“Oh, probably a grave-stone of the Second Century, which some Roman official set up to his beloved son; it stands in the present Lindenhof and has the words ‘Statio turicensis’ carved on it. When this region became Roman the tax-collectors dwelt here. After the fall of the Romans, the Allemanni came, then the Franks, then the German kings. Zürich was a palatinate, which means, as you know, palatium regis; a palace where the kings stayed when they visited here. Really, you might spend a life-time studying the history of Zürich and this lake. I shall like you to compare the Lake of Geneva with our much smaller Zürich Lake,” said Herr Landoldt. “I shall take you on a trip around it.”
He was true to his promise. After he had shown me all the sights of his splendid city—the largest in Switzerland—we made the tour of the lake. It has not the beauty of colouring of Lake Leman; it is a pale green but “the sweet banks of Zürich’s lovely lake” are what the French call riant, a little more than our smiling; and the background of snow-covered Alps is magnificent. The lake is about ten times as long as it is wide and is one hundred and forty-two meters deep. Just as from the end of Leman rushes the Rhône, so from the Zürich end of its lake rushes in a torrential dash the green Limmat. On the left shore, at the place where it attains its greatest width, are the two little islands of Lützelau and Ufenau. On Ufenau is a church and a chapel dating from about the middle of the Twelfth Century. Here died in 1523, Maximilian’s poet-laureate, Luther’s zealous partizan, the high-tempered, witty, impetuous Ulrich von Hutten. He had to flee from his enemies, and found a refuge through the protection of his fellow-reformer, Zwingli, who exercised somewhat the same commanding influence in Zürich as Calvin did in Geneva. I had never read any of Von Hutten’s works, but I found an excellent edition of them in the Professor’s library and I read with much amusement some of the sarcasms which he put into verse in his “Awakener of the German Nation.”
We went to Rapperswyl—the ending wyl or wil reminds one of the multitude of New England towns ending in ville and has the same origin—and spent an hour in the Polish National Museum founded in 1870 by Count Broel-Plater and installed in the Fourteenth-Century castle, which came to the Hapsburgs when its founders lost it. It seemed strange to see all the memorials of a vanquished people—weapons, banners and ornaments, portraits and historical pictures—on the walls or in the cabinets of a city so far away.
RAPPERSWYL.
We got back to Zürich in the evening, and the Professor called my attention to the romantic effect of the lighted boats plying on the glittering waters. There was a brilliant moon, too, and a more beautiful scene I have rarely witnessed than the city with its myriad lights.
My week went like a breath. Before I knew it, we were off for our trip through the Austrian Tyrol. Will and Ruth appeared in due time, and, to my surprise, they brought Lady Q. with them. It is one of the curiosities of travel that one is always meeting the same persons. We should have toured the Bernese Oberland had not motor-vehicles been barred. But in the Tyrol splendid roads have been constructed and those incomparable regions are a paradise for travel. To detail the itinerary would be merely a catalogue with superlatives for decoration. To describe the journey with all its memorable details,—picturesque towns, valleys sweeping down between rugged mountains, rivers and cataracts, would occupy a book as big as a dictionary. I noticed that we came to the third class of mountain-peaks: the first was Dents, the second was Horns, and now we found the term was Piz. One of the most fascinating little places that we visited on a side trip to Davos-Platz was Sertig Dörfli, with its attractive church and its view of the Piz Kesch. At Davos lived John Addington Symonds, and I pleased my niece especially by reciting his beautiful sonnet: “’Neath an uncertain moon.” Besides that Piz we saw Piz Michel and Piz Vadret and Piz Grialetsch. In several cases, where we could not go in the car, we went either by train or by carriage. At Sils, also, finely situated on the largest of the Engadine lakes, there were still more Pizes: Piz della Marga, Piz Corvatsch, Piz Güz. There is no end to them.
We took the advice of some chance acquaintances who had been motoring through the Tyrol. We went to Bozen, and, after spending the night there, we followed the Val Sugana and the Broccone and Gobbera passes and then the new roads of the Rolle, the Pordoi and the Falzarego into the Dolomites. Of course the Dolomites do not belong to Switzerland as a State but only geologically. We crossed over into Italy and enjoyed the drive by the Italian lakes—a succession of “dreams of beauty,” as Lady Q. said with more truth than originality. We spent a day in Milan and then returned to Switzerland by the Saint-Gotthard.
