Letters from Switzerland

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

The storm was of short duration. The hundreds, induced by the clear bright morning to go to the summit of Rigi for a sunset and a sunrise, found it was not the entertainment to which they were invited. In full view from my window, though five hours distant, I can see where the clouds cap his head, the rain is pouring there in torrents, the western and eastern sky is enveloped in mists that obscure all view of the sun, and more than half of the time, there is as little to be seen from the summit of Rigi, as in a cellar. The sun is shining brightly now on the lake near me, and a great fleece, as if a thousand flocks had yielded theirs for a robe, is thrown over the crown of the mountain, making a veil that no glass can see through.

The next morning we set off for a walk into the country. The landlord of the Swan assured us it would be a pleasant day, and as this prediction was made at the risk of losing two guests in consequence, we were bound to respect his judgment. We resolved to make an expedition into the country behind Lucerne, cross some of the spurs of the mountains, come around by the foot of old Pilatus, and so return to our lodgings. The whole walk would be only about twelve or fifteen miles, and if we should lose our way and make it a little longer, why so much the better.

It was just eight in the morning as we left and wandered slowly through the streets with our Alpen-stocks or pike staffs in hand. We paused at a church door or two, and looked in, where a few were paying their silent devotions before the altar, with a single burning lamp, and passing out of the gate underneath one of the seven old feudal towers, we took the bank of the river Reuss, and walked by a pleasant path, expecting every moment to find a bridge, as our road was to lead us off to the west, and we must cross the stream to reach it. I asked a little girl, tending two babies in a cottage door, if there was any bridge in that direction, and her ready answer “Nein,” or no, sent us about in a hurry. Here was the first mile thrown away, and retracing our steps, we crossed at the bridge near the wall, and taking the high road toward Berne, were soon in the midst of rural Swiss valley scenery. A path for a mile or more on the bank of the river, shaded by a row of fine trees, led along by the side of the carriage road, but we kept the track, having little desire to miss it again. Three miles of easy walking brought us past the village of Lindau to a bridge over a deep and frightful gorge, through which a mountain stream is rushing, fifty or sixty feet below the bridge. Here it is compressed in one place to a passage it has worn for itself through the solid rock, and not more than three feet wide, but the bed of the ravine gives evidence that the torrent when swollen with melting snows in early summer, or by heavy rains, may be terrible, so that this massive bridge, though very short, is required to resist its force. The sides of this ravine were so precipitous that we did not attempt the descent: but finding a path up the mountain, and learning from a peasant whom we met that it would take us over into a vale, we struck into it, and climbed. The roots of trees in some places made a flight of steps up which we walked, and all the way it was so steep that to get on required resolution and wind. But the ascent though sharp was very short, and in a few minutes we reached a well made winding way, that led us into a lovely vale. Thirsty if not weary, we called at the door of a little dwelling and asked for milk. The farmer and his wife were sitting on wooden benches by a table, taking their meal; what meal it was we could not determine, as it was ten o’clock in the morning; too late for breakfast, too early for dinner. They had an earthen pot of weak coffee or something of the same color, and pieces of brown bread which they dipped in and ate, taking a drink of the fluid now and then, and apparently enjoying their frugal meal. The old woman gave me a “Yah” in answer to my request for milk, and taking a glass tumbler from a closet, she wiped the dust out of it with her fingers, and going into a dark room, the dairy likely, she brought me a draught of as sweet milk as ever wet the lips of man or boy. The cottage was not clean, I am sorry to say it. I looked up a flight of stairs, and the appearance of things there did not suggest to me the idea of taking lodgings, but giving the woman a bit of silver for which she thanked me in German, we walked on, refreshed with the milk and the moment’s rest while getting it.

A little farther on, and a fine mansion with castellated towers, stood on the rising hill commanding a wide prospect of mountain scenery, but the road did not lead us near to it. Perhaps the proprietor of the valley has his home up there, and the tenants below may not be thriving: certainly it looks as if wealth, state, comfort, and elegance were in those old halls and having had milk in the cottage, I presume we might have wine in the mansion.

We soon lost sight of every sign of a dwelling, and walked on through a pine forest, the saddest of all forests to tread in: the sighing of the air through the tree tops making a music “mournful to the soul.” A water course, in hollowed logs carried through the woods, led on to a mill by the way-side, into which we entered to see a novel operation, and as queer a little miller as any body ever saw. The water turned an overshot wheel outside of the mill, and this turned two large wooden cog wheels, which raised two beams and let them fall, up and down, upon pine bark, which was thus pounded up fine enough to be used for tanning. But the miller who fed the mill with the bark was a man dwarf about three feet high, well enough proportioned, a stout healthy fellow, forty years old. He looked up and laughed us a good morning, and went on with his work, which made such a noise that it was useless to converse. And just as we left the mill we met a woman not more than three feet long, so nearly the same age and size, we could not but think they might be another remarkable pair of twins, who would have made the fortune of any body bringing them to America for exhibition.

We were now in a manufacturing valley. The fine water power was improved to drive looms in a mill where twenty girls were weaving, and when we passed, which was at eleven o’clock, they all quit for dinner, and trooped by us in rows of six abreast: hearty looking girls with no hats on, their hair braided, and hanging in two strips half way to their feet. They seemed to be very happy among themselves, and modest and well behaved as we walked along with them for a while. Other establishments for working iron were in the same neighborhood, and a village called Kriens, had some beautiful houses in it—one of them with twelve windows in a row in front, and three stories high, a fine mansion; and all of them were surrounded with flower gardens, tended with care, and glowing with splendid dahlias, and other flowers. The best houses I have yet seen in Switzerland are covered instead of clapboards, with small, round-end shingles, put on so neatly as to look like scollop shell work. So we walked from one to another hamlet, studying life in these secluded places, where the habits of the people are quite as unsophisticated as if they had never been a mile from home—the children did not know of such a place as Lucerne, though not five miles off—but there was peace, order, thrift, and contentment—the mountains rise suddenly from behind their dwellings, and shelter them from the winds, and God watches them in the winter when the deep snow fills this vale, and they are as contented as if they knew that people live on the other side of the hills. Some of the cottages were beautifully covered with grape vines, trained between the windows, and giving them an appearance of luxurious growth, that might be adopted in our country far more than it is. The vine thus cultivated occupies no space that could otherwise be used, and is an ornament and protection, while it yields delicious and abundant fruit.

Our walk this morning of five hours brought us through this valley and back to Lucerne by one o’clock, and if there had been any good reason for it, we could have done a dozen miles more toward night. We had been brought more immediately into contact with the country people, and saw more of their way of life, than we would in a month of travel on the thoroughfares. None of the places we visited are even named in the guide books, and we thus had the pleasure of breaking out of the beaten path, and finding one that was new and interesting.

Lake of the Four Forest Cantons.

Lake Lucerne is called the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, a longer but a very appropriate name, as its shores are washed by four and only four of the Cantons of Switzerland—Lucerne, Uri, Unterwalden, and Schwytz. Above all the lakes of the country, and perhaps of the world, it is distinguished for the majesty of its scenery and the grandeur of its historical associations.

Speaking of the classic history of the lake and mountains around it, Sir James McIntosh says: