Swiss allmends, and a walk to see them

by F. Barham Zincke

There was a mystery about his Sunday apparel. On that day his flannel shirt was doffed, and he would appear in a clean hempen shirt, and with a new pair of thick, apparently homespun, woollen trousers, neither of which was it possible for him to have had on the week days, before or afterwards. I must, therefore, suppose that he hired, or borrowed, them for the occasion. When in any little matter I would go my own way, and not his, I was soon prepared for what would come; and knew, when it came, precisely what it meant; for, on such conjunctures, he would never fail to announce, with a tone of sorrowful submission, ‘It is of your opinion.’ When he was utterly in the dark as to some question I was putting to him, and, evidently, knew nothing about the matter, he would assume, suddenly, the air of a man who has, by a happy inspiration of the moment, unriddled some ancient world-puzzle. The whole solution was, in every case, precisely the same, for it was all contained in the never-failing oracular utterance of the single word, ‘Infallibly,’ accompanied with a fixed look and solemn nod.

I held him at the time to be, and still hold him to have been, cheap at the money. He belongs to a bygone order of things, to the old Swiss world, in which a franc was a large object for contemplation, enough to occupy a man’s thoughts, and to satisfy his heart, and most days quite out of reach. He represents a class of guides that was formed before Alpinism had been evolved; and before streams of travellers had brought into Alpine villages streams of gold—a commodity then only known by report, and which in those valleys no eye had yet beheld. The old and the new experiences are, in his mind, in conflict. No guide on the sunny side of fifty can be like him. Travellers, who are, themselves, on the shady side of those figures, will be reminded by him of the slow and cautious world they once knew; and he will help them to measure how different is the world in which they now are.

We had, then, said our adieux to Ammer, and were now on our way to Meiringen. I observed that the horses we met on the road had dry hoofs; and when we had got a little more than three miles from Brienz the dust was flying; so confined had been the area of the heavy mountain storm, in which we had reached Brienz. We entered Meiringen just as the evening lights were beginning to show through the windows of the village, and of the neighbouring scattered châlets. The labours of the day were done, and families were again reunited to talk over its little events, before going to rest. We stopped at the door of the Reichenbach Hotel. We had been there last year, and had been satisfied with our reception. It is about half a mile from the village, near the foot of the mountain. A little stream passes by it; I believe through it. Its entourage is of garden-ground, turf, and trees.

I may mention that the manager of this hotel showed me, by reference to his books, that he was paying the commune twenty-five cents a klafter for good garden-ground, and twelve cents for ground of inferior quality. Another Meiringen man told me that good land was letting from twenty to thirty cents a klafter. There are 1,400 klafters in an acre. Twenty-five cents a klafter is, therefore, 14l. an acre. These hotels must have vegetables. This high rent, however, does not matter much to those tenants, who are proprietors of hotels, for they can recompense themselves for it through the medium of the little notes they present to their visitors.

August 24.—It was Sunday. We went twice to the English church. It is a new structure; and was erected at the expense of an English clergyman. The services I was glad to see were well attended. As the fashion, in which they were conducted, is a public matter, it is fairly open to comment; I may, therefore, say of them, and which, of course, those who direct them wish should be seen and known, that they were done in the ritualistic style. Those, who are far advanced in the direction of this style, might, perhaps, say of them only, that they showed a tendency towards ritualism. Personally, I am not annoyed at this fashion of conducting the service, any more than I am at witnessing an attempt to create the spiritual excitement, with which the opposite party in the Church has familiarized us; but, as it is presented to us for the very purpose of influencing, or obtruded upon us for the very purpose of challenging, our ideas and opinions, I am quite at liberty to say of it, that I think it, at least, as much of a mistake as the other. Still, as the embodiment of a bonâ fide opinion, or theory, it is entitled to be treated as such, that is to say to be met not with outcry and denunciation, but with facts and arguments. Now I am disposed to think, though, indeed, this is not the place for going into the facts and arguments, that neither of these two parties could have helped itself. Each works according to its light, and with the materials, that is to say the amount of knowledge, and kind of ideas, it possesses. And as, too, not far from all of those, to whom each has to address itself, are in the same mental condition as the leaders themselves of these parties, or are ready to be brought into it, little else can, at the moment, be done. We may, therefore, be almost disposed to say, So far well. Still we ought to keep in mind that religion must have, if it be any thing in rerum naturâ, a body of absolute truth. Now an induction from all religions appears to demonstrate the fact that the substance and body of religion is morality. And by the same process we come to the conclusion that its morality does not differ specifically from the ordinary forms and divisions of morality, as for instance that which is the regulation of the family, or that which is the regulation of society. Its morality does not differ specifically from these, or from any branches of morality, because it includes them all. Still it has a differentia; otherwise it would be only a synonyme for morality; and that differentia is its motive. It is the moral life, in all its relations, modified by, and practised from, motives drawn from the idea of a future life, or of there being a moral Governor of the world. This is religion in its simplest expression. This it is that makes it something in rerum naturâ; gives it existence; and has made it a power in all times, and among all races of men. The more distinctly men see, or even feel this, the more powerfully they are attracted to it; for this it is that reveals to them its nature and its uses, and enlists on its behalf the understanding and the moral sentiments, accompanied with immediate satisfaction, and the hope of better things to come. Anything which obscures the perception of this weakens its power. Now one of the parties, of which we have just made mention, obscures the perception of this simple and mighty truth by a veil of forms, and by what it calls reverence. It thus metamorphoses, and lowers religion. As respects its ministers and exponents; it puts the priest in the place of the prophet. As respects the wealthy, the luxurious, and the self-indulgent; it encourages them in substituting for religion these forms, and this reverence, which are so far from being religion that they may co-exist with that which is its most complete contradiction. And as to the ignorant; it attracts them; though, of course, not morally, but theatrically: for it is delightful to them to find religion so like a stage-play; that is to say something that is pleasant to look at, not something that is to regulate the whole inner and external life. The other party obscures the same great truth by a veil of sentimental excitement, and of exaggerated, factitious spiritualism. These, as they are not the actual things the human soul wants in this matter, cannot, of course, be maintained; and must, after a time, die away, if not in individuals, yet inevitably in bodies of men. And this accounts for the reaction from the teaching of this party, which is now going on before our eyes; and which, as it goes on, enables us to see how little, that is substantial and real, it has effected, except in the way of preparing us for what is real and substantial.

Both these parties were, under the circumstances of the times, unavoidable. But the aims and methods of both are, nevertheless, to a great extent, untrue; and, therefore, to a certain extent, and in a sense, mischievous. They have not sought first the kingdom of God, which is morality shaped and motived by the idea of a future life, or of there being a moral Governor of the world. With respect to the theory, and practice of the ritualistic party, we may be sure that there will be a reaction from them, just as they are themselves an incident of the reaction from the theory and practice of the opposite party. For ten, or even twenty, years we may not see it, but we must see it sooner or later. And those who choose to look at what is now going on will be able to anticipate, probably with some degree of accuracy, the direction the coming reaction will take; because what is to be, can be produced only by what now is. Those, who resort to this kind of divination, will see that, as both ritualism, and the so-called evangelicalism, so far as they are moral and religious, are efforts, only in unhistoric and unphilosophic minds, to attain to truth and reality; and as even in the outside world, which is neither ritualistic, nor evangelical, the same effort is being vigorously made; therefore the reaction, whenever it may come, will be in the direction of what all are desiring, and in search of, that is to say of truth, and reality. History, and philosophy will not be ignored. On the contrary: their authority will supersede that of men who were unhistoric, and unphilosophic. And, then, perhaps, the idea of religion that underlies, and is embodied in, the Sermon on the Mount, which is neither ritualistic, nor evangelical, will have its turn, again, once more, after so many centuries: and this will be only a reversion to that primitive conception of Christianity, which was what sent it forth conquering, and to conquer.

The source, then, and the forms of the mistakes we have been speaking of, are in our view of these matters, to be ascribed entirely to want of knowledge, both in those who had to lead, and in those who had to be led. We can say this without being disposed in any degree to blame either the one, or the other: for want of knowledge of the kind needed is an ever-recurring phenomenon; because it is an incident of progress. Those, who see this, ought to be satisfied with the faith they may have in knowledge. It must come; and, when it comes, it must have its due effect. There never, in the whole history of the world, has been a time in which, or a people among whom, religion has not been the expression of knowledge which has always, and everywhere, modified it, and necessarily in the direction of lifting it up to its own level. This is its highest, and its main use; for religion is the harmonizing, and the systematizing, of all the knowledge men have at any time attained to, both of nature and of man, for the most practical of all purposes—that of enlightening, guiding, purifying, elevating, and strengthening the moral life.

Before the evening service we walked to the Kirchet, perhaps a mile and a half up the valley, to see the old deserted ravine channel of the Aare. This is well worth a visit, even by those on whose minds such a sight will leave impressions only of strangeness and novelty. The Kirchet is a hill, that, just above Meiringen, runs completely athwart the Haslithal. It is said to be 800 feet high. Above it, therefore, the valley must have been, at some remote period, a lake, as far up as would be requisite for bringing its head to the level of the 800 feet of this bar, which formed its foot. At that time the overflow of the lake, instead of going straight over the Kirchet, when it had reached the summit, somewhere about the middle of it, made an angle on the summit, which is broad and flat, and then took a course along it to the north-east. In this course along the summit, it cut for itself a rapidly descending ravine passage, down to the foot of the lofty mountain that here rises above the Kirchet. At this point, that is to say at the foot of the mountain, the ravine channel made a second sharply defined right angle, and proceeded then almost due north to Meiringen along the line of the junction of the Kirchet and the eastern mountain.

There must, however, in times of floods and freshets, have been in those early days a subsidiary channel all along the foot of the eastern mountain. This was ever deepening itself, as all channels do. Perhaps it could only carry on this work in times of floods and freshets. At last it deepened itself to such a degree as to produce two very notable effects. One was that of draining the lake, and so of laying dry the broad bottom land where Im Hof now stands. The other was that of rendering useless the old channel of the north-eastern half of the axis of the Kirchet. The new channel is straight, and at right angles to the old one. This cutting off of bends and angles is what river channels are constantly engaged in doing. The only difference here is that, the old channel being in hard rock, the lapse of untold centuries has not in the slightest degree obliterated, or defaced, the earlier work of the Aare. The old ravine channel is just as clear, and as sharply defined, as it was on the day upon which the last waning streamlet from the Aare trickled over its bed, and then died away; and the whole outflow of Haslithal took the way of the new channel, which it has retained to this day.

As you go down the steep, narrow, deep descent of this old watercourse, so narrow and so deep that, at times, the rocks completely meet overhead and the sky above is shut out, you read its history more rapidly and more plainly than you can on this page. There are the clear, perpendicular, rock walls, right and left, at most only two or three yards apart; their sides water-worn, with edges here and there rounded off, and in some places hemispherical holes excavated in the rock, where some fracture, or soft spot, had enabled the old torrent to work at an advantage. Beneath your feet, in the long staircase of the ravine—the bed of the old channel—are the loose rocks, just as they were left; some much worn, that had been there, beneath the rushing tumbling torrent, for a long time; some not much worn, that had been brought in not long before the Aare withdrew to the new channel; all worn only on their surface and their upstream side. Everywhere between these rocks is the clean sand, just as it was left, washed clean, thousands of years ago. And when you get to the bottom of the old ravine, there, before you, is the Aare of to-day, thundering by in the new ravine it has cut for itself, exactly at right angles to the old deserted ravine, at the mouth of which you are standing. And here, at this point, down in the bowels of the mountain, is a charming little beach of white sand, two or three yards wide, and a dozen or so yards long, of precisely the same sand as that you have been stepping over in your descent of the old ravine.