Swiss allmends, and a walk to see them

by F. Barham Zincke

I am not, though on the Rigi, going into ecstasies, or particulars. You will find plenty of both in the books. Who has not read—perhaps enough—of its sunrises and sunsets; of the eight lakes visible from its summit; of the effects, still uneffaced, and of which you have a near view, of the great mountain-slip of the Rossberg; and of the long range of massive, rugged, snow-topped Alps to the south, from east to west, a world of mountains of many shapes? With all this, and a good deal more, everyone is as familiar as he is with St Paul’s. But however familiar a writer may make his readers with particulars enumerated in this fashion, he will not thereby enable them to reproduce in their minds such a scene and, if he have not enabled them to do this, his ecstasies would be only cold and ridiculous. The question, then, is, How are the particulars of so vast a scene to be so presented, as that it may be adequately and truly reproduced? The most practised describer would, I think, fail. The triumph, however, I believe might be achieved by the aid of two good panoramic maps, drawn for the purpose. One for the northern, and the other for the southern view. The one for the northern view, which, as seen from the Rigi, embraces the apparently level region of northern, and north-western Switzerland, should be divided, longitudinally, by lines from south to north, into three compartments; a central, a right, and a left one. And then, each of these three should be, again, trisected, latitudinally, by parallel lines from east to west. This would give to each of the three original compartments three distances of its own; its near, its middle, and its further distance. Each of the three distances of each of the three compartments should be made to show the objects conspicuous to the eye from the summit of the Rigi, and those, too, which though not conspicuous, are yet of sufficient interest to be worthy of notice. With such a map before you, you would almost be able to construct, and put together, the view for yourself. He alone understands a scene, who has in his mind distinct images of all its parts, and of the relation of each to its environment. And in a scene of such vast extent, as that of which we are now speaking, the man, who has it actually before him, will not be able to reach this understanding by a glance, or two: effort and study will be required for the purpose; and even he will be much helped by some such artificial arrangement, as I am here suggesting. It would, however, be also, strictly, the natural arrangement; for such a map would only present, in easily comprehensible spaces, what is here presented in one undivided, and almost incomprehensible, expanse, in a marvellously map-like fashion, by Nature herself. What you have spread out before you from the Rigi Kulm is a map: as much a map as one of Keith Johnston’s, with the addition, that, though a map, it is also, at the same time, the actual concrete thing to be mapped—in form, substance, colour, detail, life; of all which his paper map would be only a feeble suggestion in symbols. And as to the man, who has not, or who has not had, the scene before him; it would be quite hopeless to attempt to describe it to him without the aid of a map, so constructed as to give separate distinctness to the component parts of the scene. Qui bene dividit, bene docet; and the larger the subject, the greater the need of well-planned divisions.

In a similar fashion the world of snow-capped Alps to the south should be divided into three parts; a middle, and two extremities. The general outline of each part should be sketched, and its most conspicuous, and famous summits signalized. And an attempt should be made to give some general ideas of the ground-plan, and character of each range, and of its relations to the contiguous ranges.

With two such panoramic maps before you, your companion in type might then say to you: Look on this picture to the north, and on that to the south. Never were two contiguous scenes—the two parts of an unbroken whole—in more complete and impressive contrast. The picture to the north, and north-west is a bird’s-eye view of a fertile, highly-cultivated country. Here is spread out before you the greater part of north-western Switzerland. The view may be roughly spoken of as filling the area of a semicircle, the diameter of the circle being 100 miles. You are, therefore, looking, from the central point, at which you are standing, fifty miles in every direction. This rich cultivated country, while, in the distance, it trends away as far as the eye can follow it, also, as your mountain observatory is precipitous on this side, comes quite up to you—to beneath your feet—for a near inspection. There is a filmy tint of green in everything you look upon, with the exception of the towns, villages, and innumerable detached human habitations, scattered over the whole of it; but which, of course, as the distance increases, gradually become lost to sight. The grass is, at this season, of a yellowish green; the trees and woods of a brownish green; the lakes of a bluish green. I do not know where, from a near point of view, without a particle of intermediate distance, you could look over so wide an expanse of land, that has been, and shows palpably that it has been, brought so thoroughly and successfully into subjection to man. The expanse is vast, but man is everywhere. Everywhere cornfields, and vineyards, and orchards, and prairies; maize and potatoes; hemp and flax; sheep and cows; woods for fuel, and streams for irrigation. Who could think of counting the plots of land into which the whole of it is divided? But that were easier done than to picture, and estimate the sum of the satisfaction and enjoyment, their possession confers on those who own, and cultivate them. From the vast plain—for to the eye, from the height of nearly 6,000 feet, it all appears flattened out—there ascends to the mountain-top, in the air you are breathing, an incense of human happiness, engendered by industry, independence, and contentment. I looked in the direction of Bretzwyl, and hoped that its unsophisticated peasants had had, since I was among them, many more dances and concerts; and that the kindly professor, his pleasing wife, and their rosy, lively children, were still at Sonnen Halle. But there are many Bretzwyls in that broad view. And there is not an acre in the whole of it, but would sell for twice as much—so greatly has it been improved, and so much happiness does its possession yield to its industrious cultivators—as an acre, of equal goodness, in wealthy England.

So is it also with the opposite picture seen from the Rigi Kulm—the other strangely-contrasted half of the wonderful whole—the long range of Alps on the south. It is not their mountain massiveness, and colouring only—unwonted sight to English eyes—that are capable of interesting. They are something more than Nature’s architecture in many forms—pyramids, towers, buttresses, pinnacles—appealing merely to the sense of grandeur, of power, and of awe. That is much: but in them there is much more. That is no more than what the eye reports to the mind. There is, besides, what the memory reports, and what the imagination gives body and life to; and which is of still deeper interest. These craggy escarpments, built up from the plain to, and above the clouds, bastioned with horrid precipices, parapeted and battlemented with eternal snow, were, in its early days, the rampart of the cradle of civilization. In its history they played a great and indispensable part. So was it in early times. And the state of things these Alps aided in bringing about in early times, did, in its turn, contribute to bring about the state, to which we, in these times, belong. Reader, it is demonstrable, that, if these ramparts had not existed, neither should we, who are now contemplating them, have existed. The combinations of human history would, then, have been different from what they are; and in those different combinations we should have had no place.

Again, if that rampart had not been there, what—to let old times alone—would the subsequent history of Italy have been, and where would have been the recent resurrection of united and independent Italy? It could, without that rampart, have been only a province, as it was not far from becoming with it, of France, or of Germany. It would have been so, for the area of nations depends on natural boundaries.

And there is still another train of thought that belongs to the scene before you. All that you are now looking on suggests only nakedness and cold; hardness and barrenness. There is nothing that indicates life. Man can have no dominion or place there. In everything it seems the antithesis of the scene to the north. But this year, and in other years, you have yourself travelled among those mountains. And what did you find among them? A great deal besides nakedness and cold; hardness and barrenness. You found them everywhere intersected and crossed with innumerable valleys; and every valley you found the scene of patient untiring human industry. You found every little plot of corn or garden ground, every rood of grass, every individual tree carefully, nay lovingly tended, and made the most of. You can recall how, not only in the valley, by the stream-side, but up the mountain side also, and even on many mountain-tops, between the crags and the snow-fields, at this moment, man, woman, and child are busy in winning all that can be won from niggard Nature. Here, then, is another order of objects, and other colouring, to be added by the imagination to the scene before you. Now, it is not only the craggy flanks, and the snowy tops of the Eiger and the Jungfrau, the Titlis, the Uri Rothstock, the St. Gothard, the Glärnish, and the Tödi, that you see. You clothe and people all between them. You are, again, passing through the villages, the prairies, the orchards of Unterwalden and Uri. You are, again, on the Oberalp alpe, and on the long sides of the Surenen, and of the Pragel, among the cows and the cowherds. You are, again, among the looms and the print-works of Glarus. Thought is active in bringing before you the scene as it is; natural details, and human details of many landscapes, set in those mountain-frames; details out of sight, but visible to the mind’s eye. Sympathies are awakened. Your understanding and your heart are both, now, admitted to a share in the interest of the scene.

CHAPTER XII.

LUCERNE—ALPNACH—THROUGH UNTERWALDEN—MEIRINGEN—THE KIRCHET.

I could have better spared a better man.—Shakespeare.

August 23.—Yesterday, having spent some hours on the Rigi, we had got to Lucerne with two or three hours of daylight still at our disposal. I here found my malle at the post office, to which I had directed it eight days previously from Altorf: I now redirected it to Lausanne. We walked over the town before dusk, and afterwards took a second stroll to see the tourists sitting out in front of the large hotels. They appeared to be chiefly Germans and Americans. The day had been very warm; and at 8 o’clock it appeared as if those who were remaining indoors could not be many.