Part 18

Our way continued through interchange of pastoral and forest ground. Crossed a bridge, and then had the stream to our left in a rocky gulf overhung with trees, chiefly beeches and elms; sawing-mills on the river very picturesque. It is impossible to imagine a more beautiful descent than was before us to the vale of Hasli. The roaring stream was our companion; sometimes we looked down upon it from the edge of a lofty precipice; sometimes descended towards it, and could trace its furious course for a considerable way. The torrent bounded over rocks, and still went foaming on, no pausing-places, no gentle windings, no pools under the innumerable smaller cataracts; the substance and the grey hue still the same, whether the stream rushed in one impetuous current down a regularly rough part of its steep channel, or laboured among rocks in cloud-shaped heavings, or in boisterous fermentation.... We saw the cataract[50] through an open window. It is a tremendous one, but, wanting the accompaniments of overhanging trees, and all the minor graces which surround our waterfalls--overgrowings of lichen, moss, fern, and flowers--it gives little of what may be called pleasure. It was astonishment and awe--an overwhelming sense of the powers of nature for the destruction of all things, and of the helplessness of man--of the weakness of his will if prompted to make a momentary effort against such a force. What weight and speed of waters! and what a tossing of grey mist! Though at a considerable distance from the fall, when standing at the window, a shower of misty rain blew upon us.

[Footnote 50: The Fall of the Reichenbach.--ED.]

_Meiringen, Saturday, August 12th._--Again crossed the river; then up a bare precipice, and along a gallery hewn out of the rock. Downwards to the valley more bare and open; a sprinkling of pines, among which the peasants were making hay. Hamlets and single huts not far asunder: no thought of dreariness crossed my mind; yet a pensiveness was spread over the long valley, where, year by year, the same simple employments go on in succession, and where the tempests of winter are patiently endured, and thoughtfully guarded against.... The _châlet_ at Handek is large; four long apartments, in one of which our mules rested. Several men were living there for the summer season, but no women. They served us with the same kindliness we had experienced on the Wengern and Scheidegg Alps, but with slowness and gravity. These men were very tall, and had a sedate deportment, generally noticed I find by travellers in Ober Hasli, where the race has for centuries been distinguished by peculiar customs, manners, and habits.... From the brink of a rock we looked down the falls, and along the course of the torrent. The spectacle was tremendous, and, from that point, not less beautiful. The position of the sun here favoured us; and we beheld the arch of a bright rainbow, steadily poised on the cloud of vapour below us that burst out of the terrific waters. We looked down with awe upon

the river, throwing His giant body o'er the steep rock's brink,

yet at first hardly without personal fear. The noise was so great we could not help fancying it shook the very rock on which we stood. That feeling passed away.... While I lay on my bed, the terrible solitudes of the Wetterhorn were revealed to me by fits--its black chasms, and snowy, dark, grey summits. All night, and all day, and for ever, the vale of Meiringen is sounding with torrents.

_Meiringen, Sunday, August 13th._--Rain over, and the storm past away, long before the sunshine had touched the top of any other mountain, the snow upon the Wetterhorn shone like silver, and its grey adamantine towers appeared in a soft splendour all their own. I looked in vain for the rosy tints of morning, of which I had so often heard; but they could not have been more beautiful than the silvery brightness....

_Lake of Lungern._--At an upper window of one of a cluster of houses at the foot of the valley, a middle-aged man, with a long beard, was kneeling with a book in his hand. He fixed his eyes upon us, and, while his devotions were still going on, made me a bow. I passed slowly, and looked into that house with prying eyes, it was so different from any other, and so much handsomer. The wooden ceiling of the room, where the friar or monk (such I suppose him to be) knelt at his prayers, was curiously inlaid and carved, and the walls hung with pictures. The picturesque accompaniments of the Roman Catholic religion, the elegant white chapels on the hills, the steady grave people going to church, and the cheerfulness of the valley, had put me into good humour with the religion itself; but, while we were passing through this very hamlet, and close to the mansion of the godly man, Mr. M. having lost the cork of a little flask, I asked the guide to buy or beg for us another at one of the cottages, and he shook his head, assuring me they would neither give nor sell anything to us Protestants, except in the regular way of trade. They would do nothing for us out of goodwill. I had been too happy in passing through the tranquil valley to be ready to trust my informer, and, having first obliged him to make the request, I asked myself at two respectable houses, and met with a refusal, and no very gracious looks....

_Sarnen, Monday, August 14th._--The road to the monastery is marked by small pillars of grey stone, not more than a quarter of a mile asunder. At the top of each pillar is a square cupboard, as I may call it, or it more resembles the head of a clock, where, secure from the rain, are placed paintings of the history of our Saviour from His birth to His ascension. Some of the designs are very pretty (taken, no doubt, from better pictures) and they generally tell their tale intelligibly. The pillars are in themselves pleasing objects in connection with the background of a crag or overhanging tree--a streamlet, or a bridge--and how touchingly must their pictured language have spoken to the heart of many a weary devotee! The ascent through the forest was interesting on every account. It led us sometimes along the brink of precipices, and always far above the boisterous river. We frequently met, or were overtaken, by peasants (mostly bearing heavy burthens). We spoke to each other; but here I could not understand three words of their language, nor they of mine.

_Engelberg, Mount Titlis, Tuesday, August 15th._--We breakfasted in view of the flashing, silver-topped Mount Titlis, and its grey crags, a sight that roused William's youthful desires; and in spite of weak eyes, and the weight of fifty winters, he could not repress a longing to ascend that mountain.... But my brother had had his own visions of glory, and, had he been twenty years younger, sure I am that he would have trod the summit of the Titlis. Soon after breakfast we were warned to expect the procession, and saw it issuing from the church. Priests in their white robes, choristers, monks chanting the service, banners uplifted, and a full-dressed image of the Virgin carried aloft. The people were divided into several classes; the men, bareheaded; and maidens, taking precedency of the married women, I suppose, because it was the festival of the Virgin.

The procession formed a beautiful stream upon the green level, winding round the church and convent. Thirteen hundred people were assembled at Engelberg, and joined in this service. The unmarried women wore straw hats, ornamented with flowers, white bodices, and crimson petticoats. The dresses of the elder people were curious. What a display of neck-chains and ear-rings! of silver and brocaded stomachers! Some old men had coats after the mode of the time of _The Spectator_, with worked seams. Boys, and even young men, wore flowers in their straw hats. We entered the convent; but were only suffered to go up a number of staircases, and through long whitewashed galleries, hung with portraits of saints, and prints of remarkable places in Switzerland, and particularly of the vale and convent of Engelberg, with plans and charts of the mountains, etc. There are now only eighteen monks; and the abbot no longer exists: his office, I suppose, became extinct with his temporal princedom.... I strolled to the chapel, near the inn, a pretty white edifice, entered by a long flight of steps. No priest, but several young peasants, in shepherdess attire of jackets, and showy petticoats, and flowery hats, were paying their vows to the Virgin. A colony of swallows had built their nests within the cupola, in the centre of the circular roof. They were flying overhead; and their voices seemed to me an harmonious accompaniment to the silent devotions of those rustics.

_Lucerne, Wednesday, August 16th._--Lucerne stands close to the shore at the foot of the lake of the four cantons. The river Reuss, after its passage from the mountain of St. Gothard, falls into that branch called the Lake of Uri, and issues out of another branch at Lucerne, passing through the town. The river has three long wooden bridges; and another bridge, 1080 feet in length, called the Cathedral Bridge, crosses a part of the lake, and leads to the Cathedral. Thither we repaired, having first walked the streets, and purchased a straw hat for 12 francs, at the shop of a pleasant talkative milliner, on whose counter, taking up a small pamphlet (a German magazine), we were surprised at opening upon our own name, and, still more, surprised to find it in connection with my brother's poem on the Duddon, so recently published.

But I was going to lead you to the end of the long bridge under a dark roof of wood, crossed and sustained by heavy beams, on each of which, on both sides--so that they face you both in going and returning--some portion of Scripture history is represented; beginning with Adam and Eve, and ending with the resurrection and ascension of Christ. These pictures, to the number of 230--though, to be sure, woful things as works of art--are by no means despicable daubs; and, while I looked at them myself, it pleased me much more to see the peasants, bringing their burthens to the city, often stay their steps, with eyes cast upwards. The lake is seen through the openings of the bridge; pleasant houses, not crowded, on its green banks.... It was dark when we reached the inn. We took tea at one end of the unoccupied side of the table in the _salle-à-manger_; while, on the other side, a large party were at supper. Before we had finished, a bustle at the door drew our attention to a traveller; rather an odd figure appeared in a greatcoat. Mary said, "He is like Mr. Robinson." He turned round while talking German, with loud voice, to the landlord; and, all at once, we saw that it was Mr. Robinson himself. Our joy cannot be expressed. If he had brought the half of old England along with him, we could not have been more glad. We started up with one consent; and, no doubt, all operations at the supper-table were suspended; but we had no eyes for that. Mr. Robinson introduced two young men, his companions, an American and a Scotchman--genteel, modest youths, who (the ceremony of introduction over) slipped away to the supper-table, wishing to leave us to ourselves. We were indeed happy--and Mr. Robinson was not less so. He seemed as if he had in one moment found two homes, his English home, and his home in Germany, though it were in the heart of Switzerland.

_Lucerne, Friday, August 18th._--Merrily we floated between the soft banks of the first reach of the lake, keeping near the left shore.[51] Plots of corn interspersed among trees and green slopes, with pleasant houses, not neighbouring one another, as at Zurich, nor yet having a character of loneliness. Then we come to low shaggy rocks, forming pretty little bays, and a singular rock appears before us in the water, the terminating point of the promontory. That point passed, the Kusnach branch opening out on our left hand, we are soon on the body of the lake, from which the four smaller branches of Lucerne, Winkel, Alpnach, and Kusnach may be said to proceed. The lake is full and stately; the mountains are magnificent. The town of Lucerne, its red roofs softened (even in the sunshine of this bright day) by distance, is an elegant termination of its own compartment, backed by low hills. Rowing round the rocky point, we lose sight of that quarter: the long Reach of Kusnach is before us, bordered by soft shores with thinly-scattered villages, and but few detached cottages. Behind us, the lake stretches out to Mount Pilatus, dark, rugged, and lofty--the Sarnen and Meiringen mountains beyond; and the summits surrounding the hidden valley of Engelberg in the opposite quarter.

[Footnote 51: Which is in fact the _right_ bank as we were going _up_ the Lake.--D. W.]

_Top of Rigi, Saturday, August 19th._--At Goldau the valley desolation begins. It bears the name of the former village buried in ruins; and is now no more than three or four houses and a church built on the same site. Masses of barren rubbish lie close to the houses, where but a few years past, nothing was seen but fruitful fields. We dined at the inn, and were waited on by the landlady, whose head-dress was truly surprising. She wore from the back of the neck to the forehead a cap shaped like a one-arched bridge with high parapets of stiff muslin; the path of the bridge covered with artificial flowers--wonderously unbecoming; for she was a plain woman--not young--and her hair (I think powdered) was drawn tight up from the forehead. She served us with very small fish, from the lake, excellently cooked, boiled milk, eggs, an omelet, and dessert. From the room where we dined we had a view of the Lake of Zong, formerly separated from the small Lake of Lowertz only by _fertile_ grounds, such as we now beheld stretching down to its shores. Yes! from a window in that house on its desolate site we beheld this lovely prospect; and nothing of the desolation.

_Seewen, August 20th, Sunday._--A small white Church, with a graceful Tower, mitre-topped and surmounted by a slender spire, was in prospect, upon an eminence in the Vale, and thitherward the people led us. Passing through the small village of Engelbole, at the foot of that green eminence, we ascended to the churchyard, where was a numerous assemblage (you must not forget it was Sunday) keeping festival. It was like a _Fair_ to the eye; but no squalls of trumpets or whistles--no battering of children's drums--all the people quiet, yet cheerful--cakes and fruit spread abundantly on the churchyard wall.

A beautiful prospect from that spot--new scenes to tempt us forward! We descended, by a long flight of steps, into the Vale, and, after about half a mile's walking, we arrived at _Brunnen_. Espied Wm. and M. upon a crag above the village, and they directed us to the Eagle Inn, where I instantly seated myself before a window, with a long Reach of the Lake of Uri[52] before me, the magnificent commencement to our _regular_ approach to the St. Gothard Pass of the Alps. My first feeling was of extreme delight in the excessive _beauty_ of the scene;--I had expected something of a more awful impression from the Lake of Uri; but nothing so _beautiful_.

[Footnote 52: The head Branch of the Lake of the Four Cantons.--D. W.]

It was a moonlight night;--rather a night of fitful moonshine; for large clouds were driving rapidly over the narrow arch of sky above the town [Altorf]. A golden cross, upon one of the steeples, shone forth at times as bright as a star in heaven, against the black mountain-wall, while the transient touchings of the moonlight produced a most romantic effect upon the many-coloured paintings on the wall of the old Tower. I sate a long time at my window keeping watch, and wishing for a companion, that I might walk. At length, however, when I was preparing to go to bed (after ten o'clock) Mr. R. tapped at my door to tell me that Mr. M. was going out. I hastily re-dressed myself, and we two then sallied forth together. A fierce hot wind drove through the streets, whirling aloft the dust of the ruins, which almost blinded our eyes. We got a hasty glimpse of the moon perched on the head of a mountain pike--a moment and it was gone--then passed through the long street. Houses and ruins picturesque in the uncertain light--with a stateliness that does not belong to them by day--hurried on to the churchyard, which, being on an eminence, gave us another view of the moon wandering among clouds, above the jagged ridges of the steeps:--thence homewards struggling with the hot wind. _Some_ matters are curiously managed on the Continent, a folding door, the sole entrance to my chamber, only separated it from the salon where, at my return, guests were at supper. I heard every word they spoke as distinctly as if I had been of the party, though without understanding more than that a careful father was travelling with his two boys, to whom he talked incessantly; but so kindly and pleasantly that I hardly wished to get rid of his voice. We had broad flashes of lightning after I was in bed, but no thunder. This reminds me that we could have no fresh bread for breakfast in the morning, the bakers having, as we were told, been prohibited (since the destructive fire) under a heavy penalty, from heating their ovens except when the air is calm. I think it must often be the lot of the good people of Altorf to gnaw a hard crust; for these mountains are fine brewing-places for the winds; and the vale a very trough to receive and hold them fast.

A smart young maiden was to introduce us to the interior of the ivied Tower, so romantic in its situation above the roaring stream, at the mouth of the glen, which, behind, is buried beneath overhanging woods. We ascended to the upper rooms by a blind staircase that might have belonged to a turret of one of our ancient castles, which conducted us into a Gothic room, where we found neither the ghost nor the armour of William Tell; but an artist at work with the pencil; with two or three young men, his pupils, from Altorf. No better introduction to the favour of one of those young men was required than that of our sprightly female attendant. From this little academy of the arts, drawings are dispersed, probably, to every country of the continent of Europe. Mr. M. selected two from a very large collection.

_Monday, August 20th._[53]--_Altorf._--We found our own comfortable Inn, THE OX, near the fountain of William Tell. The buildings here are fortunately disposed--with a pleasing irregularity. Opposite to our Inn stands the Tower of the Arsenal, built upon the spot where grew the Linden-tree to which Tell's son is reported to have been bound when the arrow was shot. This tower was spared by the fire which consumed an adjoining building, _happily_ spared, if only for the sake of the rude paintings on its walls. I studied them with infinite satisfaction, especially the face of the innocent little boy with the apple on his head. After dinner we walked up the valley to the reputed birthplace of Tell: it is a small village at the foot of a glen, rich yet very wild. A rude unroofed modern bridge crosses the boisterous river, and, beside the bridge, is a fantastic mill-race constructed in the same rustic style--uncramped by apprehensions of committing waste upon the woods. At the top of a steep rising directly from the river, stands a square tower of grey stone, partly covered with ivy, in itself rather a striking object from the bridge; even if not pointed out for notice as being built on the site of the dwelling where William Tell was born. Near it, upon the same eminence, stands the white church, and a small chapel called by Tell's name, where we again found rough paintings of his exploits, mixed with symbols of the Roman Catholic faith. Our walk from Altorf to this romantic spot had been stifling; along a narrow road between old stone walls--nothing to be seen above them but the tops of fruit trees, and the imprisoning hills. No doubt when those walls were built, the lands belonged to the churches and monasteries. Happy were we when we came to the glen and rushing river, and still happier when, having clomb the eminence, we sate beside the churchyard, where kindly breezes visited us--the warm breezes of Italy! We had here a volunteer guide, a ragged child, voluble with his story trimmed up for the stranger. He could tell the history of the Hero of Uri and declare the import of each memorial;--while (not neglecting the saints) he proudly pointed out to our notice (what indeed could not have escaped it) a gigantic daubing of the figure of St. Christopher on the wall of the church steeple. But our smart young maiden was to introduce us to the interior of the ivied Tower, so romantic in its situation above the roaring stream, at the mouth of the glen, which, behind, is buried beneath overhanging woods. We ascended to the upper rooms by a blind staircase that might have belonged to a turret of one of our ancient castles, which conducted us into a gothic room, where we found neither the ghost nor the armour of William Tell; but an artist at work with the pencil; with two or three young men, his pupils, from Altorf--no better introduction to the favour of one of those young men was required than that of our sprightly female attendant. From this little academy of the arts, drawings are dispersed, probably, to every country of the continent of Europe.

[Footnote 53: There is a mistake here as to the date, which renders all subsequent ones inaccurate.--ED.]