CHAPTER XVI.

THE BRUNIG PASS—LUCERNE.

IF it were required of me to name the pleasantest day’s ride thus far of this summer’s tour in Switzerland, I should give the palm for beauty to the day that took me with two friends from Interlaken to Lucerne by way of Brienz and the Brunig Pass.

Interlaken, as its name implies, is between the lakes Thun and Brienz. Thun is a beautiful gem of a sea; Brienz is a little smaller, but fortified by formidable mountains and scarcely less lovely than her sister Thun. Our carriage-road, after leading us out from Interlaken,—that great English boarding establishment with a road running through it, and interesting only as a flat valley in sight of the Jungfrau, and so full of people all summer long that you can find no sense of quiet or retirement, though the hotels are good, and the rides pleasant, and the mountain scenery sublime,—our road led us along on the western shore of Lake Brienz, and is cut into the hill-side so far up that all the way along we were able to survey the whole lake. I looked back to the _Abendberg_, a mountain which I once climbed to visit the Institution for the Relief of Cretins, the idiots of Switzerland, which Dr. Guggenbulre established there. That remarkable philanthropist and physician, in whom and his labors I became intensely interested when here before, has since that time been removed by death, and no one being found to carry on his benevolent and self-denying work, it was suspended, and the building is now a hotel.

On the east side of the lake some of the finest mountains in the country are to be seen, and the flat summit of the Faulhorn is even more inviting than the Rigi, which now is visited by scarcely more tourists. Cascades are leaping frequently from lofty heights into the abyss below, and we have scarcely exclaimed at the beauty of one before another rushes into sight. By and by we come to one more imposing than all the rest; at first we catch but a single fall; as we advance it takes another plunge, and then another, and soon the whole reach and all the leaps of the GIESBACK are roaring and tumbling down the lofty precipices before us. I had been under it and around it, at its base, but had not before stood, as now, where its successive falls are all blended into one, and the white crystal flood pours more than a thousand feet, through the green fir-tree borders, into the lake. If you have a night to spare, when you come here, you may cross from Brienz and spend it at the Falls, which are illuminated with Bengal lights, producing a spectacle of enchanting and bewildering magnificence and beauty. But if you have not time, get some one who has just been there, and who knows that you have not been, to tell you about it, and you will get an idea _from his description_ that will quite surpass the original!

After passing the little village of Brienz,—where the English-speaking landlord of the Bear (Ours) will entertain you well if you give him a call,—we soon began the ascent of the Brunig mountain. It gives you at once some conception of the immense expenditure of money, time, and science of engineering required to construct these Swiss roads. As smooth as those of Central Park, and as solid, they are made to wind around and about so as to render the ascent gradual. Sometimes we seem to be returning on our track, but always singing _Excelsior_, and yet so gradually that the strain is not severe on the horses, and you feel no sense of danger as you are borne along without jolting or fatigue. And what a lovely vale is every moment in view at the foot of the mountain! A rapid river sweeps through it, and by its side a white, smooth road: sweet Swiss homes in the midst of green farms dot the valley, that may well be the pride of the whole land. Now we are looking down into the Vale of Meyringen. For two or three hours we have seen in the distance a splendid cascade, and now that we have approached it, we find it the lower leap of the celebrated Reichenbach Falls, and into the valley so many are pouring constantly, that you are not surprised to learn the inhabitants have often suffered sadly from the swelling of these mountain torrents, which come down so rapidly and fearfully as to bear away every thing before them. A hundred years ago, almost the whole village of Meyringen was buried twenty feet deep in the sand and rocks and rubbish. A mark on one of the principal buildings shows the height to which the waters rose in that memorable deluge. And as we are wound along up the Brunig, we enter the clouds and find the rain descending, so that we are obliged to shut the carriage up till we pass through the cloud, and emerge as we come down into a sunnier region. At the foot, the village of Lungern offers us dinner, and we rest. One of my friends had been suffering all day with toothache, and had at last reached the reckless determination to have it out, if a dentist, or even a blacksmith, could be found in the place. I admired his courage more than his discretion, but probably had only a feeble sense of his suffering. The village doctor was summoned, a fine-looking, self-reliant, intelligent young man. The landlord stood with solemn face at the door of the room where the dread operation was to be performed. The landlady wrung her hands in sympathy. The head waiter held the sufferer’s head. I held my peace. In a moment it was done! And then the charge, it was one franc! twenty cents!! Think of that, ye man tormentors, who, with forceps dire, tear a tooth by the roots from one’s bleeding jaw and charge him two dollars, or five!

Lungern, where now lies the bone of one of my countrymen, stands by a lake of the same name, which was once much larger than it is now. But the people, more in need of land than water, at the cost of $25,000 dug a tunnel under a hill that held the lake, put 1000 pounds of gunpowder at the end of the hole and touched it off. Away it went, and away went the lake, and the village itself was nearly whelmed too. Down went the lake 120 feet, leaving several hundred acres of ground which is now tilled. But not enough to pay for the work. God has given the seas and the lakes their bounds, and man is a poor tinker when he tries to blow the world up and make it over. I sympathize with the poet who rejoices that the sun and moon are swung out of reach,

“Lest some reforming ass Should take them down and light the world with gas.”

The whole region beyond is historic, and the quaint villages we pass through have their several stories of battles, sieges, and victories. Every step of the way presents a new picture of loveliness or sublimity. At last we are brought into sight and now are riding along the base of Mount Pilatus, his head as usual crowned with clouds and storm. The tradition is,—and you must believe in all the traditions of this country, or you lose half the interest of travel in it: even the life and exploits of William Tell are traditional rather than historic, yet who that lives here or travels here thinks William Tell a myth? If he does, he had better not tell anybody he doesn’t believe in Tell,—the tradition is that Pontius Pilate, after condemning the Saviour, wandered over the world with a conscience goading him to death; that finally he committed suicide on the top of this mountain, which is almost always, in consequence of this awful event, begirt with tempests. And the popular belief that these storms were of infernal origin was so prevalent, that for a long time it was forbidden by law to make the ascent. But the mountain is the first great barrier the clouds meet as they are marching southerly into the Alpine regions. There they break, and around the peak of Mount PILATE the thunder and lightning play with vengeance, when elsewhere it is “clear shining after the rain.” The carriage-path is now along the shore of Lake Lucerne and at the foot of the mountains,—ahead of us it seems as though we were coming to the sudden terminus of travel, but the narrow way opens as we advance, and we sweep securely under a frowning precipice, and over a solid rock for the bed of the road, and having made the circuit of the mountain we emerge upon a plain which lies between us and Lucerne.

The sun was just sinking to rest as we were bringing to a close our journey of ten hours, memorable for the picturesque views that were constantly before us, the four lakes that we had skirted in our ride, the uncounted waterfalls, majestic mountains, alternate rain and sunshine, and that pleasant friendly converse which an easy-going carriage permits and encourages, when, with tastes to enjoy the beautiful world that God has made, we sit all day under the open sky and admire, wonder, and adore.

Lucerne is one of the most beautiful spots in Switzerland. We have often laughed at the guide-books for calling each and every place, castle, river, waterfall, temple, or tower, the most beautiful, the oldest, largest, most romantic, or something quite as superlative. But we get into the same habit, and readers must make allowances for the enthusiasm of travellers. Take off as much as you please, and Lucerne is very lovely.

It was my first Sabbath, on this journey, in a place almost wholly given up to Romanism. The population is about 13,000, and less than a thousand are Protestants. At nine o’clock in the morning, with two American friends, I went to the cathedral or church of St. Leger, and found it already crowded and a sermon in progress. The preacher was arrayed with so much magnificence that I supposed he must be some very distinguished personage in the church of Rome. The Papal Nuncio, or representative of the Pope of Rome, has his official residence in Lucerne, but I presume he does not officiate as a preacher. The audience filling the seats and thronging the aisles were giving devout attention, each one on entering bending his knee and crossing himself. The women occupied one half, and the men the other, of the house. I could find no seat, but a young man in a pew rose, gave me his seat, and stood up himself, a politeness not common in any Protestant church in any part of the world to which my weary steps have been directed. The preaching was in German, and more unintelligible to me than if it had been in Greek or Latin, so that I was at liberty to study the surroundings. Over the altar was a statue of Christ crucified: the body made of wood painted to the life, and life-size, suspended so low that the face, with all its expression of intense agony, was perfectly visible. The blood had settled all below the knees and the lower part of the chest, and was trickling from the spikes through the hands and feet. The altar was richly adorned with gold, and candles were burning on it. On either side of it were minor altars; over one of them was an inscription in Latin recording the sacred relics there treasured. These are to be found in all the great churches on the continent, but have lost none of their hold on the reverence of these superstitious people. The toe-nail of the prophet Jeremiah would be the fortune of any relic-hunter who should light upon it. Over another altar, called _Privileged_, but why I did not learn, was a representation, in full life-size, of the descent from the cross. The weeping women had very sorrowful faces, and the wound in the Saviour’s side was gaping fearfully, and the blood still oozing out. As I was looking at it, a lady elegantly dressed, leading two children, four or five years old, entered a side door, and approaching this altar knelt before it, and turning her face upward to these images of the Saviour’s death, gazed long, and I suppose was praying. The sermon was still in progress, but she gave no heed to it. Perhaps, like myself, she was not able to understand it, and had come to worship, not to hear. When she had closed her protracted devotions, she took the little boy and girl and made them both kneel, where she had been kneeling, and look up as she had done, and when they had thus performed the service which she evidently prescribed, she led them out. Others cast themselves down before this and other altars, and with no attention to the service in progress, went on with their own prayers, and then left, or joined with the rest according to their pleasure. When the sermon was ended, long, and well delivered, in a persuasive, conversational tone, without notes, and with an evident air of earnest feeling, another priest, in gorgeous apparel, came to the high altar, and, attended by two or three boys to hold up his robes and move his missal-book from place to place, as he had to change his position, he proceeded to celebrate the mass. The officiating priest was an elderly man whose face indicated great intellectual force, and his appearance was that of a student and man of learning. As he took a golden chalice and laid his hands over it, and prayed, and then lifted it up while all the people bowed themselves with profound reverence, it filled me with amazement that such a man as he seemed to be could suppose that the wine in that cup had been miraculously and instantly converted into the blood of the Son of God!!! And when he held up in the same way a bit of bread in the shape of a wafer or thin cracker, two inches or so in diameter, and again all the people bent themselves in adoration, he himself, with uplifted hands and downcast eyes and moving lips, appeared to regard the ceremony as an immediate exhibition of a present and new-born God. Then he took the cup again and drank it, and drank once more, turning it bottom upward over his face; and when this was done he took a white napkin and dried the inside thoroughly, as if no drop of the sacred blood must remain within, and the door of a golden casket or closet on the altar being opened, he placed it within, with the bread he had converted, and locked it safely there. While this ceremony was going on, a priest had emerged from behind the altar, and with a brush in hand went up and down among the people, sprinkling them with holy water. A splendid organ and a choir of singers took part in the service, which was in all its parts imposing to the senses, fitted to make a deep impression on the ignorant masses.

The cloisters that surround the church are filled with tombs and memorial paintings and inscriptions, and the windows on the south command charming views of the lake and mountains.

From this service, which was rather to be called _interesting_ than edifying, we went to the English church service. The Protestant Germans have a new and very pretty edifice, which they permit the English-speaking residents and travellers to enjoy for two services on the Sabbath. The sermon we heard was on the nature and blessed effects of prayer. It was evangelical and useful, some passages very touching and impressive. The prayers were read by a young American clergyman, and the audience, which was quite large, filling the church, was probably one-half American.

I have never found a more romantic, more sublime, more classic and beautiful lake in the little part of the world I have seen, than the Vier-Wald-Statter See, the Four Forrest Cantons, or, as it is more often called, Lake Lucerne.

You will come to Lucerne, to the Schweitzer Hof, the best hotel in Switzerland. From the wharf in front of it steamers go five times a day the whole length of the lake and return, making the excursion in five hours.

It is the lake of William Tell. Unbelieving sceptics intimate a doubt that such a man as Tell ever lived; but the apothecary in whose house I am lodging now has his scales in the form of a cross-bow, with a gilt apple on the top, to represent the great exploit of the hero’s life, and every house has its memento of the man without whom there is no Swiss history. You might as well tell me that George Washington is a myth, and that he never hacked his father’s cherry-tree with a hatchet. I have a piece of the tree, and know it to be true. And every Swiss patriot knows that William Tell shot the apple off his son’s head, and the monster cruelty of the order that made him do it roused the fires of indignant resistance to tyranny, and resulted in the independence of the country. It is necessary to believe this, to enjoy the scenes made sacred by the story.

You will leave the city of Lucerne, having seen the lion cut in a solid rock as a monument to some Swiss soldiers who were killed in Paris fighting for pay in 1792, and having also walked through the covered bridge that is distinguished, but not adorned, with a series of paintings by Holbein, representing the Dance of Death; and after the boat has gone from the landing about fifteen minutes, you must look back on the crescent city rising from the water’s edge, flanked by the ancient wall on which the useless towers still stand; and on the spires of the cathedral whose organ claims equal honor with that of Freyburg; and the old tower in the centre of the river which was once a light-house, Lucerna, whence the name of the town; and on the green hills, behind and on either side of the city, elegant residences of opulent citizens, and of some who from Paris and more distant parts come here to enjoy the summer in a delicious and healthful clime. Naples is grander, but hardly more beautiful, as she lies around her lovely bay, with Vesuvius, like the Rigi, keeping watch over her Italian charms.

For an hour or two out we are in the midst of the same bold and striking scenery which is common to all the Swiss lakes, with nothing of special interest except the historic associations that cluster about the little villages at the foot of the hills on the shores. We would be slow to believe that a population even of a few hundreds could hold on upon the sides of the mountains, or find the means of support among those green meadows, where lies the little village of Gersau, and there are only about 1,500 people in it. Yet so tenacious are these Swiss of independence, that this little, secluded, poor, portionless community, not more than two miles square, maintained its existence as a separate state for more than four centuries, and was then swallowed up by the French in the devouring fires of 1789. It is now part of one of the Swiss cantons. We cross the lake again and come to Brunnen, where the figures of the three historic patriots of Switzerland stand with each a hand held up to heaven, on the outside of the Sustenhaus, on the bank of the water. But when we leave Brunnen, and through a narrow pass enter the Bay of Uri, the grandeur of the view breaks instantly upon us with such a power as to set at defiance the attempt at description unless one has a bolder pen than mine. Philosophers have tried it. Poets have done what they could to illustrate and repeat it. So prudent, and yet so capable a writer as Sir James Mackintosh says it makes “an impression which it would be foolish to attempt to convey by words.” I will therefore not be foolish. Yet you may look with my eyes upon precipitous mountains starting from the bosom of the lake and pointing with silent and solemn majesty into the sky: here and there as we pass are verdant meadows, few and far between, but beautiful as they nestle at the feet or on the breasts of these gigantic cliffs, not a human habitation, sometimes for miles, to be seen, but all still, serene, and impressive in its solitude, and awful in its manifestation of the stupendous works of God.

A sharp rock rises perpendicularly from the water on the western shore, and some foolish people have put a gilt letter inscription on it: as if the words were of use to perpetuate the histories of these shores. We come to a low pasture, a narrow ledge, the most hallowed spot in Switzerland, for here the three great patriots whose portraits we saw at Brunnen,—Furst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal,—were wont to meet to concert their plans. And here at midnight, Nov. 7, 1307, they, with thirty trusty men whom they had chosen, took the oath that bound them in a solemn league to break the hated yoke of Austria, or die. They fought and conquered, and they perished too, but their names and deeds live, in revolving centuries, and pilgrims from lands that were then unknown now come and look with reverence upon the spot thus consecrated, for the lands of Tell and of Washington are lands of liberty, and the sons of each are brothers.

And across the See, a few miles on, is the chapel of William Tell. It marks the spot where the hero jumped from the boat to the rock and bounded away into the woods, when the tyrant Gessler was carrying him to prison. A storm had overtaken them: the tyrant, a coward of course, was afraid, and, as Tell was an expert in the boat, he ordered him to be unbound, that he might manage the little bark. Tell steered her close to the rock, and leaped ashore, and was gone. A little chapel, open on the lake front, is erected here, preserved with pious care, adorned with art and taste, and once a year a long procession of Swiss, in boats, approach the sacred place and listen to a discourse in honor of their sainted hero.

Adown the sides of these majestic mountains frequent cascades leap and hang and play, and not far from the chapel two fountains spring directly out of the mountain side and pour two copious streams into the lake below. They are said to flow from a lake in the valley on the other side of the mountain; but whether this is true or not, it is an illustration of the way in which the veins of water run along beneath the earth, rising even on the sides and summits of the hills, and springing to the surface when reached by art, or, as in this case, discharging by a natural outlet. The earth has its mysteries yet unsolved. Some of these bare mountain rocks are laid in convoluted strata, a few feet only in thickness, but wrapped over and over, as if they were a heap of great sheets once, easily thrown into these forms. It is easy to say that they are of volcanic origin, and that these hills were once flowing down in presence of the Lord. But this explains nothing. The philosopher is no wiser than the poet. And neither sees any farther into the bowels of these mountains than the Christian pilgrim who sits with me on the boat, and, as he sees the water gushing out of the rock as if smitten by the rod of Moses, he says: “Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of the waters? Out of whose bosom came the ice? There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen.” And this is the way the waters go, through chambers cut in the rocks by Infinite skill, that they may flow just where they are wanted to bless or beautify the world.

Reaching the end of the lake at Fluellen, we enter at once upon the highway over the St. Gothard into Italy. Two miles on is Altorf, where William Tell shot the apple on the head of his son. And still farther on is the place where he finally lost his life, drowned while seeking to save the life of a child. The road beyond is one of the grandest and most historic of the Swiss passes, but I am not going that way now, as Capt. Lott said. What did _he_ say? Why, this,—a passenger asked him why the ship was going so slow: the captain told him the fog was too thick to make much headway. “But,” said the passenger looking up, “it’s clear enough overhead.” “Yes,” replied the Captain, “but we’re not going that way just now.”