A visit to Sachslen held a special place in the programme sketched out for us by Herr H——. There were some days, too, still to spare before the feast at Einsiedeln on the 14th; so we determined to lose no further time in making our pilgrimage to “Bruder Klaus,” as my Weggis guide and all the people hereabouts affectionately call him.
It was easy to trace the route when standing at the Känzli, and to perceive that, by crossing over to Buochs, we might drive thence to Sachslen. Dismissing, therefore, all fears of the railway descent from our minds, we started by the eleven o’clock train from Kaltbad, which it cost us many a pang to leave, with its dear little church, its lovely views, and its bright, invigorating air. Crossing then in the steamer from Vitznau to Buochs, we speedily engaged carriages to take us to Sachslen, and to bring us back from thence on the following day.
Our road led through Stanz, the home of Arnold von Winkelried, where we lingered long, although determined not to visit the Rathhaus until our return from the sanctuary of its hero. But we had two statues of Arnold to admire—one, in fact, a handsome white marble group commemorating his noble feat at Sempach, and erected by national subscription—to catch a view of Winkelried’s house in a distant meadow; to see in the church statues of “Bruder Klaus” and Konrad Scheuber—who also led a solitary life of holiness in the Engelberg valley close by, and whose highest honor it was to call himself the “Daughter’s Son” of the great hermit—to read the tablet in the mortuary chapel in memory of the four hundred and fourteen priests, women, and children who had fallen victims to the French soldiery in 1798; and to hear tales of the desolation their unbridled vengeance caused all this country. Pretty Stanz! now looking so happy, smiling, and prosperous that it is difficult to realize it ever could have been laid in ashes some seventy years ago. No district in Switzerland is more fruitful at present; cultivated like a garden, dotted over with fine timber, and making a beautiful picture backed by the Engelberg line of mountains stretching away behind.
An avenue of stately walnut-trees leads to the little port of Stanzstadt, and on the way we passed the chapel of Winkelried, where an annual fête is held, and close to which the bodies of eighteen women were found, after the fight in 1798, lying beside those of their fathers, husbands, and brothers—so completely had it then become a war à outrance, in defence of hearths and homes.
From Stanzstadt the road turned abruptly westward, at first along the edge of the small lake of Alpnach, the ruins of Rossberg Castle perceptible on the opposite shore—the first Austrian stronghold taken by the Rütli confederates on the memorable New Year’s morning of 1308.
Thence the hills grew lower and the landscape more pastoral than Alpine, until we reached Sarnen, above which formerly rose the castle of Landenberg, the famous imperial vogt who put out the eyes of old Anderbalben, of the Melchthal, in punishment for his son’s misdemeanors when the latter evaded his pursuit. This barbarous act was the immediate cause of the Rütli uprising; but, like all the others, the castle was taken by surprise, and Landenberg’s life was spared. The terrace where it stood is still called the Landenberg, and there the cantonal assembly has annually met since 1646. Of this spot it is that Wordsworth speaks in his desultory stanzas:
“Ne’er shall ye disgrace
Your noble birthright, ye that occupy
Your council-seats beneath the open sky
On Sarnen’s mount; there judge of fit and right,