the lake. This was to be added to their store of winter fuel. Fuel has now become very dear in Switzerland, not only from its participation in the general rise of prices—that affects everything—but also from an exceptional cause. The recent increase of population has led to a corresponding increase of cultivation; and this has been effected chiefly at the expense of the forests, which are here the only source of fuel. While, therefore, the number of consumers has increased the supply of fuel has diminished. On reaching Gersau I came on further evidence of the violence of that great storm.

But first a word about Gersau itself. Its history is interesting. Its territory is a little valley in the Rigiberg, every rood, tree, and house of which is taken in at a glance from the deck of the steamer. Its population may now number about 2,000 souls. The increase this implies is due to the advantages of its situation, and to the industry of its inhabitants, having enabled it to keep abreast of the general advance of the whole of this much-frequented region. To it belonged, for many centuries, during which its population was much less than at present, the distinction of being the smallest independent sovereign state in Europe. San Marino was four times as populous, and had a proportionately larger area. Its valley, which looks to the south, is about three miles in length. It rapidly descends from the top of the col to the lake. Its sides, east and west, with far more rapid descents, are about a mile, each, in width. The whole of this area is covered with little green prairies, studded thickly with fruit trees, and with dispersed houses. The toy capital is at the bottom of the valley, on the margin of the lake. All the water that flows from natural springs, or that, in heavy rains, runs off its surface, will evidently reach the lake by the central trunk-channel that passes through the little town. This flow of water is sufficient in ordinary times for the machinery of a silk-mill, which has been placed at its mouth.

Against such a storm as that of Friday no adequate precautions had, or probably could have, been taken. As the steamer approached the pier, we saw heaps of fresh rocky débris piled up on the beach, and observed that the main street had been cut up, and the materials of the road partly carried away, by the torrent that had swept over it. The silk-mill had been pretty well wrecked, and a great many houses, and much land injured. Some of the rocks brought down into the town were so large that they had to be broken up by blasting, before they could be removed. I, afterwards, saw in the Swiss papers that a collection was being made to assist those of the humbler classes here, who had suffered by the storm. I heard also that the new road that passes along the margin of the lake, from Brunnen to Flüelen, had, like that through the valley of Unterwalden, in some places been blocked with débris, and in some cut through. As to the poorer sufferers at Gersau, we may be sure that, whether aided from without, or not, by the proposed subscription, the long tradition of self-help is not yet forgotten in this little community; and that it will soon repair the damages it has sustained, as effectually as a hive of bees would an injury done to their comb.

As far as Brunnen, which is about four miles beyond Gersau, our steamer’s course had been due east. Her head was now put due south, down the bay of Uri, which is the southern branch of this tortuous lake. The character of the scene changed as rapidly and completely as the direction of our course. The mountains no longer, as at Buochs, Ennetburgen, Beckenried, Gersau, and Brunnen, gradually shelve down to the water, offering space for little communities, whose successful industry, and careful thrift, it is so pleasing to contemplate. Their sides are now mostly naked precipitous rock; in some places rising a thousand feet, sheer above the glassy water, which, in its turn, is another thousand feet deep. But even on these mountains, which like some old-fashioned fish, wear bones on the outside, and, going further, are bone to the heart, the industry of the people, which will take no denial, has set its mark. Wherever a little space could be found for grass, there its emerald green gems the rocks, just as some bright parasite might the ganoid fish. So, too, wherever a little wood, or even a tree, or two, could be made to grow, there it springs from the mountain side. On the left you face the line of the new road to Flüelen, with the Axenstein Hotel above it; on the right, two or three thousand feet above the water, you look up to the Sonnenberg Hotel. Above and beyond the latter, reaching on for some distance in front, a combination of snow-fields, and of naked peaks, appropriately completes a scene, which once beheld is for ever remembered.

In some places you see sections of rock, exposing strata that have been contorted into zigzags. This convolution of the rock, the mountain high precipices, and the depth of the water, indicate how great were the forces that have been at work here, and with what mighty throes they worked, or through how long a range of ages.

I reached Altorf, in time for the 12 o’clock dinner, at the Golden Key. There were twenty-five people at table, among whom I was, I believe, the only Englishman; the rest being Germans, or Swiss. English people, however, do not like these hours; but I had breakfasted early. Altorf, though the capital, is not itself a Commune, but belongs to the quasi-Commune of Attinghausen, as Am Stag does to that of Silenen. I use the word quasi-Commune, because politically all the Communes of northern Uri, speaking roundly, and subject to some qualifications and explanations, form one body; each being a distinct body, again with qualifications and exceptions, only for economical purposes. This is the case also with the Communes of Southern Uri, or the Urseren Thal.

After dinner I walked over the whole capital in a vain search for a shop, in which I might get some statistical account of the Canton. Not one was to be found in which printed matter of any, even the humblest, kind was sold. Ammer laughed at my simplicity. ‘In Uri people do not spend money on books. But if I were to go to the Hotel de Ville, where the authorities were then holding a sitting, I might find the Archivar, or some such officer, who possibly might be of use to me.’ I acted on the suggestion; and brought away with me an abstract of the last census of Uri. But I found that in the capital of Uri printed matter, in accordance with the general rule in all matters, was dear in proportion to its scarcity. For a few figures—for the population of the Canton is only 16,095—printed on a small square of coarse spungy paper, not good enough to wrap up grocery in, I had to pay a franc. But I hold that the franc was not ill spent, as I found that, under the head of ‘Confession,’ of the above given number 16,025 were ‘Catholics;’ 60 ‘Protestants,’ 1 (with commendable precision) of ‘other Christian professions,’ and 3 ‘Israelites, and of other non-Christian professions.’ Considering the relation of Israelitism to Christianity it is not quite right to class it with all kinds of heathenism; though perhaps this heading may be defended by our own ‘Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics.’ But what a Priest’s Paradise must Uri be! Only 4 per thousand, not nearly a half per cent., of heretics and misbelievers of all kinds; and then not a book to be bought! How long will it be before these one-minded and unreading folk reach the debate of the old question What is truth; and come to understand that demonstrable fact is an alternative answer to the thimblerig of authority?

In the afternoon, having left my malle in charge of the landlord of the Golden Key, I went on to Am Stag. So far there is bottom land in the valley; broad at Altorf, and narrowing all the way to Am Stag, where it ends. The bounding ranges are always interesting, as seen from the road, which runs pretty straight, and pretty much on a level, for the intervening nine miles, among meadows, in which numerous fruit trees, as elsewhere in Switzerland, appear to be of little, or no, detriment to the grass.

Am Stag was reached at 6 o’clock. This gave time enough to look at the village, and its entourage. It is a small place created by the traffic through the valley, to which it is a kind of half-way house, where voituriers bait their horses, and the diligences take fresh teams. The mountains close in above and below it, forming a deep hollow of about a third of a mile in diameter. The environing mountains look unusually hard and pitiless; in part of naked rock, in part clothed with stunted woods. On the west side of the village the Reuss races by, being joined in the village by the stream of the Maderaner Thal, of about the same volume, and quite as noisy. These, with the breadth of sky above, are all the objects in nature the peasants of Am Stag have to contemplate. And in winter everything is buried in snow. And, then, the capital, for the dissemination of ideas, is Altorf. The time must be still distant when the coming bookseller of Altorf will have a customer from Am Stag.