The Lake of Sempach, too, upon whose shores, in 1386, another heroic victory was won from Austria, can be seen in the direction of Basle.
“The Swiss, to the number of 1400, knelt in prayer, then flung themselves upon the enemy. But in vain did they strive against the wall of pikes. Sixty of their number already lay bathed in their own blood, and in another moment the little army would have been enveloped by the enemy. Suddenly a man of Unterwalden, Arnold von Winkelried, cried aloud to them: ‘Confederates, I will open a way for you; take care of my wife and children’. Then, throwing himself upon the enemy’s pikes, he gathered in his arms as many of these as possible, and fell, opening a breach in the Austrian ranks, through which the Confederates rushed. The Austrians resisted furiously. The Duke Leopold himself fought with great bravery, but he was killed by a man of Schwyz.”
At this battle the town of Lucerne lost its famous burgomaster, Petermann von Gundoldingen, whose frescoed house still stands in the Seidenhof Strasse. The coat of mail which Duke Leopold wore at Sempach is kept in the Museum at the old Rathaus at Lucerne, together with several banners taken from the Austrians.
To the south of the Lake of Zug, and lying beneath the precipitous masses of the two Mythen, is the little Lowerz-See with the tiny Isle of Schwanau, seeming like a mere boat upon its surface. This lake, also, has its part in history. King Ludwig of Bavaria, Wagner’s far-sighted if eccentric patron, sojourned for a time upon the Isle of Schwanau; so also did Goethe. But history goes back further than this: back again to the tyrannical Austrian governors, one of whom had his castle on the island. And history (or is it legend?—hereabouts the line is often not well marked between the two) tells of how this Governor “was smitten with the charms of three beautiful but virtuous sisters, living in the neighbourhood of Arth”, and of how these three sisters, to escape his importunities, “fled to the pathless wilds of the Rigi”. Here, near a spring of water, they built themselves “a little hut of bark” and settled down to live, until one summer night some herdsmen noticed “three bright lights hovering over the wooded rocks”, and, following these lights, they reached the little hut where they discovered the three good sisters wrapped in their last long sleep. The spot, near the Rigi-Kaltbad Hotel, is still famous as the Schwesternborn, and its waters are noted for their healing properties.
Between the Lakes of Zug and Lowerz rises the Rossberg, from whose side, on September 2, 1806, descended the terrible fall of rock which destroyed the town of Goldau. Ruskin speaks of it in Modern Painters, and Lord Avebury, in The Scenery of Switzerland, gives the following brief account:—
“The railway from Lucerne to Brunnen passes the scene of the remarkable rockfall of Goldau. The line runs between immense masses of puddingstone, and the scar on the Rossberg from which they fell is well seen on the left. The mountain consists of hard beds of sandstone and conglomerate, sloping towards the valley, and resting on soft argillaceous layers. During the wet season of 1806 these became soaked with water, and being thus loosened, thousands of tons of the solid upper layers suddenly slipped down and swept across the valley, covering a square mile of fertile ground to a depth, it is estimated, in some places of 200 feet. The residents in the neighbourhood heard loud cracking and grating sounds, and suddenly, about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the valley seemed shrouded in a cloud of dust, and when this cleared away the whole aspect of the place was changed. The valley was blocked up by immense masses of rocks and rubbish, Goldau and three other villages were buried beneath the debris, and part of the Lake of Lowerz was filled up. More than 450 people were killed.”
In September, 1881, a similar catastrophe overtook the village of Elm, in Canton Glarus (somewhat to the right of the Glärnisch, and almost in a direct line with Brunnen, looking from the Rigi), when the Plattenbergkopf fell: 10,000,000 cubic metres of rock. Sir Martin Conway, in The Alps from End to End, has a long and vivid description of this mountain-fall and of all the horrors which it entailed.
Enough! It would take volumes to hold all of moment that could be told in connection with this panorama. But what of the Rigi itself? Well, it serves what has become peculiarly its purpose—a nesting-place for innumerable hotels and their parasitic incongruities, and a platform from which thousands upon thousands witness the sunrise. Except, then, in its remoter parts and around about its base it is so trampled on by hosts of feet that the early spring crocus and the late autumn gentians are almost alone among the lovely flowers to have a peaceful, profitable time. Ask the Swiss Heimatschutz—the Society for the Protection of Natural Beauty—what it thinks of the present state of the Rigi, the Stanserhorn, and Mount Pilatus; it will give an answer couched in no mixed terms. One of the most patent and painful paradoxes of our age is, that our appreciation destroys so much of that which we appreciate. Inconsequence links its arm in that of the holiday-maker. Hence the call for the Eastern Labyrinth in the Glacier Garden at Lucerne, and the extraordinary number of bead-necklace and bracelet shops crowded together in that quarter of the town. True, on the Rigi “the questionable melody of the Alpine horn” echoes through the early morning darkness, and chamois finds a place upon the hotel menu—goat being inadmissible at such an altitude; but are there
