Part 3

From the Rigi it is well to turn to Mount Pilatus. The experience will be in but small measure a repetition; for Pilatus has marked individuality. Although Alpnachstad, the starting-point of the Pilatus Railway, is one of the few places on the Lake which may be reached by rail from Lucerne, not many people, I imagine, avail themselves of this means of transit. To take the train, as being quicker than the steamboat, is a false economy; in Switzerland less haste means wider experience and finer views. The tree-clothed cliff of the Bürgenstock is never seen to greater advantage than when the boat heads for Kehrsiten, after leaving Kastanienbaum (where, by the way, it is said that the first horse-chestnut trees on the Lake were planted); nor is Pilatus ever more picturesque than when seen from the quay-side at Stansstad. But more than this--for those who invariably see dignity and beauty in man’s labours, and who think that “ugliness means failure of some kind”--there is, from Kehrsiten, an admirable view of the open ironwork shaft of the electric lift which decorates the lovely Hammetschwand; and after passing the swing bridge which gives entrance to the Alpnacher-See, there are the Cement Works of Rotzloch, where the gorge, the trees, the whole hillside are as though dressed for some _bal poudre_--even the piermaster.

It was in late October when I was last upon Pilatus. Fog ruled the roast about Lucerne; a fog so dense, though white, that the steamboats moved with the utmost caution, feeling their way as much by incessant interchange of bell-signals with the shore as by the compass. That the beech woods were ablaze with autumn’s waning energy was known, but little besides grey, ghostlike objects could be seen as the train started with a jerk upon its strenuous journey. Nor was there anything but fog and phantoms for some twenty minutes or more. Then slowly the fog lightened, the phantoms took on the form of trees, grew warmer in tint, still warmer and still clearer, until the golden, red-brown woods, purpled in part by distance, became revealed, all wreathed about with trails of veil-like mist. Before the lower, rock-strewn pastures of the Matt-Alp were reached, every vestige of the fog was left lying compact below, and the train was labouring upwards towards a radiant, cloudless sky. The Alps, of course, are rich in such experience as this, but I can remember nothing that ever more nearly realized my conception of fairyland. Indeed, if it were not like saying that a lovely hothouse orchid is so natural as to seem to be made of wax, I would declare that the piercing of the fogzone that day on the autumn-tinted sides of Mt. Pilatus resembled nothing so much as the grand transformation scene of our Christmas-time theatres, when gauze veil after gauze veil is slowly rolled away, and from grey, then tinted mystery emerges brilliant, spotless colour.

What a wonderful journey this railway provides! If any proof were needed of the high eminence of Swiss engineers and of the indomitable spirit and resource which the Alps breed in their children, here assuredly it is. Beasts, plants, birds, and insects are not alone to feel the influence of Alpine circumstance upon character; hare and saxifrage, ptarmigan and fritillary are not the only pupils trained in Nature’s Alpine school. Man, in common with the chamois and the edelweiss, the eagle and the erebia, owes priceless capacity to the life imposed by high-flung precipice and pasture. Nursed in all the rigour and beneficence accompanying contact with high altitudes, he develops much of that amazing efficiency, that impelling adaptiveness which is so admired in “Alpines”. The will to master the worst and to enjoy the best is never more alert than in the dweller among mountains. And this fact is borne in upon the imagination as the train climbs panting up the face of the Eselwand, in every way the culminating labour of its journey. Here the track has been carved upon a sheer precipice, and it makes one dizzy to think of the workmen’s initial efforts to gain a foothold. Some idea of the resource and nerve that must have been required can be gathered by standing upon the Kulm Station platform and turning to gaze down the way the train came up; or, better still, on the rocks beyond the hotel and facing the Esel’s fearsome cliff to which the line so desperately clings; for from this vantage-ground the Titlis and the Alps of Uri, Unterwalden, and the Grisons rise beyond and between the Esel and the Matthorn, giving terrible depth to the gaunt masses of these latter, and thus suggesting the magnitude of the task performed by the railway builders.

A large part of the superiority of Pilatus over the Rigi lies in its magnificent foreground: invaluable adjunct to the panorama. A vast, unbroken horizon is well for a time, but it is all of a piece, and its very immensity becomes wearisome. Humanity is more at home with partially hidden views. To have everything simultaneously discovered is, for many subtle but important reasons, to impose a limit upon interest. A certain amount of interruption gives durability to pleasure. Delightful combinations are present, and the eye can rest reposefully upon portions which in themselves are perfect pictures. In this manner, then, Pilatus is more attractive than either the Rigi or the Stanserhorn. The panorama itself may be much the same from all three of these eminences, but from Pilatus it is enhanced by the mighty foreground. All about the summit are wild, weird places of fascination, and this was particularly so during those late autumnal days, with the dense, billowy sea of fog below, covering the whole Lake, stretching away over the plain towards the Jura, straggling up the valleys towards Engelberg and the Brünig Pass, and leaving such prominences as the Rigi, the Bürgenstock, and the Stanserhorn like islands floating on a scarcely moving ocean. The huge, abrupt escarpments of Pilatus looked the more impressive for the purple shadows which they threw upon this milk-white sea; and the choughs, circling and whistling about the crags, lent just that eerie note which has been so fruitful of legend in the past.

For fiery dragons once had their lairs upon these heights. Renward Cysart, town clerk of Lucerne in the sixteenth century, says so; and he tells of how they were often seen flying backwards and forwards between Pilatus and the Rigi. One day, he avers, a cooper from Lucerne, while climbing Pilatus, missed his footing, fell into a cavern, and on coming to his senses, found himself confronted with “two large, terrible, and monstrous dragons”, which, however, did him no harm, but allowed him to live with them until the return of summer, when he, clinging to the tail of one of his delightful hosts, was landed in a safe place, from whence he reached home and recounted his adventure, which recountal was handed down through several generations until it came to Master Cysart who, therefore, vouches for its accuracy, though regretting “that the day, year, and name have, through carelessness, passed into forgetfulness”. Dragons were common objects of the Alps in those and previous days. The country between Stans and Kernwald (well seen from Pilatus) was ravaged, about the year 1240, by an enormous specimen, which was slain by one Winkelried, an ancestor of the hero of Sempach. Legend usually has relative truth at the back of it, and although we may feel inclined to dismiss dragons and their doings as unalloyed fabrications of primitive, superstitious minds, yet certain authorities hold that the dragon was a species of enormous serpent formerly inhabiting some parts of the Alps, but now extinct there.

Pilatus is said to obtain its name from what is perhaps the most important of the host of legends connected with the mountain. Although there has been an attempt to derive _Pilatus_ from _pileatus_, meaning “hatted” (in reference to the “hat” or hood of cloud which so frequently sits upon the summit), the more probable derivation seems to be from the one-time belief that Pontius Pilate’s remains were buried in a lake near the summit of the mountain. According to this legend, Pontius Pilate committed

suicide in prison in Rome, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, when at once a terrific, devastating storm arose. The body was therefore taken out, conveyed to Vienne, in France, and thrown into the Rhone, here again causing disturbance. It was then transferred to Lausanne, but a further repetition of its untoward behaviour caused it to be banished to the little lake upon Mount Pilatus. Here it remained benign so long as the lake was in no way interfered with. If, however, anything was thrown into the water, “the lightnings flashed, the thunder rolled, and desolation broke over the land”. The town council of Lucerne therefore felt called upon to forbid all persons to approach the Lake, and it is related how at least one wretched man was executed for disobedience. But

“by degrees the belief in the supernatural powers of the old Roman began to decay,” says J. Hardmeyer, in his little work upon this mountain, “and at last, in 1585, a certain Johannes Muller, rector of Lucerne, brought about its complete overthrow. With numerous companions he made his way to the lake on Mount Pilatus, boldly challenged the evil spirit to show his might, threw stones into the water, and made some of his people wade about in it, and behold, neither storm nor tempest followed, not a wave rose, and the skies remained as serene as before. This was the death-blow to the legend of Pontius Pilate and his evil deeds. The council of Lucerne went still further: they had the mountain lake drained off, so that nothing remained of it but a small morass, where a little water still collects after the melting of the snows, but soon disappears.”

Thus perishes Romance before the onward march of prosaic understanding!

ENGELBERG, THE LAKE, AND WILLIAM TELL

Andermatt and Engelberg are the two really Alpine villages which one usually connects with Lucerne. Andermatt is rather remote, being away up in the mountains beyond Göeschenen; but the journey to Engelberg is no more than that to the summit of Pilatus. From Stansstad, with its sturdy, grey old tower upon the water’s edge--a tower built soon after the banding together of the Forest Cantons, and last used in the desperate struggle against the French in 1798--there is an electric railway. The line passes over the orchard-covered plain to Stans, the capital of Nidwalden and the birthplace of Arnold von Winkelried, whose monument is in the marketplace, and whose ancient farmstead still exists amid flowery fields beyond the town; then on past Wolfenschiessen, known to history in connection with the Austrian Governor of that name killed hereabouts by the woodman Baumgartner for insulting his wife--a deed which appears to have done much to mature the defensive alliance of 1307 between the three Cantons; and so on to Grafenort, where the engine is changed and the line commences its steep ascent to Engelberg. Through a forest, wherein the hart’s-tongue fern luxuriates, the train advances, crossing and re-crossing the winding carriage-road. Here and there through the trees to the right of the line are glimpses of towering cliffs with waterfalls tumbling wildly over the rugged sides and falling into the gorge below, where foams and froths the Engelberger Aa on its way to the Lake at Buochs. The ascent is not a long one. Soon the forest is replaced by rapid flower-strewn slopes, and the near presence of impressive mountains. Then the valley somewhat broadens, and through almost flat pastures the train quickly reaches the village, its big hotels and spick-and-span prosperity.

Engelberg has all the airs and graces which two crowded seasons can give. It is as popular in winter as in summer, and is organized accordingly. But with the exception of its famous monastery, there is little that is old and picturesque about it. As the local guidebook says--and says seemingly with pride and glee--: “Favoured by a great fire in the autumn of 1887, the witnesses of modern civilization have become predominant”--an expression of sentiment which is apt to make one think of Thoreau’s caustic remark about man placing his hoof among the stars. However, although “the splendid hotel buildings tower gigantically above the country cottages of former times”, and the fine old timbered dwelling of the tailor stands an heroic interval in the midst of shop-fronts decorated in the best art shades of paint, yet something has been spared of the peasants’ old-time costumes--the women’s quaint silver hair-shields and bejewelled silver-gilt necklaces, and the men’s elaborately embroidered blouses. Nor have the blessings of fire and civilization suppressed the lovely mountain flowers which carpet the pastures outside the hotel-zone. Here, from the early spring crocus and soldanella to the late autumn crocus and willow-gentian, there is a rich round of floral delight. Rock, Alp, and forest are alike gay with colour, and many a botanical treasure haunts the district. Perhaps the best season for appreciating this side of Engelberg’s charm is spring and early summer. The near fields and slopes are then wearing their finest dress. Where, erstwhile, the _sportsleute_ revelled on ski, the vernal gentian and yellow violet are in radiant masses, and where the luge ran merrily but a few weeks previously, the geranium and globe-flower are ablaze. And for this bright and wild abundance there is a wonderfully effective background of stately mountains. The rugged Engelberg, the fretted Spannorts, and the giant Titlis of such distinctive form, all abundantly clothed in snow at this season, make as admirable a setting for these slopes and fields of

early flowers as could be well desired. Later on, when the Surenen Pass, the Trübsee, the Joch Pass, and the Engstlenalp can be comfortably reached, the wealth of Alpine anemone, deep-blue monkshood, blue-and-white columbine, steel-blue thistle, and a host of other treasures carry the Feast of Flora to the very verge of the eternal snows.

It was the pastures of the Surenen which gave birth to the legend of the famous Bull of Uri--the bull whose head figures on Uri’s armorial shield. A shepherd becoming inordinately attached to a lamb, baptized it into the Christian Church; whereupon the lamb developed into a monster and slew the shepherd. The monster continued to be such a scourge upon these pastures that the inhabitants of Uri trained a pure white bull especially to do battle with it. In the combat which ensued, the monster was slain, but the bull was so grievously wounded that it died soon after. One of the bull’s horns became the famous battlehorn of the men of Uri, striking panic into the hearts of their enemies whenever it was sounded.

Legend also hangs about the Engelberg; for it was upon those rocky heights that Conrad von Seldenbüren heard angels singing, St. Cecilia with her lute being amongst the number. This so impressed the good man that he there and then (in the year 1120) founded the monastery which stands to this day, and, until 1798, ruled the valley. Great for centuries as a centre of literature and science, it still retains its prestige as an educational institution. The building contains much of high interest--the great library of over 20,000 books and manuscripts, and the Sacristy full of precious relics of the past--but access to these is difficult for visitors. As for the natives of Engelberg, for the most part they practise the breeding of cattle and the weaving of silk, both industries being fostered by the Monastery, itself owning a herd of mouse-coloured cows with tuneful silver bells. The natives have retained much of their engaging individuality. Sturdy children of a sturdy race, many of them are quite typical descendants of what one imagines Tell’s strong, strenuous age to have been.

In leaving Engelberg, unless the Surenen Pass be crossed into Uri, and so down to the Lake near Flüelen, the best way is to branch off at Stans and touch the Lake at Buochs. From Buochs, where farms and orchards form the prevailing note, the steamboat passes, by way of Beckenried and its big old walnut tree, to Gersau at the southern foot of the Rigi. Until the end of the eighteenth century this village, prosperous-looking nowadays with its big hotels along the quay-side promenade, was a fullblown republic on its own account; but to-day its independence is merged in that of the Canton Schwyz. There is a lovely walk from here to Brunnen; loveliest perhaps in spring when the rosy, black-pointed heather (_Erica carnea_) decks the rocks through which in part the road is cut. Not far along this road is the chapel of Kindlimord nestling among pines on the steep and rocky shore of a tiny deep-green bay. It is said that here a strolling fiddler murdered his child who cried to him for food, and that this romantically situated little chapel was built in expiation of the deed.

On the farther shore of the Lake, almost opposite Kindlimord, and below the woods of Seelisberg, is Treib, the most ancient and picturesque of houses in all this district. Rich in colour and quaint design, and possessing its own little harbour, it stands quite alone amid the beech woods which here sweep down to the water. It is a perfect bijou picture from the distant past: something for a showcase in some sheltering museum, rather than for such buffeting storm-winds and waves as recently overthrew its stone breakwater. Built in 1243, it did service as the first Federal Palace, the Assembly of the three Cantons, Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, having been held here in 1291. It then became the Guild House of the boatmen of the Four Cantons. At that time roads were scarce, communication was mostly by water, and Treib was correspondingly important. The interior of the house is redolent of old-world associations: the small bottle-glass windows, the massive old stoves, the fine wooden ceilings, the quaintly carved chairs, the aged pewter plates, the genealogical tree dating from 1360, and the fourteenth-century clocks, one of which is entirely of wood--but absolutely unheeding of Greenwich time. Treib is indeed a refreshing place to linger in after the almost omnipresence of the great hotels. But the past is impossible as a permanency. Modern hoteldom holds its own--and more than its own. At Brunnen, whither the boat transports us, Treib is just a sideshow--something to patronize in fine weather as a poor and utterly antiquated relation.

Brunnen owes the spoiling of its site to the magnificent prospect to be enjoyed from thence of the Bay of Uri. Hotels innumerable, to the right and to the left, crowding upon quay, perching upon cliff and soaring above forest; but the prospect of the Bay of Uri remains--at once Brunnen’s making and undoing. From the very nature of things this invasion was inevitable. It was inevitable that the touring world and his wife should wish for ample accommodation at such a view-point. Nor is forgiveness difficult if one but turns one’s face towards the Uri-Rothstock. Brushes and pens without number have essayed to depict this prospect, to translate its beauty and magnificence, to catch its ceaseless, changeful charm; and brushes and

pens without number have necessarily failed in the attempt. Something only of its fascinating phases and _ensemble_ can at most be given. As a whole it is too elusive, too consummate: too surely out of reach of human dexterity in either paint or words. Even if it had but one mood, one fixed mood upon which contemplation could feed indefinitely, a description of it must needs be inadequate; but as it is--well, description falls far short of what is _felt_. Seen through the soft-gold haze of spring, or through actinic summer sunshine, or through the warm mists of autumn, or through winter’s steely breath, there is such ever-shifting light and shade, such incessant recomposing of the picture, and always such mystery in parts and such subtlety over all, that here, at any rate, one knows that one’s inner consciousness is more than a match for one’s powers of formal expression. A restless repose suffuses the whole landscape; its moods are unified though everchanging. The Lake reflects the mountains, and the mountains reflect the Lake; for the Lake--to use Canon Rawnsley’s simile--“is as many-minded as a beautiful woman”, and so, also, are the mountains.

And this elusive yet striking quality of beauty is no particular possession of the mere distant view from Brunnen; it is just as evident upon near inspection. From Tellsplatte or from Flüelen, from Isleton or from the Rütli, or from any open spot upon the whole length of the wonderful Axenstrasse, “this temple of wild harmony” has all the charming variety and mystery of lovely woman. The close intimacy of severe and towering crags (as at Sisikon and Isleton) does nothing to dispel it; rather is it accentuated by the presence of something so rudely definite. Whether it be where the bare precipice plunges headlong to the Lake (as at the Teufelsmünster, near Flüelen), or whether it be where the beech woods run down to meet the waters (as at the Rütli and round about the Schillerstein), sublimity, which in part is mystery, is never wanting. Always there are heights, or snows, or distances over which the thin air plays in endless moods of light and shade. The Bay of Uri is indeed a wonder-spot in which to roam and float and dream. Well might the water-sprite in Gerhart Hauptmann’s _The Sunken Bell_ have drawn his inspiration from men and women to be found wandering here entranced; well might these scenes by Uri’s waters have given him the insight to exclaim:--

“Man’s a thing that, so to say, Among the fairy-folk has lost his way. Akin to us and yet not native here; Half of our world, and half--ah, who knows where?”

For amid scenes like these man knows that he is more than mortal; amid scenes like these he discerns that elusiveness in himself which is akin to the elusiveness around him; amid scenes like these his own inexpressible subtleties are alive to the inexpressible subtleties of Nature, and his fairy self goes out in intimate communion with the fairy world.

Men may well continue to write of the Bay of Uri; just as they may well continue to write of beautiful woman. Will they ever have finished writing about either? will they ever have said all that can be said? It is one of the extraordinary things about the Bay of Uri that romance should be doubled in its every corner. Much in history has had a most prosaic background, but here, in Uri, Nature and History have combined to lift events into the very forefront of romantic fascination. No story of the heroic past is more universally known than that of William Tell and the founding of the Swiss Confederation; and it is probably safe to say that this universality is due in no small measure to the magnificent natural setting for that story. One indeed wonders if Goethe, had he never visited these waters and been enthralled by their surroundings, would have been moved to recommend his friend Schiller to dramatize this story. One, moreover, wonders if Schiller ever would have achieved the famous thing he did if he had not been able to place his drama amid the scenery of this Bay. One’s questioning may go further still, and one may even wonder if the superb scenery has not played an important part in welding the story with the very religion of the Swiss people. History and Nature seem here to be made for each other, and it does not necessarily require a Swiss to feel the thrill which each lends to the other.