GENEVA AND CHILLON.
Geneva, July 9, 1905.
This little city, now containing nearly 100,000 inhabitants, has been a storm-center in Europe for 2000 years. Cæsar mentions it, and during the early centuries when Rome was conquering and governing most of the known world, Geneva was an important place, both from a strategic standpoint as a gate to Helvetia and as a prosperous and loyal town. It was either the capital of the country or a ruling city during all of the Dark and Medieval ages, and was one of the first where people learned popular sovereignty and applied it to the detriment of the reigning king or duke. By playing one side against another in the struggle for sovereignty the popular leaders fought for freedom of conscience, and about the year 1500 secured practical independence. Then the Reformation commenced, and Calvin fled from Paris to Geneva. The people there were naturally “agin the government,” and they took up Calvin’s doctrine, and during the years of fighting over religion Geneva was the center from which Protestantism drew most of its leadership and inspiration. They fought for freedom of conscience and worship, and if anybody disagreed with them they killed him promptly to convince him of his error. Calvin ruled Geneva during his life, and after his death his cause went marching on. During the last century Geneva has made a reputation for manufacturing watches, jewelry and musical instruments. It is only fair to say that the best Geneva watches are now made in America. The work here is nearly all done by hand in the home of the workman, and the watchmakers of Geneva have had a hard time competing with Yankee machinery and ingenuity.
The surroundings of Geneva are peaceful and beautiful. The big lake of blue water comes to an end at the Geneva quay and rushes out into the world as the river Rhone, clear and sparkling. Mont Blanc, a quiet old stager of a mountain, whose head is always covered with snow, looks over the city like a stately sentinel at his post. Mountains rise all around the lake and are covered with vineyards, almost the only product of the soil, stretching far up the heights connecting the blue of the lake with the blue of the sky and the snowy peaks and white clouds which watch over them. Amid such surroundings we had decided to rest a few days from our travel, and I found it the best place in the world just to sit in the hotel garden from which the lake, Mont Blanc and the entire picture are visible, and just loaf and loaf and loaf.
THE ALPINE HUNTER OF TO-DAY
The great amusement of tourists who come to Switzerland is mountain-climbing. I have learned the game. Men and women come in at night recounting the wonderful feats they have accomplished and the dangers they have escaped. Everybody carries an “alpenstock,” which is a sharp-pointed cane with a chamois handle, and whenever he climbs a peak he has a ring burned around the stick, and shows it as proudly as the Indian once did the notches which meant deaths of enemies. I am a little skeptical, and listen to the climbing stories as I do to fish stories at home. It is too much like golf where you keep your own count. Perhaps I shall yield to the demands of environment enough to get me an alpenstock and have a few rings burned in it so I can have a few chips in the game, as it were. The men run to knickerbockers, wear feathers in their hats and carry packs on their shoulders. The women wear short skirts which don’t hang well and big shoes with nails in the soles—I am speaking now of people who do the thing right, and not those who sit on the porch and loaf.