As I hurried away, he called out to me, “There is no getting ahead of you Americans, you know.”
“It will be a cold day when we get left, and don’t you forget it!” was my answer shouted back at him, exhausting my small stock of slang in that supreme effort.
“Just so,” he cried. “Ha! ha! Cold day! Get left! What a world of meaning! Be sure I won’t forget it! Ha! ha!”
I never saw Corduroy again. We had a little unambitious excursion of our own to make that day, and did not get back to the Bear before dinner-time. Then I inquired after the gentleman in corduroy, and learned that he had given up the Wetterhorn on account of the thick weather, and had started off for a walk over the Grimsel to the Rhône glacier. He was well known at the hotel, being one of its regular visitors. This steadiness of patronage might naturally be expected of him, for he proved to be one of the most distinguished members of the Alpine Club, famous for his devotion to mountain-climbing in Switzerland, and a terror even to the hardiest guides, by reason of his courage and perseverance against all obstacles. He had, it seems, a passion for new routes and short cuts, which I hope will not some day end the merry life of Corduroy. After this explanation, I understood his occasional allusions to “we” and “us” and “our fellows” and “our rules,” which forbade this and that. And sometimes now, at two o’clock in the morning, while I am lying awake and thinking over many things, I catch myself wondering if Corduroy has ever introduced the chestnut-bell to the Alpine Club, and, if so, how the retired climbers like it.
CHAPTER XVI. PREHISTORIC LAKE-DWELLERS—AN ISLAND INN AND ITS MEMORIES.
If one cares to inquire about that mysterious prehistoric race known as the lake-dwellers of Switzerland, he can do so to his heart’s content at and about Zürich. If he wants to dig up their remains for himself—and has plenty of money and time to spare—there is nothing to hinder him from doing so. He has only to run a deep plow through places along the shore of Lake Zürich where there are indications of peat, and it is almost certain that sooner or later he will come on traces of a primeval village. The first sign of it would be the badly decayed fragments of a thick stake or pile. Sometimes well-preserved specimens of these piles are found in great numbers, though more often they are rotted out of all recognition. They are the props which held up the lake-villages high and dry. They were driven into the chalky soil of the lake-bottom, where they stuck fast. In the unknown centuries which have flown since then, those parts of the lake have filled up, peat has formed to the depth of five or six feet, and on top of this are two or three feet of mold and loam. Having struck a pile, our investigator must go straight down through the deep peat-bed which surrounds and underlies it. He will soon come to a half-earthy stratum, in which, if lucky, he will find numerous queer things. For this particular layer may contain many kinds of objects—useful and ornamental—once highly prized by, if not indispensable to, the comfort and happiness of the simple lake-dwellers. It may readily be imagined that such articles would accidentally fall from the house into the water beneath, there be buried in the mud, and never be recovered by the owners. Doubtless some of them, when broken or worn out in use, were thrown down there with a “good-riddance.”
It is believed, from many indubitable signs, that these lake-houses (built of wicker-work) were destroyed by fire to an extent that would appall any insurance company of our day that took risks on such property. You see, these people, like some savage tribes now existing, had much difficulty in starting and keeping fire. They obtained it only by the rapid twirling of a pointed piece of wood on a flat piece. The friction ignited some tinder-like substance. As they had no stoves, hearths, or chimneys, this precious fire was kept—so far as modern conjecture goes—upon a stone in the middle of the hut. There it was watched night and day to preserve it and see that it did no harm. But occasionally the watchers slept, or went off fishing or courting, and then the fire, as is its mischievous habit, caught upon the nearest combustible stuff. And so in five minutes poor Mr. Lake-Dweller was houseless and homeless, and all his earthly possessions were at the bottom of the lake. It was a great piece of good fortune if the entire village did not disappear at the same time. Think of such a catastrophe occurring, and no newspaper to do justice to it!
We left our enthusiastic explorer with his boots ankle-deep in the boggy soil beneath the peat-bed. It has cost him a great deal of money to lay open the treasure-bearing stratum. But he feels amply rewarded even if he has lighted on nothing better than the stone age of the lake-dwellers, for there he will find most interesting proofs of the identity of human nature in different ages and climes. The earliest period in their shadowy history is called “stone,” to distinguish it from the “bronze” age that followed. In point of fact, the former overlapped the latter, but for convenience the two designations are employed as best expressing the chief characteristic of the two ages. In the first, stone was the material out of which hammers, adzes, and arrow-heads were made. The patterns of these closely resemble those adopted by our North American Indians. In weight as in shape there is no recognizable difference; and the same good judgment was shown in the choice of stones best adapted for every purpose. The most skillful lapidaries of our day could not produce finer work in porphyry, flint, and crystal than may be found among the relics of the lake-dwellers. Though a very practical people, they were not without æsthetic tastes. Otherwise, in making their rude pottery by hand they would not have introduced decorative lines and dots. Nothing could be more severely simple than the designs which appear on their water-jars, cooking-vessels, and drinking-cups. The lines are crossed like a hedge-fence. The dots are arranged in rows, several of these forming a band. You there see the art of pottery in its infancy. Utility was the chief end sought, and, doubtless, the unsymmetrical and clumsy pots, bowls, pitchers, and goblets of the lake-dwellers answered their purpose admirably.