The Spell of Switzerland

by Nathan Haskell Dole

“The village of Valorbe also lies in this valley.

“Reluctantly we turned to descend. If we could have waited a few hours longer, until the fog in accordance with its custom should have entirely dissipated, we should have been able to distinguish the country still farther down the lake; but in order that enjoyment may be perfect there must still be something left to be desired. Looking down we had the whole valley in all distinctness before us; at Pont we mounted our horses, rode along the easterly side of the lake, came through l’Abbaye de Joux, which is now a village, but was formerly the seat of the monks to whom the whole valley belonged. About four o’clock we reached our quarters and found a meal which our hostess assured us had been good at midday but which we found tasted remarkably good.”

For their return they decided to make the ascent of the second highest peak of the Jura, the Dôle, though it was then supposed to be the highest.

“We packed a luncheon of cheese, butter, bread and wine and started away about eight o’clock. Our route took us now through the upper part of the valley under the shadow of Le Noir Mont. It was very cold; there had been a hoar frost and it had frozen; we had still an hour to ride in the Bernese territory where the chaussée, which has just been completed, comes to an end. We entered French territory, passing through a small fir forest. Here the scene abruptly changes. What first struck our attention was the bad roads. The ground is very stony; great heaps of rocks lay all about; then again for a space it is very swampy and full of springs; the forests all about are in bad condition; the houses and inhabitants have the appearance not exactly of destitution but still of very straitened circumstances. They are almost in the condition of serfs to the Canonici of Saint Claude; they are bound to the soil; many imposts are laid upon them....

“Yet this part of the valley is also a good deal built up. The natives work hard to support themselves and yet they love their country; they are in the habit of stealing the wood from the Bernese peasants and of selling it again in the country. The first district is called Le Bois d’Amont and we passed through this into the parish of Les Rousses, where we saw lying before us the little Lake des Rousses and Les Sept Moncels—seven little connected hills of varied forms, the southern boundary of the valley. We soon came to the new road which leads from the Pays de Vaud toward Paris. We followed it for a while downwards and were soon out of our valley. The bald head of La Dôle lay before us. We dismounted; our horses proceeded along the road to Saint-Cergues, and we kept on our way up La Dôle.

“It was about noon; the sun seemed hot but a cool midday wind was blowing. When, in order to get breath, we turned around to look, we had Les Sept Moncels behind us; we could still see a part of Le Lac des Rousses and built around it the scattered houses of the parish. Le Noir Mont hid from us all the rest of the valley; mounting higher we once more saw the same prospect over La Franche-Comté and nearer to us the last mountains and valleys of the Jura toward the south. We took great pains to avoid allowing some turn in the ascent to give us a prospect of the region for the sake of which we were actually climbing the mountain. I was somewhat troubled by the fog; yet I made favorable prognostications from the aspect of the sky above.

“At last we attained the topmost peak and beheld with the greatest delight that what had been denied us the day before was now vouchsafed to us. The whole Pays de Vaud and Pays de Gex lay before us like a map; all the landed estates with green hedges marked off like the beds of a parterre. We were so high that the heights and depressions of the country in the foreground did not appear. Villages, towns, châteaux, vineyards, and higher up, where forest and Alps begin, châlets, for the most part painted white and bright, shone in the sun. The fog had lifted entirely from Lake Leman; we could see the nearer shore clearly; we entirely looked over the so-called Petit Lac, where the great lake narrows and draws toward Geneva, which lay directly opposite us, and the country beyond, shutting it in, began to disclose itself. Above all, however, the prospect of the ice and snow-mountains asserted its rights.

“We protected ourselves from the cold blast by the shelter of the rocks and let the sun pour down directly upon us; food and drink tasted excellently good! We looked down on the fog as it gradually dispersed; each of us discovered something, or claimed to discover something. Gradually Lausanne began to show with all its châteaux; Vevey and the Castle of Chillon came out distinctly; the mountains that shut us off from sight of the entrance to Valais, sloping down into the lake; from there along the Savoy coast—Evian, Ripaille, Thonon; villages and châteaux, all clustered together; Geneva came finally out of the fog at the right; but farther toward the south, toward Le Mont Crédo and Mont Vuache, where the Fort l’Ecluse lies hidden, it still lingered.

“When we turned to the left again, then the whole country from Lausanne as far as Solothurn lay in a faint haze. The nearer mountains and heights, wherever there were white houses, could be easily recognized; some one pointed out to us the Castle of Chanvan as it lay gleaming at the left by the Lake of Neuburg, and we could make out its situation, but the castle itself we could not distinguish in the blue haze.

“Words fail to describe the magnitude and beauty of this view; at such a moment one is scarcely conscious of gazing; one only calls out the names and lofty forms of well-known cities and places and rejoices in an intoxicating recognition that those white spots before one’s eyes are the places themselves.