You will leave the city of Lucerne, having seen the lion cut in a solid rock as a monument to some Swiss soldiers who were killed in Paris fighting for pay in 1792, and having also walked through the covered bridge that is distinguished, but not adorned, with a series of paintings by Holbein, representing the Dance of Death; and after the boat has gone from the landing about fifteen minutes, you must look back on the crescent city rising from the water’s edge, flanked by the ancient wall on which the useless towers still stand; and on the spires of the cathedral whose organ claims equal honor with that of Freyburg; and the old tower in the centre of the river which was once a light-house, Lucerna, whence the name of the town; and on the green hills, behind and on either side of the city, elegant residences of opulent citizens, and of some who from Paris and more distant parts come here to enjoy the summer in a delicious and healthful clime. Naples is grander, but hardly more beautiful, as she lies around her lovely bay, with Vesuvius, like the Rigi, keeping watch over her Italian charms.
For an hour or two out we are in the midst of the same bold and striking scenery which is common to all the Swiss lakes, with nothing of special interest except the historic associations that cluster about the little villages at the foot of the hills on the shores. We would be slow to believe that a population even of a few hundreds could hold on upon the sides of the mountains, or find the means of support among those green meadows, where lies the little village of Gersau, and there are only about 1,500 people in it. Yet so tenacious are these Swiss of independence, that this little, secluded, poor, portionless community, not more than two miles square, maintained its existence as a separate state for more than four centuries, and was then swallowed up by the French in the devouring fires of 1789. It is now part of one of the Swiss cantons. We cross the lake again and come to Brunnen, where the figures of the three historic patriots of Switzerland stand with each a hand held up to heaven, on the outside of the Sustenhaus, on the bank of the water. But when we leave Brunnen, and through a narrow pass enter the Bay of Uri, the grandeur of the view breaks instantly upon us with such a power as to set at defiance the attempt at description unless one has a bolder pen than mine. Philosophers have tried it. Poets have done what they could to illustrate and repeat it. So prudent, and yet so capable a writer as Sir James Mackintosh says it makes “an impression which it would be foolish to attempt to convey by words.” I will therefore not be foolish. Yet you may look with my eyes upon precipitous mountains starting from the bosom of the lake and pointing with silent and solemn majesty into the sky: here and there as we pass are verdant meadows, few and far between, but beautiful as they nestle at the feet or on the breasts of these gigantic cliffs, not a human habitation, sometimes for miles, to be seen, but all still, serene, and impressive in its solitude, and awful in its manifestation of the stupendous works of God.
A sharp rock rises perpendicularly from the water on the western shore, and some foolish people have put a gilt letter inscription on it: as if the words were of use to perpetuate the histories of these shores. We come to a low pasture, a narrow ledge, the most hallowed spot in Switzerland, for here the three great patriots whose portraits we saw at Brunnen,—Furst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal,—were wont to meet to concert their plans. And here at midnight, Nov. 7, 1307, they, with thirty trusty men whom they had chosen, took the oath that bound them in a solemn league to break the hated yoke of Austria, or die. They fought and conquered, and they perished too, but their names and deeds live, in revolving centuries, and pilgrims from lands that were then unknown now come and look with reverence upon the spot thus consecrated, for the lands of Tell and of Washington are lands of liberty, and the sons of each are brothers.
And across the See, a few miles on, is the chapel of William Tell. It marks the spot where the hero jumped from the boat to the rock and bounded away into the woods, when the tyrant Gessler was carrying him to prison. A storm had overtaken them: the tyrant, a coward of course, was afraid, and, as Tell was an expert in the boat, he ordered him to be unbound, that he might manage the little bark. Tell steered her close to the rock, and leaped ashore, and was gone. A little chapel, open on the lake front, is erected here, preserved with pious care, adorned with art and taste, and once a year a long procession of Swiss, in boats, approach the sacred place and listen to a discourse in honor of their sainted hero.
Tell’s Chapel, Lake of Lucerne.
Adown the sides of these majestic mountains frequent cascades leap and hang and play, and not far from the chapel two fountains spring directly out of the mountain side and pour two copious streams into the lake below. They are said to flow from a lake in the valley on the other side of the mountain; but whether this is true or not, it is an illustration of the way in which the veins of water run along beneath the earth, rising even on the sides and summits of the hills, and springing to the surface when reached by art, or, as in this case, discharging by a natural outlet. The earth has its mysteries yet unsolved. Some of these bare mountain rocks are laid in convoluted strata, a few feet only in thickness, but wrapped over and over, as if they were a heap of great sheets once, easily thrown into these forms. It is easy to say that they are of volcanic origin, and that these hills were once flowing down in presence of the Lord. But this explains nothing. The philosopher is no wiser than the poet. And neither sees any farther into the bowels of these mountains than the Christian pilgrim who sits with me on the boat, and, as he sees the water gushing out of the rock as if smitten by the rod of Moses, he says: “Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of the waters? Out of whose bosom came the ice? There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen.” And this is the way the waters go, through chambers cut in the rocks by Infinite skill, that they may flow just where they are wanted to bless or beautify the world.
Reaching the end of the lake at Fluellen, we enter at once upon the highway over the St. Gothard into Italy. Two miles on is Altorf, where William Tell shot the apple on the head of his son. And still farther on is the place where he finally lost his life, drowned while seeking to save the life of a child. The road beyond is one of the grandest and most historic of the Swiss passes, but I am not going that way now, as Capt. Lott said. What did he say? Why, this,—a passenger asked him why the ship was going so slow: the captain told him the fog was too thick to make much headway. “But,” said the passenger looking up, “it’s clear enough overhead.” “Yes,” replied the Captain, “but we’re not going that way just now.”
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BLACK VIRGIN OF EINSIEDELN—LIFE IN SWITZERLAND, &c.
MORE than a thousand years ago, a holy hermit, by the name of Meinrad, of royal blood, sought the wilds of Finsterswald, and here (for I am now on the spot) lived in a hut, and spent his days in prayer, with a little black image of the Virgin and Child which had been given him by the Abbess of Zurich. But his piety and the Holy Virgin did not shield him from the violence of wicked men. He was murdered in his hut by two robbers, who would never have been caught but for the interposition of the Virgin, who sent two ravens after them. These birds followed them to Zurich, and there hunted them till their guilt was detected, and they were put to death.