Part 11

And the last grain of romance vanishes when we hear that shrewd guides bring the flowers down from their own heights, and set them in the path of enthusiastic but not high-climbing ladies, who in their delight are wildly lavish of fees. The Devil can quote Scripture for his purpose, and the pure, precious little flower can be used as a trap by mercenary man.

RAGATZ.

Over the Albula Pass we came from St. Moritz to Chur, and when we went, it was by the Julia. How grand we feel going over these great mountain-passes, where Roman and German emperors, with all their vast armies, their high hopes and ambitions, have trod, it is quite impossible to express. The emperors are dead and gone, and we, an insignificant but merry little party, ride demurely over the selfsame route. Blessed thought that the mountains are meant for us as much as they were for the emperors; that the beauty and grandeur and loveliness of nature, everywhere, is our own to enjoy; that it has been waiting through the ages, even for us, to this day! It is our own. No king or conqueror has a larger claim.

This was one of the tranquil, joyous days that have so much in them,--a day of clear thoughts, unwearying feet, unspeakable appreciation of nature, and good-will towards humanity. There was a long, bright flood of sunshine, with beautiful flakes of clouds floating before a fresh mountain wind. The great mountains looked solemnly at us, and the happy laugh of a little child-friend echoed through the sombre ravines.

We passed queer old villages; small dun cattle with antelope eyes and fragrant breath; wise-looking goats; pastures that stretched out their vivid green carpets on the mountain-side; and, above all, the great snow-slopes.

We got some supper in a very grave little village. The woman who waited upon us looked as if she had never smiled. This made us want somebody to be funny. The other travellers were matter-of-fact Englishmen, some heavy Jews, and particularly _eagle_-looking Americans. The little woman gave us good coffee, sweet black-bread and sweeter butter, and eggs so rich and fresh we felt that they would instantly transform our famishing selves into Samsons. These eggs had chocolate-colored shells. The Englishmen, the Eagles, and the Jews ate solemnly, as if they had eaten brown eggs from their cradles. But we, with that curiosity which, whatever it may be to others, is in our opinion our most invaluable travelling companion,--of more profit and importance than all the guide-books and maps, often more really helpful than friends who have made what they call "the tour of Europe" three times,--inquired:--

"_Why_, do Swiss hens lay brown eggs?"

To this innocent inquiry the little woman with sombre mien replied that she had boiled the eggs in our coffee. "Water was scarce, and she always did it."

Not discouraged, we remarked we would like to buy the hen that could lay such rich, delicate eggs, and take her away in our travelling-bag. The fire and the coffee-pot we might be able to establish elsewhere, but that hen was a _rara avis_. This small pleasantry caused a little cold ghost of a smile to flit over her lips, but it was gone in an instant, and she was counting francs in her coffee-colored palm.

A night in Chur, then the next morning a short ride by rail, and we are in Ragatz. Do you know what Ragatz is? It is, in the first place, to us at least, a surprise; its name is so harsh and ugly, and the place is so soft, pretty, and alluring. And coming from that wonderful, electrifying St. Moritz air directly here, is like dropping from the North Pole to the heart of the tropics. It is said the change should not be made too suddenly, that one should stay a day or two on the route, which seems reasonable. Happily our strength is not impaired by the new atmosphere, but we feel very much amazed. We cannot at once recover ourselves. There, it was, as somebody says, "always early morning." Here, it is "always afternoon." There, we had broad outlooks, stern, rough lines, and vast snow-fields. Here, we are in a lovely garden, luxuriant with flowers. Grapes hang, rich and heavy, on the trellises. Shade-trees droop over enticing walks and rustic seats. Oleanders and pomegranate-trees, with their flame-colored tropical blossoms, stand in long rows by the lawns. Children paddle about in tiny boats on little lakes. Rustic bridges cross the stream here and there. A young English girl, with golden hair so long and luxuriant that it rather unpleasantly suggests Magdalen as it falls in great waves to the ground, sits sketching, and wears a thin blue jaconet gown,--wonderful sight is that blue jaconet! Only yesterday we left the region of sealskin sacques, breakfast-shawls, and shivers.

The hotel is most charmingly situated. Did I ever recommend a hotel in my life? It is a rash thing to do, but I feel impelled to advise people to come here to the Quellenhof. _We_ live, not in the hotel proper, but in one of the "dependencies," the Hermitage, a kind of chalet. It is delightful to live in a Hermitage, let me tell you. Fuchsias and asters and scarlet geraniums make a glory about our door. Our windows and balconies look on the lake just below. Great trees bend over us, and green mountain slopes come down to meet us on the other side. Our Hermitage is a quiet, restful nest. The people occupying the different rooms go softly in and out. We never meet them. Marie, with her white cap and white apron, opens the door for us as we stand under the fuchsia-covered porch. We hear no hurrying steps, no waiters and bells, or any hotel noises. Every moment we like our Hermitage better, and we really think we own it. It is all very sweet and soft and lotus-eating here, with balmy odors, and drowsy hum of bees, and mellow, golden lights on the mountains. We feel as if a magician had touched us with his wand, and whirled us off into another planet. No one can say that we as a party have not a goodly share of the wisdom that takes things as they come,--but Ragatz after St. Moritz!

That which drew us here is what draws everybody to Ragatz,--that is, everybody who is not sent by a physician to drink the water and take the baths,--the celebrated Pfaffer's Gorge. It is well worth a long journey and much fatigue and trouble. From Ragatz you walk through the little village, then along a narrow road between immense limestone cliffs, where the Tamina, that most audacious of mountain streams, hurls itself angrily by you. The cliffs are in some places eight hundred feet high, and the Gorge is often extremely narrow. You pass beneath the vast overhanging rocks, the two sides leaning so far towards each other that they almost meet in a natural bridge. It is cold, damp, and in gloom where you are. You look up and see the trees and sunlight far, far above you,--the rocks, at times, shut out the sky,--and the Tamina acts like a mad thing that has broken loose, as it sweeps through the sombre Gorge.

After the walk,--I had no ideas of time or distance in regard to it; everything else was so impressive these trifles were banished from my mind,--we reached the hot springs, did what other people did, and were greatly astonished.

A man had insisted upon putting shawls upon all the ladies of the party. Another man now insists upon removing them. There is a cavern before you which looks very black and Mephistophelian. Everybody slowly walks in,--you too. It is dark where your feet tread. There are one or two men with uncertain, wavering lights that seem designed to deceive the very elect. You begin to dread snares and pitfalls. The atmosphere grows hotter, more oppressive, and more suggestive every instant. You are certain that you smell brimstone, and expect to see cloven hoofs. You go but two or three steps, and remain but a few seconds, the temperature of the cavern is so high, but you feel as if you were in the bowels of the earth. A man with a light passes you a glass, and you fancy you are going to drink molten lead or lava, or something appropriate to the scene, and are rather disappointed to find it tastes uncommonly like hot water, pure and simple.

Then you turn and go into the light of day, and everybody has a boiled look, every face is covered with moisture; and the outer air sends such a chill to your very soul, you bless the man whom a few moments before you had scorned when he hung the ugly brown shawl on your shoulders. You seize it with thankfulness, and back again you go between the massive rocky walls with the Tamina shouting boisterously in your ears.

There is a bath-house near the Gorge for people who wish to take the waters near their source. The sunlight touches it in the height of summer only between ten and four. People go there and stay, why, I cannot imagine, unless they have lost, or wish to lose, their senses. The guide-books speak respectfully of its accommodations, but it is the dreariest house I ever saw, with a monastic, or rather, prison look, that is appalling; and the girl who brings you bread-and-butter and wine looks at you with a reproving gloom in her eyes, as if all days _must_ be "dark and dreary." We felt quite frivolous and out of place, lost our appetite, grew somewhat frightened, and ran away as soon as possible.

The baths at the Quellenhof are pleasant, and the water, though conveyed through a conduit two miles and a half long, loses very little of its heat. It is perfectly clear, free from taste or smell, and resembles, they say, the waters of Wildbad and Gastein. An eminent German physician told us something the other day in regard to the efficacy of these crowded baths here, there, and elsewhere in this part of the world,--something that was both funny and unpleasant to believe. Although it is not my theory but his plainly expressed opinion, I shall only venture to whisper it for fear of offending somebody. He says it is not by the peculiar efficacy of any particular kind of water that the bathers in general are benefited, but by the simple virtue of pure water freely used; that many people at home do not bathe habitually; and when a daily bath for five or six weeks, in a place where they live simply and breathe pure air, has invigorated them, they gratefully ascribe their improvement to sulphur or iron or carbonic acid or some other agent, which is really quite innocent of special interposition in their case.

Beside the baths and the Gorge and its ways of pleasantness in general, Ragatz has many pretty walks along the hills between houses and gardens, and up steep, zigzag forest-paths to the ruins of Freudenberg and Wartenstein. A broad, sunny landscape lies before you,--the valley of the Rhine, Falknis in the background, green pastures and still waters. Blessed are the eyes that see what we see.

A FLYING TRIP TO THE RHINE FALLS.

There was the rock upon which the Lorelei used to sit and comb her golden hair, and sing her wondrous melodies, and lure men to destruction? Near St. Graz, there have been and are, I suppose, Loreleis enough in the world besides the famous maiden of the poem. We found an admirable place for one, yesterday, on the top of the great rock that stands quivering in the Falls of the Rhine. We had sent our heavy luggage on to Zurich, with that wisdom which often characterizes us, and, free as air except for hand-bags, went to see the Rhine Falls.

And first we saw Schaffhausen, which has a pretty, picturesque, mediaeval air, as it lies among the hills and vineyards on the banks of the Rhine. It has its old cathedral, with the celebrated bell cast in 1486, which bears the inscription that suggested to Schiller--as everybody knows--his "Song of the Bell,"--"Vivas voco, mortuos plango, fulgura frango"; but besides this there is not much to see except the tranquil landscape, and that, fortunately, one does not lose by going farther.

Most people are, I presume, disappointed in the Falls of the Rhine. At least, I know that many of my own countrymen pronounce them not worth seeing "after Niagara." But--dare I make this mortifying confession?--what if it is not, "after Niagara"? What if Niagara is still to you in the indefinite distance? It ought not to be, of course. (We all know very well "nobody should go to Europe who has not seen Niagara.") But what if it _is_? Under such circumstances may not one find beauty here?

And even with the remembrance of Niagara clear in your mind, I do not know why the Rhine Falls, so utterly different in character, may not still be lovely.

Their height is estimated, including the rapids and whirlpools and all, at about one hundred feet, which must be very generous measurement, and they are three hundred and eighty feet broad. It may have been in part owing to the exquisite atmosphere of the day we visited them, it may be we expected too little on account of the tales our friends had told us, but certainly we found them very lovely, and Nature seems to have given their surroundings a peculiar grace. The shores are so extremely pretty,--the high, bold cliff on one side, the soft green slopes on the other; the row of tall, stiff poplars, that look as prim as the typical New England housekeeper, and give the landscape that curiously neat appearance, as if everything were swept and dusted. Then the rocks, clothed with vines and moss and shrubs and little trees, rise with so fine an effect in the midst of the white foaming waters.

We saw the falls from every point,--from above on the cliff; [what a pity there isn't a fine old, tumble-down, "ivy-mantled tower" there, instead of the painted, restaurant-looking Schloss Laufen!] from the little pavilion and platform at the side, where the foam dashes all over you, and you are deafened by the roar; from the top of the central rock in the falls; and from the Neuhausen side.

To go from shore to shore, just below the falls, is really quite an adventure. Your funny flat-boat careens about in the most eccentric and inconsequent manner; the spray envelops you; it all looks very dangerous, and is not in the least. Still more eventful is a voyage to the central rock, after which our boatman fastens his skiff--which is a broad-bottomed scow, to be exact, but skiff sounds more poetical--securely. You alight on the wet stones, ascend the rough steps cut in the rock, and feel that you are doing a novel and interesting thing. On the top, amid the shrubs and vines, where the Lorelei ought to be, is only an upright iron rod. From here we thought the falls were seen to the best advantage, and it was a delightful experience to be so near and yet so far,--to stand so securely amid the foaming, seething mass, to be actually in the deafening roar. Mother Nature was in a complacent mood when she placed those rocks in the midst of the mighty waters. But no,--she placed the rocks there long ago, and merely brought Father Rhine towards them in later days. So say the wise.

There were myriads of rainbows in the spray. On one side was brilliant sunshine flashing on soft fields and vine-covered hills; on the other, as a most effective background, against which the whiteness of the foam shone out, low black thunderclouds. It was a singular picture, with its strongly contrasting hues. We could not help being glad that we had never seen Niagara, we found so much here to delight in.

But, friends, a word of advice that comes from depths of sad experience. See Niagara before you come here. At least, read up Niagara. Be perfectly able to answer all questions as to Niagara's height, breadth, and volume, and the character of the emotions created in an appreciative soul by seeing Niagara. If you cannot, you will suffer. Somebody will ask you a Niagara question suddenly at a dinner-party, and you will either reply with shame that you do not know, or with the courage of despair you will make an utterly wild guess, and say something that cannot possibly be true. There are a great many people in Germany--extremely intelligent, and to whom it is a delight to listen--who are wonders of information and appreciation when they talk about German literature and German art; are also on easy terms with the ancient Greeks, and possibly with Sanscrit; but when they approach America it is as if that beloved land were an undiscovered country,--an "unsuspected isle in far-off seas." The one thing they positively know is that it has a Niagara. Therefore arm yourselves with formidable statistics, and pass unscathed and victorious through the inevitable volley of questions. Personally, I feel that I owe Niagara a never-dying grudge; for, since the harrowing examinations of school committees in my youthful days, never have I been subjected to catechisms so pertinacious and embarrassing as this pride of our land has caused me. I have succeeded at last in fixing the main figures in my memory, but am always more or less nervous when the examination threatens to embrace the adjacent country. If it advances like heavy battalions, I can calmly meet it. But when it comes like light cavalry, is brilliant and inclined to skirmish, I tremble.

It is also well--may I add, for the benefit of young women contemplating a sojourn in Europe?--to know the population of your native town, its area, its distance from the coast, the length of the river upon which it is situated,--above all, its latitude and longitude. This last is of incalculable importance. It is safe to assume that the elderly German who doesn't instantly embark upon Niagara will eagerly plunge into latitude and longitude. Perhaps you think you know all these things; others equally confident have been rudely torn from their false security. Of course it is what we all learned in the primary schools, and we are expected to know it still; but it is astonishing what clouds of uncertainty envelop the understanding when you are suddenly asked in a foreign tongue, before eight or ten strangers, for the very simplest facts. Men are so stupid about such things, you know! They never ask where the May-flowers grow, where the prettiest walks are, where you like to drive at sunset, from what point the light and shade on the hills over the river is loveliest,--in fact, anything of real importance; but always they demand these dreary statistics. Was there never a great man who hated arithmetic?

At the Falls of the Rhine people, I regret to say, make money too palpably. You buy a ticket of a young woman in a pavilion, and she says it will take you over the foaming billows and back again. A man rows you across,--or, rather, propels the boat in a remarkable manner to the opposite shore,--when another man demands some more francs for allowing you to stand on his platform, get very wet and very enthusiastic. You ascend to Schloss Laufen, and pay a franc for looking at the Falls from that point of view. Eager to see them from every possible place, you come down and tell your ferryman to take you to the great rock, that looks so tempting, so hazardous, so altogether enticing, with the foam dashing against it. The boat, as it makes this passage, is the most agitated object imaginable. You survey the Falls from the rock, and at last are content. You gather a few leaves and some of the common flowers that grow upon it, and you almost, from force of habit, give it also a franc. Then the boat, with convulsive lurches and dippings and bobbings, plunges through the rough waters, and finally you reach your original point of embarkation. The ferryman, an innocent-looking blond,--your innocent-looking blonds are invariably the worst kind of people to deal with,--smilingly demands a fabulous number of francs, not alone because he has taken you to the rock, which you knew was an extra, but for the whole trip, for which you have already paid. You are afraid of losing your train. Your friends are high on the bank, wildly beckoning, and waving frantic handkerchiefs from afar. There is no time for expostulation, and already fresh victims are filling the boat. You mutter,--

"Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,"

which would be a greater comfort if he understood English as well as he does extortion, and then you climb the steep bank and hurry after the retreating figures. You depart impressed with the magnitude of the Falls of the Rhine, and quite conscious of a not insignificant fall of francs in your purse.

DOWN FROM THE HIGH ALPS.

It is not wise to visit what are called the High Alps first and then make the tour of the Swiss cities. This order should be reversed. From loveliness we should ascend to grandeur, and not come down from Engadine heights, and space and air, to cities, pretty lakes, purplish hills, and white peaks in the background. If we were to see Switzerland again for the first time--isn't this a tolerably good Irishism?--and knew as much about it as we do now,--which doesn't by any means imply that we couldn't easily know more,--we would certainly not do as we have done, especially if, as at present, we were expected to chronicle our emotions. The fact is, when you come down from the heights there is a palpable ebb in your impressions. How can it be otherwise? You glide in well-oiled grooves over the regular routes of travel. You see what you have seen in pictures and read of in books all your life. It is perfectly familiar, and how can you have the audacity to be very diffuse about it? Experiences in well-conducted hotels are not so suggestive as in the rougher mountain life. It is all very comfortable, very lovely. Strange--is it not?--that there come moments when one tires of the comfort and is impatient with the loveliness, and longs for something different,--for grand heights, even if the rocks towering to the skies are fierce and cruel looking; for the depth of the gloomy ravines; for the loneliness and cold of the gray, barren peaks; for the sense of space, immensity, even when harshness goes with it!

We have, then, left the High Alps. We are now in the region of fine hotels, brilliantly lighted rooms, flirtations on the piazza, and long trains. We go where all the world goes, see what all the world sees, fare sumptuously every day, and, whether we are arrayed in purple and fine linen or not, at least we see other people so clothed upon.

Zurich, the busy, flourishing, learned Swiss town on its pretty lake, we have just left, with its two rivers running up through the heart of it; with its bridges and its pleasure-boats; the villages and orchards and vineyards on the fertile banks of the lake as far as the eye can reach; the lovely views of the Alps,--the perpendicular Reisettstock; the Drusberg, "like a winding staircase"; the Kammlisstock; great horns in the Rorstock chain; the pyramidal Bristenstock, which is on the St. Gothard route; and many, many others, if the day be clear. Beautiful views of land and lake you can get from different points here. It certainly could have been nothing less than lack of amiability or lack of taste that made us dissatisfied. Had we seen it first, we might have been beside ourselves with delight. "Yes, it is very beautiful," we say, quite calmly, and it is; but--

Zurich was in short, to us, agreeable, but not fascinating. We liked it, but left it without a regret. Our emotions were not largely called into play by anything. Perhaps our liveliest sensation was occasioned by the discovery that at that excellent hotel, the Baur au Lac, we were formally requested to fee no one, a reasonable amount for service being charged daily in the bill. This was a relief indeed. Often one would gladly pay double the sum he gives in fees merely to escape the hungry eyes and ever-ready palms. Another sensation was seeing Count Arnim. He is quite gray, and looks delicate.