If one could only transport a few of these houses to the United States! Our country architecture is not only hideous, but frequently unpractical, being at worst shanties, and at best city residences set in the fields. An Appenzell farmer lives in a house from forty to sixty feet square, and rarely less than four stories in height. The two upper stories, however, are narrowed by the high, steep roof, so that the true front of the house is one of the gables. The roof projects at least four feet on all sides, giving shelter to balconies of carved wood, which cross the front under each row of windows. The outer walls are covered with upright, overlapping shingles, not more than two or three inches broad, and rounded at the ends, suggesting the scale armor of ancient times. This covering secures the greatest warmth; and when the shingles have acquired from age that rich burnt-sienna tint which no paint could exactly imitate, the effect is exceedingly beautiful. The lowest story is generally of stone, plastered and whitewashed. The stories are low (seven to eight feet), but the windows are placed side by side, and each room is thoroughly lighted. Such a house is very warm, very durable, and, without any apparent expenditure of ornament, is externally so picturesque that no ornament could improve it.
Many of the dwellings, I was told, could not be built with the present means of the population, at the present prices of labor and material. They date from the palmy days of Appenzell industry, before machinery had reduced the cost of the finer fabrics. Then, one successful manufacturer competed with another in the erection of showy houses, and fifty thousand francs (a large sum for the times) were frequently expended on a single dwelling. The view of a broad Alpine landscape, dotted all over with such beautiful homes, from the little shelf of green hanging on the sides of a rocky gorge and the strips of sunny pasture between the ascending forests, to the very summits of the lower heights and the saddles between them, was something quite new in my experience.
Turning around the point of Vöglisegg, we made for Trogen, one of the two capitals of Outer-Rhoden, which lay before us, across the head of the deep and wild St. Martin's Tobel. (Tobel is an Appenzell word, corresponding precisely to the gulch of California.) My postilion mounted, and the breathed horse trotted merrily along the winding level. One stately house after another, with a clump of fruit-trees on the sheltered side, and a row of blooming hyacinths and wall-flowers on the balcony, passed by on either side. The people we met were sunburnt and ugly, but there was a rough air of self-reliance about them, and they gave me a hearty "God greet you!" one and all. Just before reaching Trogen, the postilion pointed to an old, black, tottering platform of masonry, rising out of a green slope of turf on the right. The grass around it seemed ranker than elsewhere.
This was the place of execution, where capital criminals are still beheaded with the sword, in the sight of the people. The postilion gave me an account, with all the horrible details, of the last execution, only three years ago,—how the murderer would not confess until he was brought out of prison to hear the bells tolling for his victim's funeral,—how thereupon he was sentenced, and—but I will not relate further. I have always considered the death penalty a matter of policy rather than principle; but the sight of that blood-stained platform, the blood-fed weeds around it, and the vision of the headsman, in his red mantle, looking down upon the bared neck stretched upon the block, gave me more horror of the custom than all the books and speeches which have been said and written against it.
At Trogen I stopped at the principal inn, two centuries old, the quaint front painted in fresco, the interior neat and fresh as a new toy,—a very gem of a house! The floor upon which I entered from the street was paved with flat stones; a solid wooden staircase, dark with age, led to the guests' room in the second story. One side of this room was given up to the windows, and there was a charming hexagonal oriel in the corner. The low ceiling was of wood, in panels, the stove a massive tower, faced with porcelain tiles, the floor polished nearly into whiteness, and all the doors, cupboards, and tables, made of brown nutwood, gave an air of warmth and elegance to the apartment. All other parts of the house were equally neat and orderly. The hostess greeted me with, "Be you welcome!" and set about preparing dinner, as it was now nearly noon. In the pauses of her work she came into the room to talk, and was very ready to give information concerning the country and people.
There were already a little table and three plates in the oriel, and while I was occupied with my own dinner I did not particularly notice the three persons who sat down to theirs. The coarseness and harshness of their dialect, however, presently struck my ear. It was pure Appenzell, a German made up of singular and puzzling elisions, and with a very strong guttural k and g, in addition to the ch. Some knowledge of the Alemannic dialect of the Black Forest enabled me to understand the subject of conversation, which, to my surprise, was—the study of the classics! It was like hearing an Irishman talk of Shelley's "Witch of Atlas" in the broadest Tipperary brogue. I turned and looked at the persons. They were well-dressed young men, evidently the best class of Appenzellers,—possibly tutors in the schools of Trogen. Their speech in no wise differed from that of the common herdsmen, except that they were now and then obliged to use words which, being unknown to the people, had escaped mutilation. I entered into conversation, to ascertain whether true German was not possible to them, since they must needs read and write the language; but, although they understood me, they could only partly, and with evident difficulty, lay aside their own patois. I found this to be the case everywhere throughout the Canton. It is a circumstance so unusual, that, in spite of myself, associating a rude dialect with ignorance, I was always astonished when those who spoke it showed culture and knowledge of the world.
The hostess provided me with a guide and pack-bearer, and I set out on foot across the country towards Hundwyl. This guide, Jakob by name, made me imagine that I had come among a singular people. He was so short that he could easily walk under my arm; his gait was something between a roll and a limp, although he stoutly disclaimed lameness; he laughed whenever I spoke to him, and answered in a voice which seemed the cuneiform character put into sound. First, there was an explosion of gutturals, and then came a loud trumpet-tone, something like the Honk! honk! of wild geese. Yet, when he placed his squat figure behind a tavern table, and looked at me quietly with his mouth shut, he was both handsome and distinguished in appearance. We walked two miles together before I guessed how to unravel his speech. It is almost as difficult to learn a dialect as a new language, and but for the key which the Alemannic gave me, I should have been utterly at sea. Who, for instance, could ever guess that a' Ma' g'si, pronounced "amaxi" (the x representing a desperate guttural), really stands for einen Mann gewesen?
The road was lively with country people, many of whom were travelling in our own direction. Those we met invariably addressed us with "God greet you!" or "Guät-ti!" which it was easy to translate into "Good day!" Some of the men were brilliant in scarlet jackets, with double rows of square silver buttons, and carried swords under their arms; they were bound for the Landsgemeinde, whither the law of the Middle Ages still obliges them to go armed. When I asked Jakob if he would accompany me as far as Hundwyl, he answered, "I can't; I daren't go there without a black dress, and my sword, and a cylinder hat."
The wild Tobels, opening downward to the Lake of Constance, which now shimmered afar through the gaps, were left behind us, and we passed westward along a broken, irregular valley. The vivid turf was sown with all the flowers of spring,—primrose, violet, buttercup, anemone, and veronica,—faint, but sweetest-odored, and the heralds of spring in all lands. So I gave little heed to the weird lines of cloud, twisting through and between the severed pyramids of the Sentis, as if weaving the woof of storms. The scenery was entirely lovely, and so novel in its population and the labor which, in the long course of time, had effaced its own hard traces, turning the mountains into lifted lawns and parks of human delight, that my own slow feet carried me through it too rapidly. We must have passed a slight water-shed somewhere, though I observed none; for the road gradually fell towards another region of deeply cloven Tobels, with snowy mountains beyond. The green of the landscape was so brilliant and uniform, under the cold gray sky, that it almost destroyed the perspective, which rather depended on the houses and the scattered woods of fir.
On a ridge, overlooking all this region, was the large village of Teufen, nearly as grand as Trogen in its architecture. Here Jakob, whose service went no further, conducted me to the "Pike" inn, and begged the landlady to furnish me with "a' Ma'" in his place. We had refreshments together, and took leave with many shakings of the hand and mutual wishes of good luck. The successor was an old fellow of seventy, who had been a soldier in Holland, and who with proper exertion could make his speech intelligible. The people nowhere inquired after my business or nationality. When the guide made the latter known, they almost invariably said, "But, of course, you were born in Appenzell?" The idea of a traveller coming among them, at least during this season of the year, did not enter their heads. In Teufen, the large and handsome houses, the church and schools, led me, foolishly, to hope for a less barbarous dialect; but no, it was the same thing everywhere.