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Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI

Various

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Title: Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI

Author: Various

Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11179]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEING EUROPE ***

Produced by Jayam Subramanian and PG Distributed Proofreaders

SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS

EDITED BY FRANCIS W. HALSEY

CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI

Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland

Part Two

VI. HUNGARY--(_Continued_)

HUNGARIAN BATHS AND RESORTS--By H. Tornai de Koever

THE GIPSIES--By H. Tornai de Koever

VII. AUSTRIA'S ADRIATIC PORTS

TRIESTE AND POLA--By Edward A. Freeman

SPALATO--By Edward A. Freeman

RAGUSA--By Harry De Windt

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CATTARO--By Edward A. Freeman

VIII. OTHER AUSTRIAN SCENES

CRACOW--By Menie Muriel Dowie

ON THE ROAD TO PRAGUE--By Bayard Taylor

THE CAVE OF ADELSBERG--By George Stillman Hillard

THE MONASTERY OF MOeLK--By Thomas Frognall Dibdin

THROUGH THE TYROL--By William Cullen Bryant

IN THE DOLOMITES--By Archibald Campbell Knowles

CORTINA--By Amelia B. Edwards

IX. ALPINE RESORTS

THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS--By Frederick Harrison

INTERLAKEN AND THE JUNGFRAU--By Archibald Campbell Knowles

THE ALTDORF OF WILLIAM TELL--By W.D. M'Crackan

LUCERNE--By Victor Tissot

ZURICH--By W.D. M'Crackan

THE RIGI--By W.D. M'Crackan

CHAMOUNI--AN AVALANCHE--By Percy Bysshe Shelley

ZERMATT--By Archibald Campbell Knowles

PONTRESINA AND ST. MORITZ--By Victor Tissot

GENEVA--By Francis H. Gribble

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON--By Harriet Beecher Stowe

BY RAIL UP THE GORNER-GRAT--By Archibald Campbell Knowles

THROUGH THE ST. GOTHARD INTO ITALY--By Victor Tissot

X. ALPINE MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

FIRST ATTEMPTS HALF A CENTURY AGO--By Edward Whymper

FIRST TO THE TOP O THE MATTERHORN--By Edward Whymper

THE LORD FRANCIS DOUGLAS TRAGEDY--By Edward Whymper

AN ASCENT OF MONTE ROSA (1858)--By John Tyndall

MONT BLANC ASCENDED, HUXLEY GOING PART WAY--By John Tyndall

THE JUNGFRAU-JOCH--By Sir Leslie Stephen

XI. OTHER ALPINE TOPICS

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THE GREAT ST. BERNARD HOSPICE--By Archibald Campbell Knowles

AVALANCHES--By Victor Tissot

HUNTING THE CHAMOIS--By Victor Tissot

THE CELEBRITIES OF GENEVA--By Francis H. Gribble

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME VI

Frontispiece

THE MATTERHORN

KURSAAL AT MARIENBAD

MARIENBAD, AUSTRIA

MONASTERY OF ST. ULRIC AND AFRA, AUGSBURG

MONASTERY OF MOeLK ON THE DANUBE ABOVE VIENNA

MEMORIAL TABLET AND ROAD IN THE IRON GATE OF THE DANUBE

QUAY AT FIUME

ROYAL PALACE IN BUDAPEST

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, BUDAPEST

SUSPENSION BRIDGE OVER THE DANUBE AT BUDAPEST

STREET IN BUDAPEST

CATHEDRAL OF SPALATO

REGUSA, DALMATIA

MIRAMAR

GENEVA

REGATTA DAY ON LAKE GENEVA

VITZNAU, THE LAKE TERMINUS OF THE RIGI RAILROAD

RHINE FALLS NEAR SCHAFFHAUSEN

PONTRESINA IN THE ENGADINE

ST. MORITZ IN THE ENGADINE

FRIBOURG

BERNE

VIVEY, LAKE GENEVA

THE TURNHALLE, ZURICH

INTERLAKEN

LUCERNE

VIADUCTS ON AN ALPINE RAILWAY

THE WOLFORT VIADUCT

BALMAT--SAUSSURE MONUMENT IN CHAMONIX

ROOFED WOODEN BRIDGE AT LUCERNE

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON

CLOUD EFFECT ABOVE INTERLAKEN

DAVOS IN WINTER

[Illustration: THE KURSAL AT MARIENBAD]

[Illustration: MARIENBAD, AUSTRIA]

[Illustration: THE MONASTERY OF ST. ULRIC AND AFRA, AT AUGSBURG

IN BAVARIA]

[Illustration: THE MONASTERY OF MOeLK ON THE DANUBE ABOVE VIENNA]

[Illustration: MEMORIAL TABLET AND ROAD IN THE IRON GATE

OF THE DANUBE]

[Illustration: THE QUAY OF THE FIUME AT THE HEAD OF THE ADRIATIC]

[Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE AT BUDAPEST]

[Illustration: THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT AT BUDAPEST]

[Illustration: THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE OVER THE DANUBE AT BUDAPEST]

[Illustration: STREET IN BUDAPEST]

[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF SPALATO

Burial-place of the Emperor Diocletian]

[Illustration: REGUSA, DALMATIA]

[Illustration: MIRAMAR

Long the home of the ex-Empress Carlotta of Mexico]

[Illustration: GENEVA]

[Illustration: REGATTA DAY ON LAKE GENEVA]

[Illustration: VITZNAU, THE LAKE TERMINUS OF THE RIGI RAILROAD]

[Illustration: THE RHINE FALLS NEAR SCHAFFHAUSEN]

HUNGARY

(_Continued_)

HUNGARIAN BATHS AND RESORTS[1]

BY H. TORNAI DE KOeVER

In Hungary there are great quantities of unearthed riches, and not only

in the form of gold. These riches are the mineral waters that abound in

the country and have been the natural medicine of the people for many

years. Water in itself was always worshiped by the Hungarians in the

earliest ages, and they have found out through experience for which

ailment the different waters may be used. There are numbers of small

watering-places in the most primitive state, which are visited by the

peasants from far and wide, more especially those that are good for

rheumatism.

Like all people that work much in the open, the Hungarian in old age

feels the aching of his limbs. The Carpathians are full of such baths,

some of them quite primitive; others are used more as summer resorts,

where the well-to-do town people build their villas; others, again,

like Tatra Fuered, Tatra Lomnicz, Csorba, and many others, have every

accommodation and are visited by people from all over Europe. In former

times Germans and Poles were the chief visitors, but now people come

from all parts to look at the wonderful ice-caves (where one can skate

in the hottest summer), the waterfalls, and the great pine forests, and

make walking, driving, and riding tours right up to the snow-capped

mountains, preferring the comparative quiet of this Alpine district to

that of Switzerland. Almost every place has some special mineral water,

and among the greatest wonders of Hungary are the hot mud-baths of

Poestyen.

This place is situated at the foot of the lesser Carpathians, and is

easily reached from the main line of the railway. The scenery is lovely

and the air healthy, but this is nothing compared to the wondrous waters

and hot mire which oozes out of the earth in the vicinity of the river

Vag. Hot sulfuric water, which contains radium, bubbles up in all parts

of Poestyen, and even the bed of the cold river is full of steaming

hot mud. As far back as 1551 we know of the existence of Poestyen as a

natural cure, and Sir Spencer Wells, the great English doctor, wrote

about these waters in 1888. They are chiefly good for rheumatism, gout,

neuralgia, the strengthening of broken bones, strains, and also for

scrofula.

On the premises there is a quaint museum with crutches and all sort of

sticks and invalid chairs left there by their former owners in grateful

acknowledgment of the wonderful waters and mire that had healed them. Of

late there has been much comfort added; great new baths have been built,

villas and new hotels added, so that there is accommodation for rich

and poor alike. The natural heat of the mire is 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

Plenty of amusements are supplied for those who are not great

sufferers--tennis, shooting, fishing, boating, and swimming being all

obtainable. The bathing-place and all the adjoining land belongs to

Count Erdoedy.

Another place of the greatest importance is the little bath "Parad,"

hardly three hours from Budapest, situated in the heart of the mountains

of the "Matra." It is the private property of Count Karolyi. The place

is primitive and has not even electric light. Its waters are a wonderful

combination of iron and alkaline, but this is not the most important

feature. Besides the baths there is a strong spring of arsenic water

which, through a fortunate combination, is stronger and more digestible

than Roncegno and all the other first-rate waters of that kind in the

world.

Not only in northern Hungary does one find wondrous cures, it is the

same in Transylvania. There are healing and splendid mineral waters for

common use all over the country lying idle and awaiting the days when

its owners will be possest by the spirit of enterprise. Borszek,

Szovata, and many others are all wonders in their way, waters that would

bring in millions to their owners if only worked properly. Szovata,

boasts of a lake containing such an enormous proportion of salt that not

even the human body can sink into its depths.

In the south there is Herkulesfuerdoe, renowned as much for the beauty of

its scenery as for its waters. Besides those mentioned there are all

the summer pleasure resorts; the best of these are situated along Lake

Balaton. The tepid water, long sandbanks, and splendid air from the

forests make them specially healthy for delicate children. But not only

have the bathing-places beautiful scenery from north to south and from

east to west, in general the country abounds in Alpine districts,

waterfalls, caves, and other wonders of nature. The most beautiful

tour is along the river Vag, starting from the most northerly point in

Hungary near the beautiful old stronghold of Arva in the county of Arva.

All those that care to see a country as it really is, and do not mind

going out of the usual beaten track of the globe-trotter, should go down

the river Vag. It can not be done by steamer, or any other comfortable

contrivance, one must do it on a raft, as the rapids of the river are

not to be passed by any other means. The wood is transported in this

way from the mountain regions to the south, and for two days one passes

through the most beautiful scenery. Fantastic castles loom at the top of

mountain peaks, and to each castle is attached a page of the history of

the Middle Ages, when the great noblemen were also the greatest robbers

of the land, and the people were miserable serfs, who did all the work

and were taxed and robbed by their masters. Castles, wild mountain

districts, rugged passes, villages, and ruins are passed like a

beautiful panorama. The river rushes along, foaming and dashing over

sharp rocks. The people are reliable and very clever in handling the

raft, which requires great skill, especially when conducted over the

falls at low water. Sometimes there is only one little spot where the

raft can pass, and to conduct it over those rapids requires absolute

knowledge of every rock hidden under the shallow falls. If notice is

given in time, a rude hut will be built on the raft to give shelter

and make it possible to have meals cooked, altho in the simplest way

(consisting of baked potatoes and stew), by the Slavs who are in charge

of the raft. If anything better is wanted it must be ordered by stopping

at the larger towns; but to have it done in the simple way is entering

into the true spirit of the voyage.

THE GIPSIES[2]

BY H. TORNAI DE KOeVER

Gipsies! Music! Dancing! These are words of magic to the rich and poor,

noblemen and peasant alike, if he be a true Hungarian. There are two

kinds of gipsies. The wandering thief, who can not be made to take up

any occupation. These are a terribly lawless and immoral people, and

there seems to be no way of altering their life and habits, altho much

has been written on the subject to improve matters; but the Government

has shown itself to be helpless as yet. These people live here and

there, in fact everywhere, leading a wandering life in carts, and camp

wherever night overtakes them. After some special evil-doing they will

wander into Rumania or Russia and come back after some years when the

deed of crime has been forgotten. Their movements are so quick and

silent that they outwit the best detectives of the police force. They

speak the gipsy language, but often a half-dozen other languages

besides, in their peculiar chanting voice. Their only occupation is

stealing, drinking, smoking, and being a nuisance to the country in

every way.

The other sort of gipsies consist of those that have squatted down in

the villages some hundreds of years ago. They live in a separate part of

the village, usually at the end, are dirty and untidy and even an unruly

people, but for the most part have taken up some honest occupation.

They make the rough, unbaked earth bricks that the peasant cottages are

mostly made of, are tinkers and blacksmiths, but they do the lowest kind

of work too. Besides these, however, there are the talented ones. The

musical gipsy begins to handle his fiddle as soon as he can toddle.

The Hungarians brought their love of music with them from Asia. Old

parchments have been found which denote that they had their songs and

war-chants at the time of the "home-making," and church and folk-songs

from their earliest Christian period. Peasant and nobleman are musical

alike--it runs in the race. The gipsies that have settled among them

caught up the love of music and are now the best interpreters of the

Hungarian songs. The people have got so used to their "blackies," as

they call them, that no lesser or greater fete day can pass without

the gipsy band having ample work to do in the form of playing for the

people. Their instruments are the fiddle, 'cello, viola, clarinet,

tarogato (a Hungarian specialty), and, above all, the cymbal. The

tarogato looks like a grand piano with the top off. It stands on four

legs like a table and has wires drawn across it; on these wires the

player performs with two little sticks, that are padded at the ends

with cotton-wool. The sound is wild and weird, but if well played very

beautiful indeed. The gipsies seldom compose music. The songs come into

life mostly on the spur of the moment. In the olden days war-songs and

long ballads were the most usual form of music. The seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries were specially rich in the production of songs that

live even now. At that time the greatest gipsy musician was a woman: her

name was "Czinka Panna," and she was called the Gipsy Queen. With the

change of times the songs are altered too, and now they are mostly

lyric. Csardas is the quick form of music, and tho' of different

melodies it must always be kept to the same rhythm. This is not much

sung to, but is the music for the national dance. The peasants play on

a little wooden flute which is called the "Tilinko," or "Furulya," and

they know hundreds of sad folk-songs and lively Csardas. While living

their isolated lives in the great plains they compose many a beautiful

song.

It is generally from the peasants and the musical country gentry that

the gipsy gets his music. He learns the songs after a single hearing,

and plays them exactly according to the singer's wish. The Hungarian

noble when singing with the gipsies is capable of giving the dark-faced

boys every penny he has. In this manner many a young nobleman has been

ruined, and the gipsies make nothing of it, because they are just like

their masters and "spend easily earned money easily," as the saying

goes. Where there is much music there is much dancing. Every Sunday

afternoon after church the villages are lively with the sound of the

gipsy band, and the young peasant boys and girls dance.

The Slovaks of the north play a kind of bagpipe, which reminds one of

the Scotch ones; but the songs of the Slovak have got very much mixed

with the Hungarian. The Rumanian music is of a distinct type, but the

dances all resemble the Csardas, with the difference that the quick

figures in the Slav and Rumanian dances are much more grotesque and

verging on acrobatism.

VII

AUSTRIA'S ADRIATIC PORTS

TRIESTE AND POLA[3]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

Trieste stands forth as a rival of Venice, which has, in a low practical

view of things, outstript her. Italian zeal naturally cries for the

recovery of a great city, once part of the old Italian kingdom, and

whose speech is largely, perhaps chiefly, Italian to this day. But, a

cry of "Italia Irredenta," however far it may go, must not go so far

as this. Trieste, a cosmopolitan city on a Slavonic shore, can not be

called Italian in the same sense as the lands and towns so near Verona

which yearn to be as Verona is. Let Trieste be the rival, even the

eyesore, of Venice, still Southern Germany must have a mouth.

We might, indeed, be better pleased to see Trieste a free city, the

southern fellow of Luebeck, Bremen and Hamburg; but it must not be

forgotten that the Archduke of Austria and Lord of Trieste reigns at

Trieste by a far better right than that by which he reigns at Cattaro

and Spizza. The present people of Trieste did not choose him, but the

people of Trieste five hundred years back did choose the forefather of

his great-grandmother. Compared with the grounds of which kingdoms,

duchies, counties, and lordships, are commonly held in that

neighborhood, such a claim as this must be allowed to be respectable

indeed.

The great haven of Trieste may almost at pleasure be quoted as either

confirming or contradicting the rule that it is not in the great

commercial cities of Europe that we are to look for the choicest or the

most plentiful remains of antiquity. Sometimes the cities themselves

are of modern foundation; in other cases the cities themselves, as

habitations of men and seats of commerce, are of the hoariest antiquity,

but the remains of their early days have perished through their very

prosperity. Massalia,[4] with her long history, with her double wreath

of freedom, the city which withstood Caesar and which withstood Charles

of Anjou, is bare of monuments of her early days. She has been the

victim of her abiding good fortune. We can look down from the height on

the Phokaian harbor; but for actual memorials of the men who fled from

the Persian, of the men who defied the Roman and the Angevin, we might

look as well at Liverpool or at Havre.

Genoa, Venice herself, are hardly real exceptions; they were indeed

commercial cities, but they were ruling cities also, and, as ruling

cities, they reared monuments which could hardly pass away. What are we

to say to the modern rival of Venice, the upstart rebel, one is tempted

to say, against the supremacy of the Hadriatic Queen? Trieste, at the

head of her gulf, with the hills looking down to her haven, with the

snowy mountains which seem to guard the approach from the other side of

her inland sea, with her harbor full of the ships of every nation, her

streets echoing with every tongue, is she to be reckoned as an example

of the rule or an exception to it?

No city at first sight seems more thoroughly modern; old town and

new, wide streets and narrow, we search them in vain for any of those

vestiges of past times which in some cities meet us at every step.

Compare Trieste with Ancona;[5] we miss the arch of Trajan on the haven;

we miss the cupola of Saint Cyriacus soaring in triumph above the

triumphal monument of the heathen. We pass through the stately streets

of the newer town, we thread the steep ascents which lead us to the

older town above, and we nowhere light on any of those little scraps of

ornamental architecture, a window, a doorway, a column, which meet us at

every step in so many of the cities of Italy.

Yet the monumental wealth of Trieste is all but equal to the monumental

wealth of Ancona. At Ancona we have the cathedral church and the

triumphal arch; so we have at Trieste; tho' at Trieste we have nothing

to set against the grand front of the lower and smaller church of

Ancona. But at Ancona arch and duomo both stand out before all eyes;

at Trieste both have to be looked for. The church of Saint Justus at

Trieste crowns the hill as well as the church of Saint Cyriacus at

Ancona; but it does not in the same way proclaim its presence. The

castle, with its ugly modern fortifications, rises again above the

church; and the duomo of Trieste, with its shapeless outline and its

low, heavy, unsightly campanile, does not catch the eyes like the Greek

cross and cupola of Ancona.

Again at Trieste the arch could never, in its best days, have been a

rival to the arch at Ancona; and now either we have to hunt it out by an

effort, or else it comes upon us suddenly, standing, as it does, at the

head of a mean street on the ascent to the upper town. Of a truth it can

not compete with Ancona or with Rimini, with Orange[6] or with Aosta.

But the duomo, utterly unsightly as it is in a general view, puts on

quite a new character when we first see the remains of pagan times

imprisoned in the lower stage of the heavy campanile, still more so when

we take our first glance of its wonderful interior. At the first glimpse

we see that here there is a mystery to be unraveled; and as we gradually

find the clue to the marvelous changes which it has undergone, we

feel that outside show is not everything, and that, in point both

of antiquity and of interest, tho' not of actual beauty, the double

basilica of Trieste may claim no mean place among buildings of its own

type. Even after the glories of Rome and Ravenna, the Tergestine church

may be studied with no small pleasure and profit, as an example of a

kind of transformation of which neither Rome nor Ravenna can supply

another example....

The other ancient relic at Trieste is the small triumphal arch. On one

side it keeps its Corinthian pilasters; on the other they are imbedded

in a house. The arch is in a certain sense double; but the two are close

together, and touch in the keystone. The Roman date of this arch can not

be doubted; but legends connect it both with Charles the Great and with

Richard of Poitou and of England, a prince about whom Tergestine fancy

has been very busy. The popular name of the arch is Arco Riccardo.

Such, beside some fragments in the museum, are all the remains that the

antiquary will find in Trieste; not much in point of number, but, in the

case of the duomo at least, of surpassing interest in their own way. But

the true merit of Trieste is not in anything that it has itself, its

church, its arch, its noble site. Placed there at the head of the gulf,

on the borders of two great portions of the Empire, it leads to the land

which produced that line of famous Illyrian Emperors who for a while

checked the advance of our own race in the world's history, and it leads

specially to the chosen home of the greatest among them.[7] The chief

glory of Trieste, after all, is that it is the way to Spalato....

At Pola the monuments of Pietas Julia claim the first place; the

basilica, tho' not without a certain special interest, comes long after

them. The character of the place is fixt by the first sight of it; we

see the present and we see the more distant past; the Austrian navy is

to be seen, and the amphitheater is to be seen. But intermediate times

have little to show; if the duomo strikes the eye at all, it strikes it

only by the extreme ugliness of its outside, nor is there anything very

taking, nothing like the picturesque castle of Pirano, in the works

which occupy the site of the colonial capitol. The duomo should not be

forgotten; even the church of Saint Francis is worth a glance; but it is

in the remains of the Roman colony, in the amphitheater, the arches,

the temples, the fragments preserved in that temple which serves, as

at Nimes,[8] for a museum, that the real antiquarian wealth of Pola

lies....

The known history of Pola begins with the Roman conquest of Istria

in 178 B.C. The town became a Roman colony and a flourishing seat of

commerce. Its action on the republican side in the civil war brought

on it the vengeance of the second Caesar. But the destroyer became

the restorer, and Pietas Julia, in the height of its greatness, far

surpassed the extent either of the elder or the younger Pola. Like all

cities of this region, Pola kept up its importance down to the days of

the Carlovingian Empire, the specially flourishing time of the whole

district being that of Gothic and Byzantine dominion at Ravenna. A

barbarian king, the Roxolan Rasparasanus, is said to have withdrawn to

Pola after the submission of his nation to Hadrian; and the panegyrists

of the Flavian house rank Pola along with Trier and Autun among the

cities which the princes of that house had adorned or strengthened. But

in the history of their dynasty the name of the city chiefly stands out

as the chosen place for the execution of princes whom it was convenient

to put out of the way.

Here Crispus died at the bidding of Constantine, and Gallus at the

bidding of Constantius. Under Theodoric, Pola doubtless shared that

general prosperity of the Istrian land on which Cassiodorus grows

eloquent when writing to its inhabitants. In the next generation Pola

appears in somewhat of the same character which has come back to it in

our own times; it was there that Belisarius gathered the Imperial fleet

for his second and less prosperous expedition against the Gothic lords

of Italy. But, after the break up of the Frankish Empire, the history of

medieval Pola is but a history of decline. It was, in the geography of

Dante, the furthest city of Italy; but, like most of the other cities of

its own neighborhood, its day of greatness had passed away when Dante

sang.

Tossed to and fro between the temporal and spiritual lords who claimed

to be marquesses of Istria, torn by the dissensions of aristocratic and

popular parties among its own citizens, Pola found rest, the rest of

bondage, in submission to the dominion of Saint Mark in 1331.[9] Since

then, till its new birth in our own times, Pola has been a failing city.

Like the other Istrian and Dalmatian towns, modern revolutions have

handed it over from Venice to Austria, from Austria to France, from

France to Austria again. It is under its newest masters that Pola has

at last begun to live a fresh life, and the haven whence Belisarius[10]

sailed forth has again become a haven in more than name, the cradle of

the rising navy of the united Austrian and Hungarian realm.

That haven is indeed a noble one. Few sights are more striking than to

see the huge mass of the amphitheater at Pola seeming to rise at once

out of the land-locked sea. As Pola is seen now, the amphitheater is the

one monument of its older days, which strikes the eye in the general

view, and which divides attention with signs that show how heartily the

once forsaken city has entered on its new career. But in the old time

Pola could show all the buildings which befitted its rank as a colony

of Rome. The amphitheater, of course, stood without the walls; the city

itself stood at the foot and on the slope of the hill which was crowned

by the capitol of the colony, where the modern fortress rises above the

Franciscan church. Parts of the Roman wall still stand; one of its gates

is left; another has left a neighbor and a memory....

Travelers are sometimes apt to complain, and that not wholly without

reason, that all amphitheaters are very like one another. At Pola this

remark is less true than elsewhere, as the amphitheater there has

several marked peculiarities of its own. We do not pretend to expound

all its details scientifically; but this we may say, that those who

dispute--if the dispute still goes on--about various points as regards

the Coliseum at Rome will do well to go and look for some further light

in the amphitheater of Pola. The outer range, which is wonderfully

perfect, while the inner arrangements are fearfully ruined, consists, on

the side toward the town, of two rows of arches, with a third story with

square-headed openings above them.

But the main peculiarity in the outside is to be found in four

tower-like projections, not, as at Arles and Nimes, signs of Saracenic

occupation, but clearly parts of the original design. Many conjectures

have been made about them; they look as if they were means of approach

to the upper part of the building; but it is wisest not to be positive.

But the main peculiarity of this amphitheater is that it lies on the

slope of a hill, which thus supplied a natural basement for the seats on

one side only. But this same position swallowed up the lower arcade on

this side, and it hindered the usual works underneath the seats from

being carried into this part of the building.

SPALATO[11]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

The main object and center of all historical and architectural inquiries

on the Dalmatian coast is, of course, the home of Diocletian, the still

abiding palace of Spalato. From a local point of view, it is the spot

which the greatest of the long line of renowned Illyrian Emperors chose

as his resting-place from the toils of warfare and government, and

where he reared the vastest and noblest dwelling that ever arose at the

bidding of a single man. From an ecumenical point of view, Spalato is

yet more. If it does not rank with Rome, Old and New, with Ravenna and

with Trier, it is because it never was, like them, an actual seat of

empire. But it not the less marks a stage, and one of the greatest

stages, in the history of the Empire.

On his own Dalmatian soil, Docles of Salone, Diocletian of Rome, was the

man who had won fame for his own land, and who, on the throne of the

world, did not forget his provincial birthplace. In the sight of Rome

and of the world Jovius Augustus was more than this. Alike in the

history of politics and in the history of art, he has left his mark on

all time that has come after him, and it is on his own Spalato that

his mark has been most deeply stamped. The polity of Rome and the

architecture of Rome alike received a new life at his hands. In each

alike he cast away shams and pretenses, and made the true construction

of the fabric stand out before men's eyes. Master of the Rome world, if

not King, yet more than King, he let the true nature of his power be

seen, and, first among the Caesars, arrayed himself with the outward pomp

of sovereignty.

In a smaller man we might have deemed the change a mark of weakness, a

sign of childish delight in gewgaws, titles, and trappings. Such could

hardly have been the motive in the man who, when he deemed that his work

was done, could cast away both the form and the substance of power, and

could so steadily withstand all temptations to take them up again. It

was simply that the change was fully wrought; that the chief magistrate

of the commonwealth had gradually changed into the sovereign of the

Empire; that Imperator, Caesar, and Augustus, once titles lowlier than

that of King, had now become, as they have ever since remained, titles

far loftier. The change was wrought, and all that Diocletian did was to

announce the fact of the change to the world.

Nor did the organizing hand of Jovius confine its sphere to the polity

of the Empire only. He built himself a house, and, above all builders,

he might boast himself of the house that he had builded. Fast by his

own birthplace--a meaner soul might have chosen some distant

spot--Diocletian reared the palace which marks a still greater epoch in

Roman art than his political changes mark in Roman polity. On the inmost

shore of one of the lake-like inlets of the Hadriatic, an inlet guarded

almost from sight by the great island of Bua at its mouth, lay his own

Salona, now desolate, then one of the great cities of the Roman world.

But it was not in the city, it was not close under its walls, that

Diocletian fixt his home. An isthmus between the bay of Salona and the

outer sea cuts off a peninsula, which again throws out two horns into

the water to form the harbor which has for ages supplanted Salona.

There, not on any hill-top, but on a level spot by the coast, with the

sea in front, with a background of more distant mountains, and with

one peaked hill rising between the two seas like a watch-tower, did

Diocletian build the house to which he withdrew when he deemed that his

work of empire was over. And in building that house, he won for himself,

or for the nameless genius whom he set at work, a place in the history

of art worthy to rank alongside of Iktinos of Athens and Anthemios of

Byzantium, of William of Durham and of Hugh of Lincoln.

And now the birthplace of Jovius is forsaken, but his house still

abides, and abides in a shape marvelously little shorn of its ancient

greatness. The name which it still bears comes straight from the name of

the elder home of the Caesars. The fates of the two spots have been in a

strange way the converse of one another. By the banks of the Tiber the

city of Romulus became the house of a single man: by the shores of the

Hadriatic the house of a single man became a city. The Palatine hill

became the Palatium of the Caesars, and Palatium was the name which was

borne by the house of Caesar by the Dalmatian shore. The house became a

city; but its name still clave to it, and the house of Jovius still,

at least in the mouths of its own inhabitants, keeps its name in the

slightly altered form of Spalato....

We land with the moon lighting up the water, with the stars above us,

the northern wain shining on the Hadriatic, as if, while Diocletian was

seeking rest by Salona, the star of Constantine was rising over York

and Trier. Dimly rising above us we see, disfigured indeed, but not

destroyed, the pillared front of the palace, reminding us of the

Tabularium of Rome's own capitol. We pass under gloomy arches, through

dark passages and presently we find ourselves in the center of palace

and city, between those two renowned rows of arches which mark the

greatest of all epochs in the history of the building art. We think how

the man who reorganized the Empire of Rome was also the man who first

put harmony and consistency into the architecture of Rome. We think

that, if it was in truth the crown of Diocletian which passed to every

Caesar from the first Constantius to the last Francis, it was no less in

the pile which rose into being at his word that the germ was planted

which grew into Pisa and Durham, into Westminster and Saint Ouen.

There is light enough to mark the columns put for the first time to

their true Roman use, and to think how strange was the fate which called

up on this spot the happy arrangement which had entered the brain of no

earlier artist--the arrangement which, but a few years later, was to be

applied to another use in the basilica of the Lateran and in Saint Paul

Without the Walls. Yes, it is in the court of the persecutor, the man

who boasted that he had wiped out the Christian superstition from the

world, that we see the noblest forestalling of the long arcades of the

Christian basilica.

It is with thoughts like these, thoughts pressing all the more upon us

where every outline is clear and every detail is visible, that we tread

for the first time the Court of Jovius--the columns with their arches on

either side of us, the vast bell-tower rising to the sky, as if to mock

the art of those whose mightiest works might still seem only to grovel

upon earth. Nowhere within the compass of the Roman world do we find

ourselves more distinctly in the presence of one of the great minds

of the world's history; we see that, alike in politics and in art,

Diocletian breathed a living soul into a lifeless body. In the bitter

irony of the triumphant faith, his mausoleum has become a church, his

temple has become a baptistery, the great bell-tower rises proudly over

his own work; his immediate dwelling-place is broken down and crowded

with paltry houses; but the sea-front and the Golden Gate are still

there amid all disfigurements, and the great peristyle stands almost

unhurt, to remind us of the greatest advance that a single mind ever

made in the progress of the building art.

At the present time the city into which the house of Diocletian has

grown is the largest and most growing town of the Dalmatian coast. It

has had to yield both spiritual and temporal precedence to Zara, but,

both in actual population and all that forms the life of a city, Spalato

greatly surpasses Zara and all its other neighbors. The youngest

Dalmatian towns, which could boast neither of any mythical origin nor of

any Imperial foundation, the city which, as it were, became a city by

mere chance, has outstript the colonies of Epidauros, of Corinth, and of

Rome.

The palace of Diocletian had but one occupant; after the founder no

Emperor had dwelled in it, unless we hold that this was the villa near

Salona where the deposed Emperor Nepos was slain, during the patriciate

of Odoacer. The forsaken palace seems, while still almost new, to have

become a cloth factory, where women worked, and which therefore appears

in the "Notitia" as a Gynaecium. But when Salona was overthrown, the

palace stood ready to afford shelter to those who were driven from their

homes. The palace, in the widest sense of the word--for of course its

vast circuit took in quarters for soldiers and officials of various

kinds, as well as the rooms actually occupied by the Emperor--stood

ready to become a city.

It was a chester ready made, with its four streets, its four gates, all

but that toward the sea flanked with octagonal towers, and with four

greater square towers at the corners. To this day the circuit of the

walls is nearly perfect; and the space contained within them must be as

large as that contained within some of the oldest chesters in our own

island. The walls, the towers, the gates, are those of a city rather

than of a house. Two of the gates, tho' their towers are gone, are

nearly perfect; the "porta aurea," with its graceful ornaments; the

"porta ferrea" in its stern plainness, strangely crowned with its small

campanile of later days perched on its top. Within the walls, besides

the splendid buildings which still remain, besides the broken-down walls

and chambers which formed the immediate dwelling-place of the founder,

the main streets were lined with massive arcades, large parts of which

still remain.

Diocletian, in short, in building a house, had built a city. In the days

of Constantine Porphyrogenitus it was a "Kaotpov"--Greek and English had

by his day alike borrowed the Latin name; but it was a "Kaotpov" which

Diocletian had built as his own house, and within which was his hall

and palace. In his day the city bore the name of Aspalathon, which he

explains to mean "little palace." When the palace had thus become a

common habitation of men, it is not wonderful that all the more private

buildings whose use had passed away were broken down, disfigured, and

put to mean uses.

The work of building over the site must have gone on from that day to

this. The view in Wheeler shows several parts of the enclosure occupied

by ruins which are now covered with houses. The real wonder is that so

much has been spared and has survived to our own days. And we are rather

surprised to find Constantine saying that in his time the greater part

had been destroyed. For the parts which must always have been the

stateliest remain still. The great open court, the peristyle, with its

arcades, have become the public plaza of the town; the mausoleum on

one side of it and the temple on the other were preserved and put to

Christian uses.

We say the mausoleum, for we fully accept the suggestion made by

Professor Glavinich, the curator of the museum of Spalato, that the

present duomo, traditionally called the Temple of Jupiter, was not a

temple, but a mausoleum. These must have been the great public buildings

of the palace, and, with the addition of the bell-tower, they remain the

chief public buildings of the modern city. But, tho' the ancient square

of the palace remains wonderfully perfect, the modern city, with its

Venetian defenses, its Venetian and later buildings, has spread itself

far beyond the walls of Diocletian. But those walls have made the

history of Spalato, and it is the great buildings which stand within

them that give Spalato its special place in the history of architecture.

RAGUSA[12]

BY HARRY DE WINDT

Viewed from the sea, and at first sight, the place somewhat resembles

Monte Carlo with its white villas, palms, and background of rugged,

gray hills. But this is the modern portion of the town, outside the

fortifications, erected many centuries ago. Within them lies the

real Ragusa--a wonderful old city which teems with interest, for its

time-worn buildings and picturesque streets recall, at every turn, the

faded glories of this "South Slavonic Athens." A bridge across the moat

which protects the old city is the link between the present and past.

In new Ragusa you may sit on the crowded esplanade of a fashionable

watering place; but pass through a frowning archway into the old

town, and, save in the main street, which has modern shops and other

up-to-date surroundings, you might be living in the dark ages. For as

far back as in the ninth century Ragusa was the capital of Dalmatia

and an independent republic, and since that period her literary and

commercial triumphs, and the tragedies she has survived in the shape

of sieges, earthquakes, and pestilence, render the records of this

little-known state almost as engrossing as those of ancient Rome.

Until I came here I had pictured a squalid Eastern place, devoid of

ancient or modern interest; most of my fellow-countrymen probably do

likewise, notwithstanding the fact that when London was

a small and obscure town Ragusa was already an important center of

commerce and civilization. The republic was always a peaceful one, and

its people excelled in trade and the fine arts. Thus, as early as the

fourteenth century the Ragusan fleet was the envy of the world; its

vessels were then known as Argusas to British mariners, and the English

word "Argosy" is probably derived from the name. These tiny ships went

far afield--to the Levant and Northern Europe, and even to the Indies--a

voyage frought, in those days, with much peril. At this epoch Ragusa had

achieved a mercantile prosperity unequalled throughout Europe, but in

later years the greater part of the fleet joined and perished with the

Spanish Armada.

And this catastrophe was the precursor of a series of national

disasters. In 1667 the city was laid waste by an earthquake which

killed over twenty thousand people, and this was followed by a terrible

visitation of the plague, which further decimated the population.

Ragusa, however, was never a large city, and even at its zenith, in

the sixteenth century, it numbered under forty thousand souls, and now

contains only about a third of that number.

In 1814 the Vienna Congress finally deprived the republic of its

independence, and it became (with Dalmatia) an Austrian possession.

Trade has not increased here of recent years, as in Herzegovina and

Bosnia. The harbor, at one time one of the most important ports in

Europe, is too small and shallow for modern shipping, and the oil

industry, once the backbone of the place, has sadly dwindled of late

years.

Ragusa itself now having no harbor worthy of the name, the traveler by

sea must land at Gravosa about a mile north of the old city. Gravosa is

merely a suburb of warehouses, shipping, and sailor-men, as unattractive

as the London Docks, and the Hotel Petko swarmed with mosquitoes and

an animal which seems to thrive and flourish throughout the Balkan

States--the rat.

The old Custom House is perhaps the most beautiful building in Ragusa,

and is one of the few which survived the terrible earthquake of 1667.

The structure bears the letters "I.H.S." over the principal entrance in

commemoration of this fact. Its courtyard is a dream of beauty, and the

stone galleries around it are surrounded with inscriptions of great age.

Ragusa is a Slav town, but altho' the name of streets appear in Slavonic

characters, Italian is also spoken on every side and the "Stradone,"

with its arcades and narrow precipitous alleys at right angles, is not

unlike a street in Naples. The houses are built in small blocks, as

a protection against earthquakes--the terror of every Ragusan (only

mention the word and he will cross himself)--and here on a fine Sunday

morning you may see Dalmatians, Albanians, and Herzegovinians in their

gaudiest finery, while here and there a wild-eyed Montenegrin, armed to

the teeth, surveys the gay scene with a scowl, of shyness rather than

ill-humor.

Outside the cafe, on the Square (where flocks of pigeons whirl around as

at St. Mark's in Venice), every little table is occupied; but here the

women are gowned in the latest Vienna fashions, and Austrian uniforms

predominate. And the sun shines as warmly as in June (on this 25th day

of March), and the cathedral bells chime a merry accompaniment to a

military band; a sky of the brightest blue gladdens the eye, fragrant

flowers the senses, and the traveler sips his bock or mazagran, and

thanks his stars he is not spending the winter in cold, foggy England.

Refreshments are served by a white-aproned garcon, and street boys

are selling the "Daily Mail" and "Gil Blas," just as they are on the

far-away boulevards of Paris.

CATTARO[13]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

The end of a purely Dalmatian pilgrimage will be Cattaro. He who goes

further along the coast will pass into lands that have a history, past

and present, which is wholly distinct from that of the coast which he

has hitherto traced from Zara--we might say from Capo d'Istria--onward.

We have not reached the end of the old Venetian dominion--for that we

must carry our voyage to Crete and Cyprus. But we have reached the end

of the nearly continuous Venetian dominion--the end of the coast which,

save at two small points, was either Venetian or Regusan--the end of

that territory of the two maritime commonwealths which they kept down to

their fall in modern times, and in which they have been succeeded by the

modern Dalmatian kingdom....

The city stands at the end of an inlet of the sea fifteen or twenty

miles long, and it has mountains around it so high that it is only in

fair summer weather that the sun can be seen; in winter Cattaro never

enjoys his presence. There certainly is no place where it is harder to

believe that the smooth waters of the narrow, lake-like inlet, with

mountains on each side which it seems as if one could put out one's hand

and touch, are really part of the same sea which dashes against the

rocks of Ragusa. They end in a meadow-like coast which makes one think

of Bourget or Trasimenus rather than of Hadria. The Dalmatian voyage is

well ended by the sail along the Bocche, the loveliest piece of inland

sea which can be conceived, and whose shores are as rich in curious bits

of political history as they are in scenes of surpassing natural beauty.

The general history of the district consists in the usual tossing to and

fro between the various powers which have at different times been strong

in the neighborhood. Cattaro was in the reign of Basil the Macedonian

besieged and taken by Saracens, who presently went on unsuccessfully to

besiege Ragusa. And, as under Byzantine rule it was taken by Saracens,

so under Venetian rule it was more than once besieged by Turks. In the

intermediate stages we get the usual alternations of independence and of

subjection to all the neighboring powers in turn, till in 1419 Cattaro

finally became Venetian. At the fall of the republic it became part of

the Austrian share of the spoil. When the spoilers quarreled, it fell

to France. When England, Russia, and Montenegro were allies, the city

joined the land of which it naturally forms the head, and Cattaro became

the Montenegrin haven and capital. When France was no longer dangerous,

and the powers of Europe came together to parcel out other men's goods,

Austria calmly asked for Cattaro back again, and easily got it.

In the city of Cattaro the Orthodox Church is still in a minority, but

it is a minority not far short of a majority. Outside its walls, the

Orthodox outnumber the Catholics. In short, when we reach Cattaro, we

have very little temptation to fancy ourselves in Italy or in any part

of Western Christendom. We not only know, but feel, that we are on the

Byzantine side of the Hadriatic; that we have, in fact, made our way

into Eastern Europe.

And East and West, Slav and Italian, New Rome and Old, might well

struggle for the possession of the land and of the water through which

we pass from Ragusa to our final goal at Cattaro. The strait leads us

into a gulf; another narrow strait leads us into an inner gulf; and on

an inlet again branching out of that inner gulf lies the furthest of

Dalmatian cities. The lower city, Cattaro itself, seems to lie so

quietly, so peacefully, as if in a world of its own from which nothing

beyond the shores of its own Bocche could enter, that we are tempted to

forget, not only that the spot has been the scene of so many revolutions

through so many ages, but that it is even now a border city, a city on

the marchland of contending powers, creeds, and races....

The city of Cattaro itself is small, standing on a narrow ledge between

the gulf and the base of the mountain. It carries the features of the

Dalmatian cities to what any one who has not seen Traue will call their

extreme point. But, tho' the streets of Cattaro are narrow, yet they are

civilized and airy-looking compared with those of Traue, and the little

paved squares, as so often along this coast, suggest the memory of the

ruling city.

The memory of Venice is again called up by the graceful little scraps of

its characteristic architecture which catch the eye ever and anon among

the houses of Cattaro. The landing-place, the marina, the space between

the coast and the Venetian wall, where we pass for the last time under

the winged lion over the gate, has put on the air of a boulevard. But

the forms and costume of Bocchesi and Montenegrins, the men of the gulf,

with their arms in their girdles, no less than the men of the black

mountain, banish all thought that we are anywhere but where we really

are, at one of the border points of Christian and civilized Europe. If

in the sons of the mountains we see the men who have in all ages held

out against the invading Turk, we see in their brethren of the coast the

men who, but a few years back, brought Imperial, Royal, and Apostolic

Majesty to its knees ...

At Cattaro the Orthodox Church is on its own ground, standing side by

side on equal terms with its Latin rival, pointing to lands where the

Filioque[14] is unknown and where the Bishop of the Old Rome has even

been deemed an intruder. The building itself is a small Byzantine

church, less Byzantine in fact in its outline than the small churches of

the Byzantine type at Zara, Spalato, and Traue. The single dome rises,

not from the intersection of a Greek cross, but from the middle of a

single body, and, resting as it does on pointed arches, it suggests

the thought of Perigueux and Angouleme. But this arrangement, which is

shared by a neighboring Latin church, is well known throughout the East.

The Latin duomo, which has been minutely described by Mr. Neale,[15] is

of quite another type, and is by no means Dalmatian in its general look.

A modern west front with two western towers does not go for much; but it

reminds us that a design of the same kind was begun at Traue in better

times. The inside is quite unlike anything of later Italian work.

The traveler whose objects are of a more general kind turns away from

this border church of Christendom as the last stage of a pilgrimage

unsurpassed either for natural beauty or for historic interest. And, as

he looks up at the mountain which rises almost close above the east end

of the duomo of Cattaro, and thinks of the land[16] and the men to which

the path over that mountain leads, he feels that, on this frontier at

least, the spirit still lives which led English warriors to the side of

Manuel Komnenos, and which steeled the heart of the last Constantine to

die in the breach for the Roman name and the faith of Christendom.

VIII

OTHER AUSTRIAN SCENES

CRACOW[17]

BY MENIE MURIEL DOWIE

Cracow, old, tired and dispirited, speaks and thinks only of the ruinous

past. When you drive into Cracow from the station for the first time,

you are breathless, smiling, and tearful all at once; in the great

Ring-platz--a mass of old buildings--Cracow seems to hold out her arms

to you--those long sides that open from the corner where the cab drives

in. You do not have time to notice separately the row of small trees

down on one side, beneath which bright-colored women-figures control

their weekly market; you do not notice the sort of court-house in the

middle with its red roof, cream-colored galleries and shops beneath; you

do not notice the great tall church at one side of brick and stone most

perfectly time-reconciled, or the houses, or the crazed paving, or the

innocent little groups of cabs--you only see Cracow holding out her arms

to you, and you may lean down your head and weep from pure instinctive

sympathy. Suddenly a choir of trumpets breaks out into a chorale from

the big church tower; the melancholy of it I shall never forget--the

very melody seemed so old and tired, so worn and sweet and patient, like

Cracow. Those trumpet notes have mourned in that tower for hundreds of

years. It is the Hymn of Timeless Sorrow that they play, and the key

to which they are attuned in Cracow's long despair. Hush! That is her

voice, the old town's voice, high and sad--she is speaking to you.

Dear Cracow! Never again it seems to me, shall I come so near to the

deathless hidden sentiment of Poland as in those first moments. It would

be no use to tell her to take heart, that there may be brighter days

coming, and so forth. Lemberg may feel so, Lemberg that has the feelings

of any other big new town, the strength and the determination; but

Cracow's day was in the long ago, as a gay capital, a brilliant

university town full of princes, of daring, of culture, of wit. She has

outlived her day, and can only mourn over what has been and the times

that she has seen; she may be always proud of her character, of the

brave blood that has made scarlet her streets, but she can never be

happy remodeled as an Austrian garrison town, and in the new Poland--the

Poland whose foundation stones are laid in the hearts of her people,

and that may yet be built some day--in that new Poland there will be no

place for aristocratic, high-bred Cracow.

During my stay in the beautiful butter-colored palace that is now a

hotel, I went round the museums, galleries, and universities, most if

not all of which are free to the public. It would be unfair to give the

idea that Cracow has completely fallen to decay. This is not the case.

Austria has erected some very handsome buildings; and a town with such

fine pictures, good museums, and two universities, can not be complained

of as moribund. At the same time, I can only record faithfully my

impression, and that was that everything new, everything modern, was

hopelessly out of tone in Cracow; progress, which, tho' desirable, may

be a vulgar thing, would not suit her, and does not seem at home in her

streets.

About the Florian's Thor, with its round towers of old, sorrel-colored

brick, and the Czartoryski Museum, there is nothing to say that the

guide-book would not say better. In the museum, a tattered Polish flag

of red silk, with the white eagle, a cheerful bird with curled tail,

opened mouth, chirping defiantly to the left, imprest me, and a portrait

of Szopen (Chopin) in fine profile when laid out dead. For amusement,

there was a Paul Potter bull beside a Paul Potter willow, delightfully

unconscious of a coming Paul Potter thunderstorm, and a miniature of

Shakespeare which did not resemble any of the portraits of him that I

am familiar with. Any amount of Turkish trappings and reminiscences of

Potocki and Kosciuszko, of course. As I had no guide-book, I am quite

prepared to learn that I overlooked the most important relics.

In the cathedral, away up on the hill of Wawel, above the river Vistula

(Wisla) I prowled about among the crypts with a curious specimen of

beadledom who ran off long unintelligible histories in atrocious

Viennese patois about every solemn tomb by which we stood. So far as I

was concerned it might just as well have been the functionary who herds

small droves of visitors in Westminster Abbey. I never listen to these

people, because (i) I do not care to be informed; and (ii) since I

should never remember what they said, it is useless my even letting it

in at one ear. The kindly, cobwebby old person who piloted me

among those wonderful kings' graves in Cracow was personally not

uninteresting, indeed a fine study, and his rigmaroles brought up

infallibly upon three words which I could not fail to notice: these

were "silberner Sarg vergoldet" (silver coffin, gilded). It had an odd

fascination for me this phrase, as I stood always waiting for it; why, I

wondered, should anybody want to gild a good solid silver coffin?

At the time of my first visit, the excavation necessary to form the

crypt for the resting-place of Mickiewicz[18] was in progress, and I

went in among the limey, dusty workmen, with their tallow candles,

and looked round. In return for my gulden, the beadle gave me a

few immortelles from Sobieski's tomb, and some laurel leaves from

Kosciuszko's; and remembering friends at home of refinedly ghoulish

tastes, I determined to preserve those poor moldering fragments for

them.

Most of my days and evenings I spent wandering by the Vistula and in and

out of the hundred churches. My plan was to sight a spire, and then walk

to the root of it, so to speak. In this manner I saw the town very well.

The houses were of brick and plaster, the rich carmine-red brick that

has made Cracow so beautiful. On each was a beautiful facade, and

pediments in renaissance, bas-relief work of cupids, and classic figures

with ribands and roses tying among them, seeming to speak, somehow, of

the dead princes and the mighty aristocracy which had cost Cracow so

dear.

In the Jews' quarter that loud lifelong market of theirs was going

forward, which required seemingly only some small basinfuls of sour

Gurken and a few spoonfuls of beans of its stock-in-trade. Mingling

among the Jews were the peasants, of course; the men in tightly fitting

trousers of white blanket cloth, rich embroidered on the upper part and

down the seams in blue and red; the women wearing pink printed muslin

skirts, often with a pale blue muslin apron and a lemon-colored fine

wool cloth, spotted in pink, upon the head. They manifested a great

appreciation of color, but none of form, and after the free dress of

the Hucal women, these people, mummied in their red tartan shawls--all

hybrid Stewarts, they seemed to me--were merely bright bundles in the

sunshine.

In the shops in Cracow, French was nearly always the language of attack,

and a good deal was spoken in the hotel. I had occasion to buy a great

many things, but, according to my custom, not a photograph was among

them; therefore, when I go back, I shall receive perfectly new and fresh

impressions of the place, and can cherish no vague memories, encouraged

by an album at home, in which the nameless cathedrals of many countries

confuse themselves, and only the Coliseum at Rome stands forth, not to

be contradicted or misnamed.

But it became necessary to put a period to my wandering, unless I wished

to find myself stranded in Vienna with "neither cross nor pile." The

references to money-matters have been designedly slight throughout these

pages. It is not my habit to keep accounts. I have never found that

you get any money back by knowing just how you have spent it, and a

conscience-pricking record of expenses is very ungrateful reading. So,

when a certain beautiful evening came, I felt that I had to look upon it

as my last. Being too early for the train, I bid the man drive about in

the early summer dark for three-quarters of an hour.

To such as do not care for precise information and statistics in foreign

places, but appreciate rather atmosphere and impression, I can recommend

this course. In and out among the pretty garden woods, outside the town,

we drove. Buildings loomed majestically out of the night; sometimes it

was the tower of an unknown church, sometimes it was the house of some

forgotten family that sprang suggestively to the eye, and I was grateful

that I was left to suppose the indefinite type of Austrian bureau, which

occupied, in all probability, the first floor. Then we came to the

river, and later, Wawel stood massed out black upon the blue, the

glorious gravestone of a fallen Power.

All the stars were shining, and little red-yellow lights in the castle

windows were not much bigger. Above the whisper of the willows on its

bank came the deep, quiet murmur of the Vistula, and every now and then,

over the several towers of the solemn old palaces and the spires of the

church where Poland has laid her kings, and so recently the king of the

poets, the stars were dropping from their places, like sudden spiders,

letting themselves down into the vast by faint yellow threads that

showed a moment after the star itself was gone.

Later, as I looked from the open gallery of the train that was taking me

away, I could not help thinking that, just a hundred years ago, Wawel's

star was shining with a light bright enough for all Europe to see;

but even as the stars fell that night and left their places empty, so

Wawel's star has fallen and Poland's star has fallen too.

ON THE ROAD TO PRAGUE[19]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

I was pleasantly disappointed on entering Bohemia. Instead of a dull,

uninteresting country, as I expected, it is a land full of the most

lovely scenery. There is everything which can gratify the eye--high blue

mountains, valleys of the sweetest pastoral look and romantic old ruins.

The very name of Bohemia is associated with wild and wonderful legends

of the rude barbaric ages. Even the chivalric tales of the feudal times

of Germany grow tame beside these earlier and darker histories. The

fallen fortresses of the Rhine or the robber-castles of the Odenwald

had not for me so exciting an interest as the shapeless ruins cumbering

these lonely mountains. The civilized Saxon race was left behind; I

saw around me the features and heard the language of one of those rude

Slavonic tribes whose original home was on the vast steppes of Central

Asia.

I have rarely enjoyed traveling more than our first two days' journey

toward Prague. The range of the Erzgebirge ran along on our right; the

snow still lay in patches upon it, but the valleys between, with their

little clusters of white cottages, were green and beautiful. About six

miles before reaching Teplitz we passed Kulm, the great battlefield

which in a measure decided the fate of Napoleon. He sent Vandamme with

forty thousand men to attack the allies before they could unite their

forces, and thus effect their complete destruction. Only the almost

despairing bravery of the Russian guards under Ostermann, who held him

in check till the allied troops united, prevented Napoleon's design. At

the junction of the roads, where the fighting was hottest, the Austrians

have erected a monument to one of their generals. Not far from it is

that of Prussia, simple and tasteful. A woody hill near, with the little

village of Kulm at its foot, was the station occupied by Vandamme at

the commencement of the battle. There is now a beautiful chapel on its

summit which can be seen far and wide. A little distance farther the

Czar of Russia has erected a third monument, to the memory of the

Russians who fell. Four lions rest on the base of the pedestal, and on

the top of the shaft, forty-five feet high, Victory is represented as

engraving the date, "Aug. 30, 1813," on a shield. The dark pine-covered

mountains on the right overlook the whole field and the valley of

Torlitz; Napoleon rode along their crests several days after the battle

to witness the scene of his defeat.

Teplitz lies in a lovely valley, several miles wide, bounded by the

Bohemian mountains on one side and the Erzgebirge on the other. One

straggling peak near is crowned with a picturesque ruin, at whose foot

the spacious bath-buildings lie half hidden in foliage. As we went

down the principal street I noticed nearly every house was a hotel; we

learned afterward that in summer the usual average of visitors is five

thousand.[20] The waters resemble those of the celebrated Carlsbad; they

are warm and practically efficacious in rheumatism and diseases of like

character. After leaving Teplitz the road turned to the east, toward a

lofty mountain which we had seen the morning before. The peasants, as

they passed by, saluted us with "Christ greet you!"

We stopt for the night at the foot of the peak called the Milleschauer,

and must have ascended nearly two thousand feet, for we had a wide view

the next morning, altho' the mists and clouds hid the half of it. The

weather being so unfavorable, we concluded not to ascend, and descended

through green fields and orchards snowy with blossoms to Lobositz, on

the Elbe. Here we reached the plains again, where everything wore the

luxuriance of summer; it was a pleasant change from the dark and rough

scenery we left.

The road passed through Theresienstadt, the fortress of Northern

Bohemia. The little city is surrounded by a double wall and moat which

can be filled with water, rendering it almost impossible to be taken. In

the morning we were ferried over the Moldau, and after journeying nearly

all day across barren, elevated plains saw, late in the afternoon, the

sixty-seven spires of Prague below.

I feel out of the world in this strange, fantastic, yet beautiful, old

city. We have been rambling all morning through its winding streets,

stopping sometimes at a church to see the dusty tombs and shrines or to

hear the fine music which accompanies the morning mass. I have seen no

city yet that so forcibly reminds one of the past and makes him forget

everything but the associates connected with the scenes around him.

The language adds to the illusion. Three-fourths of the people in the

streets speak Bohemian and many of the signs are written in the same

tongue.

The palace of the Bohemian kings still looks down on the city from the

western heights, and their tombs stand in the cathedral of St. John.

When one has climbed up the stone steps leading to the fortress, there

is a glorious prospect before him. Prague with its spires and towers

lies in the valleys below, through which curves the Moldau with its

green islands, disappearing among the hills which enclose the city on

every side. The fantastic Byzantine architecture of many of the churches

and towers gives the city a peculiar Oriental appearance; it seems to

have been transported from the hills of Syria....

Having found out first a few of the locations, we haunted our way with

difficulty through its labyrinths, seeking out every place of note or

interest. Reaching the bridge at last, we concluded to cross over and

ascend to the Hradschin, the palace of the Bohemian kings. The bridge

was commenced in 1357, and was one hundred and fifty years in building.

That was the way the old Germans did their work, and they made a

structure which will last a thousand years longer. Every pier is

surmounted with groups of saints and martyrs, all so worn and timebeaten

that there is little left of their beauty, if they ever had any. The

most important of them--at least to Bohemians--is that of St. John

Nepomuk, now considered as the patron-saint of the land. He was a priest

many centuries ago [1340-1393] whom one of the kings threw from the

bridge into the Moldau because he refused to reveal to him what the

queen confest. The legend says the body swam for some time on the river

with five stars around its head.

Ascending the broad flight of steps to the Hradschin, I paused a moment

to look at the scene below. A slight blue haze hung over the clustering

towers, and the city looked dim through it, like a city seen in a dream.

It was well that it should so appear, for not less dim and misty are the

memories that haunt its walls. There was no need of a magician's wand to

bid that light cloud shadow forth the forms of other times. They

came uncalled for even by Fancy. Far, far back in the past I saw the

warrior-princess who founded the kingly city--the renowned Libussa,

whose prowess and talent inspired the women of Bohemia to rise at her

death and storm the land that their sex might rule where it obeyed

before. On the mountain opposite once stood the palace of the bloody

Wlaska, who reigned with her Amazon band for seven years over half

Bohemia. Those streets below had echoed with the fiery words of Huss,

and the castle of his follower--the blind Ziska, who met and defeated

the armies of the German Empire--molders on the mountains above. Many a

year of war and tempest has passed over the scene. The hills around have

borne the armies of Wallenstein and Frederick the Great; the war-cry of

Bavaria, Sweden and Poland has echoed in the valley, and the red glare

of the midnight cannon or the flames of burning palaces have often

gleamed along the "blood-dyed waters" of the Moldau...

On the way down again we stept into the St. Nicholas Church, which was

built by the Jesuits. The interior has a rich effect, being all of brown

and gold. The massive pillars are made to resemble reddish-brown

marble, with gilded capitals, and the statues at the base are profusely

ornamented in the same style. The music chained me there a long time.

There was a grand organ, assisted by a full orchestra and large choir of

singers. It was placed above, and at every sound of the priest's bell

the flourish of trumpets and deep roll of the drums filled the dome with

a burst of quivering sound, while the giant pipes of the organ breathed

out their full harmony and the very air shook under the peal. It was

like a triumphal strain. The soul became filled with thoughts of power

and glory; every sense was changed into one dim, indistinct emotion of

rapture which held the spirit as if spellbound.

Not far from this place is the palace of Wallenstein, in the same

condition as when he inhabited it. It is a plain, large building having

beautiful gardens attached to it, which are open to the public. We

went through the courtyard, threaded a passage with a roof of rough

stalactitic rock and entered the garden, where a revolving fountain was

casting up its glittering arches.

THE CAVE OF ADELSBERG[21]

BY GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD

The night had been passed at Adelsberg, and the morning had been

agreeably occupied in exploring the wonders of its celebrated cavern.

The entrance is through an opening in the side of a hill. In a few

moments, after walking down a gentle descent, a sound of flowing water

is heard, and the light of the torches borne by the guides gleams

faintly upon a river which runs through these sunless chasms, and

revisits the glimpses of day at Planina, some ten miles distant.

The visitor now finds himself in a vast hall, walled and roofed by

impenetrable darkness of the stream, which is crossed by a wooden

bridge; and the ascent on the other side is made by a similar flight of

steps. The bridge and steps are marked by a double row of lights, which

present a most striking appearance as their tremulous luster struggles

through the night that broods over them. Such a scene recalls Milton's

sublime pictures of Pandemonium, and shows directly to the eye what

effects a great imaginative painter may produce with no other colors

than light and darkness. Here are the "stately height," the "ample

spaces," the "arched roof," the rows of "starry lamps and blazing

cressets" of Satan's hall of council; and by the excited fancy the dim

distance is easily peopled with gigantic forms and filled with the

"rushing of congregated wings."

After this, one is led through a variety of chambers, differing in size

and form, but essentially similar in character, and the attention is

invited to the innumerable multitude of striking and fantastic objects

which have been formed in the lapse of ages, by the mere dropping of

water. Pendants hang from the roof, stalagmites grow from the floor like

petrified stumps, and pillars and buttresses are disposed as oddly as

in the architecture of a dream. Here, we are told to admire a bell, and

there, a throne; here, a pulpit, and there, a butcher's shop; here, "the

two hearts," and there, a fountain frozen into alabaster; and in every

case we assent to the resemblance in the unquestioning mood of Polonius.

One of the chambers, or halls, is used every year as a ball-room, for

which purpose it has every requisite except an elastic floor, even to a

natural dais for the orchestra.

Here, with the sort of pride with which a book collector shows a Mazarin

Bible or a folio Shakespeare, the guides point out a beautiful piece of

limestone which hangs from the roof in folds as delicate as a Cashmere

shawl, to which the resemblance is made more exact by a well-defined

border of deeper color than the web. Through this translucent curtain

the light shines as through a picture in porcelain, and one must be very

unimpressible not to bestow the tribute of admiration which is claimed.

These are the trivial details which may be remembered and described,

but the general effect produced by the darkness, the silence, the vast

spaces, the innumerable forms, the vaulted roofs, the pillars and

galleries melting away in the gloom like the long-drawn aisles of a

cathedral, may be recalled but not communicated.

To see all these marvels requires much time, and I remained under ground

long enough to have a new sense of the blessing of light. The first

glimpse of returning day seen through the distant entrance brought with

it an exhilarating sense of release, and the blue sky and cheerful

sunshine were welcomed like the faces of long absent friends. A cave

like that of Adelsberg--for all limestone caves are, doubtless,

essentially similar in character--ought by all means to be seen if it

comes in one's way, because it leaves impressions upon the mind unlike

those derived from any other object. Nature stamps upon most of her

operations a certain character of gravity and majesty. Order and

symmetry attend upon her steps, and unity in variety is the law by which

her movements are guided. But, beneath the surface of the earth,

she seems a frolicsome child, or a sportive undine, who wreaths the

unmanageable stone into weird and quaint forms, seemingly from no

other motive than pure delight in the exercise of overflowing power.

Everything is playful, airy, and fantastic; there is no spirit of

soberness; no reference to any ulterior end; nothing from which food,

fuel, or raiment can be extracted. These chasms have been scooped out,

and these pillars have been reared, in the spirit in which the bird

sings, or the kitten plays with the falling leaves. From such scenes we

may safely infer that the plan of the Creator comprehends something

more than material utility, that beauty is its own vindictator and

interpreter, that sawmills were not the ultimate cause of mountain

streams, nor wine-bottles of cork-trees.

THE MONASTERY OF MOeLK[22]

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN

We had determined upon dining at Moelk the next day. The early morning

was somewhat inauspicious; but as the day advanced, it grew bright and

cheerful. Some delightful glimpses of the Danube, to the left, from the

more elevated parts of the road, accompanied us the whole way, till we

caught the first view, beneath a bright blue sky, of the towering church

and Monastery of Moelk.

Conceive what you please, and yet you shall not conceive the situation

of this monastery. Less elevated above the road than Chremsminster, but

of a more commanding style of architecture, and of considerably greater

extent, it strikes you--as the Danube winds round and washes its rocky

base--as one of the noblest edifices in the world. The wooded heights

of the opposite side of the Danube crown the view of this magnificent

edifice, in a manner hardly to be surpassed. There is also a beautiful

play of architectural lines and ornament in the front of the building,

indicative of a pure Italian taste, and giving to the edifice, if not

the air of towering grandeur, at least of dignified splendor....

As usual, I ordered a late dinner, intending to pay my respects to

the Principal, and obtain permission to inspect the library. My late

monastic visits had inspired me with confidence; and I marched up the

steep sides of the hill, upon which the monastery is built, quite

assured of the success of the visit I was about to pay. You must now

accompany the bibliographer to the monastery. In five minutes from

entering the outer gate of the first quadrangle--looking toward

Vienna, and which is the more ancient part of the building--I was in

conversation with the Vice-Principal and Librarian, each of us speaking

Latin. I delivered the letter which I had received at Salzburg, and

proceeded to the library.

The view from this library is really enchanting, and put everything seen

from a similar situation at Landshut and almost even at Chremsminster,

out of my recollection. You look down upon the Danube, catching a fine

sweep of the river, as it widens in its course toward Vienna. A man

might sit, read, and gaze--in such a situation--till he fancied he had

scarcely one earthly want! I now descended a small staircase, which

brought me directly into the large library--forming the right wing of

the building, looking up the Danube toward Lintz. I had scarcely uttered

three notes of admiration, when the Abbe Strattman entered; and to my

surprise and satisfaction, addrest me by name. We immediately commenced

an ardent unintermitting conversation in the French language, which the

Abbe speaks fluently and correctly.

I now took a leisurely survey of the library; which is, beyond

all doubt, the finest room of its kind which I have seen upon the

Continent--not for its size, but for its style of architecture, and the

materials of which it is composed. I was told that it was "the Imperial

Library in miniature,"--but with this difference, let me here add, in

favor of Moelk--that it looks over a magnificently wooded country, with

the Danube rolling its rapid course at its base. The wainscot and

shelves are walnut tree, of different shades, inlaid, or dovetailed,

surmounted by gilt ornaments. The pilasters have Corinthian capitals of

gilt; and the bolder or projecting parts of a gallery, which surrounds

the room, are covered with the same metal. Everything is in harmony.

This library may be about a hundred feet in length, by forty in width.

It is sufficiently well furnished with books, of the ordinary useful

class, and was once, I suspect, much richer in the bibliographical lore

of the fifteenth century.

On reaching the last descending step, just before entering the church,

the Vice-Principal bade me look upward and view the corkscrew staircase.

I did so; and to view and admire was one and the same operation of the

mind. It was the most perfect and extraordinary thing of the kind which

I had ever seen--the consummation, as I was told, of that particular

species of art. The church is the very perfection of ecclesiastical

Roman architecture; that of Chremsminster, altho' fine, being much

inferior to it in loftiness and richness of decoration. The windows

are fixt so as to throw their concentrated light beneath a dome, of no

ordinary height, and of no ordinary elegance of decoration; but this

dome is suffering from damp, and the paintings upon the ceiling will,

unless repaired, be effaced in the course of a few years.

The church is in the shape of a cross; and at the end of each of the

transepts, is a rich altar, with statuary, in the style of art usual

about a century ago. The pews--made of dark mahogany or walnut tree,

much after the English fashion, but lower and more tasteful--are placed

on each side of the nave, or entering; with ample space between them.

They are exclusively appropriated to the tenants of the monastery. At

the end of the nave, you look to the left, opposite--and observe, placed

in a recess--a pulpit, which, from top to bottom, is completely covered

with gold. And yet, there is nothing gaudy or tasteless, or glaringly

obtrusive, in this extraordinary clerical rostrum. The whole is in the

most perfect taste; and perhaps more judgment was required to manage

such an ornament, or appendage--consistently with the splendid style

of decoration exacted by the founder, for it was expressly the Prelate

Dietmayr's wish that it should be so adorned,--than may on first

consideration be supposed. In fact, the whole church is in a blaze

of gold; and I was told that the gilding alone cost upward of ninety

thousand florins. Upon the whole, I understood that the church of this

monastery was considered as the most beautiful in Austria; and I can

easily believe it to be so.

THROUGH THE TYROL[23]

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

I left this most pleasing of the Italian cities (Venice), and took the

road for the Tyrol. We passed through a level fertile country, formerly

the territory of Venice, watered by the Piave, which ran blood in one of

Bonaparte's battles. At evening we arrived at Ceneda, where our Italian

poet Da Ponte[24] was born, situated just at the base of the Alps, the

rocky peaks and irregular spires of which, beautifully green with the

showery season, rose in the background. Ceneda seems to have something

of German cleanliness about it, and the floors of a very comfortable inn

at which we stopt were of wood, the first we had seen in Italy, tho'

common throughout Tyrol and the rest of Germany. A troop of barelegged

boys, just broke loose from school, whooping and swinging their books

and slates in the air, passed under my window.

On leaving Ceneda, we entered a pass in the mountains, the gorge of

which was occupied by the ancient town of Serravalle, resting on

arcades, the architecture of which denoted that it was built during the

Middle Ages. Near it I remarked an old castle, which formerly commanded

the pass, one of the finest ruins of the kind I had ever seen. It had a

considerable extent of battlemented wall in perfect preservation, and

both that and its circular tower were so luxuriantly loaded with ivy

that they seemed almost to have been cut out of the living verdure.

As we proceeded we became aware how worthy this region was to be the

birthplace of a poet.

A rapid stream, a branch of the Piave, tinged of a light and somewhat

turbid blue by the soil of the mountains, came tumbling and roaring

down the narrow valley; perpendicular precipices rose on each side; and

beyond, the gigantic brotherhood of the Alps, in two long files of steep

pointed summits, divided by deep ravines, stretched away in the sunshine

to the northeast. In the face of one of the precipices by the way-side,

a marble slab is fixt, informing the traveler that the road was opened

by the late Emperor of Germany in the year of 1830. We followed this

romantic valley for a considerable distance, passing several little blue

lakes lying in their granite basins, one of which is called the "Lago

Morto" or Dead Lake, from having no outlet for its waters.

At length we began to ascend, by a winding road, the steep sides of the

Alps--the prospect enlarging as we went, the mountain summits rising to

sight around us, one behind another, some of them white with snow, over

which the wind blew with a wintry keenness--deep valleys opening

below us, and gulfs yawning between rocks over which old bridges were

thrown--and solemn fir forests clothing the broad declivities. The

farm-houses placed on these heights, instead of being of brick or stone,

as in the plains and valleys below, were principally built of wood;

the second story, which served for a barn, being encircled by a long

gallery, and covered with a projecting roof of plank held down with

large stones.

We stopt at Venas, a wretched place with a wretched inn, the hostess

of which showed us a chin swollen with the goitre, and ushered us into

dirty comfortless rooms where we passed the night. When we awoke the

rain was beating against the windows, and, on looking out, the forest

and sides of the neighboring mountains, at a little height above us,

appeared hoary with snow. We set out in the rain, but had not proceeded

far before we heard the sleet striking against the windows of the

carriage, and soon came to where the snow covered the ground to the

depth of one or two inches.

Continuing to ascend, we passed out of Italy and entered the Tyrol. The

storm had ceased before we went through the first Tyrolese village, and

we could not help being struck with the change in the appearance of the

inhabitants--the different costume, the less erect figures, the awkward

gait, the lighter complexions, the neatly-kept inhabitations, and the

absence of beggars. As we advanced, the clouds began to roll off from

the landscape, disclosing here and there, through openings in their

broad skirts as they swept along, glimpses of the profound valleys below

us, and of the white sides and summits of mountains in the mid-sky

above. At length the sun appeared, and revealed a prospect of such

wildness, grandeur, and splendor as I have never before seen.

Lofty peaks of the most fantastic shapes, with deep clefts between,

sharp needles of rock, and overhanging crags, infinite in multitude,

shot up everywhere around us, glistening in the new-fallen snow, with

thin wreaths of mist creeping along their sides. At intervals, swollen

torrents, looking at a distance like long trains of foam, came

thundering down the mountains, and crossing the road, plunged into the

verdant valleys which winded beneath. Beside the highway were fields

of young grain, prest to the ground with the snow; and in the meadows,

ranunculuses of the size of roses, large yellow violets, and a thousand

other Alpine flowers of the most brilliant hues, were peeping through

their white covering.

We stopt to breakfast at a place called Landro, a solitary inn, in the

midst of this grand scenery, with a little chapel beside it. The water

from the dissolving snow was dropping merrily from the roof in a bright

June sun. We needed not to be told that we were in Germany, for we saw

it plainly enough in the nicely-washed floor of the apartment into which

we were shown, in the neat cupboard with the old prayer-book lying upon

it, and in the general appearance of housewifery; to say nothing of the

evidence we had in the beer and tobacco-smoke of the travelers' room,

and the guttural dialect and quiet tones of the guests.

From Landro we descended gradually into the beautiful valleys of the

Tyrol, leaving the snow behind, tho' the white peaks of the mountains

were continually in sight. At Bruneck, in an inn resplendent with

neatness--we had the first specimen of a German bed. It is narrow and

short, and made so high at the head, by a number of huge square bolsters

and pillows, that you rather sit than lie. The principal covering is a

bag of down, very properly denominated the upper bed, and between this

and the feather-bed below, the traveler is expected to pass a night. An

asthmatic patient on a cold winter night might perhaps find such a couch

tolerably comfortable, if he could prevent the narrow covering from

slipping off on one side or the other.

The next day we were afforded an opportunity of observing more closely

the inhabitants of this singular region, by a festival, or holiday of

some sort, which brought them into the roads in great numbers, arrayed

in their best dresses--the men in short jackets and small-clothes, with

broad gay-colored suspenders over their waistcoats, and leathern belts

ornamented with gold or silver leaf--the women in short petticoats

composed of horizontal bands of different colors--and both sexes, for

the most part, wearing broad-brimmed hats with hemispherical crowns,

tho' there was a sugar-loaf variety much affected by the men, adorned

with a band of lace and sometimes a knot of flowers. They are a robust,

healthy-looking race, tho' they have an awkward stoop in the shoulders.

But what struck me most forcibly was the devotional habits of the

people.

The Tyrolese might be cited as an illustration of the remark, that

mountaineers are more habitually and profoundly religious than others.

Persons of all sexes, young and old, whom we meet in the road, were

repeating their prayers audibly. We passed a troop of old women, all in

broad-brimmed hats and short gray petticoats, carrying long staves, one

of whom held a bead-roll and gave out the prayers, to which the others

made the responses in chorus. They looked at us so solemnly from under

their broad brims, and marched along with so grave and deliberate a

pace, that I could hardly help fancying that the wicked Austrians had

caught a dozen elders of the respectable Society of Friends, and put

them in petticoats to punish them for their heresy. We afterward saw

persons going to the labors of the day, or returning, telling their

rosaries and saying their prayers as they went, as if their devotions

had been their favorite amusement. At regular intervals of about half a

mile, we saw wooden crucifixes erected by the way-side, covered from the

weather with little sheds, bearing the image of the Savior, crowned with

thorns and frightfully dashed with streaks and drops of red paint, to

represent the blood that flowed from his wounds. The outer walls of the

better kind of houses were ornamented with paintings in fresco, and the

subjects of these were mostly sacred, such as the Virgin and Child, the

Crucifixion, and the Ascension. The number of houses of worship was

surprising; I do not mean spacious or stately churches such as we meet

with in Italy, but most commonly little chapels dispersed so as best to

accommodate the population. Of these the smallest neighborhood has one

for the morning devotions of its inhabitants, and even the solitary inn

has its little consecrated building with its miniature spire, for the

convenience of pious wayfarers.

At Sterzing, a little village beautifully situated at the base of the

mountain called the Brenner, and containing, as I should judge, not more

than two or three thousand inhabitants, we counted seven churches and

chapels within the compass of a square mile. The observances of the

Roman Catholic church are nowhere more rigidly complied with than in the

Tyrol. When we stopt at Bruneck on Friday evening, I happened to drop

a word about a little meat for dinner in a conversation with the

spruce-looking landlady, who appeared so shocked that I gave up the

point, on the promise of some excellent and remarkably well-flavored

trout from the stream that flowed through the village--a promise that

was literally fulfilled....

We descended the Brenner on the 28th of June in a snow-storm, the wind

whirling the light flakes in the air as it does with us in winter. It

changed to rain, however, as we approached the beautiful and picturesque

valley watered by the river Inn, on the banks of which stands the fine

old town of Innsbruck, the capital of the Tyrol. Here we visited the

Church of the Holy Cross, in which is the bronze tomb of Maxmilian I.

and twenty or thirty bronze statues ranged on each side of the nave,

representing fierce warrior-chiefs, and gowned prelates, and stately

damsels of the middle ages. These are all curious for the costume; the

warriors are cased in various kinds of ancient armor, and brandish

various ancient weapons, and the robes of the females are flowing and by

no means ungraceful. Almost every one of the statues has its hands and

fingers in some constrained and awkward position; as if the artist knew

as little what to do with them as some awkward and bashful people know

what to do with their own. Such a crowd of figures in that ancient garb,

occupying the floor in the midst of the living worshipers of the present

day, has an effect which at first is startling.

From Innsbruck we climbed and crossed another mountain-ridge, scarcely

less wild and majestic in its scenery than those we had left behind. On

descending, we observed that the crucifixes had disappeared from the

roads, and the broad-brimmed and sugar-loaf hats from the heads of the

peasantry; the men wore hats contracted in the middle of the crown like

an hour-glass, and the women caps edged with a broad band of black fur,

the frescoes on the outside of the houses became less frequent; in short

it was apparent that we had entered a different region, even if the

custom-house and police officers on the frontier had not signified to us

that we were now in the kingdom of Bavaria. We passed through extensive

forests of fir, here and there checkered with farms, and finally came

to the broad elevated plain bathed by the Isar, in which Munich is

situated.

IN THE DOLOMITES[25]

BY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES

The Dolomites are part of the Southern Tyrol. One portion is Italian,

one portion is Austrian, and the rivalry of the two nations is keen.

Under a warm summer sun, the quaint little villages seem half asleep,

and the inhabitants appear to drift dreamily through life. Yet this is

more apparent than real for, in many respects, the people here are busy

in their own way.

Crossing this region are many mountain ranges of limestone structure,

which by water, weather and other causes have been worn away into the

most fantastic fissures and clefts and the most picturesque peaks and

pinnacles. A very great charm is their curious coloring, often of great

beauty. The region of the Dolomites is a great contrast to the rest of

the Alps. Its characteristics do not make the same appeal to all. This

is largely not only a matter of individual taste and temperament but

also of one's mental or spiritual constitution, for the picture with its

setting depends as much upon what it suggests as upon its constituent

parts. The Dolomites suggest Italy in the contour of the country, in the

grace of the inhabitants and in the colors which make the scene one of

rich magnificence. The great artist Titian was born here[26] and he

probably learned much from his observation of his native place.

Many of the mountain ranges are of the usual gray but such is the

atmospheric condition that they seem to reflect the rosy rays of the

setting sun or the purplish haze that often is found. The peaks are not

great peaks in the sense that we speak of Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau,

the Matterhorn or Monte Rosa. They impress one more as pictures with

wonderful lights and strange grouping....

If the reader intends some day to visit the Dolomites he is advised to

enter from the north. Salzburg and the Salzkammergut, so much frequented

by the Emperor Francis Joseph and the Austrian nobility, make a good

introduction. Then by way of Innsbruck, one of the gems of the Tyrol,

Toblach is reached, where the driving tour may properly begin. Toblach

is a lovely place, if one stops long enough to see it and enjoy it! It

is not very far to Cortina, the center of this beautiful region. The way

there is very lovely. And driving is in keeping with the spirit of the

place. It almost seems profane to rush through in a motor, as some do,

for not only is it impossible to appreciate the scenery, but also it is

out of harmony with the peace and quiet which reign.

For a while there is traversed a little valley quite embowered in green,

but presently this abruptly leads into a wild gorge, with jagged peaks

on every side. Soon Monte Cristallo appears. This is the most striking

of all the Dolomite peaks. At a tiny village, called Schluderbach, the

road forks, that to the right going directly to Cortina, the other to

the left proceeding by way of Lake Misurina. Lake Misurina is a pretty

stretch of water, pale green in color and at an altitude of about 5,800

feet. On its shores are two very attractive and well-kept hotels, with

charming walks, from which one looks on a splendid panorama, picturesque

in extreme.

From Misurina, the road again ascends, becoming very narrow and very

steep. The top is called "Passo Tre Croci," the Pass of the Three

Crosses. The outlook is very lovely, with the three serrated peaks Monte

Cristallo, Monte Piano and Monte Tofana, standing as guardian sentinels

over the little valley of Ampezzo far below, where lies Cortina

sleeping in the sun, while in the distance shine the snow fields of the

Marmolata. Just as steeply as it climbed up one side, the road descends

on the other side, to Cortina. This place is the capital of the valley

and altogether lovely; beautiful in its woods and meadows, beautiful in

its mountain views, beautiful in the town itself and beautiful in its

people.

Cortina has much to boast of--an ancient church and some old houses; an

industrial school in which the villagers are taught the most delicate

and artistic (and withal comparatively cheap) filigree mosaic work; and

a community of people, handsome in face and figure and possessing

a carriage and refinement superior to any seen elsewhere among the

mountaineers or peasantry. In the neighborhood of Cortina are many

excursions and also extended rock climbs, but those who go there in the

summer will be more apt to linger lazily amid the cool shade of the

trees than to brave the hot Italian sun on the peaks!

After a few days' stay at Cortina, the drive is continued. There are

many ways out. You can return by a new route to Toblach and the Upper

Tyrol. Or you can go south to Belluno and thence to northern Italy. Or

a third way and perhaps the finest tour of all is that over a series of

magnificent mountain passes to Botzen. This last crosses the Ampezzo

Valley and then begins the ascent of Monte Tofana, which here is

beautifully wooded. Steepness seems characteristic of this region!

It is hard to imagine a carriage climbing a road any steeper than that

one on the slopes of Monte Tofana! If narrow and steep is the way and

hard and toilsome the climb this Monte Tofana route most certainly

repays one when it reaches the Falzarego Pass (6,945 feet high) which is

certainly an earthly Paradise! One can not aptly describe a view like

that! It is all a picture; as if every part was purposely what it is,

here rocky, here green, here snowy, with summits, valleys, ravines and

villages and even a partly ruined castle to form a whole such as an

artist or poet would revel in.

After a pause on the summit of the Pass, again comes a steep descent,

as the drive is resumed, which continues to Andraz, where dejeuner

is taken. One can not live on air or scenery and even the most

indefatigable sightseer sometimes turns with longing to luncheon! Then

one returns with added zest to the feast of eye and soul. And at Andraz,

as one lingers awhile after luncheon on that high mountain terrace,

a lovelier scene than that spread before the eye could scarcely be

imagined. Indeed it is a "dream-scene," and as seen in the sleepy

stillness of the early afternoon, when the shadows are already playing

with the lights and gradually overcoming them, it seems like fancy, not

reality.

Again the carriage is taken and soon the road is climbing once more,

this time giving fine views of the Sella group of peaks and going

through a series of picturesque valleys. At Arabba (5,255 feet), a

pretty little village, the final ascent to Pordoi begins. The

scenery undergoes a change. It becomes more wild and barren and the

characteristics of the high Alps appear. The hour begins to be late and

it becomes cold, but the light still lingers as the carriage reaches the

summit of the pass and stops at the new Hotel Pordoi (7,020 feet high)

facing the weird, fantastic shapes of the Rosengarten and the Langkofel,

on the one side and on the other the snowy Marmolata and the summits

about Cortina....

The following morning the start is made for Botzen. The way steadily

descends for hours, past the pretty hamlets of Canazei, Campitello and

Vigo di Fassa, surrounded by an imposing array of Dolomite peaks. After

crossing the Karer Pass the scenery becomes much more soft and pastoral.

Below the pass, most beautifully situated is a little green lake called

the Karer-See....

At Botzen the drive through the Dolomites ends. At best it gives but

a glimpse of this delightful region! That glimpse leaves a lasting

impression, not of snowy summits and glistening glaciers, but of

wonderful rocks and more wonderful coloring and of great peaks of

fantastic form, set in a garden spot of green. And Botzen is a fitting

terminus. It dates far back to the Middle Ages. It boasts of churches,

houses and public buildings of artistic merit and architectural beauty

and over all there lingers an atmosphere of rest and refinement,

refreshing to see, where there might have been the noisy bustle and

hopeless vulgarity of so many places similarly situated.

There is plenty going on, nevertheless, for Botzen is quite a little

commercial center in its own way, but with it there is this charm

of dignified repose. One wanders through the town under the cool

colonnades, strolls into some ancient cloisters, kneels for a moment in

some finely carved church and then goes out again to the open, to see

far above the little city that beautiful background of the Dolomite

peaks, dominated by the wonderfully impressive and fantastic Rosengarten

range, golden red in the western sun. With such a view experience may

well lapse into memory, to linger on so long as the mind possesses the

power of recalling the past.

CORTINA[27]

BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS

Situate on the left bank of the Boita, which here runs nearly due north

and south, with the Tre Croci pass opening away behind the town to the

east, and the Tre Sassi Pass widening before it to the west, Cortina

lies in a comparatively open space between four great mountains, and is

therefore less liable to danger from bergfalls than any other village

not only in the Val d'Ampezo but in the whole adjacent district. For

the same reason, it is cooler in summer than either Caprile, Agordo,

Primiero, or Predazzo; all of which, tho' more central as stopping

places, and in many respects more convenient, are yet somewhat too

closely hemmed in by surrounding heights. The climate of Cortina is

temperate throughout the year. Ball gives the village an elevation of

4,048 feet above the level of the sea; and one of the parish priests--an

intelligent old man who has devoted many years of his life to collecting

the flora of the Ampezzo--assured me that he had never known the

thermometer drop so low as fifteen degrees[28] of frost in even the

coldest winters. The soil, for all this, has a bleak and barren look;

the maize (here called "grano Turco") is cultivated, but does not

flourish; and the vine is unknown. But then agriculture is not a

specialty of the Ampezzo Thal, and the wealth of Cortina is derived

essentially from its pasture-lands and forests.

These last, in consequence of the increased and increasing value of

timber, have been lavishly cut down of late years by the Commune--too

probably at the expense of the future interests of Cortina. For the

present, however, every inn, homestead, and public building bespeaks

prosperity. The inhabitants are well-fed and well-drest. Their fairs

and festivals are the most considerable in all the South Eastern Tyrol;

their principal church is the largest this side of St. Ulrich; and their

new Gothic Campanile, 250 feet high, might suitably adorn the piazza of

such cities as Bergamo or Belluno.

The village contains about 700 souls, but the population of the Commune

numbers over 2,500. Of these, the greater part, old and young, rich and

poor, men, women, and children, are engaged in the timber trade. Some

cut the wood; some transport it. The wealthy convey it on trucks drawn

by fine horses which, however, are cruelly overworked. The poor harness

themselves six or eight in a team, men, women, and boys together, and

so, under the burning summer sun, drag loads that look as if they might

be too much for an elephant....

To ascend the Campanile and get the near view over the village, was

obviously one of the first duties of a visitor; so, finding the door

open and the old bellringer inside, we mounted laboriously to the

top--nearly a hundred feet higher than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Standing here upon the outer gallery above the level of the great

bells, we had the village and valley at our feet. The panorama, tho' it

included little which we had not seen already, was fine all around, and

served to impress the mainland marks upon our memory. The Ampezzo Thal

opened away to north and south, and the twin passes of the Tre Croci and

Tre Sassi intersected it to east and west. When we had fixt in our minds

the fact that Landro and Bruneck lay out to the north, and Perarolo to

the south; that Auronzo was to be found somewhere on the other side of

the Tre Croci; and that to arrive at Caprile it was necessary to go over

the Tre Sassi, we had gained something in the way of definite topography.

The Marmolata and Civetta, as we knew by our maps, were on the side

of Caprile; and the Marmarole on the side of Auronzo. The Pelmo, left

behind yesterday, was peeping even now above the ridge of the Rochetta;

and a group of fantastic rocks, so like the towers and bastions of a

ruined castle that we took them at first sight for the remains of some

medieval stronghold, marked the summit of the Tre Sassi to the west.

"But what mountain is that far away to the south?" we asked, pointing in

the direction of Perarolo.

"Which mountain, Signora?"

"That one yonder, like a cathedral front with two towers."

The old bellringer shaded his eyes with one trembling hand, and peered

down the valley.

"Eh," he said, "it is some mountain on the Italian side."

"But what is it called?"

"Eh," he repeated, with a puzzled look, "who knows? I don't know that I

ever noticed it before."

Now it was a very singular mountain--one of the most singular and the

most striking that we saw throughout the tour. It was exactly like

the front of Notre Dame, with one slender aiguille, like a flagstaff,

shooting up from the top of one of its battlemented towers. It was

conspicuous from most points on the left bank of the Boita; but the best

view, as I soon after discovered, was from the rising ground behind

Cortina, going up through the fields in the direction of the Begontina

torrent.

To this spot we returned again and again, fascinated as much, perhaps,

by the mystery in which it was enveloped, as by the majestic outline of

this unknown mountain, to which, for want of a better, we gave the name

of Notre Dame. For the old bellringer was not alone in his ignorance.

Ask whom we would, we invariably received the same vague reply--it was

a mountain "on the Italian side." They knew no more; and some, like our

friend of the Campanile, had evidently "not noticed it before."

ALPINE RESORTS

THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS[29]

BY FREDERIC HARRISON

Once more--perhaps for the last time--I listen to the unnumbered

tinkling of the cow-bells on the slopes--"the sweet bells of the

sauntering herd"--to the music of the cicadas in the sunshine, and the

shouts of the neat herdlads, echoing back from Alp to Alp. I hear the

bubbling of the mountain rill, I watch the emerald moss of the pastures

gleaming in the light, and now and then the soft white mist creeping

along the glen, as our poet says, "puts forth an arm and creeps from

pine to pine." And see, the wild flowers, even in this waning season of

the year, the delicate lilac of the dear autumn crocus, which seems to

start up elf-like out of the lush grass, the coral beads of the rowan,

and the beech-trees just begun to wear their autumn jewelry of old gold.

As I stroll about these hills, more leisurely, more thoughtfully than I

used to do of old in my hot mountaineering days, I have tried to think

out what it is that makes the Alpine landscape so marvelous a tonic to

the spirit--what is the special charm of it to those who have once felt

all its inexhaustible magic. Other lands have rare beauties, wonders of

their own, sights to live in the memory for ever.

In France, in Italy, in Spain, in Greece and in Turkey, I hold in memory

many a superb landscape. From boyhood upward I thirsted for all kinds of

Nature's gifts, whether by sea, or by river, lake, mountain, or forest.

For sixty years at least I have roved about the white cliffs, the moors,

the riversides, lakes, and pastures of our own islands from Penzance to

Cape Wrath, from Beachy Head to the Shetlands. I love them all. But

they can not touch me, as do the Alps, with the sense at once of

inexhaustible loveliness and of a sort of conscious sympathy with every

fiber of man's heart and brain. Why then is this so?

I find it in the immense range of the moods in which Nature is seen

in the Alps, as least by those who have fully absorbed all the forms,

sights, sounds, wonders, and adventures they offer. An hour's walk will

show them all in profound contrast and yet in exquisite harmony. The

Alps form a book of Nature as wide and as mysterious as Life.

Earth has no scenes of placid fruitfulness more balmy than the banks of

one of the larger lakes, crowded with vineyards, orchards, groves and

pastures, down to the edge of its watery mirror, wherein, beside a

semi-tropical vegetation, we see the image of some medieval castle, of

some historic tower, and thence the eye strays up to sunless gorges,

swept with avalanches, and steaming with feathery cascades; and higher

yet one sees against the skyline ranges of terrific crags, girt with

glaciers, and so often wreathed in storm clouds.

All that Earth has of most sweet, softest, easiest, most suggestive of

langor and love, of fertility and abundance--here is seen in one vision

beside all that Nature has most hard, most cruel, most unkind to

Man--where life is one long weary battle with a frost bitten soil, and

every peasant's hut has been built up stone by stone, and log by log,

with sweat and groans, and wrecked hopes. In a few hours one may pass

from an enchanted garden, where every sense is satiated, and every

flower and leaf and gleam of light is intoxication, up into a wilderness

of difficult crags and yawning glaciers, which men can reach only by

hard-earned skill, tough muscle and iron nerves....

The Alps are international, European, Humanitarian. Four written

languages are spoken in their valleys, and ten times as many local

dialects. The Alps are not especially Swiss--I used to think they were

English--they belong equally to four nations of Europe; they are the

sanatorium and the diversorium of the civilized world, the refuge, the

asylum, the second home of men and women famous throughout the centuries

for arts, literature, thought, religion. The poet, the philosopher,

the dreamer, the patriot, the exile, the bereaved, the reformer, the

prophet, the hero--have all found in the Alps a haven of rest, a new

home where the wicked cease from troubling, where men need neither fear

nor suffer. The happy and the thoughtless, the thinker and the sick--are

alike at home here. The patriot exile inscribed on his house on Lake

Leman--"Every land is fatherland to the brave man." What he might have

written is--"This land is fatherland to all men." To young and old,

to strong and weak, to wise and foolish alike, the Alps are a second

fatherland.

INTERLAKEN AND THE JUNGFRAU[30]

B.T. ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES

It is hard to find a prettier spot than Interlaken. Situated between two

lovely lakes, surrounded by wooded heights, and lying but a few miles

from the snowy Jungfrau, it is like a jewel richly set. From Lucerne

over the Brunig, from Meiringen over the Grimsel come the travelers,

passing on their way the Lake of Brienz, with the waterfall of the

Giessbach, on its southern side.

From Berne over Lake Thun, from the Rhone Valley over the Gemmi or

through the Simmenthal come the tourists, seeing as they come the white

peaks of the Oberland. And Interlaken welcomes them all, and rests them

for their closer relations with the High Alps by trips to the region

of the Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, and Muerren, and the great mountain

plateaux looking down upon them. Interlaken is not a climbing center.

Consequently mountaineering is little in evidence, conversation about

ascents is seldom heard, and ice-axes, ropes, and nailed boots are seen

more often in shop windows than in the streets.

Interlaken is not like some other Swiss towns. Berne, Geneva, Zurich,

and Lucerne are places possessing notable churches, museums, and

monuments of the past, having a social life of their own and being

distinguished in some special way, as centers of culture and education.

Interlaken, however, has little life apart from that made by the throngs

of visitors who gather here in the summer. There is little to see except

a group of old monastic buildings, and in Unterseen and elsewhere some

fine old carved chalets, but none of these receives much attention.

The attraction, on what one may call the natural side, centers in the

softly beautiful panorama of woods and meadows, green hills and snow

peaks which opens to the eye, and on the social side in the busy little

promenade and park of the Hoeheweg, bordered with hotels, shops, and

gardens. Here is ever a changing picture in the height of the season,

in fact, quite kaleidoscopic as railways and steamboats at each end of

Interlaken send their passengers to mingle in the passing crowd.

All "sorts and conditions of men" are here, and representatives of

antagonistic nations meet in friendly intercourse.

On the hotel terraces and in the little cafes and tea rooms, one hears

a babel of voices, every nation of Europe seeming to speak in its own

native tongue. Life goes easily. There is a gaiety in the little town

that is infectious. It is a sort of busy idleness. "To trip or not to

trip" is the question. If the affirmative, then a rush to the mountain

trains and comfortable cabs. If the negative, then a turning to the

shops, where pretty things worthy of Paris or London are seen side

by side with Swiss carvings and Swiss embroidery and many little

superficial souvenirs. As the contents of the shops are exhibited in the

windows, so the character of the visitors is shown by the crowds, and

the life of the place is seen in the constant ebb and flow of the people

on the Hoeheweg.

Interlaken is undoubtedly a tourist center, for few trips to Switzerland

overlook or omit this delightful spot. Thousands come here, who never go

any nearer the High Alps. They are quite content to sit on the benches

of the Hoeheweg, listening to the music and enjoying the view. There is a

casino, most artistically planned, with plashing fountains, shady paths,

and wonderful flowerbeds. Here many persons pass the day, and, contrary

to what one might expect, it is quiet and restful, lounging in that

parklike garden.

For, notwithstanding "the madding crowd," Interlaken is a little gem of

a mountain town, with an undertone of repose and nobility, as if the

spirit of the Alps asserted herself, reigning, as one might say, for

all not ruling. And always smiling at the people, as it were, is the

majestic Jungfrau, ever seeming close at hand, altho' eight miles

away....

The pleasures of this little Swiss resort are exhaustless. The wooded

hills of the Rugen give innumerable walks amid beautiful forests, with

all their wealth of pine and larch and hardwood, their moss-clad rocks

and waving ferns. In that pleasant shade hours may be passed close

to nature. The lakes not only offer delightful water trips, but also

charming excursions along the wooded shores, sometimes high above

the lakes, giving varying views of great beauty. While, ever as with

beckoning fingers, the great peaks, snow-capped or rock-summitted, call

one across the verdant meadows into the higher valleys of Kienthal,

Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwaid, and Kandersteg, to the terraced heights

above or up amid the great wild passes.

Interlaken is, above all, a garden of green. Perhaps the unusual amount

of rain which falls to the lot of this valley accounts for its verdure.

In any event, park, woods, meadow, garden, even the mountain sides are

green, a vari-colored green, and interspersed with an abundance

of flowers. Nowhere is the eye offended by anything inartistic or

unpicturesque, but, on the contrary, the charm is so comprehensive that

the visitor looks from place to place, from this bit to that bit, and

ever sees new beauty.

To complete all, to accentuate in the minds of some this impression of

green, is the majestic Jungfrau. Other views may be grander and more

magnificent, but no view of the Jungfrau can compare in loveliness to

that from Interlaken. A great white glistening mass, far up above green

meadows, green forests, and green mountains, rises this peak, a shining

summit of white. Fitly named the Virgin, the Jungfrau gives her

benediction to Interlaken, serenely smiling at the valley and at the

town lying so quietly at her feet--the Jungfrau crowned with snow,

Interlaken drest in green!

In the golden glory of the sun, in the silver shimmer of the moon, the

Jungfrau beckons, the Jungfrau calls! "Come," she seems to say, "come

nearer! Come up to the heights! Come close to the running waters!

Come." And that invitation falls on no unwilling ears, but in to the

Grindelwald and to the Lauterbrunnen and up to Muerren go those who love

the majestic Jungfrau! What a wonderful trip this is! It may shatter

some ideals in being taken to such a height in a railway train, but even

against one's convictions as to the proper way of seeing a mountain,

when all has been said, the fact remains that this trip is wonderful

beyond words. There is a strangeness in taking a train which leaves a

garden of green in the early morning and in a few hours later, after

valley and pass and tunnel, puts one out on snow fields over 11,000 feet

above the sea, where are seen vast stretches of white, almost level with

the summit of the Jungfrau close at hand, and below, stretching for

miles, on the one side the great Aletsch Glacier, and on the other side

the green valleys enclosed by the everlasting hills!

The route is by way of Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, and the Scheidegg, and

after skirting the Eiger Glacier going by tunnel into the very bowels of

the mountain. At Eigerwand, Rotstock, and Eismeer are stations, great

galleries blasted out of the rock, with corridors leading to openings

from which one has marvelous views.[31] Eismeer looks directly upon the

huge sea of snow and ice, with immense masses of dazzling white so close

as to make one reel with awe and astonishment. In fact, this view is

really oppressive in its wild magnificence, so near and so grand is it.

The Jungfraujoch is different. One is out in the open, so to speak;

one walks over that vast plateau of snow over 11,000 feet high in the

glorious sunlight, above most of the nearer peaks and looking down at a

beautiful panorama. On one side of this plateau is the Jungfrau, on the

other the Moench, either of which can be climbed from here in about three

hours.

Yet the eye lingers longer in the direction of the Aletsch Glacier than

anywhere else, this frozen river running for miles and turning to the

right at the little green basin of water full of pieces of floating ice,

called the Marjelen Lake, or See, at the foot of the Eggishorn, which is

unique and lovely. Long ago it was formed in this corner of the glacier,

and its blue waters are really melted snow, over which float icebergs

shining in the sun. In such a position the lake underlaps the glacier

for quite a distance, forming a low vaulted cavern in the ice. Every now

and then one of these little bergs overbalances itself and turns over,

the upper side then being a deep blue, and the lower side, which was

formerly above, being a pure white.

Again turning toward the green valleys, one with the eye of an artist,

who can perceive and differentiate varying shades of color, can not but

admit that the Bernese Oberland is "par excellence" first. Even south of

the Alps the verdure does not excel or even equal that to be seen here.

There is something incomparably lovely about the Oberland valleys. It

is indescribable, indefinable, for when one has exhausted the most

extravagant terms of description, he feels that he has failed to picture

the scene as he desired. Yet if one word should be chosen to convey the

impression which the Oberland makes, the word would be "color." For

whether one regards the snow summits as setting off the valleys, or the

green meadows as setting off the peaks, it matters not, for the secret

of their beauty lies in the richness and variety of the exquisite

coloring wherein many wonderful shades of green predominate.

THE ALTDORF OF WILLIAM TELL[32]

BY W.D. M'CRACKAN

Let it be said at once that, altho' the name of Altdorf is indissolubly

linked with that of William Tell, the place arouses an interest which

does not at all depend upon its associations with the famous archer.

From the very first it gives one the impression of possessing a distinct

personality, of ringing, as it were, to a note never heard before, and

thus challenging attention to its peculiarities.

As you approach Altdorf from Flueelen, on the Lake of Lucerne, by the

long white road, the first houses you reach are large structures of the

conventional village type, plain, but evidently the homes of well-to-do

people, and some even adorned with family coats-of-arms. In fact, this

street is dedicated to the aristocracy, and formerly went by the name

of the Herrengasse, the "Lane of the Lords." Beyond these fashionable

houses is an open square, upon which faces a cosy inn--named, of course,

after William Tell; and off on one side the large parish church, built

in cheap baroco style, but containing a few objects of interest....

There is a good deal of sight-seeing to be done in Altdorf, for so small

a place. In the town hall are shown the tattered flags carried by the

warriors of Uri in the early battles of the Confederation, the mace and

sword of state which are borne by the beadles to the Landsgemeinde. In

a somewhat inaccessible corner, a few houses off, the beginnings of a

museum have been made. Here is another portrait of interest--that of the

giant Puentener, a mercenary whose valor made him the terror of the enemy

in the battle of Marignano, in 1515; so that when he was finally killed,

they avenged themselves, according to a writing beneath the picture, by

using his fat to smear their weapons, and by feeding their horses with

oats from his carcass. Just outside the village stands the arsenal,

whence, they say, old armor was taken and turned into shovels, when the

St. Gothard Railroad was building, so poor and ignorant were the people.

If you are of the sterner sex, you can also penetrate into the Capuchin

Monastery, and enter the gardens, where the terraces that rise behind

the buildings are almost Italian in appearance, festooned with vines and

radiant with roses. Not that the fame of this institution rests on such

trivial matters, however. The brothers boast of two things: theirs is

the oldest branch of the order in Switzerland, dating from 1581, and

they carry on in it the somewhat unappetizing industry of cultivating

snails for the gourmands of foreign countries. Above the Capuchins is

the famous Bannwald, mentioned by Schiller--a tract of forest on the

mountain-slope, in which no one is allowed to fell trees, because it

protects the village from avalanches and rolling stones.

Nothing could be fairer than the outskirts of Altdorf on a May morning.

The valley of the Reuss lies bathed from end to end in a flood of

golden light, shining through an atmosphere of crystal purity. Daisies,

cowslips, and buttercups, the flowers of rural well-being, show through

the rising grass of the fields; along the hedges and crumbling walls

of the lanes peep timid primroses and violets, and in wilder spots the

Alpine gentian, intensely blue. High up, upon the mountains, glows the

indescribable velvet of the slopes, while, higher still, ragged and

vanishing patches of snow proclaim the rapid approach of summer.

After all, the best part of Altdorf, to make an Irish bull, lies outside

of the village. No adequate idea of this strange little community can

be given without referring to the Almend, or village common. Indeed,

as time goes on, one learns to regard this Almend as the complete

expression and final summing up of all that is best in Altdorf, the

reconciliation of all its inconsistencies.

How fine that great pasture beside the River Reus, with its short,

juicy, Alpine grass, in sight of the snow-capped Bristenstock, at one

end of the valley, and of the waters of Lake Lucerne at the other! In

May, the full-grown cattle have already departed for the higher summer

pastures, leaving only the feeble young behind, who are to follow as

soon as they have grown strong enough to bear the fatigues of the

journey. At this time, therefore, the Almend becomes a sort of vision

of youth--of calves, lambs, and foals, guarded by little boys, all

gamboling in the exuberance of early life.

LUCERNE[33]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

A height crowned with embattled ramparts that bristle with loop-holed

turrets; church towers mingling their graceful spires and peaceful

crosses with those warlike edifices; dazzling white villas, planted like

tents under curtains of verdure; tall houses with old red skylights on

the roofs--this is our first glimpse of the Catholic and warlike city of

Lucerne. We seem to be approaching some town of old feudal times that

has been left solitary and forgotten on the mountain side, outside of

the current of modern life.

But when we pass through the station we find ourselves suddenly

transported to the side of the lake, where whole flotillas of large and

small boats lie moored on the blue waters of a large harbor. And along

the banks of this wonderful lake is a whole town of hotels, gay with

many colored flags, their terraces and balconies rising tier above

tier, like the galleries of a grand theater whose scenery is the mighty

Alps....

In summer Lucerne is the Hyde Park of Switzerland. Its quays are

thronged by people of every nation. There you meet pale women from the

lands of snow, and dark women from the lands of the sun; tall, six-foot

English women, and lively, alert, trim Parisian women, with the light

and graceful carriage of a bird on the bough. At certain hours this

promenade on the quays is like a charity fair or a rustic ball--bright

colors and airy draperies everywhere.

Nowhere can the least calm and repose be found but in the old town.

There the gabled houses, with wooden galleries hanging over the waters

of the Reuss, make a charming ancient picture, like a bit of Venice set

down amid the verdant landscape of the valley.

I also discovered on the heights beyond the ramparts a pretty and

peaceful convent of Capuchins, the way to which winds among wild plants,

starry with flowers. It is delicious to go right away, far from the town

swarming and running over with Londoners, Germans, and Americans, and to

find yourself among fragrant hedges, peopled by warblers whom it has

not yet occurred to the hotel-keepers to teach to sing in English. This

sweet path leads without fatigue to the convent of the good fathers.

In a garden flooded with sunshine and balmy with the fragrance of

mignonette and vervain, where broad sunflowers erect their black

discs fringed with gold, two brothers with fan-shaped beards, their

brass-mounted spectacles astride on their flat noses, and arrayed in

green gardening aprons, are plying enormous watering-cans; while, in

the green and cool half-twilight under the shadowy trees, big, rubicund

brothers walk up and down, reading their red-edged breviaries in black

leather bindings.

Happy monks! Not a fraction of a pessimist among them! How well they

understand life! A beautiful convent, beautiful nature, good wine and

good cheer, neither disturbance nor care; neither wife nor children; and

when they leave the world, heaven specially created for them, seraphim

waiting for them with harps of gold, and angels with urns of rose-water

to wash their feet!

Lucerne began as a nest of monks, hidden in an orchard like a nest of

sparrows. The first house of the town was a monastery, erected by the

side of the lake. The nest grew, became a village, then a town, then a

city. The monks of Murbach, to whom the monastery of St. Leger belonged,

had got into debt; this sometimes does happen even to monks. They

sold to King Rudolf all the property they possest at Lucerne and in

Unterwalden; and thus the town passed into the hands of the Hapsburgs.

When the first Cantons, after expelling the Austrian bailiffs, had

declared their independence, Lucerne was still one of Austria's advanced

posts. But its people were daily brought into contact with the shepherds

of the Forest Cantons, who came into the town to supply themselves with

provisions; and they were not long in beginning to ask themselves if

there was any reason why they should not be, as well as their neighbors,

absolutely free. The position of the partizans of Austria soon became so

precarious that they found it safe to leave the town....

The opening of the St. Gothard Railway has given a new impulse to this

cosmopolitan city, which has a great future before it. Already it has

supplanted Interlaken in the estimation of the furbelowed, fashionable

world--the women who come to Switzerland not to see but to be seen.

Lucerne is now the chief summer station of the twenty-two Cantons. And

yet it does not possess many objects of interest. There is the old

bridge on the Reuss, with its ancient paintings; the Church of St.

Leger, with its lateral altars and its Campo Santo, reminding us

of Italian cemeteries; the museum at the Town Hall, with its fine

collection of stained glass; the blood-stained standards from the

Burgundian wars, and the flag in which noble old Gundolfingen, after

charging his fellow-citizens never to elect their magistrates for more

than a year, wrapt himself as in a shroud of glory to die in the fight;

finally, there is the Lion of Lucerne; and that is all.

The most wonderful thing of all is that you are allowed to see this lion

for nothing; for close beside it you are charged a franc for permission

to cast an indifferent glance on some uninteresting excavations, which

date, it is said, from the glacial period. We do not care if they do....

The great quay of Lucerne is delightful; as good as the seashore at

Dieppe or Trouville. Before you, limpid and blue, lies the lake, which

from the character of its shores, at once stern and graceful, is the

finest in Switzerland. In front rises the snow-clad peaks of Uri, to the

left the Rigi, to the right the austere Pilatus, almost always wearing

his high cap of clouds. This beautiful walk on the quay, long and shady

like the avenue of a gentleman's park, is the daily resort, toward four

o'clock, of all the foreigners who are crowded in the hotels or packed

in the boarding-houses. Here are Russian and Polish counts with long

mustaches, and pins set with false brilliants; Englishmen with fishes'

or horses' heads; Englishwomen with the figures of angels or of

giraffes; Parisian women, daintily attired, sprightly, and coquettish;

American women, free in their bearing, and eccentric in their dress, and

their men as stiff as the smoke-pipes of steamboats; German women, with

languishing voices, drooping and pale like willow branches, fair-haired

and blue-eyed, talking in the same breath of Goethe and the price of

sausages, of the moon and their glass of beer, of stars and black

radishes. And here and there are a few little Swiss girls, fresh and

rosy as wood strawberries, smiling darlings like Dresden shepherdesses,

dreaming of scenes of platonic love in a great garden adorned with the

statue of William Tell or General Dufour.

ZURICH[34]

BY W.D. M'CRACKAN

If you arrive in Zurich after dark, and pass along the river-front,

you will think yourself for a moment in Venice. The street lamps glow

responsively across the dark Limmat, or trail their light from the

bridges. In the uncertain darkness, the bare house walls of the farther

side put on the dignity of palaces. There are unsuspected architectural

glories in the Wasserkirche and the Rathhaus, as they stand partly in

the water of the river. And if, at such times, one of the long, narrow

barges of the place passes up stream, the illusion is complete; for, as

the boat cuts at intervals through the glare of gaslight it looks for

all the world like a gondola....

Zurich need not rely upon any fancied resemblance of this sort for a

distinct charm of its own. The situation of the city is essentially

beautiful, reminding one, in a general way, of that of Geneva, Lucerne,

or Thun--at the outlet of a lake, and at the point of issue of a

swift river. Approaching from the lakeside, the twin towers of the

Grossmuenster loom upon the right, capped by ugly rounded tops, like

miters; upon the left, the simple spires of the Fraumuenster and St.

Peter's. A conglomeration of roofs denotes the city houses. On the

water-front, extensive promenades stretch, crescent shaped, from end

to end, cleverly laid out, tho' as yet too new to quite fulfil their

mission of beauty. Some large white buildings form the front line on

the lake--notably the theater, and a few hotels and apartment houses.

Finally, there where the River Limmat leaves the lake, a vista of

bridges open into the heart of the city--a succession of arches and

lines that invite inspection.

Like most progressive cities of Europe, Zurich has outgrown its feudal

accouterments within the last fifty years. It has razed its walls,

converted its bastions into playgrounds, and, pushing out on every side,

has incorporated many neighboring villages, until to-day it contains

more than ninety thousand inhabitants.[35] The pride of modern Zurich is

the Bahnhof-strasse, a long street which leads from the railroad station

to the lake. It is planted with trees, and counts as the one and only

boulevard of the city. Unfortunately, a good view of the distant snow

mountains is very rare from the lake promenade, altho' they appear with

distinctness upon the photographs sold in the shops.

Early every Saturday the peasant women come trooping in, with their

vegetables, fruits, and flowers, to line the Bahnhof-strasse with carts

and baskets. The ladies and kitchen-maids of the city come to buy; but

by noon the market is over. In a jiffy, the street is swept as clean as

a kitchen floor, and the women have turned their backs on Zurich. But

the real center of attraction in Zurich will be found by the traveler in

that quarter where stands the Grossmuenster, the church of which Zwingli

was incumbent for twelve years.

It may well be called the Wittenberg church of Switzerland. The present

building dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries; but tradition

has it that the first minster was founded by Charlemagne. That

ubiquitous emperor certainly manifested great interest in Zurich. He

has been represented no less than three times in various parts of the

building. About midway up one of the towers, his statue appears in

a niche, where pigeons strut and prink their feathers, undisturbed.

Charlemagne is sitting with a mighty two-edged sword upon his knees, and

a gilded crown upon his head; but the figure is badly proportioned, and

the statue is a good-natured, stumpy affair, that makes one smile rather

than admire. The outside of the minster still shows traces of the image

breakers of Zwingli's time, and yet the crumbling north portal remains

beautiful, even in decay. As for the interior, it has an exceedingly

bare and stript appearance; for, altho' there is good, solid stonework

in the walls, the whole has been washed a foolish, Philistine white. The

Romanesque of the architectural is said to be of particular interest to

connoisseurs, and the queer archaic capitals must certainly attract the

notice even of ordinary tourists....

It is also worth while to go to the Helmhaus, and examine the collection

of lake-dwelling remains. In fact, there is a delightful little model of

a lake-dwelling itself, and an appliance to show you how those primitive

people could make holes in their stone implements, before they knew the

use of metals. The ancient guild houses of Zurich are worth a special

study. Take, for instance, that of the "Zimmerleute," or carpenter with

its supporting arches and little peaked tower; or the so-called "Waag,"

with frescoed front; then the great wainscoated and paneled hall of the

"schmieden" (smiths); and the rich Renaissance stonework of the "Maurer"

(masons). These buildings, alas, with the decay of the system which

produced them, have been obliged to put up big signs of Cafe Restaurant

upon their historic facades, like so many vulgar, modern eating-houses.

The Rathhaus, or Town Hall, too, is charming. It stands, like the

Wasserkirche, with one side in the water and the other against the quay.

The style is a sort of reposeful Italian Renaissance, that is florid

only in the best artistic sense. Nor must you miss the so-called

"Rueden," nearby, for its sloping roof and painted walls give it a very

captivating look of alert picturesqueness, and it contains a large

collection of Pestalozzi souvenirs.

Zurich has more than one claim to the world's recognition; but no

department of its active life, perhaps, merits such unstinted praise as

its educational facilities. First and foremost, the University, with

four faculties, modeled upon the German system, but retaining certain

distinctive traits that are essentially Swiss--for instance, the broad

and liberal treatment accorded to women students, who are admitted as

freely as men, and receive the same instruction. A great number of

Russian girls are always to be seen in Zurich, as at other Swiss

universities, working unremittingly to acquire the degrees which

they are denied at home. Not a few American women also have availed

themselves of these facilities, especially for the study of medicine....

Zurich is, at the present time, undoubtedly the most important

commercial city in Switzerland, having distanced both Basel and Geneva

in this direction. The manufacturing of silk, woolen, and linen fabrics

has flourished here since the end of the thirteenth century. In modern

times, however, cotton and machinery have been added as staple articles

of manufacture. Much of the actual weaving is still done in outlying

parts of the Canton, in the very cottages of the peasants, so that

the click of the loom is heard from open windows in every village and

hamlet.

But modern industrial processes are tending continually to drive the

weavers from their homes into great centralized factories, and every

year this inevitable change becomes more apparent. It is certainly

remarkable that Zurich should succeed in turning out cheap and good

machinery, when we remember that every ton of coal and iron has to be

imported, since Switzerland possesses not a single mine, either of the

one or the other.

THE RIGI[36]

BY W.D. M'CRACKAN

If you really want to know how the Swiss Confederation came to be, you

can not do better than take the train to the top of the Rigi. You might

stumble through many a volume, and not learn so thoroughly the essential

causes of this national birth.

Of course, the eye rests first upon the phalanx of snow-crests to the

south, then down upon the lake, lying outstretched like some wriggling

monster, switching its tail, and finally off to the many places where

early Swiss history was made. In point of fact, you are looking at quite

a large slice of Switzerland. Victor Hugo seized the meaning of this

view when he wrote: "It is a serious hour, and full of meditations, when

one has Switzerland thus under the eyes." ...

The physical features of a country have their counterparts in its

political institutions. In Switzerland the great mountain ranges divide

the territory into deep valleys, each of which naturally forms a

political unit--the Commune. Here is a miniature world, concentrated

into a small space, and representing the sum total of life to its

inhabitants. Self-government becomes second nature under these

conditions. A sort of patriarchal democracy is evolved: that is, certain

men and certain families are apt to maintain themselves at the head

of public affairs, but with the consent and cooperation of the whole

population.

There is hardly a spot associated with the rise of the Swiss

Confederation whose position can not be determined from the Rigi. The

two Tell's chapels; the Ruetli; the villages of Schwiz, Altdorf, Brunnen,

Beckenried, Stans, and Sarnen; the battlefields of Morgarten and

Sempach; and on a clear day the ruined castle of Hapsburg itself, lie

within a mighty circle at one's feet.

It was preordained that the three lands of Uri, Schwiz, and Unterwalden

should unite for protection of common interests against the encroachment

of a common enemy--the ambitious house of Hapsburg. The lake formed at

once a bond and a highway between them. On the first day of August,

1291, more than six hundred years ago, a group of unpretentious

patriots, ignored by the great world, signed a document which formed

these lands into a loose Confederation. By this act they laid the

foundation upon which the Swiss state was afterward reared. In their

naive, but prophetic, faith, the contracting parties called this

agreement a perpetual pact; and they set forth, in the Latin, legal

phraseology of the day, that, seeing the malice of the times, they found

it necessary to take an oath to defend one another against outsiders,

and to keep order within their boundaries; at the same time carefully

stating that the object of the league was to maintain lawfully

established conditions.

From small beginnings, the Confederation of Uri, Schwiz, and Unterwalden

grew, by the addition of other communities, until it reached its present

proportions, of twenty-two Cantons, in 1815. Lucerne was the first to

join; then came Zurich, Glarus, Zug, Bern, etc. The early Swiss did not

set up a sovereign republic, in our acceptation of the word, either in

internal or external policy. The class distinctions of the feudal age

continued to exist; and they by no means disputed the supreme rule of

the head of the German Empire over them, but rather gloried in the

protection which this direct dependence afforded them against a

multitude of intermediate, preying nobles.

CHAMOUNI--AN AVALANCHE[37]

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

From Servoz three leagues remain to Chamouni--Mont Blanc was before

us--the Alps, with their innumerable glaciers on high all around,

closing in the complicated windings of the single vale--forests

inexpressibly beautiful, but majestic in their beauty--intermingled

beech and pine, and oak, overshadowed our road, or receded, while lawns

of such verdure as I have never seen before occupied these openings, and

gradually became darker in their recesses. Mont Blanc was before us, but

it was covered with cloud; its base, furrowed with dreadful gaps, was

seen above. Pinnacles of snow intolerably bright, part of the chain

connected with Mont Blanc, shone through the clouds at intervals on

high. I never knew--I never imagined--what mountains were before.

The immensity of these aerial summits excited, when they suddenly burst

upon the sight, a sentiment of ecstatic wonder, not unallied to madness.

And, remember, this was all one scene, it all prest home to our regard

and our imagination. Tho' it embraced a vast extent of space, the snowy

pyramids which shot into the bright blue sky seemed to overhang our

path; the ravine, clothed with gigantic pines, and black with its depth

below, so deep that the very roaring of the untameable Arve, which

rolled through it, could not be heard above--all was as much our own, as

if we had been the creators of such impressions in the minds of others

as now occupied our own. Nature was the poet, whose harmony held our

spirits more breathless than that of the divinest.

As we entered the valley of the Chamouni (which, in fact, may be

considered as a continuation of those which we have followed from

Bonneville and Cluses), clouds hung upon the mountains at the distance

perhaps of 6,000 feet from the earth, but so as effectually to conceal

not only Mont Blanc, but the other "aiguilles," as they call them here,

attached and subordinate to it. We were traveling along the valley, when

suddenly we heard a sound as the burst of smothered thunder rolling

above; yet there was something in the sound that told us it could not

be thunder. Our guide hastily pointed out to us a part of the mountain

opposite, from whence the sound came. It was an avalanche. We saw the

smoke of its path among the rocks, and continued to hear at intervals

the bursting of its fall. It fell on the bed of a torrent, which it

displaced, and presently we saw its tawny-colored waters also spread

themselves over the ravine, which was their couch.

We did not, as we intended, visit the Glacier des Bossons to-day, altho

it descends within a few minutes' walk of the road, wishing to survey it

at least when unfatigued. We saw this glacier, which comes close to the

fertile plain, as we passed. Its surface was broken into a thousand

unaccountable figures; conical and pyramidical crystallizations, more

than fifty feet in height, rise from its surface, and precipices of ice,

of dazzling splendor, overhang the woods and meadows of the vale. This

glacier winds upward from the valley, until it joins the masses of frost

from which it was produced above, winding through its own ravine like a

bright belt flung over the black region of pines.

There is more in all these scenes than mere magnitude of proportion;

there is a majesty of outline; there is an awful grace in the very

colors which invest these wonderful shapes--a charm which is peculiar

to them, quite distinct even from the reality of their unutterable

greatness.

ZERMATT[38]

BY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES

Those who would reach the very heart of the Alps and look upon a scene

of unparalleled grandeur must go into the Valais to Zermatt.

[Illustration: PONTRESINA IN THE ENGADINE]

[Illustration: ST. MORITZ IN THE ENGADINE]

[Illustration: FRIBOURG]

[Illustration: BERNE]

[Illustration: VIVEY ON LAKE GENEVA]

[Illustration: THE TURNHALLE IN ZURICH Courtesy Swiss Federal Railway]

[Illustration: INTERLAKEN]

[Illustration: LUCERNE]

[Illustration: VIADUCTS On the new Loetschberg route to the Simplon

tunnel]

[Illustration: WOLFORT VIADUCT On the Pilatus Railroad, Switzerland]

[Illustration: THE BALMAT-SAUSSURE MONUMENT IN CHAMONIX (Mont Blanc in

the distance)]

[Illustration: ROOFED WOODEN BRIDGE AT LUCERNE]

[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF CHILLON]

[Illustration: CLOUD EFFECT ABOVE INTERLAKEN Courtesy Swiss Federal

Railway]

[Illustration: DAVOS IN WINTER]

The way up the valley is that which follows the River Visp. It is a

delightful journey. The little stream is never still. It will scarcely

keep confined to the banks or within the stone walls which in many

places protect the shores. The river dances along as if seeking to be

free. For the most part it is a torrent, sweeping swiftly past the

solid masonry and descending the steep bed in a series of wild leaps or

artificial waterfalls, with wonderful effects of sunlight seen in the

showers of spray. Fed as it is by many mountain streams, the Visp is

always full, and the more so, when in summer the melting ice adds to its

volume.

Then it is a sight long remembered, as roaring, rollicking, rushing

along it is a brawling mass of waters, often working havoc with banks,

road, village, and pastures. If one never saw a mountain, the sight of

the Visp would more than repay, but, as it is, one's attention is taxed

to the uttermost not to miss anything of this little rushing river and

at the same time get the charming views of the Weisshorn, the Breithorn,

and the other snow summits which appear over the mountain spurs

surrounding the head of the valley.

The first impression on reaching the Zermatt is one of disappointment.

Maps and pictures generally lead the traveler to think that from the

village he will see the great semicircle of snow peaks which surround

the valley, but upon arrival he finds that he must go further up to see

them, for all of them are hidden from view except the Matterhorn.

This mountain, however, is seen in all its grandeur, fierce and

frowning, and to an imaginative mind bending forward as if threatening

and trying to shake off the little snow that appears here and there on

its side. It dominates the whole scene and leaves an indelible impress

on the mind, so that one can never picture Zermatt without the

Matterhorn.

Zermatt as a place is a curious combination; a line of hotels in

juxtaposition with a village of chalets, unsophisticated peasants

shoulder to shoulder with people of fashion! There are funny little

shops, here showing only such simple things as are needed by the

dwellers in the Valais, there exhibiting really beautiful articles in

dress and jewelry to attract the summer visitors, while at convenient

spots are the inevitable tea-rooms, where "The, Cafe, Limonade,

Confiserie" minister to the coming crowds of an afternoon....

Guides galore wait in front of all the large hotels; ice-axes, ropes,

nailed boots, rucksacks, and all the paraphernalia of the mountains

are seen on every side, and a walk along the one main thoroughfare

introduces one into the life of a climbing center, interesting to a

degree and often very amusing from the miscellaneous collection of

people there.

Perhaps the first thing one cares to see at Zermatt is the village

church, with the adjoining churchyard. The church, dedicated to Saint

Maurice, a favorite saint in the Valais and Rhone district, is plain

but interesting and in parts is quite old. Near it is a little mortuary

chapel. In most parts of Switzerland, it is the custom, after the bodies

of the dead have been buried a certain length of time, to remove the

remains to the "charnel house," allowing the graves to be used again

and thus not encroaching upon the space reserved and consecrated in the

churchyard, but we do not think this custom obtains at Zermatt.

In the churchyard is a monument to Michel Auguste Croz, the guide, and

near by are the graves of the Reverend Charles Hudson and Mr. Hadow.

These three, with Lord Francis Douglas were killed in Mr. Whymper's

first ascent of the Matterhorn.[39] The body of Lord Francis Douglas

has never been found. It is probably deep in some crevasse or under the

snows which surround the base of the Matterhorn....

For the more extended climbs or for excursions in the direction of the

Schwarzsee, the Staffel Alp or the Trift, Zermatt is the starting point.

The place abounds in walks, most of them being the first part of the

routes to the high mountains, so that those who are fond of tramping but

not of climbing can reach high elevations with a little hard work, but

no great difficulty. Some of these "midway" places may be visited on

muleback, and with the railway now up to the Gorner-Grat there are few

persons who may not see this wonderful region of snow peaks.

The trip to the Schwarzsee is the first stage on the Matterhorn route.

It leads through the village, past the Gorner Gorges (which one may

visit by a slight detour) and then enters some very pretty woods, from

which one issues on to the bare green meadows which clothe the upper

part of the steep slope of the mountain. As one mounts this zigzag path,

it sometimes seems as if it would never end, and for all the magnificent

views which it affords, one is always glad that it is over, as it

exactly fulfils the conditions of a "grind."

From the Schwarzsee (8,495 feet, where there is an excellent hotel),

there is a fine survey of the Matterhorn, and also a splendid panorama,

on three sides, one view up the glaciers toward the Monte Rosa, another

over the valley to the Dent Blanche and other great peaks, and still

another to the far distant Bernese Oberland. Near the hotel is a little

lake and a tiny chapel, where mass is sometimes said. The reflection in

the still waters of the lake is very lovely.

From the Schwarzsee, trips are made to the Hoernli (another stage on the

way to the Matterhorn), to the Gandegg Hut, across moraine and glacier

and to the Staffel Alp, over the green meadows. The Hoernli (9,490 feet

high) is the ridge running out from the Matterhorn. It is reached by a

stiff climb over rocks and a huge heap of fallen stones and debris. From

it the view is similar to that from the Schwarzsee, but much finer, the

Theodule Glacier being seen to great advantage. Above the Hoernli towers

the Matterhorn, huge, fierce, frowning, threatening. Every few moments

comes a heavy, muffled sound, as new showers of falling stones come

down. This is one of the main dangers in climbing the peak itself, for

from base to summit, the Matterhorn is really a decaying mountain, the

stones rolling away through the action of the storms, the frosts, and

the sun.

PONTRESINA AND ST. MORITZ[40]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

The night was falling fine as dust, as a black sifted snow-shower, a

snow made of shadow; and the melancholy of the landscape, the grand

nocturnal solitude of these lofty, unknown regions, had a charm profound

and disquieting. I do not know why I fancied myself no longer in

Switzerland, but in some country near the pole, in Sweden or Norway. At

the foot of these bare mountains I looked for wild fjords, lit up by the

moon.

Nothing can express the profound somberness of these landscapes at

nightfall; the long desert road, gray from the reflections of the starry

sky, unrolls in an interminable ribbon along the depth of the valley;

the treeless mountains, hollowed out like ancient craters, lift their

overhanging precipices; lakes sleeping in the midst of the pastures,

behind curtains of pines and larches, glitter like drops of quicksilver;

and on the horizon the immense glaciers crowd together and overflow like

sheets of foam on a frozen sea.

The road ascends. From the distance comes a dull noise, the roaring of a

torrent. We cross a little cluster of trees, and on issuing from it the

superb amphitheater of glaciers shows itself anew, overlooked by one

white point glittering like an opal. On the hill a thousand little

lights show me that I am at last at Pontresina. I thought I should

never have arrived there; nowhere does night deceive more than in the

mountains; in proportion as you advance toward a point, it seems to

retreat from you.

Soon the black fantastic lines of the houses show through the darkness.

I enter a narrow street, formed of great gloomy buildings, their fronts

like a convent or prison. The hamlet is transformed into a little town

of hotels, very comfortable, very elegant, very dear, but very stupid

and very vulgar, with their laced porter in an admiral's hat, and their

whiskered waiters, who have the air of Anglican ministers. Oh! how I

detest them, and flee them, those hotels where the painter, or the

tourist who arrives on foot, knapsack on his back and staff in hand, his

trousers tucked into his leggings, his flask slung over his shoulder,

and his hat awry, is received with less courtesy than a lackey.

Besides those hotels, some of which are veritable palaces, and where the

ladies are almost bound to change their dress three times a day, there

is a hotel of the second and third class; and there is the old inn; the

comfortable, hospitable, patriarchal inn, with its Gothic signboard....

On leaving the village I was again in the open mountain. In the distance

the road penetrated into the valley, rising always. The moon had risen.

She stood out sharply cut in a cloudless sky, and stars sparkling

everywhere in profusion; not like nails of gold, but sown broadcast like

a flying dust, a dust of carbuncles and diamonds. To the right, in the

depths of the amphitheater of the mountains, an immense glacier looked

like a frozen cascade; and above, a perfectly white peak rose draped in

snow, like some legendary king in his mantle of silver.

Bending under my knapsack, and dragging my feet, I arrive at last at the

hotel, where I am received, in the kindest manner in the world, by the

two mistresses of the establishment, two sisters of open, benevolent

countenance and of sweet expression.

And the poor little traveler who arrives, his bag on his back and

without bustle, who has sent neither letter nor telegram to announce his

arrival, is the object of the kindest and most delicate attentions; his

clothes are brushed, he gets water for his refreshment, and is then

conducted to a table bountifully spread, in a dining-room fragrant with

good cookery and bouquets of flowers....

Beyond Campfer, its houses surrounding a third little lake, we come

suddenly on a scene of extraordinary animation. All the cosmopolitan

society of St. Moritz is there, sauntering, walking, running, in

mountain parties, on afternoon excursions. The favorite one is the walk

to the pretty lake of Campfer, with its shady margin, its resting places

hidden among the branches, its chalet-restaurant, from the terrace of

which one overlooks the whole valley; and it would be difficult to find

near St. Moritz a more interesting spot.

We meet at every step parties of English ladies, looking like

plantations of umbrellas with their covers on and surmounted by immense

straw hats; then there are German ladies, massive as citadels, but

not impregnable, asking nothing better than to surrender to the young

exquisites, with the figure of cuirassiers, who accompany them; further

on, lively Italian ladies parade themselves in dresses of the carnival,

the colors outrageously striking and dazzling to the eyes; with

up-turned skirts they cross the Inn on great mossy stones, leaping

with the grace of birds, and smiling, to show, into the bargain, the

whiteness of their teeth. All this crowd passing in procession before us

is composed of men and women of every age and condition; some with the

grave face of a waxen saint, others beaming with the satisfied smile of

rich people; there are also invalids, who go along hobbling and limping,

or who are drawn, in little carriages.

Soon handsome facades, pierced with hundreds of windows, show themselves

in the grand and severe setting of mountains and glaciers. It is St.

Moritz-les-Bains. Here every house is a hotel, and, as every hotel is

a little palace, we do not alight from the diligence; we go a little

farther and a little higher, to St. Moritz-le-Village, which has a much

more beautiful situation. It is at the top of a little hill, whose sides

slope down to a pretty lake, fresh and green as a lawn. The eye reaches

beyond Sils, the whole length of the valley, with its mountains like

embattled ramparts, its lakes like a great row of pearls, and its

glaciers showing their piles of snowy white against the azure depths of

the horizon.

St. Moritz is the center of the valley of the Upper Engadine, which

extends to the length of eighteen or nineteen leagues, and which

scarcely possesses a thousand inhabitants. Almost all the men emigrate

to work for strangers, like their brothers, the mountaineers of Savoy

and Auvergne, and do not return till they have amassed a sufficient

fortune to allow them to build a little white house, with gilded

window frames, and to die quietly in the spot where they were born....

Historians tell us that the first inhabitants of the Upper Engadine were

Etruscans and Latins chased from Italy by the Gauls and Carthaginians,

and taking refuge in these hidden altitudes. After the fall of the

Empire, the inhabitants of the Engadine fell under the dominion of the

Franks and Lombards, then the Dukes of Swabia; but the blood never

mingled--the type remained Italian; black hair, the quick eye, the

mobile countenance, the expressive features, and the supple figure.

GENEVA[41]

BY FRANCIS H. GRIBBLE

Straddling the Rhone, where it issues from the bluest lake in the world,

looking out upon green meadows and wooded hills, backed by the dark

ridge of the Saleve, with the "great white mountain" visible in the

distance, Geneva has the advantage of an incomparable site; and it

is, from a town surveyor's point of view, well built. It has wide

thoroughfares, quays, and bridges; gorgeous public monuments and

well-kept public gardens; handsome theaters and museums; long rows

of palatial hotels; flourishing suburbs; two railway-stations, and a

casino. But all this is merely the facade--all of it quite modern;

hardly any of it more than half a century old. The real historical

Geneva--the little of it that remains--is hidden away in the background,

where not every tourist troubles to look for it. It is disappearing

fast. Italian stonemasons are constantly engaged in driving lines

through it. They have rebuilt, for instance, the old Corraterie, which

is now the Regent Street of Geneva, famous for its confectioners' and

booksellers' shops; they have destroyed, and are still destroying, other

ancient slums, setting up white buildings of uniform ugliness in place

of the picturesque but insanitary dwellings of the past. It is, no

doubt, a very necessary reform, tho' one may think that it is being

executed in too utilitarian a spirit. The old Geneva was malodorous, and

its death-rate was high. They had more than one Great Plague there, and

their Great Fires have always left some of the worst of their slums

untouched. These could not be allowed to stand in an age which studies

the science and practises the art of hygiene. Yet the traveler who wants

to know what the old Geneva was really like must spend a morning or two

rambling among them before they are pulled down.

The old Geneva, like Jerusalem, was set upon a hill, and it is toward

the top of the hill that the few buildings of historical interest are to

be found. There is the cathedral--a striking object from a distance, tho'

the interior is hideously bare. There is the Town Hall, in which, for

the convenience of notables carried in litters, the upper stories were

reached by an inclined plane instead of a staircase. There is Calvin's

old Academy, bearing more than a slight resemblance to certain of the

smaller colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. There, too, are to be seen a

few mural tablets, indicating the residences of past celebrities. In

such a house Rousseau was born; in such another house or in an older

house, now demolished, on the same site--Calvin died. And toward these

central points the steep and narrow, mean streets--in many cases streets

of stairs--converge.

As one plunges into these streets one seems to pass back from the

twentieth century to the fifteenth, and need not exercise one's

imagination very severely in order to picture the town as it appeared

in the old days before the Reformation. The present writer may claim

permission to borrow his own description from the pages of "Lake Geneva

and its Literary Landmarks:"

"Narrow streets predominated, tho' there were also a certain number of

open spaces--notably at the markets, and in front of the Cathedral,

where there was a traffic in those relics and rosaries which Geneva was

presently to repudiate with virtuous indignation. One can form an idea

of the appearance of the narrow streets by imagining the oldest houses

that one has seen in Switzerland all closely packed together--houses at

the most three stories high, with gabled roofs, ground-floors a step or

two below the level of the roadway, and huge arched doors studded with

great iron nails, and looking strong enough to resist a battering-ram.

Above the doors, in the case of the better houses, were the painted

escutcheons of the residents, and crests were also often blazoned on the

window-panes. The shops, too, and more especially the inns, flaunted

gaudy signboards with ingenious devices. The Good Vinegar, the Hot

Knife, the Crowned Ox, were the names of some of these; their tariff is

said to have been fivepence a day for man and beast."....

In the first half of the sixteenth century occurred the two events

which shaped the future of Geneva; Reformation theology was accepted;

political independence was achieved. Geneva it should be explained, was

the fief of the duchy of Savoy; or so, at all events, the Dukes of Savoy

maintained, tho' the citizens were of the contrary opinion. Their view

was that they owed allegiance only to their Bishops, who were the

Viceroys of the Holy Roman Emperor; and even that allegiance was limited

by the terms of a Charter granted in the Holy Roman Emperor's name by

Bishop Adhemar de Fabri. All went fairly well until the Bishops began

to play into the hands of the Dukes; but then there was friction,

which rapidly became acute. A revolutionary party--the Eidgenossen, or

Confederates--was formed. There was a Declaration of Independence and a

civil war.

So long as the Genevans stood alone, the Duke was too strong for them.

He marched into the town in the style of a conqueror, and wreaked his

vengeance on as many of his enemies as he could catch. He cut off the

head of Philibert Berthelier, to whom there stands a memorial on the

island in the Rhone; he caused Jean Pecolat to be hung up in an absurd

posture in his banqueting-hall, in order that he might mock at his

discomfort while he dined; he executed, with or without preliminary

torture, several less conspicuous patriots. Happily, however, some of

the patriots--notably Besancon Hugues--got safely away, and succeeded in

concluding treaties of alliance between Geneva and the cantons of Berne

and Fribourg.

The men of Fribourg marched to Geneva, and the Duke retired. The

citizens passed a resolution that he should never be allowed to enter

the town again, seeing that he "never came there without playing the

citizens some dirty trick or other;" and, the more effectually to

prevent him from coming, they pulled down their suburbs and repaired

their ramparts, one member of every household being required to lend a

hand for the purpose.

Presently, owing to religious dissensions, Fribourg withdrew from the

alliance. Berne, however, adhered to it, and, in due course, responded

to the appeal for help by setting an army of seven thousand men in

motion. The route of the seven thousand lay through the canton of Vaud,

then a portion of the Duke's dominions, governed from the Castle of

Chillon. Meeting with no resistance save at Yverdon, they annexed the

territory, placing governors of their own in its various strongholds.

The Governor of Chillon fled, leaving his garrison to surrender; and in

its deepest dungeon was found the famous prisoner of Chillon, Francois

de Bonivard. From that time forward Geneva was a free republic, owing

allegiance to no higher power.

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON[42]

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Here I am, sitting at my window, overlooking Lake Leman. Castle Chillon,

with its old conical towers, is silently pictured in the still waters.

It has been a day of a thousand. We took a boat, with two oarsmen, and

passed leisurely along the shores, under the cool, drooping branches of

trees, to the castle, which is scarce a stone's throw from the hotel. We

rowed along, close under the walls, to the ancient moat and drawbridge.

There I picked a bunch of blue bells, "les clochettes," which were

hanging their aerial pendants from every crevice--some blue, some

white....

We rowed along, almost touching the castle rock, where the wall ascends

perpendicularly, and the water is said to be a thousand feet deep. We

passed the loopholes that illuminate the dungeon vaults, and an old

arch, now walled up, where prisoners, after having been strangled, were

thrown into the lake.

Last evening we walked through the castle. An interesting Swiss woman,

who has taught herself English for the benefit of her visitors, was our

"cicerone." She seemed to have all the old Swiss vivacity of attachment

for "liberte et patrie." She took us first into the dungeon, with the

seven pillars, described by Byron. There was the pillar to which, for

protecting the liberty of Geneva, Bonivard was chained. There the Duke

of Savoy kept him for six years, confined by a chain four feet long. He

could take only three steps, and the stone floor is deeply worn by the

prints of those weary steps. Six years is so easily said; but to live

them, alone, helpless, a man burning with all the fires of manhood,

chained to that pillar of stone, and those three unvarying steps! Two

thousand one hundred and ninety days rose and set the sun, while seed

time and harvest, winter and summer, and the whole living world went

on over his grave. For him no sun, no moon, no stars, no business, no

friendship, no plans--nothing! The great millstone of life emptily

grinding itself away!

What a power of vitality was there in Bonivard, that he did not sink in

lethargy, and forget himself to stone! But he did not; it is said that

when the victorious Swiss army broke in to liberate him, they cried,

"Bonivard, you are free!"

"And Geneva?"

"Geneva is free also!"

You ought to have heard the enthusiasm with which our guide told this

story!

Near by are the relics of the cell of a companion of Bonivard, who made

an ineffectual attempt to liberate him. On the wall are still seen

sketches of saints and inscriptions by his hand. This man one day

overcame his jailer, locked him in his cell, ran into the hall above,

and threw himself from a window into the lake, struck a rock, and was

killed instantly. One of the pillars in this vault is covered with

names. I think it is Bonivard's pillar. There are the names of Byron,

Hunt, Schiller, and many other celebrities.

After we left the dungeons we went up into the judgment hall, where

prisoners were tried, and then into the torture chamber. Here are the

pulleys by which limbs are broken; the beam, all scorched with the irons

by which feet were burned; the oven where the irons were heated; and

there was the stone where they were sometimes laid to be strangled,

after the torture. On that stone, our guide told us, two thousand Jews,

men, women, and children, had been put to death. There was also, high

up, a strong beam across, where criminals were hung; and a door, now

walled up, by which they were thrown into the lake. I shivered.

"'Twas cruel," she said; "'twas almost as cruel as your slavery in

America."[43]

Then she took us into a tower where was the "oubliette." Here the

unfortunate prisoner was made to kneel before an image of the Virgin,

while the treacherous floor, falling beneath him, precipitated him into

a well forty feet deep, where he was left to die of broken limbs and

starvation. Below this well was still another pit, filled with knives,

into which, when they were disposed to a merciful hastening of the

torture, they let him fall. The woman has been herself to the bottom of

the first dungeon, and found there bones of victims. The second pit is

now walled up....

To-night, after sunset, we rowed to Byron's "little isle," the only one

in the lake. O, the unutterable beauty of these mountains--great, purple

waves, as if they had been dashed up by a mighty tempest, crested

with snow-like foam! this purple sky, and crescent moon, and the lake

gleaming and shimmering, and twinkling stars, while far off up the sides

of a snow-topped mountain a light shines like a star--some mountaineer's

candle, I suppose.

In the dark stillness we rode again over to Chillon, and paused under

its walls. The frogs were croaking in the moat, and we lay rocking on

the wave, and watching the dusky outlines of the towers and turrets.

Then the spirit of the scene seemed to wrap me round like a cloak. Back

to Geneva again. This lovely place will ever leave its image on my

heart. Mountains embrace it.

BY RAIL UP THE GORNER-GRAT[44]

BY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES

To see the splendid array of snow peaks and glaciers which makes the sky

line above Zermatt, one must leave the valley and walk or climb to a

higher level. An ideal spot for this is the Hotel Riffel Alp. Both the

situation and the Hotel outrival and surpass any similar places in the

Alps. "Far from the madding crowd," on a little plateau bounded by pines

and pastures stands the Hotel, some two thousand feet above Zermatt

and at an altitude of over 7,000 feet. The outlook is superb, the air

splendid, the quiet most restful. Two little churches, the one for Roman

Catholics, the other for members of the Church of England minister to

the spiritual needs of the visitors and stamp religion upon a situation

grand and sublime.

Those who come here are lovers of the mountains who enjoy the open life.

It is a place not so much for "les grands excursions" as for long walks,

easy climbs and the beginnings of mountaineering. Many persons spend the

entire day out, preferring to eat their dejeuner "informally," perched

above some safe precipice, or on a glacier-bordered rock or in the shade

of the cool woods, but there are always some who linger both morning and

afternoon on the terrace with its far expanse of view, with the bright

sunshine streaming down upon them.

One great charm of the Riffel Alp is the proximity to the snow. An hour

will bring one either to the Gorner Glacier or to the Findelen Glacier,

while a somewhat longer time will lead to other stretches of snow and

ice, where the climber may sit and survey the seracs and crevasses or

walk about on the great frozen rivers. This is said to be beneficial to

the nervous system as many physicians maintain that the glaciers contain

a large amount of radium.

Before essaying any of the longer or harder trips however, the traveler

first of all generally goes to the Gorner-Grat, the rocky ridge that

runs up from Zermatt to a point 10,290 feet high. Many people still walk

up, but since the railroad was built, even those who feel it to be a

matter of conscience to inveigh against any kind of progress which

ministers to the pleasures of the masses, are found among those who

prefer to ascend by electricity. The trip up is often made very amusing

as among the crowds are always some, who knowing really nothing of the

place, feel it incumbent upon themselves to point out all of the peaks,

in a way quite discomposing to anybody familiar with the locality or

versed in geography! Quite a luxurious little hotel now surmounts the

top of the Gorner-Grat. In it, about it and above it, on the walled

terrace assembles a motley crowd every clear day in summer, clad in

every variety of costume, conventional and unconventional....

An ordinary scene would be ruined by such a crowd, but not so the

Gorner-Grat. The very majesty and magnificence of the view make

one forget the vaporings of mere man, and the Glory of God, so

overpoweringly revealed in those regions of perpetual snow, drives other

impressions away. And if one wishes to be alone, it is easily possible

by walking a little further along the ridge where some rock will shut

out all sight of man and the wind will drive away the sound of voices.

It is doubtful if there is any view comparable with that of the

Gorner-Grat. There is what is called a "near view," and there is also

what is known as a "distant view," for completely surrounded by snow

peak and glacier, the eye passes from valley to summit, resting on that

wonderful stretch of shining white which forms the skyline. To say that

one can count dozens of glaciers, that he can see fifty summits, that

Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm, the Twins, the Breithorn, the Matterhorn, the

Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, with many other mountains of the Valais

and Oberland form a complete circle of snow peaks, may establish the

geography of the place but it does not convey any but the faintest

picture of the sublime grandeur of the scene....

An exciting experience for novices is to go with a guide from the

Gorner-Grat to the Hohtaeligrat and thence down to the Findelen Glacier.

It looks dangerous but it is not really so, if the climber is careful,

for altho there is a sheer descent on either side of the arete or ridge

which leads from the one point to the other, the way is never narrow and

only over easy rocks and snow.

The Hohtaeligrat is almost 11,000 feet in altitude and has a splendid

survey of the sky line. One looks up at snow, one looks down at snow,

one looks around at snow! From the beautiful summits of Monte Rosa, the

eye passes in a complete circle, up and down, seeing in succession the

white snow peaks, with their great glistening glaciers below, showing in

strong contrast the occasional rock pyramids like the Matterhorn and the

group around the Rothhorn.

THROUGH THE ST. GOTHARD INTO ITALY[45]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

This is Geschenen, at the entrance of the great tunnel, the meeting

place of the upper gorges of the Reuss, the valley of Urseren, of the

Oberalp, and of the Furka. Geschenen has now the calm tranquility of old

age. But during the nine years that it took to bore the great tunnel,

what juvenile activity there was here, what feverish eagerness in this

village, crowded, inundated, overflowed by workmen from Italy, from

Tessin, from Germany and France! One would have thought that out of that

dark hole, dug out in the mountain, they were bringing nuggets of gold.

On all the roads nothing was to be seen but bands of workmen arriving,

with miners' lamps hung to their old soldier's knapsacks. Nobody could

tell how they were all to be lodged. One double bed was occupied in

succession by twenty-four men in twenty-four hours. Some of the workmen

set up their establishments in barns; in all directions movable canteens

sprung up, built all awry and hardly holding together, and in mean

sheds, doubtful, bad-looking places, the dishonest merchant hastened to

sell his adulterated brandy....

The St. Gothard tunnel is about one and two-third miles longer than that

of Mount Cenis, and more than three miles longer than that of Arlberg.

While the train is passing with a dull rumbling sound under these

gloomy vaults, let us explain how the great work of boring the Alps was

accomplished.

The mechanical work of perforation was begun simultaneously on the north

and south sides of the mountain, working toward the same point, so as to

meet toward the middle of the boring. The waters of the Reuss and the

Tessin supplied the necessary motive power for working the screws

attached to machinery for compressing the air. The borers applied to the

rock the piston of a cylinder made to rotate with great rapidity by the

pressure of air reduced to one-twentieth of its ordinary volume; then

when they had made holes sufficiently deep, they withdrew the machines

and charged the mines with dynamite. Immediately after the explosion,

streams of wholesome air were liberated which dissipated the smoke; then

the debris was cleared away, and the borers returned to their place. The

same work was thus carried on day and night, for nine years.

On the Geschenen side all went well; but on the other side, on the

Italian slope, unforseen obstacles and difficulties had to be overcome.

Instead of having to encounter the solid rock, they found themselves

among a moving soil formed by the deposit of glaciers and broken by

streams of water. Springs burst out, like the jet of a fountain, under

the stroke of the pick, flooding and driving away the workmen. For

twelve months they seemed to be in the midst of a lake. But nothing

could damp the ardor of the contractor, Favre.

His troubles were greater still when the undertaking had almost been

suspended for want of money, when the workmen struck in 1875, and, when,

two years later, the village of Arola was destroyed by fire. And how

many times, again and again, the mason-work of the vaulted roof gave way

and fell! Certain "bad places," as they were called, cost more than nine

hundred pounds per yard.

In the interior of the mountain the thermometer marked 86 degrees

(Fahr.), but so long as the tunnel was still not completely bored, the

workmen were sustained by a kind of fever, and made redoubled efforts.

Discouragement and desertion did not appear among them till the goal was

almost reached.

The great tunnel passed, we find ourselves fairly in Italy. The mulberry

trees, with silky white bark and delicate, transparent leaves; the

chestnuts, with enormous trunks like cathedral columns; the vine,

hanging to high trellises supported by granite pillars, its festoons as

capricious as the feats of those who partake too freely of its fruits;

the white tufty heads of the maize tossing in the breeze; all that

strong and luxuriant vegetation through which waves of moist air are

passing; those flowers of rare beauty, of a grace and brilliancy that

belong only to privileged zones;--all this indicates a more robust and

fertile soil, and a more fervid sky than those of the upper villages

which we have just left.

ALPINE MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

FIRST ATTEMPTS HALF A CENTURY AGO[46]

BY EDWARD WHYMPER

On the 23d of July, 1860, I started for my first tour of the Alps. At

Zermatt I wandered in many directions, but the weather was bad and my

work was much retarded. One day, after spending a long time in attempts

to sketch near the Hoernli, and in futile endeavors to seize the forms

of the peaks as they for a few seconds peered out from above the dense

banks of woolly clouds, I determined not to return to Zermatt by the

usual path, but to cross the Goerner glacier to the Riffel hotel. After

a rapid scramble over the polished rocks and snow-beds which skirt the

base of the Theodule glacier, and wading through some of the streams

which flow from it, at that time much swollen by the late rains, the

first difficulty was arrived at, in the shape of a precipice about

three hundred feet high. It seemed that there would be no difficulty in

crossing the glacier if the cliff could be descended, but higher up and

lower down the ice appeared, to my inexperienced eyes, to be impassable

for a single person.

The general contour of the cliff was nearly perpendicular, but it was a

good deal broken up, and there was little difficulty in descending by

zigzagging from one mass to another. At length there was a long slab,

nearly smooth, fixt at an angle of about forty degrees between two

wall-sided pieces of rock; nothing, except the glacier, could be seen

below. It was a very awkward place, but being doubtful if return were

possible, as I had been dropping from one ledge to another, I passed at

length by lying across the slab, putting the shoulder stiffly against

one side and the feet against the other, and gradually wriggling down,

by first moving the legs and then the back. When the bottom of the slab

was gained a friendly crack was seen, into which the point of the baton

could be stuck, and I dropt down to the next piece.

It took a long time coming down that little bit of cliff, and for a few

seconds it was satisfactory to see the ice close at hand. In another

moment a second difficulty presented itself. The glacier swept round an

angle of the cliff, and as the ice was not of the nature of treacle or

thin putty, it kept away from the little bay on the edge of which I

stood. We were not widely separated, but the edge of the ice was higher

than the opposite edge of rock; and worse, the rock was covered with

loose earth and stones which had fallen from above. All along the side

of the cliff, as far as could be seen in both directions, the ice did

not touch it, but there was this marginal crevasse seven feet wide and

of unknown depth. All this was seen at a glance, and almost at once I

concluded that I could not jump the crevass and began to try along the

cliff lower down, but without success, for the ice rose higher and

higher until at last farther progress was stopt by the cliffs becoming

perfectly smooth. With an ax it would have been possible to cut up the

side of the ice--without one, I saw there was no alternative but to

return and face the jump.

It was getting toward evening, and the solemn stillness of the High Alps

was broken only by the sound of rushing water or of falling rocks. If

the jump should be successful, well; if not, I fell into the horrible

chasm, to be frozen in, or drowned in that gurgling, rushing water.

Everything depended on that jump. Again I asked myself "Can it be

done?" It must be. So, finding my stick was useless, I threw it and the

sketch-book to the ice, and first retreating as far as possible, ran

forward with all my might, took the leap, barely reached the other side,

and fell awkwardly on my knees. At the same moment a shower of stones

fell on the spot from which I had jumped.

The glacier was crossed without further trouble, but the Riffel, which

was then a very small building, was crammed with tourists, and could

not take me in. As the way down was unknown to me, some of the people

obligingly suggested getting a man at the chalets, otherwise the path

would be certainly lost in the forest. On arriving at the chalets no man

could be found, and the lights of Zermatt, shining through the trees,

seemed to say, "Never mind a guide, but come along down; we'll show you

the way"; so off I went through the forest, going straight toward them.

The path was lost in a moment, and was never recovered. I was tript up

by pine roots, I tumbled over rhododendron bushes, I fell over rocks.

The night was pitch-dark, and after a time the lights of Zermatt became

obscure or went out altogether. By a series of slides or falls, or

evolutions more or less disagreeable, the descent through the forest was

at length accomplished, but torrents of a formidable character had still

to be passed before one could arrive at Zermatt. I felt my way about for

hours, almost hopelessly, by an exhaustive process at last discovering a

bridge, and about midnight, covered with dirt and scratches, reentered

the inn which I had quitted in the morning....

I descended the valley, diverging from the path at Randa to mount the

slopes of the Dom (the highest of the Mischabelhoerner), in order to

see the Weisshorn face to face. The latter mountain is the noblest in

Switzerland, and from this direction it looks especially magnificent. On

its north there is a large snowy plateau that feeds the glacier of which

a portion is seen from Randa, and which on more than one occasion

has destroyed that village. From the direction of the Dom--that is,

immediately opposite--this Bies glacier seems to descend nearly

vertically; it does not do so, altho it is very steep. Its size is much

less than formerly and the lower portion, now divided into three tails,

clings in a strange, weird-like manner to the cliffs, to which it seems

scarcely possible that it can remain attached.

Unwillingly I parted from the sight of this glorious mountain, and went

down to Visp. Arriving once more in the Rhone valley, I proceeded to

Viesch, and from thence ascended the Aeggischhorn, on which unpleasant

eminence I lost my way in a fog, and my temper shortly afterward. Then,

after crossing the Grimsel in a severe thunderstorm, I passed on to

Brienz, Interlachen and Berne, and thence to Fribourg and Morat,

Neuchatel, Martigny and the St. Bernard. The massive walls of the

convent were a welcome sight as I waded through the snow-beds near the

summit of the pass, and pleasant also was the courteous salutation of

the brother who bade me enter.

Instead of descending to Aosta, I turned into the Val Pelline, in order

to obtain views of the Dent d'Erin. The night had come on before Biona

was gained, and I had to knock long and loud upon the door of the cure's

house before it was opened. An old woman with querulous voice and with a

large goitre answered the summons, and demanded rather sharply what was

wanted, but became pacific, almost good-natured, when a five-franc piece

was held in her face and she heard that lodging and supper were required

in exchange.

My directions asserted that a passage existed from Prerayen, at the head

of this valley, to Breuil, in the Val Tournanche, and the old woman,

now convinced of my respectability, busied herself to find a guide.

Presently she introduced a native picturesquely attired in high-peaked

hat, braided jacket, scarlet waistcoat and indigo pantaloons, who agreed

to take me to the village of Val Tournanche. We set off early on the

next morning, and got to the summit of the pass without difficulty. It

gave me my first experience of considerable slopes of hard, steep snow,

and, like all beginners, I endeavored to prop myself up with my stick,

and kept it outside, instead of holding it between myself and the slope,

and leaning upon it, as should have been done.

The man enlightened me, but he had, properly, a very small opinion of

his employer, and it is probably on that account that, a few minutes

after we had passed the summit, he said he would not go any farther and

would return to Biona. All argument was useless; he stood still, and to

everything that was said answered nothing but that he would go back.

Being rather nervous about descending some long snow-slopes which still

intervened between us and the head of the valley, I offered more pay,

and he went on a little way. Presently there were some cliffs, down

which we had to scramble. He called to me to stop, then shouted that he

would go back, and beckoned to me to come up.

On the contrary, I waited for him to come down, but instead of doing so,

in a second or two he turned round, clambered deliberately up the cliff

and vanished. I supposed it was only a ruse to extort offers of more

money, and waited for half an hour, but he did not appear again. This

was rather embarrassing, for he carried off my knapsack. The choice of

action lay between chasing him and going on to Breuil, risking the loss

of my knapsack. I chose the latter course, and got to Breuil the same

evening. The landlord of the inn, suspicious of a person entirely

innocent of luggage, was doubtful if he could admit me, and eventually

thrust me into a kind of loft, which was already occupied by guides and

by hay. In later years we became good friends, and he did not hesitate

to give credit and even to advance considerable sums.

My sketches from Breuil were made under difficulties; my materials

had been carried off, nothing better than fine sugar-paper could be

obtained, and the pencils seemed to contain more silica than plumbago.

However, they were made, and the pass was again crossed, this time

alone. By the following evening the old woman of Biona again produced

the faithless guide. The knapsack was recovered after the lapse of

several hours, and then I poured forth all the terms of abuse and

reproach of which I was master. The man smiled when I called him a liar,

and shrugged his shoulders when referred to as a thief, but drew his

knife when spoken of as a pig.

The following night was spent at Cormayeur, and the day after I crossed

the Col Ferrex to Orsieres, and on the next the Tete Noir to Chamounix.

The Emperor Napoleon arrived the same day, and access to the Mer de

Glace was refused to tourists; but, by scrambling along the Plan

des Aiguilles, I managed to outwit the guards, and to arrive at the

Montanvert as the imperial party was leaving, failing to get to the

Jardin the same afternoon, but very nearly succeeding in breaking a leg

by dislodging great rocks on the moraine of the glacier.

From Chamounix I went to Geneva, and thence by the Mont Cenis to Turin

and to the Vaudois valleys. A long and weary day had ended when Paesana

was reached. The next morning I passed the little lakes which are the

sources of the Po, on my way into France. The weather was stormy, and

misinterpreting the dialect of some natives--who in reality pointed out

the right way--I missed the track, and found myself under the cliffs of

Monte Viso. A gap that was occasionally seen in the ridge connecting it

with the mountains to the east tempted me up, and after a battle with a

snow-slope of excessive steepness, I reached the summit. The scene was

extraordinary, and, in my experience, unique. To the north there was not

a particle of mist, and the violent wind coming from that direction

blew one back staggering. But on the side of Italy the valleys were

completely filled with dense masses of cloud to a certain level; and

here--where they felt the influence of the wind--they were cut off as

level as the top of a table, the ridges appearing above them.

I raced down to Abries, and went on through the gorge of the Guil to

Mont Dauphin. The next day found me at La Bessee, at the junction of the

Val Louise with the valley of the Durance, in full view of Mont Pelvoux.

The same night I slept at Briancon, intending to take the courier on the

following day to Grenoble, but all places had been secured several days

beforehand, so I set out at two P.M. on the next day for a seventy-mile

walk. The weather was again bad, and on the summit of the Col de

Lautaret I was forced to seek shelter in the wretched little hospice. It

was filled with workmen who were employed on the road, and with noxious

vapors which proceeded from them. The inclemency of the weather was

preferable to the inhospitality of the interior.

Outside, it was disagreeable, but grand--inside, it was disagreeable and

mean. The walk was continued under a deluge of rain, and I felt the way

down, so intense was the darkness, to the village of La Grave, where the

people of the inn detained me forcibly. It was perhaps fortunate that

they did so, for during that night blocks of rock fell at several places

from the cliffs on to the road with such force that they made large

holes in the macadam, which looked as if there had been explosions

of gunpowder. I resumed the walk at half-past five next morning, and

proceeded, under steady rain, through Bourg d'Oysans to Grenoble,

arriving at the latter place soon after seven P.M., having accomplished

the entire distance from Briancon in about eighteen hours of actual

walking.

This was the end of the Alpine portion of my tour of 1860, on which

I was introduced to the great peaks, and acquired the passion for

mountain-scrambling.

FIRST TO THE TOP OF THE MATTERHORN[47]

BY EDWARD WHYMPER

We started from Zermatt on the 13th of July at half-past five, on

a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We were eight in

number--Croz, old Peter and his two sons, Lord Francis Douglas, Hadow,

Hudson and I. To ensure steady motion, one tourist and one native walked

together. The youngest Taugwalder fell to my share, and the lad marched

well, proud to be on the expedition and happy to show his powers. The

wine-bags also fell to my lot to carry, and throughout the day, after

each drink, I replenished them secretly with water, so that at the next

halt they were found fuller than before! This was considered a good

omen, and little short of miraculous.

On the first day we did not intend to ascend to any great height, and we

mounted, accordingly, very leisurely, picked up the things which were

left in the chapel at the Schwarzsee at 8:20, and proceeded thence along

the ridge connecting the Hoernli with the Matterhorn. At half-past eleven

we arrived at the base of the actual peak, then quitted the ridge and

clambered round some ledges on to the eastern face. We were now fairly

upon the mountain, and were astonished to find that places which

from the Riffel, or even from the Furggengletscher, looked entirely

impracticable, were so easy that we could run about.

Before twelve o'clock we had found a good position for the tent, at a

height of eleven thousand feet. Croz and young Peter went on to see what

was above, in order to save time on the following morning. They

cut across the heads of the snow-slopes which descended toward the

Furggengletscher, and disappeared round a corner, but shortly afterward

we saw them high up on the face, moving quickly. We others made a solid

platform for the tent in a well-protected spot, and then watched eagerly

for the return of the men. The stones which they upset told that they

were very high, and we supposed that the way must be easy. At length,

just before 3 P.M., we saw them coming down, evidently much excited.

"What are they saying, Peter?" "Gentlemen, they say it is no good." But

when they came near we heard a different story: "Nothing but what was

good--not a difficulty, not a single difficulty! We could have gone to

the summit and returned to-day easily!"

We passed the remaining hours of daylight--some basking in the sunshine,

some sketching or collecting--and when the sun went down, giving, as it

departed, a glorious promise for the morrow, we returned to the tent to

arrange for the night. Hudson made tea, I coffee, and we then retired

each one to his blanket-bag, the Taugwalders, Lord Francis Douglas and

myself occupying the tent, the others remaining, by preference, outside.

Long after dusk the cliffs above echoed with our laughter and with the

songs of the guides, for we were happy that night in camp, and feared no

evil.

We assembled together outside the tent before dawn on the morning of the

14th, and started directly it was light enough to move. Young Peter came

on with us as a guide, and his brother returned to Zermatt. We followed

the route which had been taken on the previous day, and in a few minutes

turned the rib which had intercepted the view of the eastern face from

our tent platform. The whole of this great slope was now revealed,

rising for three thousand feet like a huge natural staircase. Some parts

were more and others were less easy, but we were not once brought to a

halt by any serious impediment, for when an obstruction was met in front

it could always be turned to the right or to the left.

For the greater part of the way there was indeed no occasion for the

rope, and sometimes Hudson led, sometimes myself. At 6:20 we had

attained a height of twelve thousand eight hundred feet, and halted for

half an hour; we then continued the ascent without a break until 9:55,

when we stopt for fifty minutes at a height of fourteen thousand feet.

Twice we struck the northeastern ridge, and followed it for some little

distance--to no advantage, for it was usually more rotten and steep, and

always more difficult, than the face. Still, we kept near to it, lest

stones perchance might fall.

We had now arrived at the foot of that part which, from the Riffelberg

or from Zermatt, seems perpendicular or overhanging, and could no longer

continue upon the eastern side. For a little distance we ascended by

snow upon the arete--that is, the ridge--descending toward Zermatt, and

then by common consent turned over to the right, or to the northern

side. Before doing so we made a change in the order of ascent. Croz went

first, I followed, Hudson came third; Hadow and old Peter were

last. "Now," said Croz as he led off--"now for something altogether

different." The work became difficult, and required caution. In some

places there was little to hold, and it was desirable that those should

be in front who were least likely to slip. The general slope of the

mountain at this part was less than forty degrees, and snow had

accumulated in, and had filled up, the interstices of the rock-face,

leaving only occasional fragments projecting here and there. These were

at times covered with a thin film of ice, produced from the melting and

refreezing of the snow.

It was the counterpart, on a small scale, of the upper seven

hundred feet of the Pointe des Ecrins; only there was this material

difference--the face of the Ecrins was about, or exceeded, an angle of

fifty degrees, and the Matterhorn face was less than forty degrees. It

was a place over which any fair mountaineers might pass in safety,

and Mr. Hudson ascended this part, and, as far as I know, the entire

mountain, without having the slightest assistance rendered to him upon

any occasion. Sometimes, after I had taken a hand from Croz or received

a pull, I turned to offer the same to Hudson, but he invariably

declined, saying it was not necessary. Mr. Hadow, however, was not

accustomed to this kind of work, and required continual assistance. It

is only fair to say that the difficulty which he found at this part

arose simply and entirely from want of experience.

This solitary difficult part was of no great extent. We bore away over

it at first nearly horizontally, for a distance of about four hundred

feet, then ascended directly toward the summit for about sixty feet, and

then doubled back to the ridge which descends toward Zermatt. A long

stride round a rather awkward corner brought us to snow once more. The

last doubt vanished! The Matterhorn was ours! Nothing but two hundred

feet of easy snow remained to be surmounted!....

The summit of the Matterhorn was formed of a rudely level ridge,

about three hundred and fifty feet long. The day was one of those

superlatively calm and clear ones which usually precede bad weather. The

atmosphere was perfectly still and free from clouds or vapors. Mountains

fifty--nay, a hundred--miles off looked sharp and near. All their

details--ridge and crag, snow and glacier--stood out with faultless

definition. Pleasant thoughts of happy days in bygone years came

up unbidden as we recognized the old, familiar forms. All were

revealed--not one of the principal peaks of the Alps was hidden. I see

them clearly now--the great inner circles of giants, backed by the

ranges, chains and "massifs." First came the Dent Blanche, hoary and

grand; the Gabelhorn and pointed Rothborn, and then the peerless

Weisshorn; the towering Mischabelhoerner flanked by the Allaleinhorn,

Strahlhorn and Rimpfischhorn; then Monte Rosa--with its many

Spitzen--the Lyskamm and the Breithorn. Behind were the Bernese

Oberland, governed by the Finsteraarhorn, the Simplon and St. Gothard

groups, the Disgrazia and the Orteler. Toward the south we looked down

to Chivasso on the plain of Piedmont, and far beyond. The Viso--one

hundred miles away--seemed close upon us; the Maritime Alps--one hundred

and thirty miles distant--were free from haze.

Then came into view my first love--the Pelvoux; the Ecrins and the

Meije; the clusters of the Graians; and lastly, in the west, gorgeous

in the full sunlight, rose the monarch of all--Mont Blanc. Ten thousand

feet beneath us were the green fields of Zermatt, dotted with chalets,

from which blue smoke rose lazily. Eight thousand feet below, on the

other side, were the pastures of Breuil. There were forests black and

gloomy, and meadows bright and lively; bounding waterfalls and tranquil

lakes; fertile lands and savage wastes: sunny plains and frigid

plateaux. There were the most rugged forms and the most graceful

outlines--bold, perpendicular cliffs and gentle, undulating slopes;

rocky mountains and snowy mountains, somber and solemn or glittering

and white, with walls, turrets, pinnacles, pyramids, domes, cones and

spires! There was every combination that the world can give, and every

contrast that the heart could desire. We remained on the summit for one

hour--

One crowded hour of glorious life.

THE LORD FRANCIS DOUGLAS TRAGEDY[48]

BY EDWARD WHYMPER

We began to prepare for the descent. Hudson and I again consulted as to

the best and safest arrangement of the party. We agreed that it would

be best for Croz to go first, and Hadow second; Hudson, who was almost

equal to a guide in sureness of foot, wished to be third; Lord Francis

Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, the strongest of the remainder,

after him. I suggested to Hudson that we should attach a rope to the

rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit, and hold it as we descended,

as an additional protection. He approved the idea, but it was not

definitely settled that it should be done. The party was being arranged

in the above order while I was sketching the summit, and they had

finished, and were waiting for me to be tied in line, when some one

remembered that our names had not been left in a bottle. They requested

me to write them down, and moved off while it was being done.

A few minutes afterward I tied myself to young Peter, ran down after the

others, and caught them just as they were commencing the descent of the

difficult part. Great care was being taken. Only one man was moving at a

time; when he was firmly planted, the next advanced, and so on. They had

not, however, attached the additional rope to rocks, and nothing was

said about it. The suggestion was not made for my own sake, and I am

not sure that it even occurred to me again. For some little distance we

followed the others, detached from them, and should have continued so

had not Lord Francis Douglas asked me, about 3 P.M., to tie on to old

Peter, as he feared, he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold

his ground if a slip occurred.

A few minutes later a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte Rosa hotel to

Seiler,[49] saying that he had seen an avalanche fall from the summit of

the Matterhorn on to the Matterhorngletscher. The boy was reproved for

telling such idle stories; he was right, nevertheless, and this was what

he saw.

Michael Croz had laid aside his ax, and in order to give Mr. Hadow

greater security was absolutely taking hold of his legs and putting his

feet, one by one, into their proper positions. As far as I know, no one

was actually descending. I can not speak with certainty, because the two

leading men were partially hidden from my sight by an intervening mass

of rock, but it is my belief, from the movements of their shoulders,

that Croz, having done as I have said, was in the act of turning round

to go down a step or two himself; at the moment Mr. Hadow slipt, fell

against him and knocked him over.

I heard one startled exclamation from Croz, then saw him and Mr. Hadow

flying downward; in another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps,

and Lord Francis Douglas immediately after him. All this was the work

of a moment. Immediately we heard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I

planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would permit; the rope was taut

between us, and the jerk came on us both as one man. We held, but the

rope broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a

few seconds we saw our unfortunate companions sliding downward on their

backs, and spreading out their hands, endeavoring to save themselves.

They passed from our sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell

from precipice to precipice on to the Matterhorngletscher below, a

distance of nearly four thousand feet in height. From the moment the

rope broke it was impossible to help them.

So perished our comrades! For the space of half an hour we remained on

the spot without moving a single step. The two men, paralyzed by terror,

cried like infants, and trembled in such a manner as to threaten us with

the fate of the others. Old Peter rent the air with exclamations of

"Chamounix!--oh, what will Chamounix say?" He meant, who would believe

that Croz could fall? The young man did nothing but scream or sob, "We

are lost! we are lost!" Fixt between the two, I could move neither up

nor down. I begged young Peter to descend, but he dared not. Unless he

did, we could not advance. Old Peter became alive to the danger, and

swelled the cry, "We are lost! we are lost!"

The father's fear was natural--he trembled for his son; the young man's

fear was cowardly--he thought of self alone. At last old Peter summoned

up courage, and changed his position to a rock to which he could fix

the rope; the young man then descended, and we all stood together.

Immediately we did so, I asked for the rope which had given way, and

found, to my surprise--indeed, to my horror--that it was the weakest of

the three ropes. It was not brought, and should not have been employed,

for the purpose for which it was used. It was old rope, and, compared

with the others, was feeble. It was intended as a reserve, in case we

had to leave much rope behind attached to rocks. I saw at once that a

serious question was involved, and made them give me the end. It had

broken in mid-air, and it did not appear to have sustained previous

injury.

For more than two hours afterward I thought almost every moment that the

next would be my last, for the Taugwalders, utterly unnerved, were not

only incapable of giving assistance, but were in such a state that a

slip might have been expected from them at any moment. After a time we

were able to do that which should have been done at first, and fixt rope

to firm rocks, in addition to being tied together. These ropes were cut

from time to time, and were left behind. Even with their assurance the

men were afraid to proceed, and several times old Peter turned with ashy

face and faltering limbs, and said with terrible emphasis, "I can not!"

About 6 P.M. we arrived at the snow upon, the ridge descending toward

Zermatt, and all peril was over. We frequently looked, but in vain, for

traces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and cried

to them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were within

neither sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts, and, too

cast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, preparatory to

continuing the descent.

When lo! a mighty arch appeared, rising above the Lyskamm high into the

sky. Pale, colorless and noiseless, but perfectly sharp and defined,

except where it was lost in the clouds, this unearthly apparition seemed

like a vision from another world, and almost appalled we watched with

amazement the gradual development of two vast crosses, one on either

side. If the Taugwalders had not been the first to perceive it, I should

have doubted my senses. They thought it had some connection with the

accident, and I, after a while, that it might bear some relations to

ourselves. But our movements had no effect upon it. The spectral forms

remained motionless. It was a fearful and wonderful sight, unique in my

experience, and impressive beyond description, at such a moment....

Night fell, and for an hour the descent was continued in the darkness.

At half-past nine a resting-place was found, and upon a wretched slab,

barely large enough to hold three, we passed six miserable hours. At

daybreak the descent was resumed, and from the Hornli ridge we ran down

to the chalets of Buhl and on to Zermatt. Seiler met me at his door, and

followed in silence to my room: "What is the matter?" "The Taugwalders

and I have returned." He did not need more, and burst into tears, but

lost no time in lamentations, and set to work to arouse the village.

Ere long a score of men had started to ascend the Hohlicht heights,

above Kalbermatt and Z'Mutt, which commanded the plateau of the

Matterhorngletscher. They returned after six hours, and reported that

they had seen the bodies lying motionless on the snow. This was on

Saturday, and they proposed that we should leave on Sunday evening, so

as to arrive upon the plateau at daybreak on Monday. We started at 2

A.M. on Sunday, the 16th, and followed the route that we had taken on

the previous Thursday as far as the Hornli. From thence we went down

to the right of the ridge, and mounted through the "seracs" of the

Matterhorngletscher. By 8:30 we had got to the plateau at the top of the

glacier, and within sight of the corner in which we knew my companions

must be. As we saw one weather-beaten man after another raise the

telescope, turn deadly pale and pass it on without a word to the next,

we knew that all hope was gone. We approached. They had fallen below as

they had fallen above--Croz a little in advance, Hadow near him, and

Hudson behind, but of Lord Francis Douglas we could see nothing.[50] We

left them where they fell, buried in snow at the base of the grandest

cliff of the most majestic mountain of the Alps.

AN ASCENT OF MONTE ROSA[51]

BY JOHN TYNDALL

On Monday, the 9th of August, we reached the Riffel, and, by good

fortune on the evening of the same day, my guide's brother, the

well-known Ulrich Lauener, also arrived at the hotel on his return from

Monte Rosa. From him we obtained all the information possible respecting

the ascent, and he kindly agreed to accompany us a little way the next

morning, to put us on the right track. At three A.M. the door of my

bedroom opened, and Christian Lauener announced to me that the weather

was sufficiently good to justify an attempt. The stars were shining

overhead; but Ulrich afterward drew our attention to some heavy clouds

which clung to the mountains on the other side of the valley of the

Visp; remarking that the weather might continue fair throughout the day,

but that these clouds were ominous. At four o'clock we were on our way,

by which time a gray stratus cloud had drawn itself across the neck of

the Matterhorn, and soon afterward another of the same nature encircled

his waist. We proceeded past the Riffelhorn to the ridge above the

Goerner Glacier, from which Monte Rosa was visible from top to bottom,

and where an animated conversation in Swiss dialect commenced.

Ulrich described the slopes, passes, and precipices, which were to guide

us; and Christian demanded explanations, until he was finally able to

declare to me that his knowledge was sufficient. We then bade Ulrich

good-by, and went forward. All was clear about Monte Rosa, and the

yellow morning light shone brightly upon its uppermost snows. Beside

the Queen of the Alps was the huge mass of the Lyskamm, with a saddle

stretching from the one to the other; next to the Lyskamm came two

white, rounded mounds, smooth and pure, the Twins Castor and Pollux,

and further to the right again the broad, brown flank of the Breithorn.

Behind us Mont Cervin[52] gathered the clouds more thickly round him,

until finally his grand obelisk was totally hidden. We went along the

mountain side for a time, and then descended to the glacier.

The surface was hard frozen, and the ice crunched loudly under our

feet. There was a hollowness and volume in the sound which require

explanation; and this, I think, is furnished by the remarks of Sir John

Herschel on those hollow sounds at the Solfaterra, near Naples, from

which travelers have inferred the existence of cavities within the

mountain. At the place where these sounds are heard the earth is

friable, and, when struck, the concussion is reinforced and lengthened

by the partial echoes from the surfaces of the fragments. The

conditions for a similar effect exist upon the glacier, for the ice is

disintegrated to a certain depth, and from the innumerable places

of rupture little reverberations are sent, which give a length and

hollowness to the sound produced by the crushing of the fragments on the

surface.

We looked to the sky at intervals, and once a meteor slid across it,

leaving a train of sparks behind. The blue firmament, from which the

stars shone down so brightly when we rose, was more and more invaded by

clouds, which advanced upon us from our rear, while before us the solemn

heights of Monte Rosa were bathed in rich yellow sunlight. As the day

advanced the radiance crept down toward the valleys; but still those

stealthy clouds advanced like a besieging army, taking deliberate

possession of the summits, one after another, while gray skirmishers

moved through the air above us. The play of light and shadow upon Monte

Rosa was at times beautiful, bars of gloom and zones of glory shifting

and alternating from top to bottom of the mountain.

At five o'clock a gray cloud alighted on the shoulder of the Lyskamm,

which had hitherto been warmed by the lovely yellow light. Soon

afterward we reached the foot of Monte Rosa, and passed from the glacier

to a slope of rocks, whose rounded forms and furrowed surfaces showed

that the ice of former ages had moved over them; the granite was now

coated with lichens, and between the bosses where mold could rest were

patches of tender moss. As we ascended a peal to the right announced the

descent of an avalanche from the Twins; it came heralded by clouds of

ice-dust, which resembled the sphered masses of condensed vapor which

issue from a locomotive.

A gentle snow-slope brought us to the base of a precipice of brown

rocks, round which we wound; the snow was in excellent order, and the

chasms were so firmly bridged by the frozen mass that no caution was

necessary in crossing them. Surmounting a weathered cliff to our left,

we paused upon the summit to look upon the scene around us. The snow

gliding insensibly from the mountains, or discharged in avalanches from

the precipices which it overhung, filled the higher valleys with pure

white glaciers, which were rifted and broken here and there, exposing

chasms and precipices from which gleamed the delicate blue of the

half-formed ice. Sometimes, however, the "neves" spread over wide spaces

without a rupture or wrinkle to break the smoothness of the superficial

snow. The sky was now, for the most part, overcast, but through the

residual blue spaces the sun at intervals poured light over the rounded

bosses of the mountain.

At half-past seven o'clock we reached another precipice of rock, to the

left of which our route lay, and here Lauener proposed to have some

refreshment; after which we went on again. The clouds spread more and

more, leaving at length mere specks and patches of blue between them.

Passing some high peaks, formed by the dislocation of the ice, we came

to a place where the "neve" was rent by crevasses, on the walls of which

the stratification, due to successive snowfalls, was thrown with great

beauty and definition. Between two of these fissures our way now lay;

the wall of one of them was hollowed out longitudinally midway down,

thus forming a roof above and a ledge below, and from roof to ledge

stretched a railing of cylindrical icicles, as if intended to bolt them

together. A cloud now for the first time touched the summit of Monte

Rosa, and sought to cling to it, but in a minute it dispersed in

shattered fragments, as if dashed to pieces for its presumption. The

mountain remained for a time clear and triumphant, but the triumph was

shortlived; like suitors that will not be repelled, the dusky vapors

came; repulse after repulse took place, and the sunlight gushed down

upon the heights, but it was manifest that the clouds gained ground in

the conflict.

Until about a quarter-past nine o'clock our work was mere child's play,

a pleasant morning stroll along the flanks of the mountain; but steeper

slopes now rose above us, which called for more energy, and more care

in the fixing of the feet. Looked at from below, some of these slopes

appeared precipitous; but we were too well acquainted with the effect

of fore-shortening to let this daunt us. At each step we dug our batons

into the deep snow. When first driven in, the batons [53] "dipt" from

us, but were brought, as we walked forward, to the vertical, and finally

beyond it at the other side. The snow was thus forced aside, a rubbing

of the staff against it, and of the snow-particles against each other,

being the consequence. We had thus perpetual rupture and regelation;

while the little sounds consequent upon rupture reinforced by the

partial echoes from the surfaces of the granules, were blended together

to a note resembling the lowing of cows.

Hitherto I had paused at intervals to make notes, or to take an angle;

but these operations now ceased, not from want of time, but from pure

dislike; for when the eye has to act the part of a sentinel who feels

that at any moment the enemy may be upon him; when the body must be

balanced with precision, and legs and arms, besides performing actual

labor, must be kept in readiness for possible contingencies; above all,

when you feel that your safety depends upon yourself alone, and that, if

your footing gives way, there is no strong arm behind ready to be thrown

between you and destruction; under such circumstances the relish for

writing ceases, and you are willing to hand over your impressions to the

safekeeping of memory.

Prom the vast boss which constitutes the lower portion of Monte Rosa

cliffy edges run upward to the summit. Were the snow removed from

these we should, I doubt not, see them as toothed or serrated crags,

justifying the term "kamm," or "comb," applied to such edges by the

Germans. Our way now lay along such a "kamm," the cliffs of which had,

however, caught the snow, and been completely covered by it, forming an

edge like the ridge of a house-roof, which sloped steeply upward. On the

Lyskamm side of the edge there was no footing, and if a human body fell

over here, it would probably pass through a vertical space of some

thousands of feet, falling or rolling, before coming to rest. On

the other side the snow-slope was less steep, but excessively

perilous-looking, and intersected by precipices of ice. Dense clouds

now enveloped us, and made our position far uglier than if it had been

fairly illuminated. The valley below us was one vast cauldron, filled

with precipitated vapor, which came seething at times up the sides of

the mountain. Sometimes this fog would clear away, and the light would

gleam from the dislocated glaciers. My guide continually admonished me

to make my footing sure, and to fix at each step my staff firmly in the

consolidated snow. At one place, for a short steep ascent, the slope

became hard ice, and our position a very ticklish one. We hewed our

steps as we moved upward, but were soon glad to deviate from the ice to

a position scarcely less awkward. The wind had so acted upon the snow as

to fold it over the edge of the kamm, thus causing it to form a kind

of cornice, which overhung the precipice on the Lyskamm side of the

mountain. This cornice now bore our weight; its snow had become somewhat

firm, but it was yielding enough to permit the feet to sink in it a

little way, and thus secure us at least against the danger of slipping.

Here, also, at each step we drove our batons firmly into the snow,

availing ourselves of whatever help they could render.

Once, while thus securing my anchorage, the handle of my hatchet went

right through the cornice on which we stood, and, on withdrawing it, I

could see through the aperture into the cloud-crammed gulf below. We

continued ascending until we reached a rock protruding from the snow,

and here we halted for a few minutes. Lauener looked upward through the

fog. "According to all description," he observed, "this ought to be the

last kamm of the mountain; but in this obscurity we can see nothing."

Snow began to fall, and we recommenced our journey, quitting the rocks

and climbing again along the edge. Another hour brought us to a crest of

cliffs, at which, to our comfort, the kamm appeared to cease, and other

climbing qualities were demanded of us.

On the Lyskamm side, as I have said, rescue would be out of the

question, should the climber go over the edge. On the other side of the

edge rescue seemed possible, tho' the slope, as stated already, was

most dangerously steep. I now asked Lauener what he would have done,

supposing my footing to have failed on the latter slope. He did not seem

to like the question, but said that he should have considered well for

a moment and then have sprung after me; but he exhorted me to drive all

such thoughts away. I laughed at him, and this did more to set his mind

at rest than any formal profession of courage could have done.

We were now among rocks; we climbed cliffs and descended them, and

advanced sometimes with our feet on narrow ledges, holding tightly on to

other ledges by our fingers; sometimes, cautiously balanced, we moved

along edges of rock with precipices on both sides. Once, in getting

round a crag, Lauener shook a book from his pocket; it was arrested by a

rock about sixty or eighty feet below us. He wished to regain it, but I

offered to supply its place, if he thought the descent too dangerous. He

said he would make the trial, and parted from me. I thought it useless

to remain idle. A cleft was before me, through which I must pass; so

pressing my knees and back against its opposite sides, I gradually

worked myself to the top. I descended the other face of the rock,

and then, through a second ragged fissure, to the summit of another

pinnacle. The highest point of the mountain was now at hand, separated

from me merely by a short saddle, carved by weathering out the crest

of the mountain. I could hear Lauener clattering after me, through the

rocks behind. I dropt down upon the saddle, crossed it, climbed the

opposite cliff, and "die hoechste Spitze" of Monte Rosa was won.

Lauener joined me immediately, and we mutually congratulated each other

on the success of the ascent. The residue of the bread and meat was

produced, and a bottle of tea was also appealed to. Mixed with a little

cognac, Lauener declared that he had never tasted anything like it.

Snow fell thickly at intervals, and the obscurity was very great;

occasionally this would lighten and permit the sun to shed a ghastly

dilute light upon us through the gleaming vapor. I put my boiling-water

apparatus in order, and fixt it in a corner behind a ledge; the shelter

was, however, insufficient, so I placed my hat above the vessel. The

boiling-point was 184.92 deg. Fahr., the ledge on which the instrument

stood being five feet below the highest point of the mountain.

The ascent from the Riffel Hotel occupied us about seven hours, nearly

two of which were spent upon the kaemm and crest. Neither of us felt in

the least degree fatigued; I, indeed, felt so fresh, that had another

Monte Rosa been planted on the first, I should have continued the

climb without hesitation, and with strong hopes of reaching the top.

I experienced no trace of mountain sickness, lassitude, shortness of

breath, heart-beat, or headache; nevertheless the summit of Monte Rosa

is 15,284 feet high, being less than 500 feet lower than Mont Blanc. It

is, I think, perfectly certain, that the rarefaction of the air at this

height is not sufficient of itself to produce the symptoms referred to;

physical exertion must be superadded.

MONT BLANC ASCENDED, HUXLEY GOING PART WAY[54]

BY JOHN TYNDALL

The way for a time was excessively rough,[55] our route being overspread

with the fragments of peaks which had once reared themselves to our

left, but which frost and lightning had shaken to pieces, and poured

in granite avalanches down the mountain. We were sometimes among huge,

angular boulders, and sometimes amid lighter shingle, which gave way at

every step, thus forcing us to shift our footing incessantly. Escaping

from these we crossed the succession of secondary glaciers which lie

at the feet of the Aiguilles, and, having secured firewood, found

ourselves, after some hours of hard work, at the Pierre l'Echelle. Here

we were furnished with leggings of coarse woolen cloth to keep out the

snow; they were tied under the knees and quite tightly again over the

insteps, so that the legs were effectually protected. We had some

refreshment, possest ourselves of the ladder, and entered upon the

glacier.

The ice was excessively fissured; we crossed crevasses and crept

round slippery ridges, cutting steps in the ice wherever climbing

was necessary. This rendered our progress very slow. Once, with the

intention of lending a helping hand, I stept forward upon a block of

granite which happened to be poised like a rocking stone upon the ice,

tho' I did not know it; it treacherously turned under me; I fell, but my

hands were in instant requisition, and I escaped with a bruise, from

which, however, the blood oozed angrily. We found the ladder necessary

in crossing some of the chasms, the iron spikes at its end being firmly

driven into the ice at one side, while the other end rested on the

opposite side of the fissure. The middle portion of the glacier was

not difficult. Mounds of ice rose beside us right and left, which were

sometimes split into high towers and gaunt-looking pyramids, while the

space between was unbroken.

Twenty minutes' walking brought us again to a fissured portion of the

glacier, and here our porter left the ladder on the ice behind him. For

some time I was not aware of this, but we were soon fronted by a chasm

to pass which we were in consequence compelled to make a long and

dangerous circuit amid crests of crumbling ice. This accomplished, we

hoped that no repetition of the process would occur, but we speedily

came to a second fissure, where it was necessary to step from a

projecting end of ice to a mass of soft snow which overhung the opposite

side. Simond could reach this snow with his long-handled ax; he beat

it down to give it rigidity, but it was exceedingly tender, and as he

worked at it he continued to express his fears that it would not bear

us. I was the lightest of the party, and therefore tested the passage

first; being partially lifted by Simond on the end of his ax, I crossed

the fissure, obtained some anchorage at the other side, and helped the

others over. We afterward ascended until another chasm, deeper and wider

than any we had hitherto encountered, arrested us. We walked alongside

of it in search of a snow-bridge, which we at length found, but the

keystone of the arch had, unfortunately, given way, leaving projecting

eaves of snow at both sides, between which we could look into the gulf,

till the gloom of its deeper portions cut the vision short.

Both sides of the crevasse were sounded, but no sure footing was

obtained; the snow was beaten and carefully trodden down as near to the

edge as possible, but it finally broke away from the foot and fell into

the chasm. One of our porters was short-legged and a bad iceman; the

other was a daring fellow, and he now threw the knapsack from his

shoulders, came to the edge of the crevasse, looked into it, but drew

back again. After a pause he repeated the act, testing the snow with

his feet and staff. I looked at the man as he stood beside the chasm

manifestly undecided as to whether he should take the step upon which

his life would hang, and thought it advisable to put a stop to such

perilous play. I accordingly interposed, the man withdrew from the

crevasse, and he and Simond descended to fetch the ladder.

While they were away Huxley sat down upon the ice, with an expression of

fatigue stamped upon his countenance; the spirit and the muscles were

evidently at war, and the resolute will mixed itself strangely with the

sense of peril and feeling of exhaustion. He had been only two days

with us, and, tho' his strength is great, he had had no opportunity of

hardening himself by previous exercise upon the ice for the task which

he had undertaken. The ladder now arrived, and we crossed the crevasse.

I was intentionally the last of the party, Huxley being immediately in

front of me. The determination of the man disguised his real condition

from everybody but himself, but I saw that the exhausting journey over

the boulders and debris had been too much for his London limbs.

Converting my waterproof haversack into a cushion, I made him sit down

upon it at intervals, and by thus breaking the steep ascent into short

stages we reached the cabin of the Grands Mulets together. Here I spread

a rug on the boards, and, placing my bag for a pillow, he lay down, and

after an hour's profound sleep he rose refreshed and well; but still he

thought it wise not to attempt the ascent farther. Our porters left us;

a baton was stretched across the room over the stove, and our wet socks

and leggings were thrown across it to dry; our boots were placed around

the fire, and we set about preparing our evening meal. A pan was placed

upon the fire, and filled with snow, which in due time melted and

boiled; I ground some chocolate and placed it in the pan, and afterward

ladled the beverage into the vessels we possest, which consisted of two

earthen dishes and the metal cases of our brandy flasks. After supper

Simond went out to inspect the glacier, and was observed by Huxley, as

twilight fell, in a state of deep contemplation beside a crevasse.

Gradually the stars appeared, but as yet no moon. Before lying down we

went out to look at the firmament, and noticed, what I supposed has been

observed to some extent by everybody, that the stars near the horizon

twinkled busily, while those near the zenith shone with a steady light.

One large star, in particular, excited our admiration; it flashed

intensely, and changed color incessantly, sometimes blushing like a

ruby, and again gleaming like an emerald. A determinate color would

sometimes remain constant for a sensible time, but usually the flashes

followed each other in very quick succession.

Three planks were now placed across the room near the stove, and upon

these, with their rugs folded round them, Huxley and Hirst stretched

themselves, while I nestled on the boards at the most distant end of the

room. We rose at eleven o'clock, renewed the fire and warmed ourselves,

after which we lay down again. I, at length, observed a patch of pale

light upon the wooden wall of the cabin, which had entered through a

hole in the end of the edifice, and rising found that it was past one

o'clock. The cloudless moon was shining over the wastes of snow, and the

scene outside was at once wild, grand, and beautiful.

Breakfast was soon prepared, tho' not without difficulty; we had no

candles, they had been forgotten; but I fortunately possest a box of

wax matches, of which Huxley took charge, patiently igniting them in

succession, and thus giving us a tolerably continuous light. We had

some tea, which had been made at the Montanvert,[56] and carried to the

Grands Mulets in a bottle. My memory of that tea is not pleasant; it had

been left a whole night in contact with its leaves, and smacked strongly

of tannin. The snow-water, moreover, with which we diluted it was not

pure, but left a black residuum at the bottom of the dishes in which the

beverage was served. The few provisions deemed necessary being placed in

Simond's knapsack, at twenty minutes past two o'clock we scrambled down

the rocks, leaving Huxley behind us.

The snow was hardened by the night's frost, and we were cheered by the

hope of being able to accomplish the ascent with comparatively little

labor. We were environed by an atmosphere of perfect purity; the larger

stars hung like gems above us, and the moon, about half full, shone with

wondrous radiance in the dark firmament. One star in particular, which

lay eastward from the moon, suddenly made its appearance above one of

the Aiguilles, and burned there with unspeakable splendor. We turned

once toward the Mulets, and saw Huxley's form projected against the sky

as he stood upon a pinnacle of rock; he gave us a last wave of the hand

and descended, while we receded from him into the solitudes.

The evening previous our guide had examined the glacier for some

distance, his progress having been arrested by a crevasse. Beside this

we soon halted: it was spanned at one place by a bridge of snow, which

was of too light a structure to permit of Simond's testing it alone;

we therefore paused while our guide uncoiled a rope and tied us all

together. The moment was to me a peculiarly solemn one. Our little party

seemed so lonely and so small amid the silence and the vastness of the

surrounding scene. We were about to try our strength under unknown

conditions, and as the various possibilities of the enterprise crowded

on the imagination, a sense of responsibility for a moment opprest

me. But as I looked aloft and saw the glory of the heavens, my heart

lightened, and I remarked cheerily to Hirst that Nature seemed to smile

upon our work. "Yes," he replied, in a calm and earnest voice, "and, God

willing, we shall accomplish it."

A pale light now overspread the eastern sky, which increased, as we

ascended, to a daffodil tinge; this afterward heightened to orange,

deepening at one extremity into red, and fading at the other into a

pure, ethereal hue to which it would be difficult to assign a special

name. Higher up the sky was violet, and this changed by insensible

degrees into the darkling blue of the zenith, which had to thank the

light of moon and stars alone for its existence. We wound steadily for a

time through valleys of ice, climbed white and slippery slopes, crossed

a number of crevasses, and after some time found ourselves beside a

chasm of great depth and width, which extended right and left as far

as we could see. We turned to the left, and marched along its edge in

search of a "pont"; but matters became gradually worse; other crevasses

joined on to the first one, and the further we proceeded the more riven

and dislocated the ice became.

At length we reached a place where further advance was impossible.

Simond, in his difficulty complained of the want of light, and wished us

to wait for the advancing day; I, on the contrary, thought that we had

light enough and ought to make use of it. Here the thought occurred to

me that Simond, having been only once before to the top of the mountain,

might not be quite clear about the route; the glacier, however, changes

within certain limits from year to year, so that a general knowledge was

all that could be expected, and we trusted to our own muscles to make

good any mistake in the way of guidance.

We now turned and retraced our steps along the edges of chasms where the

ice was disintegrated and insecure, and succeeded at length in finding a

bridge which bore us across the crevasse. This error caused us the loss

of an hour, and after walking for this time we could cast a stone from

the point we had attained to the place whence we had been compelled to

return.

Our way now lay along the face of a steep incline of snow, which was cut

by the fissure we had just passed, in a direction parallel to our route.

On the heights to our right, loose ice-crags seemed to totter, and we

passed two tracks over which the frozen blocks had rushed some short

time previously. We were glad to get out of the range of these terrible

projectiles, and still more so to escape the vicinity of that ugly

crevasse. To be killed in the open air would be a luxury, compared with

having the life squeezed out of one in the horrible gloom of these

chasms. The blush of the coming day became more and more intense; still

the sun himself did not appear, being hidden from us by the peaks of

the Aiguille du Midi, which were drawn clear and sharp against the

brightening sky. Right under this Aiguille were heaps of snow smoothly

rounded and constituting a portion of the sources whence the Glacier du

Geant is fed; these, as the day advanced, bloomed with a rosy light. We

reached the Petit Plateau, which we found covered with the remains of

ice avalanches; above us upon the crest of the mountain rose three

mighty bastions, divided from each other by deep, vertical rents, with

clean smooth walls, across which the lines of annual bedding were drawn

like courses of masonry. From these, which incessantly renew themselves,

and from the loose and broken ice-crags near them, the boulders amid

which we now threaded our way had been discharged. When they fall their

descent must be sublime.

The snow had been gradually getting deeper, and the ascent more

wearisome, but superadded to this at the Petit Plateau was the

uncertainty of the footing between the blocks of ice. In many places

the space was merely covered by a thin crust, which, when trod upon,

instantly yielded and we sank with a shock sometimes to the hips. Our

way next lay up a steep incline to the Grand Plateau, the depth and

tenderness of the snow augmenting as we ascended. We had not yet seen

the sun, but as we attained the brow which forms the entrance to the

Grand Plateau, he hung his disk upon a spike of rock to our left, and,

surrounded by a glory of interference spectra of the most gorgeous

colors, blazed down upon us. On the Grand Plateau we halted and had our

frugal refreshment.

At some distance to our left was the crevasse into which Dr. Hamel's

three guides were precipitated by an avalanche in 1820; they are still

entombed in the ice, and some future explorer may, perhaps, see them

disgorged lower down, fresh and undecayed. They can hardly reach the

surface until they pass the snow-line of the glacier, for above this

line the quantity of snow that annually falls being in excess of the

quantity melted, the tendency would be to make the ice-covering above

them thicker. But it is also possible that the waste of the ice

underneath may have brought the bodies to the bed of the glacier, where

their very bones may have been ground to mud by an agency which the

hardest rocks can not withstand.

As the sun poured his light upon the Plateau the little snow-facets

sparkled brilliantly, sometimes with a pure white light, and at others

with prismatic colors. Contrasted with the white spaces above and

around us were the dark mountains on the opposite side of the valley of

Chamouni, around which fantastic masses of cloud were beginning to build

themselves. Mont Buet, with its cone of snow, looked small, and the

Brevent altogether mean; the limestone bastions of the Fys, however,

still presented a front of gloom and grandeur. We traversed the Grand

Plateau, and at length reached the base of an extremely steep incline

which stretched upward toward the Corridor. Here, as if produced by a

fault, consequent upon the sinking of the ice in front, rose a vertical

precipice, from the coping of which vast stalactites of ice depended.

Previous to reaching this place I had noticed a haggard expression upon

the countenance of our guide, which was now intensified by the prospect

of the ascent before him. Hitherto he had always been in front, which

was certainly the most fatiguing position. I felt that I must now take

the lead, so I spoke cheerily to the man and placed him behind me.

Marking a number of points upon the slope as resting places, I went

swiftly from one to the other. The surface of the snow had been

partially melted by the sun and then refrozen, thus forming a

superficial crust, which bore the weight up to a certain point, and then

suddenly gave way, permitting the leg to sink to above the knee. The

shock consequent on this, and the subsequent effort necessary to

extricate the leg, were extremely fatiguing. My motion was complained of

as too quick, and my tracks as imperfect; I moderated the former, and to

render my footholes broad and sure, I stamped upon the frozen crust,

and twisted my legs in the soft mass underneath,--a terribly exhausting

process. I thus led the way to the base of the Rochers Bouges, up to

which the fault already referred to had prolonged itself as a crevasse,

which was roofed at one place by a most dangerous-looking snow-bridge.

Simond came to the front; I drew his attention to the state of the snow,

and proposed climbing the Rochers Rouges; but, with a promptness unusual

with him, he replied that this was impossible; the bridge was our only

means of passing, and we must try it. We grasped our ropes, and dug our

feet firmly into the snow to check the man's descent if the "pont" gave

way, but to our astonishment it bore him, and bore us safely after

him. The slope which we had now to ascend had the snow swept from its

surface, and was therefore firm ice. It was most dangerously steep, and,

its termination being the fretted coping of the precipice to which I

have referred, if we slid downward we should shoot over this and be

dashed to pieces upon the ice below.[57] Simond, who had come to the

front to cross the crevasse, was now engaged in cutting steps, which he

made deep and large, so that they might serve us on our return. But the

listless strokes of his ax proclaimed his exhaustion; so I took the

implement out of his hands, and changed places with him. Step after step

was hewn, but the top of the Corridor appeared ever to recede from us.

Hirst was behind, unoccupied, and could thus turn his thoughts to the

peril of our position; he "felt" the angle on which we hung, and saw the

edge of the precipice, to which less than a quarter of a minute's slide

would carry us, and for the first time during the journey he grew giddy.

A cigar which he lighted for the purpose tranquilized him.

I hewed sixty steps upon this slope, and each step had cost a minute, by

Hirst's watch. The Mur de la Cote was still before us, and on this the

guide-books informed us two or three hundred steps were sometimes found

necessary. If sixty steps cost an hour, what would be the cost of two

hundred? The question was disheartening in the extreme, for the time at

which we had calculated on reaching the summit was already passed, while

the chief difficulties remained unconquered. Having hewn our way along

the harder ice we reached snow. I again resorted to stamping to secure a

footing, and while thus engaged became, for the first time, aware of the

drain of force to which I was subjecting myself. The thought of being

absolutely exhausted had never occurred to me, and from first to last I

had taken no care to husband my strength. I always calculated that the

"will" would serve me even should the muscles fail, but I now found that

mechanical laws rule man in the long run; that no effort of will, no

power of spirit, can draw beyond a certain limit upon muscular force.

The soul, it is true, can stir the body to action, but its function is

to excite and apply force, and not to create it.

While stamping forward through the frozen crust I was compelled to pause

at short intervals; then would set out again apparently fresh, to

find, however, in a few minutes, that my strength was gone, and that

I required to rest once more. In this way I gained the summit of the

Corridor, when Hirst came to the front, and I felt some relief in

stepping slowly after him, making use of the holes into which his feet

had sunk. He thus led the way to the base of the Mur de la Cote, the

thought of which had so long cast a gloom upon us; here we left our rope

behind us, and while pausing I asked Simond whether he did not feel

a desire to go to the summit. "Surely," was his reply, "but!--" Our

guide's mind was so constituted that the "but" seemed essential to its

peace. I stretched my hands toward him, and said: "Simond, we must do

it." One thing alone I felt could defeat us: the usual time of the

ascent had been more than doubled, the day was already far spent, and if

the ascent would throw our subsequent descent into night it could not be

contemplated.

We now faced the Mur, which was by no means so bad as we had expected.

Driving the iron claws of our boots into the scars made by the ax, and

the spikes of our batons into the slope above our feet, we ascended

steadily until the summit was attained, and the top of the mountain rose

clearly above us. We congratulated ourselves upon this; but Simond,

probably fearing that our joy might become too full, remarked: "But the

summit is still far off!" It was, alas! too true. The snow became soft

again, and our weary limbs sank in it as before. Our guide went on in

front, audibly muttering his doubts as to our ability to reach the top,

and at length he threw himself upon the snow, and exclaimed, "I give

up!"

Hirst now undertook the task of rekindling the guide's enthusiasm, after

which Simond rose, exclaiming: "Oh, but this makes my knees ache!" and

went forward. Two rocks break through the snow between the summit of the

Mur and the top of the mountain; the first is called the Petits Mulets,

and the highest the Derniers Rochers. At the former of these we paused

to rest, and finished our scanty store of wine and provisions. We had

not a bit of bread nor a drop of wine left; our brandy flasks were also

nearly exhausted, and thus we had to contemplate the journey to the

summit, and the subsequent descent to the Grands Mulets, with out the

slightest prospect of physical refreshment. The almost total loss of two

nights' sleep, with two days' toil superadded, made me long for a few

minutes' doze, so I stretched myself upon a composite couch of snow and

granite, and immediately fell asleep.

My friend, however, soon aroused me. "You quite frighten me," he said;

"I have listened for some minutes, and have not heard you breathe once."

I had, in reality, been taking deep draughts of the mountain air, but so

silently as not to be heard.

I now filled our empty wine-bottle with snow and placed it in the

sunshine, that we might have a little water on our return. We then

rose; it was half-past two o'clock; we had been upward of twelve hours

climbing, and I calculated that, whether we reached the summit or not,

we could at all events work "toward" it for another hour. To the sense

of fatigue previously experienced, a new phenomenon was now added--the

beating of the heart. We were incessantly pulled up by this, which

sometimes became so intense as to suggest danger. I counted the number

of paces which we were able to accomplish without resting, and found

that at the end of every twenty, sometimes at the end of fifteen, we

were compelled to pause. At each pause my heart throbbed audibly, as I

leaned upon my staff, and the subsidence of this action was always

the signal for further advance. My breathing was quick, but light and

unimpeded.

I endeavored to ascertain whether the hip-joint, on account of the

diminished atmospheric pressure, became loosened, so as to throw the

weight of the leg upon the surrounding ligaments, but could not be

certain about it. I also sought a little aid and encouragement from

philosophy, endeavoring to remember what great things had been done by

the accumulation of small quantities, and I urged upon myself that the

present was a case in point, and that the summation of distances twenty

paces each must finally place us at the top. Still the question of time

left the matter long in doubt, and until we had passed the Derniers

Rochers we worked on with the stern indifference of men who were doing

their duty, and did not look to consequences. Here, however, a gleam

of hope began to brighten our souls: the summit became visible nearer,

Simond showed more alacrity; at length success became certain, and at

half-past three P.M. my friend and I clasped hands upon the top.

The summit of the mountain is an elongated ridge, which has been

compared to the back of an ass. It was perfectly manifest that we were

dominant over all other mountains; as far as the eye could range Mont

Blanc had no competitor. The summits which had looked down upon us in

the morning were now far beneath us. The Dome du Goute, which had held

its threatening "seracs" above us so long, was now at our feet. The

Aiguille du Midi, Mont Blanc du Tacul, and the Monts Maudits, the

Talefre, with its surrounding peaks, the Grand Jorasse, Mont Mallet, and

the Aiguille du Geant, with our own familiar glaciers, were all below

us. And as our eye ranged over the broad shoulders of the mountain, over

ice hills and valleys, plateaux and far-stretching slopes of snow, the

conception of its magnitude grew upon us, and imprest us more and more.

The clouds were very grand--grander, indeed, than anything I had ever

before seen. Some of them seemed to hold thunder in their breasts, they

were so dense and dark; others, with their faces turned sunward, shone

with the dazzling whiteness of the mountain snow; while others again

built themselves into forms resembling gigantic elm trees, loaded with

foliage. Toward the horizon the luxury of color added itself to the

magnificent alternation of light and shade. Clear spaces of amber and

ethereal green embraced the red and purple cumuli, and seemed to form

the cradle in which they swung. Closer at hand squally mists, suddenly

engendered, were driven hither and thither by local winds; while the

clouds at a distance lay "like angels sleeping on the wing," with

scarcely visibly motion. Mingling with the clouds, and sometimes rising

above them, were the highest mountain heads, and as our eyes wandered

from peak to peak, onward to the remote horizon, space itself seemed

more vast from the manner in which the objects which it held were

distributed....

The day was waning, and, urged by the warnings of our ever-prudent

guide, we at length began the descent. Gravity was in our favor, but

gravity could not entirely spare our wearied limbs, and where we sank

in the snow we found our downward progress very trying. I suffered from

thirst, but after we had divided the liquefied snow at the Petits Mulets

among us we had nothing to drink. I crammed the clean snow into my

mouth, but the process of melting was slow and tantalizing to a parched

throat, while the chill was painful to the teeth.

THE JUNGFRAU-JOCH[58]

BY SIR LESLIE STEPHEN

I was once more standing upon the Wengern Alp, and gazing longingly at

the Jungfrau-Joch. Surely the Wengern Alp must be precisely the loveliest

place in this world. To hurry past it, and listen to the roar of the

avalanches, is a very unsatisfactory mode of enjoyment; it reminds one

too much of letting off crackers in a cathedral. The mountains seem to

be accomplices of the people who charge fifty centimes for an echo. But

it does one's moral nature good to linger there at sunset or in the

early morning, when tourists have ceased from traveling; and the jaded

cockney may enjoy a kind of spiritual bath in the soothing calmness of

scenery....

We, that is a little party of six Englishmen with six Oberland guides,

who left the inn at 3 A.M. on July 20, 1862, were not, perhaps, in a

specially poetical mood. Yet as the sun rose while we were climbing the

huge buttress of the Moench, the dullest of us--I refer, of course,

to myself--felt something of the spirit of the scenery. The day was

cloudless, and a vast inverted cone of dazzling rays suddenly struck

upward into the sky through the gap between the Moench and the Eiger,

which, as some effect of perspective shifted its apparent position,

looked like a glory streaming from the very summit of the Eiger. It was

a good omen, if not in any more remote sense, yet as promising a fine

day. After a short climb we descended upon the Gugg, glacier, most

lamentably unpoetical of names, and mounted by it to the great plateau

which lies below the cliffs immediately under the col. We reached this

at about seven, and, after a short meal, carefully examined the route

above us. Half way between us and the col lay a small and apparently

level plateau of snow. Once upon it we felt confident that we could get

to the top....

We plunged at once into the maze of crevasses, finding our passage much

facilitated by the previous efforts of our guides. We were constantly

walking over ground strewed with crumbling blocks of ice, the recent

fall of which was proved by their sharp white fractures, and with a

thing like an infirm toad stool twenty feet high, towering above our

heads. Once we passed under a natural arch of ice, built in evident

disregard of all principles of architectural stability. Hurrying

judiciously at such critical points, and creeping slowly round those

where the footing was difficult, we manage to thread the labyrinth

safely, whilst Rubi appeared to think it rather pleasant than otherwise

in such places to have his head fixt in a kind of pillory between two

rungs of a ladder, with twelve feet of it sticking out behind and twelve

feet before him.

We reached the gigantic crevasse at 7.35. We passed along it to a point

where its two lips nearly joined, and the side furthest from us was

considerably higher than that upon which we stood. Fixing the foot of

the ladder upon this ledge, we swung the top over, and found that it

rested satisfactorily against the opposite bank. Almer crept up it,

and made the top firmer by driving his ax into the snow underneath the

highest step. The rest of us followed, carefully roped, and with the

caution to rest our knees on the sides of the ladder, as several of the

steps were extremely weak--a remark which was equally applicable to one,

at least, of the sides. We crept up the rickety old machine, however,

looking down between our legs into the blue depths of the crevasse, and

at 8.15 the whole party found itself satisfactorily perched on the edge

of the nearly level snow plateau, looking up at the long slopes of

broken neve that led to the col....

When the man behind was also engaged in hauling himself up by the rope

attached to your waist, when the two portions of the rope formed an

acute angle, when your footing was confined to the insecure grip of one

toe on a slippery bit of ice, and when a great hummock of hard serac was

pressing against the pit of your stomach and reducing you to a

position of neutral equilibrium, the result was a feeling of qualified

acquiescence in Michel or Almer's lively suggestion of "Vorwaerts!

vorwaerts!"

Somehow or other we did ascend. The excitement made the time seem short;

and after what seemed to me to be half an hour, which was in fact nearly

two hours, we had crept, crawled, climbed and wormed our way through

various obstacles, till we found ourselves brought up by a huge

overhanging wall of blue ice. This wall was no doubt the upper side of

a crevasse, the lower part of which had been filled by snow-drift. Its

face was honeycombed by the usual hemispherical chippings, which somehow

always reminds me of the fretted walls of the Alhambra; and it was

actually hollowed out so that its upper edge overhung our heads at a

height of some twenty or thirty feet; the long fringe of icicles which

adorned it had made a slippery pathway of ice at two or three feet

distance from the foot of the wall by the freezing water which dripped

from them; and along this we crept, in hopes that none of the icicles

would come down bodily.

The wall seemed to thin out and become much lower toward our left, and

we moved cautiously toward its lowest point. The edge upon which we

walked was itself very narrow, and ran down at a steep angle to the

top of a lower icefall which repeated the form of the upper. It almost

thinned out at the point where the upper wall was lowest. Upon this

inclined ledge, however, we fixt the foot of our ladder. The difficulty

of doing so conveniently was increased by a transverse crevasse which

here intersected the other system. The foot, however, was fixt and

rendered tolerably safe by driving in firmly several of our alpenstocks

and axes under the lowest step. Almer, then, amidst great excitement,

went forward to mount it. Should we still find an impassable system of

crevasses above us, or were we close to the top? A gentle breeze which

had been playing along the last ledge gave me hope that we were really

not far off. As Almer reached the top about twelve o'clock, a loud

yodel gave notice to all the party that our prospects were good. I soon

followed, and saw, to my great delight, a stretch of smooth, white snow,

without a single crevasse, rising in a gentle curve from our feet to the

top of the col.

The people who had been watching us from the Wengern Alp had been

firing salutes all day, whenever the idea struck them, and whenever we

surmounted a difficulty, such as the first great crevasse. We heard the

faint sound of two or three guns as we reached the final plateau. We

should, properly speaking, have been uproariously triumphant over our

victory. To say the truth, our party of that summer was only too apt to

break out into undignified explosions of animal spirits, bordering at

times upon horseplay....

The top of the Jungfrau-Joch comes rather like a bathos in poetry. It

rises so gently above the steep ice wall, and it is so difficult to

determine the precise culminating point, that our enthusiasm oozed out

gradually instead of producing a sudden explosion; and that instead of

giving three cheers, singing "God Save the Queen," or observing any of

the traditional ceremonial of a simpler generation of travelers, we

calmly walked forward as tho' we had been crossing Westminster Bridge,

and on catching sight of a small patch of rocks near the foot of

the Moench, rushed precipitately down to it and partook of our third

breakfast. Which things, like most others, might easily be made into an

allegory.

The great dramatic moments of life are very apt to fall singularly flat.

We manage to discount all their interest beforehand; and are amazed to

find that the day to which we have looked forward so long--the day,

it may be, of our marriage, or ordination, or election to be Lord

Mayor--finds us curiously unconscious of any sudden transformation and

as strongly inclined to prosaic eating and drinking as usual. At a later

period we may become conscious of its true significance, and perhaps the

satisfactory conquest of this new pass has given us more pleasure in

later years than it did at the moment.

However that may be, we got under way again after a meal and a chat, our

friends Messrs. George and Moore descending the Aletsch glacier to the

Aeggischhorn, whose summit was already in sight, and deceptively near in

appearance. The remainder of the party soon turned off to the left, and

ascended the snow slopes to the gap between the Moench and Trugberg. As

we passed these huge masses, rising in solitary grandeur from the center

of one of the noblest snowy wastes of the Alps, Morgan reluctantly

confest for the first time that he knew nothing exactly like it in

Wales.