Letters from Switzerland

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

Not such was our fate. The sun was half an hour high when we reached the highest peak; and the first Alpine panorama was around us. Other views had been partial: this was a great circle of the heavens and the earth, three hundred miles in circumference! A few clouds in the western sky were gorgeously crimson in the declining sun, but the atmosphere was clear enough to reveal every mountain, every lake, every village, city, forest and plain, with the cottages innumerable, dotting the valleys. At our feet the Lakes of Lucerne and Zug are apparently underneath the mountain, and they stretch themselves so curiously among the hills, that we can scarcely determine to what sheets of water they belong, or whether they are new lakes and not those seen before. And away at a distance are other waters, some of them very small, but giving beauty and variety to the plains below. The villages lying close by have their historic interest. All this region is William Tell’s. His name is associated with many a spot on which the eye is resting. A neat little chapel is built to mark the place where he shot his oppressor Gessler. Here at the right is the Lake and town of Zug, and just behind it, rises the spire of the church of Cappel, where Zwingle fell on the field of battle. But turning from the views at the West and North, and looking to the South and East, and such a prospect of Alps on Alps is seen as no one had believed could be piled into sight from a single point. The Bernese Alps clothed in perpetual robes of snow; those of Unterwalden and Uri, with the dull blue glaciers in the midst of them; sending up the peaks of Jungfrau, the Titlis, Rothstock and Bristenstock, are directly in front, and on to the Eastward, is the broad white head of the Dodi, the Sentis and the Glarish; but these are a few only of the many named and unnamed that are now reflecting the sunset from their white crowns, or retiring into the shades of evening as the sun goes down. We look to the South East into an opening called the Muotta Thal, where Suwarrow and Massena with their hostile armies fought bloody battles in the midst of fearful crags and precipices, and we wonder that this land of mountains and ice has been selected as the scene for so much warfare and blood. The sun was now sinking to the edge of the horizon. A lady standing near me said, “It is fit to light such a scene as this!” There was a fitness between the sun and the scene that was truly striking and glorious. The hum of the hundred voices was hushed. It was also fit that we should be still while the sun took his last look of our world that night.

It is for a wonder to me that Switzerland has produced so few poets, but not strange that some of the noblest strains of English poetry have been penned under the inspiration of these Alpine views. They awaken a train of emotions so profoundly new, and at the same time so elevating and sublime, that the heart wishes to utter itself in the passionate language of poetry rather than in the duller words of prose. “These are thy works,” O God: before the mountains were built, and before the hills, thou wert here. Thou didst “prepare the heavens, the earth, the fields, and the highest part of the dust of the world.” Thou hast weighed the Alps in a balance, and held these mountains in the hollow of thy hand. They shall flow down at thy presence, when thou comest to shake terribly the earth. They stand now, because thou, Lord, dost hold them up, for giants as they are, and touching thy heavens, they still lean on thee.

During this half hour of observation on the summit of the Rigi, we had been wrapped in our cloaks to protect us from the cold. As soon as the sun was gone, we were glad to go into the house, where a table for a hundred guests was spread, with a hot supper sufficient for half the number; and before ten o’clock we were sound asleep. Those who could not find beds spent the night in the dining hall, entertaining themselves and disturbing the rest, but we were so far above them that we heard nothing till the blast of a wooden horn rung through the halls, informing us that the sun would be up before us if we did not hasten to meet him. We hurried on our clothes, wrapped up warmly, and in a few moments stood with our faces to the East, intently watching, like worshippers of the Sun, the first signs of his coming. One single peak was precisely between us and the sun, and as the earliest tints of the morning began to redden it, the appearance was not unlike that of a kindling fire in the summit. The blaze gathered around it, and seemed to shoot away into the regions of ice and snow; and then far into the clouds above, the bright hues of day were cast, and the crowd stood still, anxious to enjoy the first view of the emerging sun. The horn was blown again by the trumpeter, a miserable mode of announcing that the King was coming, as if he needed a herald as he rode up the East in his chariot of gold and fire. There was just haze enough in the atmosphere to dim the sun of his dazzling brightness, and we could look steadily on his face as he rose behind the mountain, and seemed to pause on the summit, and calmly to look down on the world he had left in darkness a few hours before. Then peak after peak, and mountain ridges, and domes and minarets, fields of fresh snow, and forests of living green, began to catch the morning tints: gorges in the hill sides would lie there in deep shadow, and bosoms of virgin snow, bared to the rising sun, would blush when he looked in upon them, while villages and hamlets in the vale below are still wrapped in the shades of the gray dawn, and have not thought of waking yet to begin another day. We spent an hour or two in the enjoyment of this magnificent prospect, which we are told is one of the most delightful we are to have in Switzerland; and when the sun was fairly up to the dwellers in the vale as well as to us on the mountain top, we turned our backs upon him, took a cup of coffee in the Rigi Culm, and bade farewell to the most splendid of all the prospects we had ever seen, or expect to see on earth. I am greatly moved in the presence of Niagara; and there have formed impressions of the active power and glory of the great Creator, such as are conveyed by no other of the works of God. But now I am looking on the silent evidence of his creating might in a new and wonderful form; and it seems to me but a short step from those shining glaciers and snow-crowned palaces to the central throne of Him who sitteth in the circle of the heavens. “O Lord God of Hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? The heavens are thine: the earth also is thine; as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them: the north and the south thou hast created them; Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name. Thou hast a mighty arm; strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand.”

As we had ascended the Rigi from Goldau, on the eastern side, we now went down on the western to Weggis. We were in no haste: the day was before us, and we had nothing to do but to walk till we were tired, choose a shady spot commanding a fine view of the lake of Lucerne and the surrounding hills, and then rest and enjoy the scene. The bells from the herds of cattle far below us, and sometimes above us, and the strains of music from the villages in the vales, would come floating to us on the morning air, while nature with all her voices was making one rich psalm. The descent is far less fatiguing than climbing up, but when continued for two or three hours it becomes exceedingly exhausting. We provided ourselves with pike staffs having a Chamois horn for a head, and with these we resisted the too constant downward tendency, using them as a drag to a wheel, and making the greatest effort to hold back. On this path to or from the Rigi is a boarding and bathing house, over a spring of very clear cold water to which invalids resort; and as walking on the mountain side for an hour or so after bathing is part of the discipline, I have no doubt that the establishment works many wonderful cures. A chapel of the Holy Virgin is close by, where prayers are daily said for the shepherds on the precipices, whose lives are in constant danger while they pursue the duties to which they are trained. Half an hour below the chapel, the path leads through a mighty archway formed by two huge masses of rock supporting a third between them. Some great convulsion of nature has thrown them into this remarkable position, and they show in their make the nature of all the upper strata of these hill sides, which are in constant danger of sliding down when the water works its way under them, and separates them from the lower. Here we sat down and refreshed ourselves: a cool breeze rushing through the passage, and making a delightful resting place for weary travellers.

I said it was easier far to go down than up. So it is, but one who carries much weight, or who has not considerable powers of endurance should be cautious of making the experiment. A very heavy gentleman who came to the foot of the mountain with us yesterday, and rode up, with his son, a fine lad of fourteen, running along by the side of the horse, attempted to come down on foot. We overtook him; and just then he lay down on the grass by the side of a beautiful spring of water: he was exhausted, and had sent his son down for help. Presently the faithful and noble boy came running up the mountain with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread, and soon four stout men with a chair, whom the lad had outstripped, came on, and the heavy gentleman was carried by hand the rest of the way. I met them afterwards at the foot of the hill, and congratulated the father on his safe arrival; and more on being the father of such a boy.

CHAPTER IV.
LUCERNE AND THE LAND OF TELL.

The Lake—Avalanches—Pontius Pilate—Lucerne—Dance of Death—Fishing—Storm on the Lake—Ramble among the Peasantry—Two Dwarfs—On the Lake—Rifle Shooting—Chapel of William Tell—Scenes in his Life—Altorf—Hay-Making—a Great Day.

In the Hotel de la Concorde, the “house of peace,” I found a pleasant chamber on the edge of the Lake of Lucerne; and so near that in its lucid waters I can from my window see the large fish chasing and devouring the little ones, just as big fish on land are doing everywhere. In front, the lofty Pilatus rises in heavy grandeur, and the Buochsherhorn and Stauzerhorn are in full view, with other peaks all white with snow, while it is oppressively hot below. I spent the day here at the foot of the mountain.

There is no life in this little settlement except when the boat arrives with travellers for the Rigi: the mountain comes down so suddenly to the shore that there is hardly room for dwellings, and a few inhabitants only are scattered along on the water’s edge. But it is on the shore of the most enchanting lake in Europe, and at a point where some of the finest views of this lake are to be had. We sat on the bank to see the sun set, a sight of which one never tires; hundreds of travellers have passed up or down the Rigi to-day, and of that whole number we are the only two who have cared to rest here to study and admire the scenery, and at the same time refresh ourselves for future pilgrimages.