Kp^H'V ^Iggj H By the same Author Literary Associations of the English Lakes 2nd Edition. Crown Zvo. 2 Vols. With 32 full-page Illustrations. los. net. " Revision, correction, additions, and the reproduction of valuable photographs give to this new edition all the interest of a new book. The first volume is dominated by Southey, and deals with Cumberland and Keswick ; the second is equally dominated by Wordsworth, and treats of Westmoreland and Windermere. . . . Canon Rawnsley's book is now a necessary companion to all histories of Lakeland, and its distinguished tenants and visitors." — Spectator. Life and Nature at the English Lakes 2nd Edition. Crown 8vo. With 8 full-page Illustrations. 5^. net. " We could imagine no more charming companion to any meditative Lake visitor." — Daily Chronicle. Ruskin ^ the English Lakes 2nd Edition. Crown Zvo. With \o full-page Illustrations. 5.r. net. Memories of the Tennysons 2nd Impression. Crown Zvo. WithiS full-page Illustrations. 5^. net. A Rambler's Note-Book at the English Lakes Crown Zvo. With 8 full-page Illustrations, e^s. net. Lake Country Sketches Crown Svo. With 10 full-page Illustrations, ^s. net. GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS Publishers to the University London and New York : Macmillan and Co., Ltd. FLOWER- TIME IN THE OBERLAND PUBLISHED BY JAMES MACLKHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW, ^nbUshccs to the fintbcmtc. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. New York, - - The Mncmrl/an Co. London, - • • Sim,ikiH, Hamilton and Co. Cambridge, • - Maciniilan and Boives. Edinburgh, • • Douglas and Foulis. \w5^'^ -^ -■*-<<»*. j-_^ Flower-Time in the Oberland By the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley Honorary Canon of Carlisle Author of " Literary Associations of the English Lakes" etc. With Illustrations from Pencil Sketches by Edith Rawnslisy^ Glasgow James MacLehose and Sons Publishers to the University 1904 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. DO OUR FELLOW TRAVELLERS H. G., C. E. S., AND G. M. S., MY WIFE AND I DEDICATE THESE NOTES AND SKETCHES OF A PLEASANT HOLIDAY IN SWITZERLAND 822570 PREFATORY NOTE Encouraged first to go to Switzerland in May- time by my friend John Ruskin, I have on each successive visit felt more and more how much the lovers of spring-tide foliage and flowers lose by postponing their journey to the Oberland, till the blossom has gone from the vales, and the snows have faded from all the lower heights. This little record is published in the hope that those who have leisure or opportunity will make a pilgrimage in the prime of the year, when rest is surest and flower-time is the fairest. The sonnet headings for Chapters ii., viii., XII., XIV., XV. have been reprinted from my book of Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy ^ published by Messrs. Dent & Co.; and for viii PREFATORY NOTE Chapter xviii,, from my pamphlet, The Revival of Decorative Arts at Lucerne, which was published at Lucerne by the Bureau of Information. The other sonnets have been written for this volume. H. D. R. Crosthwaite, January, 1904. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. rxcB At the Gates of Oberland, - . - . % CHAPTER n. The Hill of Saint Beatus, . - - . 9 CHAPTER in. At Beatenberg, 18 CHAPTER IV. Walks at Beatenberg, 33 CHAPTER V. The Coming of Dawn at Beatenberg, - - 51 CHAPTER VI. The Blaue See. Kanderthal, - - - - 59 X CONTENTS CHAPTER VII. PAGE The Vale of 'Nothing but Springs,' - - 71 CHAPTER VIII. MiJRREN, - 85 CHAPTER IX. ^ The Lake of the Four Cantons, - - - 93 CHAPTER X. The Real Rigi, 112 CHAPTER XI. The BUrgenstock, "^ 127 CHAPTER XII. At the Angel Mount, 139 CHAPTER XIII. Walks at Engelberg, 157 CHAPTER XIV. Walks at Engelberg, 175 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER XV. PAGE A Visit to the Monastery, - - - - 189 CHAPTER XVI. In Paradise, 200 CHAPTER XVII. Lucerne, 214 CHAPTER XVIII. Walks about Lucerne, 238 CHAPTER XIX. Walks about Lucerne, 263 CHAPTER XX. Walks about Lucerne, -297 Index, - - - - • - - 3^9 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Lucerne from the Gutsch, - - - Frontispiece Thun, 8 From Beatenberg, i6 HOHWACHT, 48 EiGER from MiJRREN, 88 pilatus from scheideck, 96 Burgenstock and Pilatus, -' - - - 128 Engelberg, 160 The Spannorter, 176 The Musegg, 240 The Musegg, - - 254 At the Market Steps, Lucerne, - - - 276 CHAPTER I. AT THE GATES OF OBERLAND. AT THUN. To rest and hear all day the undersong Sound at the bridge of yonder brimming river ; To watch the starry red-cap flash and quiver For very joy the apple-buds among, Where the high slopes of Rabenfluh prolong The silver-blossoming gifts of spring the giver, Would make a man forget all pain for ever, And feel once more that hope of life was strong. But he who from the brown-roofed castle steep To Oberland's far mountain towers will turn. When the white giants enter to their sleep Or when at morn the Bliimlis ramparts burn, Will feel his soul unutterably yearn For something more than mortal life can keep. There is no month like the month of May in Switzerland, for May is the month of flowering meadows and blossoming orchards ; and he who has not seen the Swiss pastures purple with cranesbill, gold with picris, red 2 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND with sorrel, and white with parsley, before the mower whets his scythe, does not know what the word flower-time really means. The journey from England to Bale is now made as easy and luxurious as can be. One leaves Charing Cross in the afternoon for Folkestone and Boulogne, dines on board the express, and wakes up after a fair night's sleep to clear crisp air and sunlight at Bale, that already has a taste of the snow moun- tains about it. Breakfast is served, luggage passed through the customs, and we are soon speeding through Swiss sunshine to Lucerne, or to Berne and Thun, as the case may be. There is a choice of entrance into the Bernese Oberland. He is the wise man who at this time of the year determines to enter it by the Thuner-See. He passes through idyllic pastoral scenery, broad-roofed farms stand in ample fields, patches of sombre forest serve as back-ground to silver-blossoming orchard bowers, and sheets of such cloth of gold make glad the eye as can only be found when the ' Lion's tooth ' is in flower, and the Bernese mower has not yet begun to be busy. At Berne one pauses for an hour, to realise again from the great terrace beside the church one's first vision of the Oberland, ' a AT THE GATES OF OBERLAND 3 thousand shadowy pencilled valleys, and snowy dells in the sunny air ' ; and so we fare forward with the river Aare at our side, and and blue hill ranges marbled with snow away to the northward. Then suddenly against the dark pines of the Rabenfluh rises up the bold square tower, with its four corner turrets and its rose-red rDof-tree, — that stronghold of the Counts of Kyburg at the end of the twelfth century, the despair of the Dukes of Bur- gundy in the fifteenth. Close beside it, with picturesque tower-roofing, stands the town church upon its solid terrace wall. Soon we are clattering away from the station for rest and delight of quiet after our long, roaring, railway journey, to the Freienhof or the Baumgarten, or the Thunerhof, as purse or preference may dictate — for ancient burgher life, the Freienhof — for the enchantment of a loosely ordered garden, or a paradise of blossom, the Baumgarten — for modern luxury and stateliness of position, the Thunerhof He who has but a single day to stay at Thun, had better make his way at once to the Thunerhof and ask for a room on the third or fourth storey that looks out westward over the brown-roofed quaintly-gabled town. There in his room, he may not only watch 4 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND the green-grey river taking the city in its guardian arms, but from beneath the hooded bridge he may hear all day a voice that deepens at nightfall, the voice of all the glacier torrents mingling in one, voice of the melting snows of Oberland, voice of the river Aare full charged to the brim with the joy of May, as it pours itself through the foaming sluices, to bless far distant fields and orchards with the cloud of its morning and the dewy freshness of its eve. What strikes one in early May at Thun is the variety of tone in all the waking woodland on the height, and none who ever have seen them can forget the amber glory of its poplar colonnades. Of course one passes down into the town to call at the silver-smiths, or the pottery-makers, and cannot help being in mind of the Old Rows of Chester as one makes one's way on the high uplifted pavement, with the huge eave-boards almost meeting overhead, to the market place. Of course one stands with one's back to the quaint old Rath-haus, with the octagon tower of the Crown hotel on one's right, of course after gazing one's fill at the Castle of the Counts of Kyburg high towering above the brown-red roof-trees, — its feet all swathed AT THE GATES OF OBERLAND 5 in flowers, and fresh-leaved bushes, — we climb up steep steps, and entering to the Castle courtyard we claim admittance to the Musee. Up with the woman Castellan we go, with her great key hanging at her waist. She has a rough porringer in her hand ; she will kill two birds with one stone — show us the museum and -take the solitary prisoner in the room above his mid-day meal. I confess I was curious enough to pass on to the prisoner's quarters, and was pleased with the kindly air with which she brought his rough fare, and pleased with the manner in which he thanked her for her coming. ' It is very lonely being here,' I said. 'Yes,' he replied, 'but the out- look is beautiful, and I have friends.' And saying this, he pointed to the beginning of a nest that the swifts were making between the rafters and the roof. How they screamed as they dashed through the embrassure, and, startled by our unaccustomed presence, flashed forth again. As for the museum, it was a motley collec- tion in good sooth. My abiding memory was chiefly one of the horrors of mediaeval warfare. Executioners' swords with rust upon them, and numberless ropes neatly tied up and docketed, each one of which had been 6 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Stretched by some poor fellow on a gallows tree. One climbed to the turrets on the roof that gave marvellous outlook over the plains of Thun. One startled the swifts from the roof-tree galleries, and, passing down towards the church, filled one's eyes with delight, not only with that incomparable view of the river coming through its emerald meadows and poplar avenues towards the city — of the Bliimlisalp snow-white in the distance, — of Niesen's blue-grey pyramid, and Stockhorn's purple throne beyond the level plain of Thun, but one carried away from that fortress height a remembrance of old people sitting in the sun, and children happy with their play- things in miniature garden plots, and house- wives busy tending their tulips and their polyanthuses, and forget-me-nots, and training with consummate care their clematis and their honeysuckle. Of course no one should leave Thun without climbing up by any of the captivating walks to the look-out pleasaunces on the Rabenfluh. So steeply slope the meadows towards the dark pine-wood fringes on the height, one wonders how mowers can mow or how sowers can sow their tiny patches ; but everybody at Thun seems to be a born gardener, and the interest of a AT THE GATES OF OBERLAND 7 climb Up the Rabenfluh, through the continuous orchard that it is, lies in the fact that one is able to see the blossoming of the apple and the pear in every variety of flower growth, from pearl-like bud to fullest open beauty, while every tree at this time of year has added to it the charm of bird-life ; dancing upward from the grass, or fluttering downward from the topmost spray, a flash of fiery-red or the flicker of a white star tells us the red-start is happy and at home. This slope of Rabenfluh is in truth a poet and a painter's paradise. I cannot wonder that that old Minnesinger Heinrich von Strattligen, the bard, whose knightly tomb is under a green tree yonder at Bachiholzli, felt that here was the place that a man who had a heart could surely sing, and when the death hour came would wish to be at rest. For here, outstretched beneath one lies in untroubled loveliness, a very garden of the Lord. The Bernese giants stand up guardians of the peace of the green water-plain and the greener pasture-plain, while as fair an ancient city as man could well devise, to add a living interest to river side or wooded height, still keeps its charm unspoiled. One perhaps should qualify this statement, for since I was 8 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND here last a very picturesque tower of the type of the towers on the wall of Lucerne, that stood eastward between the river and the fortress height, has been ruthlessly pulled down, apparently for no other reason than to make way for a modern house. It is a pity that the burghers of Thun, whose very coat- of-arms takes them back to the battle of Morat in i486, should not remember that every bit of fifteenth century building that remains to them is an heirloom for their children's children, and each year will be more and more valued by a public that each year becomes more educated. The sun is setting far away over the Jura highlands, and the mountain walls are purpling with the night ; starry lights are beginning to twinkle in the old town ; a steamer carrying a ruby at its prow comes palpitating up the river to its rest, and we pass down, through the garden slopes that are heavy-scented in the damp evening air, to our own rest beside the rustling river, glad to have once more recalled our many happy memories at the gates of Oberland. CHAPTER II. THE HILL OF SAINT BEATUS. A RETURN TO ST. BEATENBERG. Once morethe crags of Niederhorn we greet, And face to face the snowy giants rise ; Once more the lake a hundred thousand dyes Of peacock-green is stretched beneath our feet. There sits the young wood-carver in his seat ; Fresh from the block, and with the same surprise The chamois gazes ; here the goat boy hies, And there the milkman that we used to meet. Thrice happy hill ! the same far cuckoo calls, The same shrill cricket chirps his noontide cheer. The same light gleams on yonder water's breast — The only change beneath your sheltering walls Are these tired hearts that hither come for rest. To find the balm of constant friendship here. It was a late May in Switzerland, the pear trees and apple trees were only faintly whiten- ing on the higher grounds, as we steamed away by the poplars and the grassy lawns of the old Chartreuse, by the tomb of Strattligen, lO FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND the bard, and away down the grey green waterway, flanked by its meadows, filled with dandelion gold, and lilac with the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers. ' Changeable weather,' said the Captain, and as he said it a scud came sweeping o'er the lake that blotted out the Niesen, and made the Bliimlisalp seem very far away. We passed the quaintly-built castle of Hiinegg, passed Hilterfingen, passed Ober- hofen with its church and sycamore, and called at Gunten, where, beneath its trellised arbour the little tables of the Stag Inn looked cheer- less in the rain. We crossed the lake to Spiez, with memories of happy startings for the Simmenthal and Kandersteg, then back to Merligen, thence on by the entrance of Justisthal, with its foaming Gronbach tor- rent, and so forward to the foot of the clifls of the Niederhorn, and the promontory men call the Nose, whence the ascent to Beaten- berg must be made. We were soon in the funicular car upon our journey of fifteen minutes that should take us to another world. The local guide- book assures us that this journey is not ' vertiginous ' ; but I noticed that my com- panion sat well back and held well on ; and though it is quite true that one had no THE HILL OF SAINT BEATUS n wish to cast oneself out, one felt that for a timid passenger on her first funicular journey vertigo was a possibility. I said the journey was to another world. Below us, as we ascended, we saw trees full in leaf, and faint sun glimmered through the light rain showers, but soon all leafage disappeared ; the beech woods were brown as winter, flowers seemed to cease, the birds forgot to sing, and we found ourselves in a cloud of mist and snow that shut out all the view from sight. Denser grew the clouds, but upwards still we went, to find at last men stamping their feet for the cold, and coachmen, with faces and hands winter-red, waiting to convey us with such cheer as might be of fair weather to-morrow to our quarters, the Hotel Poste. My friends looked sad, so glowingly had I described Beatenberg to them, but I knew the ways of the weather upon this ' Blessed Hill,' and cheerily thought of the morrow. At least I could tell them the story of S. Beatus even in the mist and cloud, for this was the very day, so chance would have it. May 9th, on which, in the year no, S. Beatus, who gave his name to the mountain side, entered into rest. Not without pardonable pride did one recall how that great Englishman of noble birth 12 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND came with his friend Justus at the end of the first century, the first herald of the Cross to Switzerland, and how having asked of the shepherds whether there was any cavern in which he might dwell, he was pointed to the Beatushohle at the foot of the precipice we had just ascended. That cavern in those days was called Drachenloch, for it was inhabited by a mighty beast that was the terror of all the neighbourhood. Now Beatus and his friend Justus, whose name still clings to the Justisthal, was a very S. George against all dragons, and straightway with joy made for the dragon's cave, and incontinently cast the fierce beast forth, and made the dragon's lair his hermitage. Whereupon he straightway set up the Cross, and preached the Gospel far and near, and performed many miracles amongst them, the casting of his leathern cloak upon the water to cross the lake from either side, true coracle fashion, which leads me to believe he knew the ways of early Britain; here dying at a good old age, he left such memory of goodly deeds of healing and the like, that ages after, in the year 1494, his bones were enshrined in silver, and pilgrimages made to the Beatus Cavern from all parts of Europe. With the Reformation came stern forbidding THE HILL OF SAINT BEATUS 13 of all such pilgrimages. The Beatus Cavern was walled up, but the wall was broken down, and there was bloody work at S. Beatushohle. As for the Saint, all that was left of him, his skull, was, in 1528, buried in front of the high altar in the Monastery Church at Interlaken. And now we are driving through the mist and cloud, right opposite the picturesque little church that was built by order of the Bernese government in 1534, 2000 feet above the lake- side shrine of S. Beatus, that here, within bare white walls and nakedest simplicity, the descendants of the peasants to whom Beatus had first preached the Gospel, might worship in the ways of the Reformers. I was glad that the cloud was so dense, for to the uninitiated this drive of 2J miles from the station along the plateau slope of Beatenberg is full of fearsomeness. Steep up above one to the heavens run the orchards, steep to the lake below one orchards run, and if a horse should jib there can be nothing between one and eternity anywhere on the road of S. Beatus ; but the horses don't jib, and the drivers don't drink, and one pulls up safe and sound at the H6tel de la Poste. All within was warm and cosy, as all without was cold and clammy — the great bastions behind one 14 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND invisible — the lake below one dim — the moun- tain giants in front of one as though they were not. ' It will be fine to-morrow,' said the landlord, and ' dinner is ready.' We ate and were refreshed, and hoped for the mor- row. At half-past five I heard cries upon the balcony, pushing back of green jalousies, creaking of window opening, and knew that the landlord was right and that the sun was shining. ' Never,' as Wordsworth puts it, 'Did sun more beautifully steep In its first grandeur, mountain, lake, and hill.' From the snow-white Wildgerst and Faulhorn, from the spikey Schreckhorn, by the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau, right on by Sulegg, the Lobhorner, the Schwalmern and the Bliimlisalp, to Fiirst and the Dreispitz, the whole panorama of Oberland lay in sunny brightness. Flowery meadows filled with gold, and white with blossoming trees on the lower slopes, fell from us, dewy fair, to a lake of peacock hue, while from that lake rose up the silver precipice and snow-mottled forests of the beautiful Abendberg, with its Morgenberg- horn shining snowy white. The feature of the view was doubtless those three great Oberland giants that towered above the THE HILL OF SAINT BEATUS 15 Mannlichen into the clear morning air. One seemed to forget the peacock deeps beneath us, or the blue vale that led from Interlaken up into the mountain solitudes. For robed in all the splendid majesty of morning, these giants sat enthroned in dazzling armour, and the deep purple shadows cast by their arretes upon the snowy fields did but serve to accen- tuate the glory of their silver-shining white- ness. There they sat on what seemed thrones of lapis lazuli, for all the precipices whereon the snow had failed to find foothold, all the lower slopes which the dark pine forests and the light-green larches, broidered with their shade, seen through the veils of lucid mist, appeared of deepest blue. Already the voices of birds filled the air, pied flycatchers sang as our robins sing, and, dancing upward from the ground, suddenly turned the leafless lime branch into blossom of starry whiteness. Chaffinches piped their cheeriest, red-starts flickered into their ruddiest, and hark ! from the far-off wood and the silver cliffs of the Birrenfluh comes echoing through the quiet dawn the cuckoo's dear familiar call. Already the village is awake, and all the world seems busy out of doors ; men, with their heavy sledges, are taking what we call in the l6 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND north 'management,' to the sloping meadows ; women in gay petticoats are busy breaking new ground for their potato patches ; and the goat-bells jingle along the solitary village street — and yet for all this sign of business, such peace and rest is in the air that one seems to have entered a new life, and to feel the spell of another world. And truly this hill of the ' Blessed one,' too little known by Eng- lish wanderers in search of rest and health, no matter how often one returns to it, re- makes its spell and renews its peacefulness. Here on a little plateau two miles long, sheltered from the north by silver precipices and dark pine woods and from the east by the slopes and woods of Waldegg, lives a con- tented community, about a thousand strong, of hard-working Alpine farmers, and mixing with them dwell a number of hotel proprietors, who know them all by their names, and share with them such profits of the season as visitors and requirements for garden produce bring. It is true that their winter is long, even on May ist this year the snow lay two feet thick at their doors ; but when May comes she comes in earnest to Beatenberg, and within a week the snow had vanished, and the orchards had begun to put out into leaf. From May THE HILL OF SAINT BEATUS 17 onward to October there is probably no village in the Oberland which the southern sun so perpetually blesses. And here am I somewhat of a cripple lying out to-day on a grassy slope, the orchises purpling the grass, and ten thousand gentianellas starring the ground with sapphire, at a height 500 feet above the height of Skiddaw, baking in such sunshine as I could not feel in England all the summer through. The breath of the Oberland giants is in the air, that curious crispness that no noonday sun can ever dissipate ; far off with the roar of a continuous cannonade the sound of avalanches comes down the Interlaken gorge and floats across the lake, and sounds far up the steep ; but the voice of that tre- mendous tumult does but seem to emphasise the peace and tranquillity of this hill of the ' Blessed one.' CHAPTER III. AT BEATENBERG. AMONG THE GENTIANELLAS. The bee, scarce balanced on the sapphire star, Hums, and the stream goes singing down the wood ; Above me shines the orchis red as blood. Around ten thousand gentianellas are ; The dandelion torrents near and far Pour golden to the peacock-shadowy flood, The woodpecker laughs loud for coming good. And hark ! the cuckoo calling from the scar. But as I lie full stretched on sunny ground Fierce alien voices sudden fill the air ; The avalanche roars continuous cannonade. Methinks how much by contrast joy is made : The silence here is sweeter for that sound. The peace for all that tumult seems more fair. Part of the pleasure of being at Beatenberg is that one mixes here with the peasantry who for such a number of generations have lived so removed from the outside world that they have preserved characteristics of their AT BEATENBERG 19 mountain hardihood and industry, and in their little self-contained republic have known for centuries that 'Manners maketh man.' No one thinks of passing his neighbour at morn or even without the salutation of * Gruss Gott,' and if you touch your hat, stranger though you are, no one would think of not returning your salutation by the lifting of the quaint old cap which the village seniors wear. It is true that the last ten years of incursion by summer visitors has sadly shaken the faith amongst the younger women in their national attire, but still on Sundays one may see the village fathers in their short jackets, braided with red, and their peg-top trousers of what S. Francis would call ' beast brown ' colour, and amongst the elder women at any rate is still preserved the habit of the little black bonnet-shaped headress, with its ample trim- ming of black lace that almost serves as a veil for the sun-tanned rugged face behind it. It is a hard life that these peasants live, but nearly all of them are what we should call in the Lake Country ' Estatesmen ' ; in addition to their right of pasture on the high Alp, they have rights also to wood from the forest of their Department, for Beatenberg is divided into three separate departments. Schmocken, 20 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND that extends from the Beatenberg station to beyond the post-office ; Spirenwald, that runs on to the ravine of Sundgraben ; and Wald- Ggg, that extends beyond that up to Amis- biihl, and down almost to Interlaken. A peasant proprietor in Schmocken can only claim to cut wood in the Schmocken forest, and an interesting scene it must be when on some fine day in October the forester of the Canton attends to let the Beatenberger know how many trees he may fell this year, and how many must be planted in their place. The trees have been already marked for felling and numbered, their numbers are put in a hat, and a general drawing takes place, and he who draws must not run away, or he will not be allowed to draw another day, but straightway he must off to the forest, axe in hand, and hew down his tree, drag it to the precipice edge, and shoot it down from above to the village plateau ; there he may dis- pose of it as he pleases, sell it or use it as is most convenient. They are all born foresters and skilled woodcraftsmen. The price that they pay for labour runs from 28 to 35 centimes an hour. The average day labourer's wage at Beatenberg is 3f. 20, though the im- ported labour of skilled masons, who are for AT BEATENBERG 21 the most part Italians, runs to 5 francs a day. But if they are skilled foresters they are skilled gardeners also. Every man, woman, and child in Beatenberg knows how to prune and graft, and prepare soil for seed ; and as one gazes at their arbours and the clever pleaching of their fruit trees, one seems to feel that they have a special power of making the plants of the field obey their will and grow to whatever shape they may desire. Of the industry of the place, as seen perhaps specially in the early weeks of May, when the snows have gone, and planting time and sowing time has come round, one can only say that it makes one ashamed not to have the long-handled spade or the three- pronged mattock in one's hand, or the pottle- shaped basket on one's back, as one watches the careful husbandry that seems to be patch- ing the steep sunny slopes with checkers of umber brown. Grandfather, mother, father, children, all are busy as bees, breaking the new ground for the potatoes, and the little child sleeps warmly wrapped beneath the shadow of the family umbrella. Yet one cannot but remark that with all their freedom and independence, with all their healthful work in the open air, these peasant proprietors soon 22 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND seem to lose the appearance of joy in the labour of their hands ; the women are old before their time, the men soon grow grey, and whilst one is astonished at their inde- fatigable labour and the incessant powers of toil both in man and woman, one cannot help noting that their physique is far from stalwart. Of course generations of breeding in and in, in the days of their upland solitude may have something to answer for this ; but when one comes to enter their cottages and enquire into their manner of food one feels their curse is the common curse of the Swiss peasantry, a belief in the efficacy of thin coffee without milk, and potatoes without fat. Very little meat seems to be eaten, milk is looked upon as a luxury, and the everlasting potato is the piece-de-resistance of the farmer's family. Inquiries made on the spot seem to show that though now and again a goat is killed in the autumn and eaten, the real meat supply of each family consists of a pig, or a couple of pigs, which are fatted towards Christmas time, and, as the porter put it, ' made to die ' in the first week of the new year. As soon as piggy is killed he is hung up in the wood smoke of the chalet chimney, remains there for a month or six weeks, and then is AT BEATENBERG 23 looked upon as the sheet-anchor of animal food for the rest of the year. I watched the labourers who worked from ten to eleven hours a day at strenuous work, moving soil, building banks, and cutting drains, and in no instance did I see them eat meat for their mid-day meal. They took, many of them, dry bread, some bread and cheese from their handkerchiefs, and washed it down with milk- less coffee from the little wooden kegs their daughters brought them. It was astonishing to note their strength, vigour, and cheerfulness as they laboured on this diet. Speaking of these labourers, one noted also what all-round handy men they were. The humblest of them seemed to be able to lay pipes, build walls, make fences, or lay out garden paths and terraces, and to be a kind of Jack-of-all-trades ; I learned that it was the pride of the Swiss peasant to know as much skilled handicraft as opportunity would allow. One other thing also must in some sense militate against full vigour — from earliest morn till nightfall every Beatenberger is seen with a long heavy bowled pipe hanging from his mouth ; no matter how hard the labour of his hands the pipe is his companion, he will not move it from his lips even when he talks. I 24 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND can imagine a couple of Beatenbergers passionately quarrelling without once letting their pipes fall from their teeth ; and this in- cessant smoking, though it may be a necessity to the potato eater, cannot make for physical wellbeing. The labour of the Beatenberg peasant is of course immensely increased by the steep- ness of the slopes on which almost all his field work is done, and very early does it seem the child is broken into harness, little tots of five or six years old are seen with their wooden water vessels and pottle-shaped baskets on their shoulders. There is a bene- ficent system with the educational authority in Switzerland by which there is no afternoon school for elementary scholars from May till the end of October. This enables the young- sters to become very early acquainted with all the craft of agriculture. I have just come back from one of the four schoolhouses that the Commune of Beatenberg supplies for the youth of the village. Amongst the questions I asked was this : ' Do you think that pro- gress in education is prevented by the doing away of afternoon school during the summer months ? ' To which the schoolmaster, a rugged old bit of gnarled humanity, replied : AT BEATENBERG 25 ' No, for when the sun shines It is better for children to be out of doors learning other things, and afternoon lessons in the summer heat count for nothing.' I could not help hoping that our own educational authorities in England could have heard the old school- master's dictum. What a god-send it would be to the elementary schoolmaster or mistress to have even two afternoons in the week, free from the hot school and its sleepy inmates. Here at Beatenberg it is quite clear that parents believe in education ; and although there is no kindergarten school, and no child can come to school before the age of six, every parent is resigned to the thought that his child will occupy a scholar's bench for nine years from his first day of admis- sion ; doubtless the fact of the half school- day in summer makes this resignation the cheerier. No attendance officer exists, and although, if a child is absent from school three times in a month without leave or the excuse of sickness, the parent is answerable for a fine, so far as I could learn such cases did not occur. The religious difficulty does not exist. State prayers are read and religious instruction according to State formulae is 26 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND given in every school. At least three hours of such religious instruction must be given in the week, and during those hours a Roman Catholic child may absent himself if he pleases ; drill appeared to be reduced to a minimum, sixty hours, I think, in a year, were all that were looked upon as necessary. The art of drawing was clearly considered a luxury. About twenty hours was the minimum re- quired by the government for instruction in the fine arts, nor was there any art or care for it upon the walls. Cleanly ugliness was, it appeared, all that was required ; but in one matter a Beatenberg school could give us a lead in England, the song or glee book which every scholar had beneath his desk, was full of well-arranged two- or three-part glees, which were good in music, national in feeling, and sound in words. In one other piece of school furniture the Spirenwald School of Beatenberg could teach us something. There on the barren wall hung an admirable map on a large scale, admirably coloured and shaded, of the country, and no child who left that school need leave it without a knowledge of every mountain peak and lake within fifty miles of his home. One could not help the feeling that a great change had come over AT BEATENBERG 27 Switzerland in matters educational in the past century, seeing that in 1816, if one had entered an elementary school one would have found writing looked upon not only as a luxury, but actually as a disqualification in the eyes of parents for work in the world. Yet still one wished to see the question of dietetics made part of the elementary scholar's stock-in-trade. The physique of the future generation is surely a matter of national import, and the actual nourishment in various kinds of foods, and the harm of excess of potato eating and coffee drinking, alcohol and tobacco, should surely be made one of the elementary lessons for Swiss children. At Beatenberg, where everybody seems to work to the full stretch of his powers, it is a matter of congratulation to see that Sunday is really made a day of rest. I suspect that the little community on the height who fought so fiercely against the Reformation have real piety in the blood. One sees evidence of this in the inscriptions on their chalets : ' Oh high God of thy goodness protect this house from evil fortune,' ' He builds well who trusts in the Lord,' are sentences full of meaning ; and though it is true that in the buildings of the last few 28 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND years such prayers and sayings are con- spicuous by their absence, it is the strangers who are answerable for this. The Beaten- berger does not wear his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at, and probably feels the presence of God too near to him to risk the expression of his feeling being mocked at by unsympathetic wayfarers. I have seldom been at a service of peasants more devout than the service in the little State church that was built in 1534, to replace the chapel of S. Beatus in the woods below ; the church itself is evidence of this passionate Protestant spirit that gave it birth. The ' kist of whistles' that was added a hundred years ago, with its bellows high up above the roof, which are blown by means of a long pole, is the only concession to the modern spirit. The men sit in the organ gallery, the women down below in the body of the church on the plainest possible benches. As for the organist, a man of gigantic mould, he seems to be sitting on the edge of the gallery rail, and almost to blot out the whole organ from sight. A huge black-looking fungus stands in the middle of what we should call the chancel, this really is the font, with black cloth draping; a black draped table, four square, with a Bible upon it, AT BEATENBERG 29 Stands by its side. At the back are a series of stalls facing the people, in which the deacons, with their hats duly hung on pegs above their heads, stand resting their elbows on the woodwork during the service. Sad- faced but reverent men, they seem a sort of embodiment of the doctrines that are being taught by the preacher. He, on a high uplifted pulpit of painted wood too wonderful in its ugliness for description, has an hour-glass at his side, and preaches ' largely ' as he preaches earnestly. The only bits of colour are a few blazoned panes that seemed to speak of the Bernese overlordship in the roundheaded, circular-glazed window. No, this is not the only colour, for when the church was last re- stored, the fathers of the faithful so far gave way to modern ideas of ornament, that they coloured the whole of their flat wooden roof with blue colour-wash, and dappled their heaven with stars of yellow paint. The ' waters that are above the firmament ' appear to have leaped in and to have a little discon- certed some of the stars in their courses, and the clouds and mists of winter, notwithstanding a gigantic stove that looks like a locomotive boiler up on end, have much disintegrated passionately appealing texts upon the white- 30 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND washed walls. The most interesting writing upon the walls are the series of verses in black letter on the southern side that give in brief the legend of S, Beatus, who it appears originally was called Suetonius, and who, if of English origin, had perhaps come from Rome for his evangelical crusade. The preacher ends his lengthy exhortation and a short earnest prayer, we sing an old chorale, the Lord's prayer is said and we are dis- missed with a blessing, and pass out under the gallery and under the portico, above which is the village school. There is a clink heard as of money falling into an iron box ; poor though the peasants are, they all of them leave something for the sick of the parish as they pass the portal. Once outside they exchange salutations and learn the news, and before they go upward or downward by the steep paths to their homes they would seek the graves of their beloved ones, and not without tears would talk of those that are gone. And what a God's acre it is ! However deeply the heart might grieve, or however dimly the eyes might see thro' the mist of sorrow, a single upward look to those white shining giants of the Oberland would as surely bring AT BEATEN BERG 31 help to them as the lifting up his eyes unto the hills brought aid to the Psalmist. And if they gaze downward through the flowery meadows and bowery orchards to the tranquil peacock-coloured lake below, it is certain that there too they might find rest for their souls, and something of the deep tran- quillity of the Thuner-See might pass into their hearts. There is no better place than Beatenberg for studying the chalet building of old time and seeing how it is passing away beneath the hand of modern requirement and the so- called march of progress. The fear of fire has had a good deal to do with this change. Not only are the houses now red- tiled instead of roofed with split wood as of old, but the chalet has had to accommodate itself to the requirements of visitors and the old love of ornament, which was the pride of a man who felt that he built for himself and his posterity, and who could write on his house-front, in Swiss rhyme, ' In this little house man lives as his father before him,' is passing away before the almost certain change of proprietorship which the new order of things has brought about in Beatenberg. But the Commune on the height is as 32 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND prudent as it is public-spirited; if it has already- brought electric light from Darligen, sixteen miles away, it has also brought water, with an abundant supply of hydrants, for the whole range of its two miles and a half of buildings from the high ground above Waldegg. It has further arranged for three fire engines in its three divisions of Schmocken, Spirenwald, and Waldegg ; and not only does it demand that every able-bodied inhabitant shall form part of the village fire brigade, and know something of fire brigade drill, but it has arranged for ten horn stations and ten horn blowers to give the signal in case of fire. Visitors in May will notice a clump of yellow Alpine auricula high upon the roof ridge of many of the chalets, and those who ascend to Kanzeli or the crags of Birrenfluh will learn why it is that this jewel of blossom shines upon the peasant's roof-tree. The * Fluh- blume,' as it is called, demands a hardy climb, and sometimes an almost daring adventure, if it is to be brought root and all from the bastion rocks of Beatenberg ; and every cottager is proud to think he has a son who can claim the prize, and in honour of the ascent he plants the flower prominently upon his roof. CHAPTER IV. WALKS AT BEATENBERG. AT THE hQhEWACHT. How could the coldest heart not throb and thrill, The dullest ear not listen to the flow Of milk-white Gronbach roaring down below The resonant cliff of glorious Sigriswyl ! Here as I gaze, though joy my spirit fill And — watchman on its height — pure wonder grow, Humble before His mighty hands I bow Who carved the bastion ramparts of the hill. Then sudden from beneath, with giant wings That blot from sight the village with their span An eagle wheels unto his watchman's height, He too, my humbler, — king of feathered kings, For now I know my spirit's thirst for flight And feel the fetters that have made me man. He who has not seen the May tide come up the mountain side to Beatenberg can really never know the joy of the procession of the flowers, for when the meadows at Spiez or Interlaken are filled with the silver 34 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND spray of the wild parsley, when the orchards are white with bloom and the beech trees in tenderest green are slashing the lower pine wood with abiding sunshine, here the beech trees are leafless, and at a distance seem to cover the near slopes with a haze of purple brown, while the cherry stands against the distant snow a fountain of umber budding. Every day these woods change in colour ; suddenly one morning the larch beneath our window stands full flushed with emerald green, and at the voice of the cuckoo the cherry turns from umber to red, and from red to milk-white bloom, then the long-delaying horse chestnut hears the cry of the red-start, drops its glumes, and opens its fans, while even the lime tree needs must push out into leaf at the voice of that sure herald of the spring, the merry little pied flycatcher. Every day one watches the floods of dan- delion growing larger upon the slopes, every day the gentianellas come climbing up the meadows from below ; and though it will be near mid June before the cow-bells are heard in the Rischerenthal, and the larger gentian stars the mountain meadow right up to the pine-fledged skyline of that secluded vale, WALKS AT BEATEN BERG 35 here in middle May the white crocuses abound and the soldanella shines, whilst in the woods beneath the Birrenfluh and the Kanzeli the piney dusk and the red beech- leaf- matted moss is spangled with the delicate hepatica, the only flower that seems to be careless of the sun. For the artist, at any rate, May is the time for a visit to Beatenberg ; and since in that month the hotels for the most part are scant of guests, it is in May that the man who is in need of rest will find refreshful quiet, and less distraction from entering into the full delight of the mountain village. The Commune of Beatenberg has been far- seeing in its arrangement for diversified walks throughout the length and breadth of its wooded height above the village. I know no place in Switzerland where, within an hour's walk from one's hotel, one may obtain so many varieties of view and such diversity of bodily exercise. This morning we will ascend to the Kanzeli, and within the hour we shall be standing without fatigue 2000 feet above the village. One gazes upward and thinks that it is an idle tale that in three-quarters of an hour one will be walking on an easy path above those splendid silver 36 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND shining precipices overhead ; but up through the woods we go, and the woodpecker laughs, and the jay plays his watchman's rattle, and the black squirrel bounds across the path. With our hands filled with lilac hepatica and the spring - flowering heath, though the snow still in patches lies across the pathway, we go. The sloping meadows, chalet-dotted, are left behind ; but not so is left behind the sense of village labour in the fields ; for down below us from time to time we catch glimpses of women in their gay red petticoats, swinging their mighty mattocks and turning the green into brown. Potato planting at Beatenberg is a study in itself. The mother and father and child strike their mattocks with the rhythm of blacksmiths at a forge into the solid mass of green turf that they intend to turn into glebe ; then a good pull all together, and the mass rolls over from green to brown ; the mattocks are swiftly turned in the hand, and the brown mass is pulverised. Then as to the planting, I found that one of the favourite systems in vogue was to lay turf along a deep furrow, sprinkle it with spruce toppings, lay the potatoes upon this, and then, after applying manure, to repeat the process WALKS AT BEATENBERG 37 described above, and, working all together, to pull over on to the top of it a mass of the solid glebe, which they broke into fine soil. From time to time we take advantage of the rough seats and gaze out over the peacock lake, over the blue cobalt cliff side of the Abendberg to whitely shining Sulegg and the snow-clad Oberland giants beyond ; then glad we turn from the sun dazzle to the pathway shadow, up and upwards till the level terrace pathway is won. Rough ladders give us ascent to still higher terrace paths, and so, easily walking now high up above those silver bastions, we pursue what from below appeared a quite impracticable way, till we stand within a hundred feet of the Burgfeldstand Alp, and have won that marvellous pulpit, — for such is the meaning of the word Kanzeli, — whence to all comers Nature preaches her magnificent sermon and calls the hearts of all her true lovers to praise the Lord. This afternoon we will take another hour's walk to another vantage-ground for another noble view. We will go to the Hohewacht in the Waldbrand ; we will pass the church and keep along the road towards the Beatenberg Station until just before the 38 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Kurhaus is reached ; we will turn up a pathway that leads at the back of a newly- built 'pension,' and so through meadows and orchards by chalets of the old and primitive type we will go westward, with magnificent view of the Niesen and Stockhorn, and the gates of Simmenthal. One of these chalets is noteworthy. In its ornament it has, as many chalets at Beatenberg have, a curious billet moulding of various colours in a band immediately beneath the gable front ; but lower down, part hidden by the pear tree trained against the wall, runs in a band of ornament in low relief, a cup and heart, which at a glance looks like a chalice and a wafer turned into a heart shape, and perhaps came from old Roman Catholic times. With our hands filled with the faint sweet cuckoo-flower and marsh marigold, cowslips, purple orchises, and the yellow viola the children called 'step-mother's eye,' we have won to the edge of the pinewood forest that would lead us to the Hohewacht's view. The forest path is hushed by the rich red carpet that the fir tree spines let fall. Though the shadow is dark, it is lightened by the green of the bilberry, and the wild rhododendron tells us that here, at the end WALKS AT BEATENBERG 39 of June, the children will come for their Alpen-rose. A flood of golden light flashes at us through the dark pine stems, and in a moment we are standing high up above a lake of molten gold that floods far away to the River Aare and the fortress-hold of Thun. Like a great shaggy lion guarding the pass, the hill of Wimmis lies at the gate of Sim- menthal. The eye travels from the Bliimlls- alp over the purple pyramid of Niesen, capped with snow, on to the blue hill range of Stockhorn, veined as it would seem with ivory, to lose itself in the far hills of Jura, dim in a golden mist beneath the western sun. Immediately at our feet the red- roofed village of Merligen looks as if some child had been playing with toy houses at village- making there, and deep below us, with a voice of muflled thunder, the milk-white Gronbach pours itself away. Whether Gron- bach means, as our English Greta means, the grinding torrent, or, as some say, the green river, I know not. Only to-day, as it flashes from the deep darkness of its vast chasm between the horns of the Sigriswyl-Grat and the towers of the Niederhorn, it certainly must rejoice in the vivid green pastures and the emerald green beech-forest, through which 40 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND it foams towards the lake. There is no place on the Beatenberg hill from which one may- obtain a more impressive sight of Nature's gigantic cliff-building than here. One remem- bers the impression made upon one as one suddenly came on the cliffs of the Lauber- horn, one remembers the effect produced upon one's mind by a peep over the precipices of Pilatus and the Gemmi ; but depth and height are so seen at one moment from the vantage- ground of the Hohewacht that a sense of scale seems lost, and when one adds to this the extraordinary beauty of the airy citadels and flying bastions of the Niederhorn, with the western light full upon them, one turns away, but turns again to gaze, and leaves with an in- effaceable impression of mountain magnificence and valley sound which can never pass away. As I gazed I found I was not alone in my high watching. Up from the sunless depth into the sunshine glory, with nothing to bear him upward, as it would seem, but his own majestic will, moveless of wing, mysterious in his flight, his great vans blotting out the whole village beneath him, came slowly soaring to his mountain eyrie the bird of Jove. It is not often that one has the chance of sharing a view with an Alpine eagle ; and as WALKS AT BEATENBERG 41 he passed me in magnificent silence he seemed to add just that wild life to the Hohewacht prospect that made one feel the mountain solitude. Yet I confess that as he still went higher, and was lost to sight in the sunset heaven, I felt the poverty of mortal power, and the chains upon the mortal spirit that was fain to follow, but must needs be content with a lower watching than was his. It is quite true that to see the castle bastions of the Niederhorn at their best one must needs gaze at them from the lake, or from the further shore, when sunset turns their silver crags and pinnacles to gold ; but there are few more rewarding walks than to pass in middle June up through the fragrant pine wood on to the grassy slopes of utmost Niederhorn. There always we may hear the trumpets of the wind, and, with our hands full of the pinkthrift, may return to the herdsmen's huts in the hollow meadows, where the white ranunculus is in flower, and forget all about sound of wind or the sense of dizzy height in the quiet pastoral scene of the cheesemakers and the music of innumer- able bells. That herdsmen's life on the higher Alps is in itself a study. In some villages a kind 42 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND of farewell festival is given to the young herdsmen on the Sunday preceding their departure for their three months' exile. In other villages the priest will pass up with the cattle keepers to bless the pastures and to lay the names of every cow upon the rough altar of the little upland chapel. And very various apparently are the customs which prevail in the management of these upland herds. In some cases the peasants lease their cows and all their curd-making properties to the mountain cheesemaker ; in other cases they pay them so much for making the cheeses for them and tending to their kine ; again, in some cases each commoner has a right of pasturage for a certain number of cattle upon an Alp ; in other cases he pays a rent for the season, so much for each head that he sends to graze, and, truly, not a great sum either, for thirty-five francs will in some cases pay both for grass and for attendance. Yet I never see the herds upon the high Alps without a thought that, though cheesemaking for winter use is going on, there are children down in the valley who, for three months at the least, will get no milk of the cow, and whole families will have to be content WALKS AT BEATENBERG 43 with the sparse supply of milk that a goat can give them. But the unforgettable music of the wandering herds not only banishes thoughts of regret, but seems so entirely to be the natural music of the mountain slopes that he who has once heard the far-off melody — now clear, now far — as the wind may allow, feels a new sense of peacefulness that nothing can destroy. One has wondered why it is that the herdsmen seem so to delight in placing their milking huts amongst the pines if, as on the Mettlen Alp, pine forests may be found ; and sometimes on hot August days one is astonished to find the cattle kept under shelter until dew-fall. But quite apart from the fact of the trouble of the fly, there is in direct sunshine a power that seems to oblige the kine to run about as if sun-mad ; and thus it is that at Beatenberg, for example, when the sun of later May is hot, villagers, who, each day before the cows go up to the Alps, give them gentle exercise that they may strengthen their limbs after their winter stallage, will not allow them to leave their cattle sheds till the heat of the day is over. After milking-time in the evening they turn them out for an hour or two on to the slopes 44 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND beside their doors, and he who passes through the village at the enchanting hour of sunset may hear beneath him, or above, the pleasant pastoral music of the silver cattle-bells. We have seen the view from the Hohe- wacht. There is a view at the eastern end of the village as remarkable in quite another way. For a panoramic view at a moderate height it is, I think, unsurpassable in the Bernese Oberland. We pass along the level village road over the Birrengraben, where a few years ago the torrent swept the wooden bridge away ; then round the Sundgraben, where every winter the avalanches make havoc of the State road, round, with the sawmill buzzing away beneath one, and are fain to stop to gaze back at the extra- ordinary beauty of the isolated tower of the pear-shaped Birrenfluh that flanks the silver cliffs of the Burgfeldstand. He who remem- bers Ruskin's account of the pine in Swit- zerland may almost believe that he wrote it gazing hence, for never did pines more wonderfully catch at slightest foothold, never fledge more bravely the inaccessible height than here. Thence by the Alpen-Rose, we go by easy ascent through flowery fields dotted WALKS AT BEATEN BERG 45 with picturesque chalets, on by the School- house of Spirenwald, on above the pine groves of Waldegg, till far up the crest of the ridge that goes steep down to the Habkernthal we reach the little restaurant of Amisbiihl, with its ample balconies, and gaze, and gaze, and gaze. At our feet the Bodeli meadows, with three white roads and what appear to be two green rivers to the lake, all issuing from a little purple-clus- tered town, tell us that there lies Interlaken. Beside its green and woody mound men call the Rugen, northeast of the village town, the plain widens ; and though we cannot see the waters of Brienz, because of the dark slopes of Harder, we know by the dark alder line on the further side of the plain that the grey and white Liitschine streams flow there in one torrent to the unseen lake. The near slopes across the Habkernthal, made bare of pines by the falling avalanches, run up to marvellous contrast of dark pine and dazzling snow, where the Augsmatthorn, though it is middle May, shines winter-white above its far-off pastures. Snow, too, still laces all the front of the blue Abendberg ; and very beau- tiful it is to observe the scale of colour as one's eye travels up from the peacock waters 46 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND of the lake through the fresh vivid green of the beech woods to the naked silver rock and the dark pine groves above, up over the golden ivory of snowy Sulegg to the azure blue of middle heaven ; but he who lingers long enough at Amisbiihl may see all that cliff wall of Abendberg throb into fiery rose, and know how well and truly it was called the Berg of Eventide. It is six of the clock as we sit and gfaze beyond the Bodeli meadows, and the purple town, and the green Rugen, up to that vast portal — that mighty mountain gate — that gives us access to the glories of Oberland. Deep purple shadow fills one-half the vale ; but the Liitschine seems to edge the shadow with its silver gleaming, and sunshine fills the other half of the vale and flashes downward in flood from the snows of the Faulhorn range which to-day descend full halfway down the deep- blue woods of the Schynige Platte. It would appear as if beyond the mountain gate the doors were shut by solid Mannlichen ; but he who knows the country "knows full well that to the left access is given to the vale of Grindelwald, and to the right the traveller will pass to the Valley of Sounding Waters and the ascent to the Wengen slopes ; WALKS AT BEATENBERG 47 while ever above the purple and ivory- mottled heights of Mannlichen, with their call to wonder and to praise the three great giants of the Oberland — the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau — lift their shining glories into middle heaven. The gate to those glories lies up yonder pass. Is not that portal rightly called the Gate of Mountain Mystery? It is a late spring, the crocuses are white in the fields above us, the dandelions are gold in the fields below, and never at this time of the year have I seen so much snow so low upon the Faulhorn range or the range of Abendberg. The cuckoo calls, the woodpecker laughs, the red-start flickers, and the hostess of the Amisbiihl is filling her garden plot with heartsease full in flower : here is spring, with summer full before us, and there is winter everlastingly. This is, I think, part of the reason that gives Amisbiihl in May its magic. One feels as if one possessed the glory of the whole round year, the charms of spring and summer and winter in a single moment. And now let us look at this marvellous panorama, and remember that we are only standing, after all, 1336 metres above the sea. From the snowy Wildgerst the eye 48 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND travels to the white Schwarzhorn, to the black Schwabhorn by snowy Faulhorn, and the peak of Wetterhorn, till, towering above the Faulhorn range, it stops in wonder at the Schreckhorn's peaks, that seem like a ship with full sails shining in the sun. A little silver tooth upon what seems to be the slope of the Eiger is, we know, the Finsteraarhorn. Then the eye ranges over the snowfields and the green shining glaciers, and silver shining ice slopes, and black crevasses, and shadowy arretes of the Oberland giants, past the bosses of the Schneehorn and the Silber- horn, on the Jungfrau's breast, to the serrated Ebnefluh and Mittaghorn, till the round mass of Sulegg shines nearer to us above the pines of Abendberg. The quaint-toothed Lob- homer, black as jet above the snow, leads us to the white Schwalmern ridge and the far-off Bliimlisalp. Then the eye comes back to the nearer range of Abendberg, and we pause in wonder at that miniature Monch, the Morgenberghorn. I had only seen this in other years as a mass of lilac grey ; to-day it is winter-white. Now our eye rests for a moment upon that mountain mass that is never seen so fine as from the landing- stage at Spiez, with the peaks of Furst WALKS AT BEATENBERG 49 and Dreispitz, and so onward towards the west by the Aermighorn and Wetterlatte to quaint Elsighorn, to the mount that keeps the name of the Maid of Orleans in memory, Mont-pucelle, to Wildhorn, and so across the veil to the many-peaked range that ends in the glorious pyramid of Niesen. That view of mountain majesty which changes with every hour — clear now, now wreathed in cloud, washed here with cobalt and there with gold and silver, must send all who come to Amisbiihl back to their homes with fuller hearts and larger rever- ence. It has such power of transport, such magic of renewal, such other-worldliness about it, that the weariest peasant must here forget his labour and feel himself ' only a little lower than the angels,' the poet pass back with dream unbroken, and the man of affairs begin to believe that thought, not money, is best. As I wandered back home through the cool evening light, and joined the peasants return- ing to their homes, I felt that labour on Waldegg had a special privilege, and could have been well content to leave the pen and take the hoe upon the slopes of Amisbiihl, for, after all, labour has its time of resting. 50 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Already from the chalets, as I passed, came sound of voice or bugle or violin. Hard might have been the work of field from early sunrise till the set of sun, but not so hard as to kill the joy of melody and the restful- ness of song. CHAPTER V. THE COMING OF DAWN AT BEATENBERG. THE DAWN'S DELAY. I hear the silver bells reveille ringing Where down dim slopes the cattle feel the day, The chaffinch has begun his cheeriest lay, The red-start to his mate again is singing ; But that great star that on far plains is flinging Splendour and might still lingers on his way. And mountain kings in snowy-white array Sit pale and patient for the sun's upspringing. Yet those far peaks saw daylight when the vales Were purple dark, and in their rosy state Gleamed out as if their splendour could not die ; Now must they learn that He who holds the scales Abhors the proud and loves humility, And still uncrowned must wonder and must wait. It is quite true that evening is the time for the full glories of the mountain heights, as seen from the Beatenberg plateau. Then, while the silver cliffs of the Burgfeldstand and Birrenfluh seem to put on their greyest 52 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND pallor, the great wall of the Abendberg across the lake changes from grey to gold, and sometimes flushes from gold to deepest rose ; while far off upon the heights of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau there comes the kindling of that mysterious afterglow, from which it would seem that another dawn had begun, and that the stars must put back their light and Heaven forswear its jewelry. Nor is this the only contrast of the witch- ing eventide. For the cool grey towers of Birrenfluh and the solemn pine forest at the foot of the Burgfeld serve as a foil and a set- off against the radiant glory of the slope of Waldegg. The purple shadow of the bastions to the north grow and grow upon the woods of Rischeren, and fill the Sundgraben with a foretaste of the night ; but ever and ever the meadows of marigold and dandelion- flower gleam the brighter, and the brilliant carpet of vivid emerald, broken up by the toil of patient peasant folk, shines richer for the ruddy glow these garden patches give. But nevertheless there is something so solemn about the coming of the dawn, such won- drous changes on wood and fell and dark lake, deep below us, that though it is true the great mountain masses, as seen from Beaten- THE COMING OF DAWN AT BEATENBERG 53 berg, are not kindled with the same magic as, for example, the Dent-du-midi is kindled for eyes that watch from Leysin or Chamossaire, he would be dull-hearted who would not rejoice to remember that he had deliberately watched on some fine May dawn the morn- ing break, and dull of memory if the wonder of it did not haunt him till his death. Sunrise among the mountains in Switzerland is a very different thing from sunrise in the desert. There, it ' at one stride comes the dark,' at one stride comes the dawn ; but here the sun when he goes forth 'as a bridegroom out of his chamber,' appears to feel that deliberation and delay will add to the dignity of the ceremonial, and sends in advance many couriers to herald his coming. So many mountain heights stand between us and his great magnificence, that though his golden horses may find their way down the deep-run valleys, and startle us on the lower grounds by their sudden appearing, we may wait a long time ere the glory of their trappings may be seen upon distant heights, and the sun-god claims his throne among the mountain pinnacles. This morning I was awakened by the sound of the pied fly-catcher's note at half- 54 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND past three. He knew the dawn was sure, and awoke the chaffinch in the budding chestnut close by ; and so shrilly did the chaffinch pipe that he roused the greater tit to his anvil-work and the rasping of his saw. Then suddenly far below one in the valley I heard a cuckoo call and a wood- pecker laugh aloud. Rising I gazed up at the grey slopes of Amisbiihl, its happy chalets filled with sleeping men, and loud with the voice of the unsleeping torrent in the Sundgraben at its feet. High over Harder's shaggy height the faint grey of the heaven was already flushed with saffi-on light, the stars had faded from the zenith, but high above the Eiger hung a crescent moon. That mountain mass stood with its two com- panions and its sister Schreckhorn, clear silhouetted against a sky that can only be described as non-lucent silver. The more one gazed the more one wondered that with so much lightening in the east that great white curtain of sky behind the mountain giants was so full of lifelessness and death. Down below one sloped meadows and groves of pine trees dewy dark, to a lake that can only be described as dull as lead. It was impossible to imagine that that dark water- THE COMING OF DAWN AT BEATENBERG 55 flood should flash with all the colours of a peacock's neck, or smile again with its witchery of liquid emerald. And still the light beyond Harder, changing now from saffron into faintest lemon, seemed flooding upward towards the zenith, and ere an hour had passed, though still the mountain mass in front of me stood pale and changeless, I knew by the green lights that were being born within the waterflood beneath that the sky above my head had already flushed from grey to faintest azure. Not a cloud was to be seen on mountain slope or in mid heaven, all stark and bare, unfurnished by the angel wings of mist and vapour, the mountains mutely waited for the sun. As for the light, so wonderful in the clear air was the potency of that full eastern glow, that if the sun had refused to rise there was light enough at Beatenberg for birds to build by and men to labour by. And now from their chalets men began to stir afield, and cattle-bells chimed from hollow pastures, and all the many colours of the springtide woods appeared upon the Abendberg, and upon the nearer slopes of Amisbiihl. Only the gorge beneath the Schynige Platte was so purple- dark that it would almost seem that there 56 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND never could come day. The village clock struck five, and suddenly the heights of the Ebnefluh kindled with the dawn, and liofht seemed to come into the faces of Fiirst and Dreispitz, whilst the nearer Morgenberghorn and the heights of Schwalmern seemed to be returning back to life. But as yet the Schreck- horn stood like a ghost, and the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau felt no glow. Then a white shining boss between the Eiger and the Monch gleamed, and in another moment the Silberhorn, upon the slope of Jungfrau, stood out in dazzling light. Swifts screamed by in middle heaven, and the woodpecker laughed louder than before, and as for the chaffinch he was too busy with his morning meal to pipe a welcome to the day, while all I could hear of the pied flycatcher was the sharp little snapping of the beak, that told me he had found food and was content. Would the sun never rise, must dawn alone be our portion to-day at Beatenberg. Trees, flowers, and birds, and lake of placid green, and cattle making music as they fed, and goat-bells coming down the village street, and chalet doors all clicking one by one — these seemed to be but so many reproaches to the god of day for his long delaying. Suddenly, as THE COMING OF DAWN AT BEATENBERG 57 I thought Upon these things, light flamed upon my balcony pavement, light flashed on the sycamore buds beside it, and making all the hill of Amisbtihl seem dark and featureless by his radiant appearing, the sun came over the pines of Waldegg, and the morning was here. Here but not there, for still in- comprehensibly the only light upon the slopes of the vast threefold mountain barrier in front of me was that gleaming jewel between the Eiger and the Monch, was that glittering dome against the sky-line between the Jung- frau and Sulegg, and that glorious horn of silver washed with gold that was as it were the signal tower and beacon of the day upon the Jungfrau's bosom. And now, up from the cool depths the water spirits of the lake of Thun, with veils of finest lawn upon their heads, those daugh- ters of the water god, came floating up to heaven, while from the heights of the sunny Morgenberg angels seemed to move, a choir of gold, to carry upward the music of a new-born day. Slowly, too, trom out the gorge that leads to Grindelwald and Lauter- brunnen, fine vapour, lucent and blue, went upward to drape the nakedness of that great mountain mass of Mannlichen ; and when 58 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND an hour later I looked towards the Monch it seemed that instead of hard arr^tes and cruel precipices and unlovely snowfields gaunt and desolate, the filmy vapours of the new day had filled the heights with tenderness and grace, and for gaunt walls of barrenness and death, had given us shadowy dells of gold, and life, and loveliness. CHAPTER VI. THE BLAUE SEE. KANDERTHAL. THE SYREN'S HOME. Where Kilchhorn lifts its peak of iron grey , And dazzling Altels shines above the wood, I saw in azure deeps a monster brood Clad in stone armour watching for their prey, Each guardian of rich jewels where it lay In shadowy sapphire ; then I understood The magic and the mystery of the flood That Sinbad found in his enchanted bay. For nought was real ; with hyacinthine gleam The wizard waters mocked our human sight, Here dead men seemed to lift white coral hands, There rainbow ripplings danced on silver sands. From unsubstantial cavern deeps of dream The syrens called to worlds of cruel light. One of the most interesting expeditions easily accomplished in a day from Beatenberg is a visit to the Blue Lake in the Kanderthal. Thanks to the punctuality of Swiss steamers and Swiss railways, one can, without fear of 6o FLOWER-TIiME IN THE OBERLAND missing connections, leave Beatenberg at 10.30 A.M., cross the lake to Spiez, walk up the hill to the station, and, taking the train at 11.50, arrive at Frutigen by 12.30; thence an ' einspanner ' may be obtained from the civil landlord of the station hotel for a few francs, and we can reach the little wayside inn near the Blue Lake at 1.30. Departing at five o'clock, we can be back at Beatenberg again by 8 p.m. without fatigue. A cool * Bise ' wind is blowing as we descend by tunnelled cliff and steep cutting through fragrant wood- land to Beatenbucht. The beech trees which we leave behind us, though it is the 19th of May, are still leafless ; but the pear is blossoming. The larches are fully fledged, and, as we descend, the rosy plumelets that jewel the young spruce shoots give to the sombre trees a rememberable colour. Deep below us shines the dazzling peacock lake, and the beech-wood belt we enter at this lower level, in its full leafage of vivid green, shines against that peacock floor with exquisite harmony. Wonderful are the blue- greys and purples of the distant Simmen- thal, which opens out grandly before us as we descend. The light-green Spiezberg and the dark-green Wimmis hill stand guardian THE BLAUE SEE. KANDERTHAL 6l of the gates of wonderland, while left and right the purple Niesen and Stockhorn, marbled with fresh snow, rise up to bluest heaven. We cross the lake to Spiez, won- dering at the way that the great mass of the Sigriswyl Rothhorn grows as we leave it, and how the bastions of the Niederhorn opposite shine out in silver grey magnifi- cence. We note the white shining Schreckhorn away to the eastward, and, landing at Spiez, find ourselves back in what seems a new world of summer heat. The fountain sings by the quay-side, scent of lilac bushes fills the air, the chestnut is in blossom, and, passing the picturesque castle and church that the great Erlach family once knew and where now in dust they rest, we make our way through orchards filled with flowering grasses towards the Schonegg and the station. But no one who walks that way in May, though he knows that the train will be waiting for him, but must pause a moment where the path leaves the level and begins to ascend the hill, to look back at the towering poplars, golden against the blue lake, and the picturesque clustering of tower and pinnacles and gables upon the castle promontory. We are soon aboard our train 62 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND and out of the sunshine into the darkness of a tunnel. We go with a feeling of wonder of what shall be seen beyond. Back into the sunshine we come, and the whole of the flank of the Niesen rises above us, and at our side the glacier- coloured waters of the grey Kander come streaming down its rock-built bed, leap after leap, towards the valley. Aeschi is passed, and the Kander widens into grey shallows and alder beds. Mulenen is stopped at, its sawmills whirling away up the valley, and its water-meadows pink with the ' primula farinosa.' We next pause at Reichenbach ; and here, if we were bent upon a journey up the Klenthal, we should leave the train, but we are content to gaze at the splendid grouping of the white Bliimlisalp far up beyond the sun and blue of the secluded • pastoral vale, for our face is set towards Kandersteg and the silver mass of Altels, and the Balmhorn is white above the valley, where the Blue Lake lies. 'Frutigen!' cries the guard. It is the railway terminus ; and soon we are passing in our carriage through that picturesque old village, with its huge hooded gables and general look of competence and comfort, over THE BLAUE SEE. KANDERTHAL 63 the Kander, and towards the ruinous strong- hold of Tellenburg, upon its pine-grown grassy mound. The men who watched above the river here, in the old days, to see what foes were coming down the pass, no doubt were able to have far signal with the men who held the outlook tower of Felsenburg. But the days of invaders are past, and the sentinel's work is over. No ; I am wrong, for I hear that, as soon as the Simplon tunnel is finished, a Gemmi tunnel is to be begun, and all down this Kanderthal the destroyer of the valley quietude, though he will bring gifts of gold, will come with sound of rattling wheels and shriek of steam-whistle, and gradually destroy the simple pastoral life of the people of the dale. As one drives on through the May-tide sunshine it would seem that every villager is afield. Satan must have a poor time in the Kanderthal in this month, if he is bent on finding mischief for idle hands. All are lovers of the picturesque in their building. The beauty of the letter- ing of their mottoes, and their name-scrolls deeply cut into the wood, is undeniable ; and one is glad to see that even in the new chalets the old poetic feeling that makes men feel proud to set their name-mark on 64 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND their homes survives. The serrated ridge of Gerihorn, powdered with snow, is in full sunshine on our left ; and as the valley- narrows the pines and dark shadowy slopes of the opposite or southern valley wall, with its one splendid peak, is in deep contrast, but always and ever our eyes are caught up to the white glittering mass of the Altels beyond. Now Kandergrund, with its plain little church on a mound at the left, is entered upon. The river torrent flows on our right, through happy meadows filled with the ' primula farinosa,' or shining like cloth of gold from marybud and dandelion flower. Felsenburg is seen above the dark pines ahead, and beyond it the snowless rocks of Fisistocke are as black as night against the snow- fields above and around. The driver leaves his perch, for the road begins a long ascent ; but the horse is willing. He knows that at the top of the hill his journey will be over, and food and rest will be his portion. ' Blaue See,' the driver cries, and pulls up at a neat little wayside hostel with the word * Wellkommen ' above its door and a bright-faced hostess to show us that it was no idle word. We are soon sitting at THE BLAUE SEE. KANDERTHAL 65 meat in the verandah of the wayside inn that, in the centre of its dark pine-wood, allows one sight of such snow-white peaks and sunny precipices as brings the sense of summer through the cool odorous shade. After luncheon, we take our tickets of admission to the woodland and the private grounds wherein the ' Blue Lake ' lies, and pass from sun to shadow by devious paths, between giant boulders, mossy and tree- grown — a wilderness of woodland intricacy and beauty. Then suddenly, through every variety of springtide green, we catch the dazzle of hyacinthine colour, such as eye had not before beheld nor heart conceived, and pushing through the brake we find ourselves face to face with the surprise of magic waters we have come so far to see. There, in ab- solute secrecy, veiled by the woodland screen and the heights of Sattelhorn on the left, with the sheer precipices of the Kilchhorn on the right, lay about an acre and a half of the most mysterious water-flood that can be imagined. To add to the mystery of the place the sound of waters unseen filled the air. Kander, flowing beneath the cliffs fresh from the glacier torrents that leaped and spilled 66 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND themselves from the height, went singing through the silence. All else was mute ; no bird sang. It seemed as if the Blue Lake said, 'Who sees me is struck dumb.' As we gazed we seemed to question whether the whole scene was not some sudden unsubstantial faery picture, whether we had not entered some world that a magician's wand had suddenly conjured into being. In truth, a kind of * Arabian Nights ' wonder possessed us, and we felt the wizard spell of Arabian enchantment ; yet the gen- tian at our feet was real enough, and the little refreshment chalet on the grassy mound close by seemed very much as if it was meant for material use. But this strange blue sheet of water, with its ever-changing hue, drew us to its brink with unimagin- able charm. As we stood by it, it appeared full of cunning and cruelty, for strange monsters, that looked like crocodiles, lay with their long shadows in sunny depths, and we seemed to hear Syren voices calling us to palaces of death and doom. We took the boat, and as we passed above the monstrous brood we found that these in reality were ancient pine stems turned into stone by the deposit of thousands of years. THE BLAUE SEE. KANDERTHAL 6/ Here, the same stone growths appeared as giant corals growing from the deep. Here, again, they seemed like the horns of a herd of elk whose bodies had been swallowed by the silver sand, and magical was the effect of the bright ripplings whose shadows of all the colour of the rainbow danced before the swaying of our prow upon the shoals beneath. The boatman dropped a white pebble downwards, and we watched it change from turquoise to orange, from orange to emerald, from emerald to sapphire, ere it rested, a rainbow jewel, upon the rocky bottom. Fish swam from brown to gold, from ruddy gold again to brown and purple. It seemed that nothing either of death or life within those mysterious depths ' but suffered a sea-change Into something rich and strange.' All we could learn from the boatman was that the lake came from a single spring in the wood, that at sunset it lost its colour, that in winter time it never froze, that for drinking purposes it was of the best, and that, poured into a common basin, it was plain water. We landed and walked round about it. 68 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Everywhere the strange lake seemed to put on different hues — here to be deepest purple, there again to be lightest blue, and here again to be green as liquid emerald ; but, whether seen from the lake margin or through the boughs of the trees on Waldegg, the abiding sense of its marvellous beauty was the beauty of an indescribable blueness of sunny sapphire, depth beyond depth. And who shall describe the effect of the shadow of the woodland in the water ? Purple became deeper violet, sapphire more wondrous sap- phire, and emerald and turquoise, where the sun came through the trees, appeared more full of colour than before. Very carefully, so as to prevent the feeling of artificiality, the woodland paths have been run, and he who visits the Blue Lake will not forgive himself if he does not ascend by one of these paths to the ' edge of the wood,' for, on emerging, he will find himself on an open pasture, from which the fairest view may be obtained of the whole group of the Balmhorn and the Altels, and the fairest sight be found of the torrents slipping and twisting from ledge to ledge of the great naked precipice hard by. If he chance to come in middle May he will find ten thousand of the larger gentians jewel- THE BLAUE SEE. KANDERTHAL 69 ling all the sward beneath, and may perhaps indulge the fancy that every gentian found in Switzerland came hither first, to match its matchless blue with that strange lakelet lying in the wood. Homeward we went by woodland paths more intricate, more fancifully led by mossy boulders, or over arching trees ; thence down we drove through the 'all -golden after- noon ' back by the Tellenburg to Frutigen. The cows were being driven to their milk- ing stalls, the goats were tinkling along the road ; but the peasants were all still bent above their mattocks and their hoes as we entered that happy pastoral village of constant industry. Onwards through the deepening light we went down the Kan- derthal to Spiez. The castle stood up shining like gold above dewy meadows filled with the blackbirds' song, and so through the orchards, sweet with the scent of blossom, past the poplars, past the lilac bowers and the laughing fountain. Thence we crossed the lake, that seemed, by contrast with the lake from which we had come, to have lost all colour. The gleaming bastions of Nieder- horn welcomed us through sunset light that was already beginning to change the grey flanks ^o FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND of Abendberg into gold and rose. Home- ward up the steep, through the woodland, warm-hearted still from the sunshine of the day, we came, to find that though we had been absent but ten hours, the beech trees had burst their buds and the pear trees had begun to shed their blossom, and all the beauty of early summer had come before us to our upland home. CHAPTER VII. THE VALE OF 'NOTHING BUT SPRINGS.' AT LA UTERBR UNNEN. This is the vale of waters, hushed at night But loud at noon, true daughters of the day, Pouring themselves in ecstasy away And bringing from the barren winter height Gift of unnumbered flowers, and all delight Of dew to fill the pail and plump the hay, To make God dear to peasants as they pray And keep His covenant rainbows in their sight. New springs of hope arise ; for he who stands By Staubbach's cliff must hear triumphant call To labour uncomplainingly till death. Where with such glad uplifting of white hands To silent dust, the angels of the fall Leap down with blessing in their latest breath. The approach to Interlaken from the Thuner- see is each year becoming more beautiful ; the hard banks of masonry, with their unpic- turesque, canal-Hke ugliness, have now a background of alders and aspens on the left- 72 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND hand side, whilst between their delicate green grove, as I saw it on a fine May morning, busy gardeners were at work, and we passed through meadows of wild flowers on the one side and patches of cultivation on the other. It is not the time to come to Interlaken at mid-day, and more especially is this so if the great walnut avenue of the Hohweg is not yet in full leafage. The time to see Inter- laken at its best is the early morning. Then the sun shines brightly on Schwalmern and one seems to have, as it were, a second Jungfrau set in a cleft of pine forest to give one joy ; and at the early morn such a dewy freshness is over all the vast monastery meadow ; the air is filled with the fragrant scent of the wild parsley, and loud, too, with the clang of the silver bells of the cows who are eating their heads off in the few patches that have been already cut on the further side of this vast communal meadow. There was a time when this meadow was threatened to be sold for building purposes, and Interlaken owes a debt it cannot well pay to Herr Maurer and other public-spirited inhabitants of Interlaken, who urged that it should be bought by the commune and preserved for ever as a plain of flower and grass from which THE VALE OF 'NOTHING BUT SPRINGS' j^ the Jungfrau up the valley should rise in unapproachable majesty. Of course, for this view, which is Interlakens great spectacle, eventide is doubtless best ; but I would advise those who care to take away pleasant memories of the town between the lakes to arrange, if possible, that their first sight of Interlaken should have about it ' dews, vapours, and the melody of birds, And all the beauty of a common dawn.' This morning, though the walnuts are not in leaf, they are beginning to be embrowned, and their aromatic catkins cover the pave- ment. The hotels are as yet mostly empty ; but the hotel gardeners have been at work, and nothing lovelier can be imagined than the beds of wallflower and pansies, of rose- pink campion and the delicate sweet-scented lilac phlox. We are bound for Lauter- brunnen ; but letters have to be written, and the necessities of travel — biscuits, beef tea, lozenges, photographic films, and the like — have to be purchased. So, for old friendship's sake, we will not leave the quiet and cool of the Hotel du Nord, and Herr Maurer's hospitable roof, till the after- noon train at two o'clock. For those who 74 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND have never visited Switzerland before, there is something very refreshing in this Lauter- brunnen journey. As one makes the curve for Gsteig, from the Ost Station, the beauty of the Rugen in its springtide green is very notable, and one's old friends, the snow-white Niederhorn and the purple and ivory mass of the Niesen, seem to follow one as one passes up the vale. Then the roar of the black-and-white Lutschinen,* swollen with glacier water, is in itself an unforgettable sound, and one is interested in the clever way by which the Swiss have restrained the double torrent ; nay, of its very rage in flood - time have made it their servant, to bind itself more surely within its banks. Before we reach Zweiliitschinen the mountain masses and the waterfalls of Sulegg on the one hand, and of the Schynige Platte on the other, begin to make one feel that one is really entering into the very heart of the hills. Suddenly, away to the left above the meadows of golden picris and flowering pear, Springs up the marvellous Wetterhorn, and we know that there away lies Grindelwald ; but we turn to the right, and exchanging a wheel for rack- and-pinion are soon ascending a much more THE VALE OF 'NOTHING BUT SPRINGS* 75 interesting gorge, a gorge that will take us to Lauterbrunnen, 2640 feet above sea level. Lauterbrunnen means 'nothing but springs.' It might have better been called ' the vale of nothing but waterfalls,' for, as we pass beneath cliffs of 1200 to 1500 feet in height, already we see the waters leaping from the crags, and already hear that ' murmur of an inland sea ' which is one of the features of that torrent valley. One is fortunate if one is sitting on the left-hand side of the carriage, for not only can one watch the Jungfrau go through its changes, but one can gaze and be astonished at the rich colour of the castle steep of Hunnenfluh, and by it can be pre- pared for the upbuilding of the precipices in the Lauterbrunnen vale. And at this time of the year nothing can exceed the beauty of the green beech woodland as it climbs the steeps and contrasts with the grey pink masses of the naked cliff around it. Tenny- son tells us ' The hills are shadows and they flow ; From form to form and nothing stands.' And this is especially seen to be true in the Lauterbrunnen valley, where the debris and detritus of these mountain masses have been f6 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND swept down from above and built up in sloping masses of rich soil, to be buttresses of grass and trees against the cliffs from which they came. But the feature of the approach to Lauterbrunnen is the way in which the forward pinnacle of the Black Monch comes out far up on the left of the valley against the towering Jungfrau, and the way in which the Mittaghorn and Grosshorn at the end of the valley close the prospect with their dazzling whiteness. The view from Lauterbrunnen Station is dis- appointing. It is not till one has come to the end of the village that one can know the pastoral quiet and beauty of the vale. Then, whilst the Staubbach falls like a host of angels tossing their hands for joy above their heads, one realizes that there are other falls, the Spiezbach and the Purenbach, the Eggletenbach and the Miirrenbach, all of them singular waterfalls on the right-hand side of the vale ; while on the left the Mettlenalpbach — this afternoon as black as night, for as the day has advanced more earth from the glaciers has been cast into the torrent, and it will need the hard frost of night on the upper slopes to give it back the whiteness of its morning birth — THE VALE OF 'NOTHING BUT SPRINGS' 'jy the Schiltbach, and the Trummelbach, send down their gift of dewfall to the meadows beneath. We have arrived at Lauterbrunnen at the right time, for he who would see Lau- terbrunnen aright must see it by the after- noon or evening light. Then it is that the meadows which slope towards the Wengern Alp are found to be fullest of dandelion gold ; then it is that the great growing shadow of the Staubbach Wand is seen to move and shine radiantly purple upon the glowing cliff of the Black Monch ; then, too, it is, as the evening wears on, that the cattle-bells begin to chime in the pastures, and, long after twilight has possessed the valley, the sun is shining still, with light more dazzling for the contrast, upon the heights of the Silberhorn, and the snow slopes of the Mittaghorn and Grosshorn. Dawn, on the other hand, in Lauterbrunnen is, if one may dare to say so, disappoint- ing. If one wakes at five o'clock, on a late May morning, it is true the blackbird sings, for he sees the light upon the snowy boss of the Schmadrihorn, high in heaven ; but if one lies awake and watchful till seven o'clock, one will find that the valley is still sunless, and that, when at last light strikes upon 78 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND the Staubbach Fall, it rather takes away than adds to the silver whiteness and the sense of cool freshness of those ten thousand water sprites that come leaping from the summit of the cliff. Nor can one ever forget how, after the lights of evening have faded and the muster of the stars has begun, there is a weirdness and a magic about those two castle bastions that lift towards the stars — one mute, the other whispering with the sound of its gigantic fall. It seems a strange thing to talk of a fall that descends 980 feet whispering ; but the fact of the matter is, that in Lauter- brunnen valley the falls descend from such a height that they pass almost to the silence of dew before they reach the meadows, and, except for the hollow drumming Trummel- bach, there is nothing to swell the murmur of the white Liitschine, as, joined by the sister streams, it thunders down the valley. The village itself preserves its ancient life and manners, notwithstanding certain cards which indicate that five o'clock tea can be obtained, and prove that the foreign tea- drinkers, for part of the year at any rate, must be catered for ; but the foreigners have not come yet, and we are able to talk with the THE VALE OF 'NOTHING BUT SPRINGS' 79 peasants and learn something of the village industry, which is the making of torchon lace. Madame von Almen, the sister-in-law of the maitre of the Staubbach Hotel, is, it would appear, the good angel of the village lace- makers. It is she who takes the orders from the merchants and arranges for the payment of the workers. Roughly speaking, in the winter-time, at any rate, about 200 pairs of hands, women and children, are employed in this industry. The children begin at five years old, taught then by their mothers, for there is no school nor any state subvention for the industry. The women, for the most part, find that at about 50 their eyes and hands have ceased to- enable them to work swiftly enough to make the task pay. They work in white, and red, and black, and blue thread, and also in silk. They find that English thread is, on the whole, best for their purpose. Nearly all the torchon lace that is made in the winter goes to the merchants Simmerle & Co., of Aarburg, and is by them sent for the most part to America. The people like working for the merchants, who pay them a fair price and pay them regularly. An adult torchon-lace worker can earn 10 francs a week ; a child. 8o FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND who must Spend part of its time at the village school, as much as four francs. A good worker will make as much as three metres of lace an inch wide in a day ; the wider it is, and the more intricate, the longer the time in making, and of many of the laces not more than half a metre can be produced in a good day's work. There is one difficulty which Madame von Almen has been quite unable to cope with. She knows that the visitors demand new patterns. She finds that the mothers in Lauterbrunnen are so conser- vative that they entirely refuse to learn new patterns. One can understand this when one comes to be able to produce a pattern almost mechanically. The labour involved in getting the fingers used to a new one must be very great. The Lauterbrunnen people are not only lace makers ; they are music makers also. Their choral society meets twice a week in the winter, and their band practises regularly twice a week also. I heard the band, which had been taught by a Lauterbrunnen man who had never left the valley. I doubt if there is a concert room in Europe more likely to give full effect to every brass instru- ment than the Lauterbrunnen vale. It was THE VALE OF < NOTHING BUT SPRINGS' 8l Saturday night, and the band had met more for a pleasant junketing than anything else. They played a piece, then beer and cigars were handed round, and in twenty minutes' time they played another piece. This method prolonged the programme to the small hours of the morning ; but it seemed to me that they kept as good time at midnight as they did at eight o'clock : neither beer nor tobacco had o-ot into their heads. They are a religious folk, these Lauter- brunnen people. On the Sunday before Whitsuntide I watched the women stream into the church, the elder ones wearing little black velvet caps with lace border, the younger women with silver chains from bodice to waist ; while minute by minute the crowd of men in their shirt sleeves, or their quaint short-tailed coats and high collars, grew. They lined the whole approach to the church, and talked quietly as they stood in the sunshine. Young and old seemed to be bent on some earnest service ; but not until the bell rang was it the right thing for any of the male sex to enter the church. Then I saw coming from the pastor's house a couple of solemn men, with huge tankards in their hands. They returned to the house, and 82 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND again reappeared with a large loaf of bread and cups and white napkins, and I knew that it was Communion Sunday. The last bell chimed, and in a moment the crowd of men, making the road smoke with dust, passed into the church, and, following, I found the whole of one side of the church and the gallery packed with men, the whole of the other side of the church filled with women. The Lutheran faith has certainly not lost foothold in Lauterbrunnen. In what English village the size of this village would you find i8o peasants, men and boys, coming to the Holy Sacrament ? Many visitors pass through Lauterbrunnen without making any attempt to go up the valley ; but Stechelberg and Trachsellauenen are picturesquely situated, and there are few vantage-grounds for a view much better than the upper Steinberg. The panorama thence down the Lauterbrunnen valley, and from the Wetterhorn right round to the Schilthorn, is magnificent. The Schmad- ribach Fall is hard by, and the Tschingel glacier and its ice grotto is within an easy walk. But, short of this long ex- cursion, no one should leave Lauterbrunnen without a visit to the Triimmelbach. The THE VALE OF 'NOTHING BUT SPRINGS' 83 Commune is just completing the roadway up the vale, which will enable one to drive there easily in half an hour ; and he who wishes for a pleasant walk can go thither nearly all the way through meadows by the side of the valley stream. The owner of the restaurant hard by has made an easy path high up the cliff side to two other vantage-points for sight of the falls, so that one really now sees four waterfalls where one used to see only two. I would advise visitors to mount to the highest point of view first. Descending to the second van- tage-point they will get the best idea of the huge hollow rift which the falling waters have smoothed and polished, as, with a churning motion, they fell from darkness into light. Descending further to the fourth or last point of view, they will know what it is to watch a torrent from the far-off glacier height of the Jungfrau, suddenly finding its way checked by a cul-de-sac, from which escape is only possible by a single vent hole. Forth thence out of this vent hole with a roar of thunder, shoots the mighty cataract, strikes the rocky walls of its vast cavern chamber, lightens its shadow with the light of its foaming, fills the air 84 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND not only with the sound of its going, but with the dew of its shattering, and passes down unchained and free to join the white Liitschine, and to help to swell the waters of Brienz. The view, as one comes away from the Triimmelbach in the eventide and looks at the great cliff wall of the valley opposite, already in shadow, is made interest- ing by the number of waterfalls that come leaping through the shadow ; but it is made more beautiful by the glory of the light that seems to grow and grow on the ridge of the Tschingel-grat, there at the valley head. It is getting late, but the Lauter- brunnen herdsmen are still in the fields ; the little lace makers have not, though the sun has faded from their stalls, yet gone home ; and on the roadway which the Com- mune is making, stone-breakers, sitting each on his little milking-stool, are hammering away as if the day's labour had but just begun. CHAPTER^VIII. MURREN. IN THE BLUMENTHAL. Awed by that overpowering bastion wall Of Jungfrau's height, appalled and soul-opprest We turned for breathing to a wider west And climbed the rugged path to Blumenthal. Sadly the herdsman patched his broken stall, So long the snow his pasture had possest, The Winter's cold had burned the mountain breast And driven all flowers beyond the Spring's recall. Then sudden by a stream's impetuous race, Like sunshine breaking upward through the ground, A host of frail anemones were seen. Part white, part yellow, dancing on the green ; We felt our souls unto their measure bound, To find light hearts in such a lonely place. The cable railway to Miirren is open to-day. It is the last week in May. Generally it is open about May loth. For us, who take the advantage of it, there will be the reward of finding the great amphitheatre of the Bernese 86 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Oberland peaks as seen from Miirren whiter with snow and more full of radiant beauty than the ordinary June or July visitor may be- hold. The cable railway cars start at 10.15 a.m. and though I know no funicular in Switzerland where one feels so hopelessly at the mercy of a steel rope and so entirely a mere appen- dage to a steel hook, one forgets all about pos- sible nervousness in the extraordinary beauty of the scene as it is unfolded before us. We have soon passed from sight of the Staubbach fall, whose kindly hands when we are drawn up the steep will convey us to Miirren, the sound of the little Grabenbach at our side, the fields of parsley, and campion, and picris, and dandelion are left behind, and the birds that we heard singing in the valley either are not or are silent. It is curious to note as we ascend that the Eiger is entirely hid, but the Monch and the Jungfrau tower splendidly to heaven. Soon we are looking down across the deep valley upon the slopes of Wengern, no longer the quiet pastoral home of the shepherds of the Mettlen Alp, but to-day rosepink with what may almost be described as a red-tiled village city. The snow is still so heavy upon the Wengern Alp that this is the first day the engineers have been able to MURREN S2 manage the running of a train over the Scheidegg. I heard this morning that so much snow fell this spring that the men who took food to the workers at the Jungfrau tunnel had to walk on snow above the tops of the telegraph posts. We watch the little buzzing rack-and-pinion railway engine smoking its way up the Wengern Alp and we realise how on mountains of this vast scale these tiny railway tracks are almost invisible. They who argue that because in Switzerland the railway does so little damage in moun- tainous districts, we should find it would do little damage to our mountains at home, should compare the general effect of the Wengen Bahn with the general effect of the Snowdon railway. Still, as we ;^ascend, the mountain masses grow, and grow, and grow. The feature of the Jungfrau to-day doubtless is the Silber- horn, which in this morning light shines like a mirror ; but very beautiful also is the Ebne- fluh, the Mittaghorn, and Grosshorn, clear cut against the blue sky to the south and west. Now we have reached the leafless belt. The beech-trees, vivid green below, are here brown as in winter, and the Schwarze Monch is beginning to assert himself and to hide 88 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND away the glaciers and the snow slopes of the Jungfrau, At last, about the same time apparently as passengers by the Wengen train reach Wengen, for we started together, we have reached the Dreitzel Bahn terminus and find ourselves in a world of arctic splendour, 4890 ft. above the sea. We change carriages now and enter an electric railway train which will take us westward 2^ miles along the ridge with a gradual ascent to Miirren of about 500 feet. This Griitsch Alp along which we pass is to all intents and purposes a pine forest full of glades which to-day wherever the snow has melted are white again with the Maytide winter snow of the crocus. Stream after stream comes sounding towards its fall into the Lauterbrunnen valley. It is incredible that the little torrent brook of the Staubbach that we cross should be able to wave such a curtain of mist and cloud from the height as it leaps to the valley. As we pass along the track, with every curve the panorama changes. Sometimes one thinks that the view backward down the valley towards the Schynige Platte, with its silver cliffs and its emerald-blue shadows, is so fair that one does not care to turn to look at the giants of the Oberland. But the Schwarze Monch with its wonderful ^uP^t\r [^m ]Hu..,^, MURREN 89 wall of pink and yellow and grey and gold constantly reasserts itself. The dazzling white- ness of the Ebnefluh, that we who watched for the dawn from Beatenberg know so well, shines gloriously, and when the Jungfrau dis- appears behind that mighty Black Monk, the Mittaghorn and Grosshorn and the shining dome of the Schmadrihorn, the Breithorn, and the Tschingelhorn carry us on through a world of enchantment to the black-and-white ridge of the Tschingel-grat and the rugged peak of the Gspaltenhorn. The delight of this panorama is enhanced not only by the curving of the track but by the grouping of the foreground pine forest between us and their far-off grandeur. Miirren is reached at last ; one leaves one's carriage with real regret, and entering upon the plateau one finds oneself at once in hotel-land. Yet we are lucky. Miirren in the last week in May is Miirren still in trance, the shops are not open, the hotel porters and the guides are not busy and anxious, the boys are with the goats, and the peasants are carrying hay to the cow- byres through the snow, and all seem so glad that the winter is over and the first visitor has come, that on every side one hears with real feel- ing ' Gruss Gott ' in answer to one's salutation. 90 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND But the flowers, where are the flowers? The snow is still heavy in the Blumenthal and it will stop us if we attempt to walk up the path to the top of the Allmendhubel. Here on the hotel plateau crocuses purple and white are in their millions, but we must walk to some lower meadows between here and the Gemmelalp if we would fill our hands with the sulphur anemone. As for the two gentians, the lesser or the larger, they may be found above or below, and one other flower which will fill English hearts with joy may be gathered on the slopes of the All- mendhubel, it is the white, sweet-scented violet, with memories of childhood and home. One is glad to find at Miirren that though new chalets arise, the picturesque old herds- men, barns, and cottages are still allowed to stand. The difference between staying here and staying at the new city-village on the Wengern Alp will lie largely in this survival of ancient Switzerland upon its ancient height. One rejoiced to find that even the new water- trough in the middle of the village was of the good old Swiss make, the hollow pine- tree and its mighty wooden stoppers. And now of the view. There is probably no place in the Bernese Oberland where one can be MURREN 91 brought so near, face to face with so large a range of snowy domes and broken glaciers. The gorge beneath one does not seem to put them at a distance and does immensely seem to add to their height and their magnificence. But imagine what it is to sit in one's chair on the hotel terrace, and gaze all through a sunny afternoon and never tire of gazing, though one's eyes may almost go snow blind, at a range which embraces the utmost peaks of the Wetterhorn, of the Eiger, Monch, Jungfrau, Ebnefluh, Mittaghorn, Grosshorn, Schmadrihorn, Breithorn, Tschingelhorn, Tschingel-grat, Gspaltenhorn, Biittlassen, with the nearer slopes of the Birrig and the little Schilthorn peering above it. The central feature of all this white magnificence is an absolutely snowless mass of mountain cliff that springs so sheer from the Lauterbrunnen valley that we cannot see its feet, and ascends so high in heaven as to hide all but the top pinnacle of the Jungfrau. It is a cliff of every colour from gold to grey, a cliff lifeless except for the few chamois that may be seen through a good telescope upon its dizzy ledges, and soundless except for the three or four water- falls that seem to spring from the wall and lose themselves in middle air. Then as one 92 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND sits, almost awed by the depth and height and terror of that mountain solitude, a voice of thunder breaks upon our ears, and with bellowings unimaginable, making white cas- cades of what seems like foaming water and is in reality roaring snow, the avalanche falls and echoes and falls again. But as we sit in front of that moving spectacle of terror and change and death-fulness, the voice of a goat boy yodels from the near meadow and village children pass homeward with their hands full of gentian and wild anemone, and the security and the homeliness of our vantage-ground strikes a chord that vibrates into thankfulness. We pass away from Miirren with feelings of a new experience. We have been in presence of the mountain kings, our hearts beat the grandlier for it, and in our partial under- standing of the mystery we seem to realise that ' we are greater than we know.' CHAPTER IX. THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS. AT TELVS PLATTE: FRIDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY. Lake of the four cantons, your sons did well Who set this chapel at the water's edge, Here where in fiercest storm the friendly ledge Gave safety to the daring steersman Tell ; For though grim Gessler's heart was dark as hell, Doom held the bow with arrow well afledge, The hour drew near that should redeem his pledge The archer made when that split apple fell. And still beside fair Uri's deepest wave, With Riitli's grove across the water seen, Each year the boatman congregation meet To feel that here God set His judgment seat. And while the fountains flow and woods are green That Freedom arms the weak, inspires the brave. For those who only intend to visit the heart of the Bernese Oberland, it is quite true that we must enter its gates by the Lake of Thun; but those, on the other hand, who also wish to know Lucerne, its picturesque streets, its 94 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND glorious waterflood, and surrounding heights, — and who is there that does not ? — will be well advised to come direct from Bale to Lucerne, and begin their tour from the many-towered town beside the River Reuss. I say by the River Reuss, because the colour of the water and its gentle rustling is in itself a restorative and invigoration for a tired man after a weary journey across Europe ; and it chances that one of the best-managed hotels in the 'city of the wooden storks' nests ' — the Hotel des Balances — is on the river Reuss. The reason for coming to Lucerne first is that the blossom time is at least ten days earlier in May there than beyond the Briinig and in the Inter- laken neighbourhood. And those who care for the flowering of the meadows and the glory of the pear blossom, the cherry blossom, and chestnut blossom, that are indeed the witchery of Lucerne in the first days of May, can revel to heart's content anywhere on the banks of the Lake of the Four Cantons ; and, when they go over the pass, may find the pear trees still in blossom and the young walnut leaf that had already begun to take on its dark green in this neighbourhood in the Interlaken valley, a THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS 95 thing of bronze beauty and tender brown, while the chestnuts are freshly blossoming day by day. But it is not only that we may continue the Festival of the Flowers that we would advise tourists to come to Lucerne first. Rather it is that one desires to go from wonder to greater wonder, and to leave Switzerland with the memory of the mighty snow heights and shining glaciers. For the snows fade swiftly beneath the May sun from Pilatus, Rigi, Stanserhorn, and Buochserhorn ; and he who expects in middle May to know the snow glories of the Oberland from the Lucerne lake will in a measure be disappointed. Nor can one forget that the crossing of the Briinig Pass is a much more interesting journey, if one takes it from the Lucerne side. I speak with experience ; I have just come over the pass the wrong way. As one sailed up the Lake of Brienz one seemed to feel instinctively that one lost something by leaving the Niederhorn behind. The unenviable flat plain of the valley between the lake and Meiringen forces itself upon one in a way that does not happen if one is passing swiftly down it to take the boat. Yet one easily admits that there is one view on the Lake of 96 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Brienz that one best obtains as one sails from Interlaken towards the Briinig ; this is the view of the wooded diffs, distance beyond distance, on the right-hand side of the lake, that one obtains after passing Ischtwald. The chief mountain beauties of the sail to Brienz are, in May, the Augstmatthorn and the Brienze Rothhorn. The little Bellenberg is a feature one would not miss as one nears the lake journey's end. As one ascends the Briinig one is rewarded by the white masses of the Engelberg and Blatte- stock, but how much more interesting do these appear to the visitor who comes from the comparatively snowless side of the Lucerne lake. How much more striking, again, is the Wetterhorn, as it rises above the hill at Lungern, for the traveller from Alpnach who looks upon it for the first time. Ascending the Briinig from Alpnachstadt, the level plain and the Lake of Sarnen seem to have a charm of their own. The knowledge of the beauties that are to come keep one in tune ; and then, again, however hot the ten minutes' waiting may be at Giswil whilst we change engines we know that the cool ascent towards those shining peaks of the ' mmammnSitmHtKHB^'SaiiiSXi' n m m tt Mt i l i W i rn «iiii .ji -jr Mw i ia ' 'w jae^>crf>»;^^jjai «4MMKMii \\k{JjJ^fuUA THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS 97 Wetterhorn lies before us, and we bear it patiently. But we who descend to hot Giswil feel that all between us and Alpnach- stadt has lost its charm. The Sarnen lake lies colourless, the dust and heat are in- tolerable ; and Pilatus, when we first catch sight of him, grey and snowless in the sultry air, disappoints us. But Lucerne, though its colour is not the peacock green of the Thuner-See nor the emerald green of Brienz, has marvellous charms of its own. It is as many-minded as a beautiful woman ; and partly owing to the fact of its conformation, one may have sunshine in one reach of it and storm in another, may have waters smooth as a mirror here and there again flecked by foam or rippled by wind. Any one who will take a sail from Lucerne to Fluelen and back will be able to feel that he has seen not one lake, but many lakes, not one mountain setting, but many moun- tain settings, for the great jewel lying at their feet. I was anxious to show my friends the lake in its finest reaches ; so deferred my visit to Lucerne, and came across from Alpnachstadt straight to Vitznau. There is no better centre for those who wish to 98 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND make use of the comfortable lake steamers than this pretty village of pear trees and singing birds and bare-footed children beneath the ruddy Dossenwand of the Rigi. It is a village loud with the woodpecker's laugh and the cuckoo's call. Whether it is that the blackbird, as 1 half suspect, loves to hear the echo of his own voice, it is certain that I have never heard him sing so lustily in May anywhere else in Switzerland. There is in his voice a note of Maytide evenings in the homeland that adds a charm to Vitznau. If one wanted a short name for the village one might call it the Village of Day. For here anyone who comes with the sound of ' Gruss Gott ' in his ears from the Bernese Oberland will at once note that all who pass say simply ' Tag ' by way of salutation. First impressions of places are often wrong; they will certainly need correction here. He who lands at the Vitznau quay may think that the attractions of Vitznau consist in a busy restaurant, in the hootings of incoming steamers, and the smoke of the Rigi Bahn engines ; but let him leave the quay and walk west or east, and in ten minutes he will be where the only sound is the sound of the THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS 99 scythe in the orchard grass, the tinkle of milch cattle, the lapping of water upon the shore, and the singing of birds. On the western side the Dossenwand bas- tions come too close to the lake to admit of anything but steep orchard slopes, with a few chalets perched in what would seem impos- sible places ; but eastward the traveller will find the silver-grey mass of the Weissenfluh, or Vitznauer Stock gives backwards, and that comfortable farmsteads rise in spacious fruit- tree grounds, which, sheltered as they are from north and east winds, flower very early and give an early cherry harvest. The walks at Vitznau, for those who do not mind a little upward climbing, are as varied as they are beautiful ; and whether one mounts through the walnut - shaded meadows behind the church, or, going further east or west, takes the paths that lead up the Rigi or up the Weissenfluh, or whether, contenting oneself with the road to the ' Nasen ' and Gersau — a Cornice road in miniature — or wandering west along the shoreward way to Weggis, one is con- stantly compelled to halt by the glorious outlook over the grey-green waterflood and the shining heights beyond. lOO FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND It is quite easy to obtain rooms outside the village away from the smoke of the Rigi Bahn and the bustle of crowds that find their pleasure in being carted to the top of the Rigi and back. The Park Hotel, remarkable in architectural design as it is sumptuous in all its appointments, is only ten minutes from the village on the Weggis Road ; and he who loves simplicity and the personal courtesy that one always obtains at the humbler pensions in Switzerland will find all that body and soul desires at the little Bellevue close by. By thus making Vitznau our starting-place for a tour of the lake we save about an hour in the time of departing ; that is to say, that the steamers which start from Lucerne are about an hour in accomplishing their journey to Vitznau. One would advise that one should always make it an afternoon expedition, for the return journey from the Fliielen end of the lake will then be by evening light, and great will be the gain thereof. Nor is it necessary to go further than Tell's Platte. The whole beauty of the Uri lake can best be seen on the plateau of the Axen- strasse, that one reaches by steps from that point. The steamer we take starts at 1.40, THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS loi and one steers at once between what are called the ' Nasen.' The whole part of the lake north of the Burgenstock is blotted out, and Pilatus is hid. We go across to Buochs. The Stanserhorn rises to our right, the Buochserhorn to our left, while between them the snowy Waldenstock closes the view to the southeast. Pilatus begins again to reappear above the Burgenstock as we sail. But the beauty of that reach really lies in the backward view towards the rosy cliffs of the Rigi and the fine tree-grown and grassy peaks of the Vitznauer Stock and the Gersau Stock. Leaving Buochs and sailing along the shore towards Beckenried, the white beauty of snowy Schwalmis and the far Bristenstock asserts itself. Ober and Niederbauen are fine features upon our right, and the grey blunt-headed Frohnalp is a good foil for the white Kaiserstuhl and Druseberg seen far to the south. As we pass along the village front the memorable features of the place, — which seems, if one may judge by the sign of the hotels, to be under the double influence of sun and moon, — are the two magnificent wal- nut trees and the trellised roses in the gardens. Here too may be seen something of I02 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND the picturesqueness of the more modern type of building of a Swiss village, the kind of com- fortable detached house that seems to prevent any feeling of towniness. One wonders as one gazes across the water to the Mythen peaks and the house-dotted shores of Brun- nen, why people do not more often make Beckenried, with its easy orchard slopes stretching right up to Schonegg, a place of sojourn. As we leave Beckenried one notices not only the many-mindedness of the lake, but its many colours also. Here we are in water azure calm, beyond us towards Brun- nen the whole lake seems to be rippling into vivid green, and back beyond us under the Biirgenstock it lies a livid purple. We cross the lake to Gersau ; Pilatus, with his double pinnacles rises in grey magnifi- cence as we gaze sternwards, while when we stop at Gersau we are struck by the snowy splendour of the Schwalmis and Oberbauen above the double terraces of the Seelisberg; and as we cross again to Treib we note the beauty of the Mythen away j;o the left, and the glory of the Bristenstock far off to the south. But the Bristenstock is not seen in its full beauty till, recrossing the lake, we near Brunnen, there again we are first aware that another THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS 103 lake is in store for us. We who at one time seemed closed in by hills on every side, suddenly find an outlet by the Urner-See, and indeed the chief wonder of the Lake of the four Cantons is yet to be revealed to us. For he who has not seen cliff beyond cliff of shadowy purple and sunshine fall steeply from snowy heights into the blue deeps of the lake of Uri ; he who, gazing away from the splendour of the Uri Rothstock, has not carried his eye to the Bristenstock, the Gitschenstock, and the Windgelle, and so back to the silvery shining ramparts of the Axenberg, and the white peak of the Rophaien and the grey-green mass of the Frohnalp, can never have realised the variety of charm, the play of light and colour which have com- bined to make the setting of this lake jewel as full of awe as beauty. Indeed one knows not whether it is the jewel that gives grace to the setting, or the setting that gives per- fection to the liquid jewel that it holds. Brunnen of course has charm for tourists, or the hotel builders would not be so desperately busy there. We knew Brunnen before men had spoilt this lakeside Eden by their hotel buildings, which in mockery they have for the most part misnamed Paradises. No such 104 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Paradise or Eden would now tempt me to land at Brunnen if one did not know that somewhere up the height, in its simple terrace garden beneath the Frohnalp, within sound of an upland church bell that calls the shepherd to his prayers, stands quite removed from all the world a hospitable little chalet inn, the Degenbahn by name. Those who care for flowery meadows at the end of May — those who wish to gaze from sunny alps to the green depths at Sisikon, or to climb through gentian-starred slopes to the bald head of Frohnalp, and to have grand gazing backward upon the whole Rigi mass and the valley of the Mythen, may find it profitable to leave the steamer at Brunnen and make Morschach their head- quarters. But to-day we intend to sail through the Uri waters, and he must be a very unimaginative person who, as the boat's head points away from Brunnen towards the Riitliberg, does not, as his eye falls on the ' Schiller-stein ' beside the further shore, begin to feel that he has entered enchanted waters, and that, whether mythical or real, the history of William Tell makes his heart beat the faster. There is no need, unless time does not press, to land at the Rutli or THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS 105 Griitli. It is enough to know that tradition has consecrated the three springs in the grassy clearing of the wood near the lake- side as the spot where, on the 7 th of November in 1307, thirty-three men from the Cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unter- walden, met and took an oath to drive out their oppressors. The water that comes trickling from an artificial wall beneath a shadow of trees is said to have first sprung out of the ground where, when that oath was taken, the very earth was moved. Those who land may drain a cup of the cold water to the memory of the three friends, Werner Stauffacher of Steinen, Arnold an der Halden of Melcthal, and Walter Fiirst of Attinghausen, who are the heroes of that scene, the birth- place of Swiss freedom. But it is our wish to-day to visit Tell's Platte, to gain sight also of the Axenstrasse, and to know the Uri lake, as seen from the finest vantage-points of view upon that wondrous roadway. We land at Tell's Platte ; and because the crowd goes off to the right, to the little frescoed chapel by the shore, we mount the rustic steps in the woodland shade to climb to the Axenstrasse, high above us. Glad enough are we to find I06 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND at the top of the somewhat steep ascent that ' cool rest is ours and simple cheer,' but in other days it was much simpler and much more cheerful. Then, beneath a single walnut tree, a simple village maiden brought out her half flagon of Swiss wine or the cup of coffee, that we called for. Now, a large promenade, planted with many trees, with innumerable tables, and an army of servants and cook-boys in their white aprons and caps, await the traveller ; while the postcard nuisance and the automatic machine are much in evidence. Let us away from all this refreshment hubbub to the dog- roses, and the grey scabions, and the wild geraniums, that make gracious that curious rock-hewn way — -half shadowy tunnel and half blinding sun — that leads us towards Fliielen and Altdorf — the home of William Tell. We need not go very far. The mar- vellous beauty of the Uri lake will keep us lingering long, and its mountain walls have much of human interest about them. We gaze with wonder at the precipitous paths by which the villagers of Isleten take their cattle to the pastures on the Niederbauen range ; we think of the toil with which these sturdy mountain folk must needs, in the sweat of THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS 107 their brow, eat bread, in danger of dynamite explosion on the one hand and avalanche fall on the other, for they are makers of dynamite at Isleten. Nor do these mountain walls lack interest for the men of science. We can turn our eyes to the rocks above us on the Axen- strasse, and can think of the pain and travail of the daedal earth, and all the crumplings and twistings, and the agonies of pressure, the Axenberg must have undergone while the earth was cooling for the coming of rain and snow, the workers, and the birth of man, the toiler and rejoicer. With one look back up the St. Gotthard Pass and the snows above it, we will return to the stairway that leads down to Tells Chapel ; and as we take our cup of afternoon tea in comparative tranquillity — for the hungry and thirsty multitude have passed away and the bulk of the waiters have dis- appeared — we may let our eyes delight them- selves with the Gitschen rising in front across the lake, between the Windgelle and the Uri Rothstock, and we may make our- selves acquainted with that great family of the * Bauen ' tribe that form the chief moun- tain mass of blue, and grey, and white, of sun and shadow, right opposite. For here the prominent features in the landscape are the I08 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Oberbauen and the Niederbauen and the Bauenstock. Then, with one glance back high up at the cliffs that burn like fire in the after- noon light upon the brow of the Axenberg, we drop down through cool shade to Tell's Platte, at the water's edge, and gaze with pleasure upon the four pictures in which StiJckelberg of Bale has immortalised the story of the hero of Switzerland. Had we been here last Friday, the Friday after Ascension Day, we should have found the chapel open, and, with swinging of censer and ringing of bell, we should have seen mass celebrated, and then, while boat-load after boat-load of lakeside peasants pushed up to swell the congregation, we should have heard a sermon preached, and felt it was well done that once a year Swiss history, and the moral that it bears, should thus be set afresh before the minds of the listeners. Stiickelberg's pictures, though they are very uneven in quality and conception, are certainly full of fire and pictorial passion. They represent the scene in Altdorf, where, at the brutal Gessler's bidding, William Tell was forced to risk his child's life in the shooting of the apple from the boy's THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS 109 head. In grouping and in force, this pic- ture seems to bear first place. The second fresco tells us that we are standing at the very place of the escape of William Tell from the boat of Gessler, the tyrant. The artist has cleverly given reality to the scene by sketching in the distant range of the Biirgenstock across the stormy water. Here, as in the former picture, the iron fetters are seen, the savage mastiffs seem to add fury to their master's cruelty, and not without reason is Gessler robed in some rich brocaded stuff that, by its very colour, suggests the tiger in the man. The third scene is a little too theatrical ; Gessler falls back dead from his horse in the woodland, for Tells arrow has pierced his heart. But one could wish Tells wife and child away, and Tell himself a little less like an angel in a glory from heaven. The fourth picture is perhaps the least successful of the series. The Confederates have met at Griitli ; there is no suggestion of woodland, and the scenery as painted is not the scenery of jutting head- land and cliff, seen from the Griitli, looking north or south. The Confederates met prob- ably by night, certainly in some secret place; but here there is little to suggest either dusk no FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND or secrecy. Rather we are standing on some open mountain top. A day of cloud and storm is suggested in the distance, and a rainbow in another part of the picture betokens hope. Punch would inevitably have called it in his Academy Sketches * The Deluge and After.' The painter, in a way, wishes to suggest that earth and heaven are in accord with the sturdy Confederates. He wishes doubtless to speak of the hope that gave them courage in their struggle. But though it may well be that the painter meant the dawn which he depicts to be the dawn of liberty, there is too little of reality, too much play-acting, about the whole scene to move our hearts or to inspire our souls One cannot help feeling that it was a good thought to renew in 1880, on this lakeside edge, the little chapel to the memory of William Tell that was said to have been originally built in 1388. The Swiss are not only a nation of singers, but a nation of idealists. They know how the surround- ing scenery affects the minds of their fellows, and wisely have placed the scenes that are the fountain-heads of patriot inspiration and national liberty here, within the mountain sanctuary of Uri ; and at the place where THE LAKE OF THE FOUR CANTONS m the waters of the lake are deepest, they have set their seal to the deepest thing they know. We step on board and homeward through the mellowing evening light we go. Beautiful as was the outward passage, more beautiful appears the returning way. One thing we can never forget, that as one neared the Vitznau bay the ramparts of the Rigi slopes lifted themselves to heaven as roseate as the dawn, and that the beauty of their colour deepened with the flush of eve. Through air dewy cool, and sweet with the scent of haymaking, balmy too with the fragrance of lilac and laburnum, and resonant with the song of birds, we reached our simple hostelry. Its coral-blossoming chest- nut bowers, its purple irises and clove-pinks led us to our doors, and, passing beneath a trellised arch of roses, we found a welcome home to evening meal and rest. CHAPTER X. THE REAL RIGL THE FREEDOM OF SPRING. When crocus legions on the brown turf show, And fearless with its purple feathery bell Burns through the snow the delicate soldanelle, Climb up with me the Rigi, you shall know How Courage on its native height can grow Nursed by the names of Winkelried and Tell, And how sweet-breathed as daphne here may dwell The thoughts that bid a patriot's bosom glow. All round, from Sentis to far Blumlis, shine With icy spear and silver shield and helm The gods who speak with thunder in their voice, But down below the music of the kine Forth-tells the coming of a gentler realm Where Spring with Life and Freedom shall rejoice. Of the hundred and twenty thousand who are pushed up the Rigi, and rack-and- pinioned down it every year, how few know anything of its real charm. Listen to the con- versation of the good folk in the railway cars THE REAL RIGI 113 and you will be surprised to learn how the matter of chief interest to many was the dejetiner at the Kulm, or the extraordinary appearance of the early morning crowd in their various conditions of undress, when to the sound of the horn they came scuttling from their bedrooms to see the rising of the sun. The fact of the matter is, that only those who will make a few days' stay upon the Rigi can ever know its beauty. The vast heap of ' conglomerate ' that lies between the waters of Lucerne, Zug, and Lowerz lifts to an altitude of 4470 feet above the former lake, is 25 miles in circumference, and every variety of aspect and sun exposure admits of varied tree and flower life, even as it affords marvellous change in scene and outlook. I confess to being a heretic in the matter of the delights of the * Kulm.' One may get the most extensive panorama therefrom, but one certainly does not obtain the most inter- esting one, and nothing is so fallacious as the general idea it gives one of the Rigi itself. It is true that one is not asked as one used to be at Monte Generoso ' to assist at the Rising of the Sun,' but at least what with the blowing of horns and marshalling of the multitude by the servants of the Sunrise 114 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Hotel, one cannot escape the feeling that one is pressed into taking a part in a play of which one would only wish to be an onlooker. Those who really wish to see the Rigi had best be contented with lesser altitudes, the Kaltbad or the Rigi- First give ample accommodation at the right height, and he who cannot make a sojourn on the mighty hill, can yet, in a single day, see much if he be rightly led. The time to see the Rigi is the end of May. Then the patchiness of the snow sheet has faded into the light brown or vivid green of the alpine pasturage. Then everywhere on the lower slopes the fresh bright emerald of the beech is seen against the green waterflood. And then, while here the crocus myriads are seen whitening the ground, there the sol- danella purples the pathside, and the greater and lesser gentians jewel the grass ; while always in wet places by the upland springs the marsh marigold shines like fire right to the mountain summit. And" then, too, the visitors are not in such numbers as to take away the sense of mountain solitude. The day is right for the expedition, a light wind blows from the east, and a cloud-pack shines like fleecy silver upon the head of Pilatus. There will be shadows on the hills and shadows on THE REAL RIGI II5 the lake ; we shall find our Maytime sunshine tempered for us. It is 10.15 A.M., and steamers from Lucerne and Fliielen hoot to us that they are bringing their contribution to the Rigi muster ; the sound of their voice rises up to the rosy Dossen- wand, and echoes, echoes, echoes far and near. We take our seats on the left-hand side of the railway car, and are soon being pushed by a strong hand, with a little tremolo in it, away up above the red roofs and the village church, and the pleasant gardens filled with the scent of laburnum and lilac, and jocund with the voice of the blackbird. The lake grows to a deeper green beneath the pear trees as we ascend ; the Biirgenstock appears more beautiful. Still as we go up the pinnacles of Pilatus, hidden before, seem to shoot into the heaven, and whilst the white Wallenstock shines out between the Stanserhorn and the Buochserhorn, its beauty seems soon to be eclipsed by the Wetterhorn mass and the Brienzer-Rothhorn range, far away beyond the lake of Sarnen, far away above the Briinig Pass. It is worth while looking upward from time to time on the right-hand side of the carriage, if only to see how grandly the rose-red cliffs of the Dossenwand rise up ri6 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND above the pine trees and the pastures to heaven's blue. We cross the deep ravine of the Grubis- bach, people flushed in face, and in their shirt sleeves are walking up through the orchards on our left by the path we traversed in the old days before the Rigibahn. We are at Freibergen, and already have passed the land of colum- bine, and reached the zone of cherry-blossom, which has disappeared for weeks from the lakeside. Magnificent meadows of silver and gold are awaiting the mower's scythe. Can anything more lovely be imagined than that filmy cloud of feathery flower which the fra- grant wild parsley has laid in unfading beauty upon the Maytide slope. My delight in the vision is a little marred by the voice of an American lady. * Say, pa, what's this flower ? ' ' 'T'aint no flower at all, it's jest a weed.' But all the while that orchard slope of fragrant parsley cloud, though it was 'jest a weed,' haunted one for utter loveliness as it lay cream-white against the emerald lake and the deep blue Biirgenstock beyond. Suddenly flowers and lake and distant scene were veiled by clouds that seemed to be space like lawn out of blue air and came floating up from beneath. Then a great meteor flashed THE REAL RIGI II7 into being out Alpnach way. Another day- star seemed to have broken from underground in the East. It was in reality a rift in the cloud-veil that gave us sight of Sarnen shining in the sun. The clouds dispersed as swiftly as they gathered. Lucerne blue and beautiful as ever lay below and Pilatus lifted grey and cloudless to a clear heaven. Between Freibergen and Felsenthor we enter the woody belt where the beech trees gradually give way to the darker spruces, and after Felsenthor we are on the true Alp, and only want the presence of the feeding kine to fulfil with their cattle-bells the chord of mountain harmony. Kaltbad is reached, such a mighty cluster of building as would make one believe that a city of the plain had suddenly, by some enchanter's wand, been wafted hither. It is a deserted city to-day, the 28th of May, except so far as sundry painters are concerned. The leaves on the plane trees are not out, the flowers have not yet been placed in their beds, and remem- bering as one does the throng in mid-August one is grateful for the silences, and so we pass on towards the rosy-red ' dependance ' that has been lately built, to gain the famous terrace walk to Kanzeli. One feels a little like a Il8 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND prisoner on exercise as one passes along the walk now, for one is hedged in by a fence all the way, with little doors right and left of one, opening on to shady walks with pleasant seats, on which are notices to the effect that only those who are guests at the Kaltbad may pass to these charmed paradises. But at any rate one's eyes have free wanderground, and those who wish to see Pilatus in its beauty, and the way in which Lucerne lies upon its tower-girdled slope, or again, who care to gaze down upon the Kiissnacht waters, and the great plain towards the north, with Sem- pach and the lakes of Hallwyl and Baldegg shining like jewels in the mist, will know no better point of vantage on the Rigi at this level than the Kanzeli. Of course one has to suffer the inevitable bore of refusing to use a telescope, or to drink fresh milk, or buy post- cards ; but having run the gauntlet, the old man of the mountain leaves one in peace, and one can fill one's soul with luxury of light, and colour, and mountain shape, and beauty of cloud-birth on far shining hills. We return to the Kaltbad, passing great masses of conglomerate rock and patches of gentian in forbidden paradises, and since we wish to really see something of the Rigi we THE REAL RIGI II9 determine to make the best of our way, if the snow will permit of it, to the Rigi-Scheid- egg, seven kilometres away to the eastward, 5462 feet above sea-level, and about 730 feet higher than the Kaltbad from which we start. The train service thither does not begin till July, but owing to the snow which still lingers in places we shall for the most part have to avail ourselves of the railway track. We have not passed along it more than quarter of a mile when the beauty of the view downward to Vitznau obliges us to pause. In another half-mile we reach the first station on the line, Rigi- First, passing under one of the best managed hotels on the mountain, whose pro- prietor, we learn, is also the owner of the grand white shining Park Hotel with its pleached garden walks that know no night by reason of Aladdin's lamps by the water side at Vitznau. We cross the line and leave it for the bridle path. As we go along this path and gaze down into the Klosterli hollow and across to the Kulm we feel a certain sense of disappointment in that great Alpine slope which is crowned with its double crown of hideous hotel building. White paths curving about it, and straggling plantations of fir give it an appearance of man's handiwork, a look 120 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND of landscape gardening on a large scale which is destructive of wild mountain beauty. But we need not gaze at the Kulm or at the Staffel or at the railway track snaking down to Arthgoldau, for our eyes, if they are but cast upon the bank beside us, will find the soldanella in profusion and the sweet mountain daphne full-flowering for our delight. One of the joys of this walk to the Scheid- egg is the way in which it now shuts, now opens, the view for us. We walk on for half an hour, and suddenly descending through a pine grove to an Alp starred with gentian and the mealy primrose and the white butterwort, the mountain wall on our right ceases and we gain a glorious view of the Lucerne lake and the Biirgenstock and the vale from Buochs to Stans and great Pilatus. A little path that leads to our right would take us down to Vitznau or give us access to the Hochstetten Pension. I would advise all who may wish to see the precipices of the Dossenwand in their impressive grandeur to go out of their way to that little Pension perched upon its dizzy ledge — I think a man who took lodgings there for any length of time would grow eagle's wings, and I am sure the heart of an eagle would soon be his. THE REAL RIGI 121 The ordinary footway for the Scheidegg passes down into the hollow meadows on our left, but the snow lies upon its track. We had better keep to the railway line, and so passing the little brown wooden box that does duty for Unterstetten station, with its rowan tree carefully trained above its windows and just breaking into leaf, we go along under the brow of a hill which again shuts the view. We cross a small viaduct from which a glorious view both northward and southward is ob- tained, and again pass out of sight of the shining southern mountains, while the Rossberg and its unhealed and unhealing wound fills the east. Our eyes from time to time light upon the look-out tower above the pine-tree covered hill where we know will be the end of our journey and grateful rest. On such a day and on such a walk, for very contrast of life and health and peace and beauty that is round about us, the tragedy of that Rossberg landslip seems to force itself upon our mind. It was on the 2nd of September, in the year 1806 that, loosened by the rains of a wet season, this terrible Goldau landslip occurred. Four villages were buried, the Commune was ruined, and 457 people lost their lives. As yet, Zug-See has not been seen, only we know 122 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND that somewhere beneath the mountain of the scar its placid waters lie. There is great silence in the valley on our left. No cow-bells ring there, though the grass has already begun to put off the embrowning of winter snow time and to put on the vivid greens of spring. We enter a tunnel — Weissenegg tunnel it is called — and we cross another smaller iron bridge and soon are upon the ridge of Alp that connects the mighty mass of the Dossen above Vitznau with the Scheidegg, and here again a magnificent prospect to the south opens before us. Not only do the white Bristenstock to the left of the Uri Rothstock and the range of hills above the Frohnalp to the east, shine out like silver palaces built upon sunny air and floating cloud, but the near views of the back of both the Vitznauer Stock and the Gersau Stock are deeply interesting for those who care for pine-tree growth and inter- lacing of shining meadow-land and silver cliff. It would be possible here to leave the railway and strike straight up through the pines towards the outlook tower that is our goal, to join, in short, the old mule path by which foot passengers generally ascend, but very much of the beauty of the panorama which will culminate in glory at the Scheidegg THE REAL RIGI 123 would be lost to us. So we determine to stick to the railway track and make our way on the southern side of the hill on which the hotel stands. The marigolds are in full beauty, as we pass along, men are busy moving fallen debris from the line. At last the little red station terminus is close at hand and the pathway that ascends in zigzags to the hotel lies before us. What power the snow has to work destruction had been seen by the way in which telegraph posts had been thrown hither and thither, broken off short by the snow; but it was not till I reached the hotel grounds that I knew with what a weight the winter settled on his mountain seat, for here were good strong wooden planks which had served for the rest of visitors all through the summer in the hotel gardens just so much wreckage. The snow had sat down upon them and they had collapsed like brown paper. The little * service ' trees were just beginning to feel their leafage on the hotel promenade, as we went alongf towards a summer-house at the eastern end to gaze down upon the lake of Zug and the village of Arth and the Lowerz lake and the valley busy with the works of men and much marred by the white blistering road streaks. 124 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND After gazing at the blackened deluge of ruin that the dark scrub which had grown among the boulders still made plain for us between Lowerz and Goldau, after marvelling at the extraordinary beauty of the shape and colour of the sister Mythen, one returned to the hotel front, and ordering a cup of tea sat down to drink a draught of more lasting enjoyment — though no tea ever tasted better — the cup of wonder at the panorama revealed to us. A German traveller at my side broke out at once into loud-tongued praise in which the epithets ' colossal ' and * wonderschon ' occurred and recurred. In his opinion the view from the Kulm could not be compared to the beauty here revealed, and he agreed that the walk to the Scheidegg was in itself a liberal education. And truly as he spoke and poured forth his Teutonic superlatives of wonder and praise, I felt it was good that any language should be spoken, by man which should be able to express the worship of the heart for such a scene as was unfolded before us. The day was propitious, the afternoon light beneficent, and from Sentis right round to Pilatus it appeared as if all the range of Alps had grouped themselves in sun and THE REAL RIGI 125 shadow with a kind of competitive desire to please and amaze. Immediately to the right of the Mythen and their rose-pink pinnacles of snowless rock, stood up the Glarnisch mass, half gloom, half glory. Going on from east to south we noted above the grey- headed Frohnalp a single spire, the Kaiser- stock, shining like silver ; to its right Todi, magnificent in purple and ivory ; further to the right the Scheerhorn ; and then the great Windgelle snowy bright ; westward beyond the pass, that, with its little church of Wesen, seen a white speck upon a purple background, reminded us that that was the royal road to Italy, there came, more glori- ous as it seemed than its brother for snowy garniture, the beauteous Bristenstock ; the Uri Rothstock shone near by, and in front of white Titlis and the Engelberg hills the nearer ranges of the Niederbauen and Ober- bauen led the eye round westward towards the distant Bernese Alps. While nearer, bring- ing the eye down to the blue-green waters of Lucerne, the Buochserhorn and the Stanser- horn carried us on to close the panoramic range with Pilatus, grim and grey but wearing on his head a plume of sunlit cloud. Nor had one need to range into the distance to 126 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND find full food for heart and eye, for the Gersau Stock, with the grey ribband upon its piny breast, and the Vitznauer Stock, crowned by sunny pastures belted with fir, gave one, both in shape and colour, all that soul could desire or eye could demand. We had to leave, for there was a train to catch at the Kaltbad station, but my heart was left behind me ; and still in days of gloom the silver shining of those far-off mountain palaces, built upon their lucent cloud banks, and the blue-green hills that rose with belts of moveless pine from bluer green water-floods, haunt, and help, and keep me still musing there on the dreamland height of the Rigi- Scheidegg. CHAPTER XI. THE BURGENSTOCK. THE BURGENSTOCK. Beneath that Lion couchant on the flood, Thro' deeps of mirrored cliff and trembling air We sailed, in silence scaled the mountain stair, In silence felt fair freedom's brotherhood As forth we gazed on Sempach's field of blood ; And climbing through the Lion's shaggy hair Were dumb for awe — so suddenly made 'ware Of Hammetschwand's weird precipice of wood. But when we turned for Stansstad's reedy bay, And thro' Obbiirgen's flowers our path was bent, Birds called, bells chimed, the cricket's heart was gay. Our souls made tune to such accompaniment : Nor height, nor depth, nor distance could dismay ; With song, not silence, to the vale we went ! No one who visits the 'lake of the four Cantons' but must be constantly impressed with the protean changes of beauty, of light and shade, that give such character to the Biirgenstock. 128 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Now it lies a blue wall to shut up the whole of the Lucerne end of the lake to its own privacy ; now again it seems to be a spur of the Stanserhorn. Gazed down upon from Pilatus it seems to be part and parcel of the mount itself ; looked at from Vitznau one would imagine it was the rock of Gibraltar in miniature laid upon a Mediterranean flood ; now again it seems a shaggy lion couchant upon the waters. From another point of view, from the Rigi, it seems as if two cubs were laid beside it. But it is not till one is sailing close underneath it on a sunny afternoon that one realises the height of this jutting pro- montory cliff that runs from Stansstad almost across to Vitznau. Nor till then can one understand the exquisite draping of its north- eastern side with shadowy woodland of beech and pine. One takes the boat from Vitznau, and passing along towards Weggis one is able to realise the variety of that great Rigi cliff — first all bastion of rosy rock above the pas- tures, then layer upon layer of sloping strata that seem in May-time to have been laid together with green cement of forestry by the giant" builders of the world. Last, as one reaches Weggis one notices how the forest %^ t iffiftm- THE BURGENSTOCK 129 climbs the Rigi steep, and swathes it right up to beyond the Kaltbad in living drapery of leaf. Crossing the lake, the white Kaiser- stock and the fine broken snowy ridge of Rophaien are the features to the south, and just as the grey peak of the Mythen appears above the Gersau ridge, one runs under the woods of the Burgenstock and feels what a rampart of living green its tall cliff is, and how entirely it closes and concentrates the beauty of the Lucerne lake. That beauty is of so different a type from the beauty of the rest of the lake that one seems to be in a different world at once. So low are the hills, so open the horizon, that were it not for the grey towers of Pilatus one might almost be sailing upon lake Winder- mere. And now, what must attract the eyes of all who on a sunny day in May or June pass under the Burgenstock woods is the greenness of the waters made doubly green by the reflection of its wall of sunny woodland. The boat stops at Kehrsiten, and we hang ourselves on to an iron cable and are dragged ignominiously straight up the cliff side to the hotel -crowned height of the BQrgenstock. No one should leave the Bargenstock without ascending to the Hammetschwand ; but one 130 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND must be prepared to give two hours to the walk. One passes on the way to Honegg, at the back of the hotel near the station, and in front of the new hotel that in the spring of 1893 was still in process of internal deco- ration. So to the Villa road and on by the little church in the wood, and thence by a rough pathway with seats scattered here and there, through pleasant shade of beech and ash and pine. There is no outlook either way, and one experiences a sense of relief when after half an hour's walk the wood gives way to an open glade of fern and wild roses. Forward still we go, the lake invisible, and we shall be fortunate if it is not our lot to pass upward along that woodland path after heavy rain in early June. Then the cows seem to have it all their own way, and in going and coming to the milking pail, they do their best to render it impassable for the ordinary wayfarer. The rock comes to the surface and is very slippery. The rootlets of pine trees above ground add a network for unwary feet, and between the stones and tree- roots little clay holes dug by horned hoofs and filled with water form a series of pitfalls for the foot passenger. But on a fine day this rough woodland walk, with its sense of THE BURGENSTOCK 131 continual ascent to higher air and to some perfect vision, is full of all delight, and to the Englishman not the least of these is the sight and scent of the bracken. Fine hollies may be seen here and there, patches of broom and groups of foxglove give colour, and after a quarter of an hour's walk we find ourselves breasting a slope of rough moorland that takes us back in thought to Exmoor, the Yorkshire wolds, or the Cumberland fells. The goats have been before us, and the grazing cattle have worn some simple zig- zags upon the mountain breast, and soon we are in sight of our goal, the Hammetschwand. At the height of 3723 ft. above sea level a rough platform with a railing to prevent acci- dent juts out from the crag, and standing upon it, a sudden surprise, which almost amounts to a shock, takes possession of one. I have never been in a balloon, but I should imagine that the sensation one here experi- ences as one stands for the first time on the Hammetschwand platform makes one's heart throb in the same way, as one feels the great depth beneath and sees the world of far-off liquid silver flecked with its tiny craft below and realises that there is nothing between death and that depth but the one-inch plank 132 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND upon which one stands. The day I stood there heavy clouds entirely hid the sun, and floated heavily on the woody height to which I was bound. Suddenly the cloud veil dis- parted, in all its height and length the Rigi to the north stood manifest, and the Buochser- horn and the Unterwalden ranges were made clear. But one forgot the tumbled ranges of grey cloud and gleaming snow and blue shadow of the far-off hills, even as one noticed not the rosy bastions and forest patches of the Rigi, for the glory and the wonder of this great cliff of matted woodland down which we gazed to the glimmering waterflood below. For the cliff seemed indeed to be an airy unsubstantial thing, a mighty curtain of shim- mering lace and waving damask. The strength of the hills seemed veiled or masked from sense and sight by the fine tissues of the spring. And the sunshine overhead streamed down the leafy precipice of wood, sending its flood of gold as in a shower of visible spray from height to depth. I have seen nothing so fair or so mysterious as the effect of this downpour of sunshine through the gigantic vertical wall of birch, and beech, and ash, and pine foliage upon the Hammetschwand. And very wonderful it was to notice how a THE BURGENSTOCK 133 single steamer, fussing away like a fly upon the waters far beneath, was able to disturb the serenity of miles of water-plane, to send its ripple into furthest distance, and carry the splinters of its light into what before was a grey-green liquid floor of hyaline unflecked by any sun. We left the Kanzeli as it is called, and the cliff over which the spring foliage had spread such vesture of sparkling greenery, not a little marvelling at the bravery of the trees that had taken root on such a mountain wall and so dauntlessly had dared to drape the precipice with its silken hangings, then climbing a few yards higher we gazed out towards Pilatus, nobly seen from here to the eastwards, and to the Mythen, and the purple Frohnalp, and the sparkling pinnacles cloud- wreathed beyond in the north-west. But only for a moment; for smoking upward from the depths below us the mist wrapt everything from sight, and it was not till we had de- scended the slope and passed back towards the woodland, with our hands full of purple meadow rue and globe flower, that we felt again the blessing of light through green leaves, and knew that the sun in heaven was shining still. 134 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Take it for all in all that wooded cliff of the Hammetschwand when gazed down upon from above is of its kind the most beautiful thing in Oberland. One may gaze from other precipices, from the heights of Pilatus, from the Kanzeli on the Rigi, from the shoulders of Niederhorn, from the cliffs of the Mannlichen, but nowhere will one find a precipice so robbed of its fearfulness or a woodland wall so majestic and yet so gentle- hearted as there. Poised as it seems between blue-green water and bluest sky, and un- substantial as it appears beneath the showering sunlight of the afternoon, this magnificent woodland cliff, whether seen from the steamer's deck or gazed down upon from the Kanzeli, must impress the most thoughtless, and fill all reverent hearts with praise. There are other walks than this one to the Hammet- schwand. One may go across the meadows by the Trogen farm to Honegg for the view of the Buochserhorn and the Beckenried arm of the lake. But it is time for rest and tea, and having reached the funicular station, we pass along a shady walk to the terrace in front of the hotel that for the last thirty-six years has provided the luxury of afternoon tea with a marvellous view at the same time. There, THE BURGENSTOCK 135 looking out between trellis roses and geraniums, we watch how clouds are born and die upon the peaks of Pilatus, and how the sun flashes with the flashing of a silver shield upon the waters of Sempach, that are for all Swiss beholders a mirror of their chivalry and love of freedom. It is worth while going up the Burgenstock if only to look to Sempach on the one side and to the valley of Stans, as one descends to Stansstad, on the other. For one seems to be here within touch of the fountain head of Swiss liberty, and that little old tower among the reeds and poplars by the Stansstad landing-stage is a perpetual re- minder of the struggle of 1308 and the birth of Swiss independence. After tea one strolls up through woods that are a little over-pathwayed and over-seated, glad to think that one is here in the month of May and not in the month of August, seeing we are told that at this, only one of three hotels on the Burgenstock, 300 visitors can be accommodated. To-day we are alone with the wood-sorrels and the warblers, and the air is sweet with wood-ruff, that takes us back to England and old-fashioned English house- wifery. As one gazes away from the lake one finds with some astonishment how broad- 136 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND backed a creature the Biirgenstock is. No one would have expected that here upon his height there lay a hollow valley chalet-dotted and filled with grazing kine. However delightful the outlook from various points on the Bargenstock must ever be to those who visit it in May or early June, they will miss a rare treat if they do not insist on walking down to catch the steamer at Stansstad rather than allowing themselves to be let down by a cable hook to Kehrsiten. The first part of the walk would, but for the fine view of the Stanserhorn and Buochserhorn, be a little unrewarding, as one is on the southern side of the Biirgenstock ridge and views of lake and Pilatus are hidden. But we descend through the meadows to the little church of Obbargen, always memorable because of the brave pastor's prayer, who, in September of 1798, on the first attack of the French, saved on his knees this church from being burned, and who was cruelly shot while he prayed mercy for his people and his church, at the second attack of the French, when in their anger they harried the whole valley and massacred the people of Stans. We read the inscrip- tion to Joseph Francis Fluher, the martyr, and, lifting up our eyes, seem to forget our THE BURGENSTOCK 137 war and rumours of war in the beauty of the landscape spread beneath our feet, and the peace of the fair flowering fields. From no other vantage point on our way down does the great double-horned Pilatus, a shadowy mass of impalpable lucent silver-blue in the afternoon light, appear so full of mystery and magnificence, and he who is here before the mower in early June has whetted his scythe, will think the whole day's journey well spent if only he have sight of the Obburgen meadows as he descends. From thence we drop down to Stansstad, loop- ing hither and thither through the wood, with now a fine view of the Stanserhorn and now of Pilatus and the lake. We emerge from cool green woods on to a sunny level of chalet- dotted and poplar-plumed mead, and make for the village and landing-stage beside the Tower of Liberty. Homeward we go by the reed beds, where the sedge-warblers delight to fill warm June nights with song, through waters going from green to purple-grey, while far away beyond the hills of Lucerne the sun is calling back unto himself all the golden angels of the day, and building a pillar of gold in a dreamy waterflood. Dreaming too we pass beneath the Biirgenstock that 138 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND gleams, from the transparent depths beneath, with the mellow light of a summer evening, and so back to the Vitznau and its orchards, that echo still with the blackbird's latest song. We were grateful for the joy that the shaggy Biirgenstock had given us, but we felt as we gazed upon him couchant upon moonlit waters on that same evening, that beautiful as he was in his sunny strength, this great lion of the Lucerne lake was more full of majesty and calm, when he lay beside his shadow upon rippling silver, the blue-grey guardian of the waterflood. CHAPTER XII. AT THE ANGEL MOUNT. AT THE SIGN OF THE 'ANGEL,' ENGELBERG. Who takes the passing traveller for a guest May entertain an angel unaware, And since on yonder rocky mountain stair Clouds broke in angel music to attest Here God would dwell, and here His name be blest, Angels have entertained who hither fare, Loosed them of sorrow, freed them of earth's care, And soothed them with some hope of heavenly rest. So ' Angel,' at thy bidding I have found Hint of the harmonies where angels dwell, For all sweet sounds about thy portal meet : The children's laugh, the goat-bells down the street, Organ and choral chanting, and the sound Of that deep, monitorj', convent bell. It was the last Saturday in May that I found myself at Stansstad at four o'clock in the afternoon, in the little electric railway carriage that was to take passengers to Engelberg. We left behind us the old tower 140 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND by the lake that still stands in memory of the freedom won by the Swiss in 1308. We passed through those magnificent mea- dows of flowers which are the joy of all visitors to the home of Winkelried in the Maytide of the year. Never grandlier did Pilatus, misty-grey, look down upon us; never in more varied hue did the woods of the Biirgenstock gleam for us; the Stanser- horn, his head still snowy white, sent us a sense of cool ; and the Wallenstock above the Buochserhorn kept us in mind of winter, though all in the valley was burning May. Passing outside of the town of Stans, we are unable to get fair view of more than the spire of the church, which is evidently being repaired and re-covered with wooden tiling, and are sorry to have no peep of the monument in the market place of Arnold von Winkel- ried, who, at Sempach, on the 9th of July in 1386, gathered the spears of the foemen into his own breast, and so made room for his brothers in arms to break the serried phalanx of the enemy. But as we sweep on through the orchard meadows, the old fashioned pear- pleached house of the hero of Sempach may be seen, and we have the feeling that though the sun, as it is said, never shines in this AT THE ANGEL MOUNT. 141 valley of the capital of Nidwalden for more than one hour between the nth of November and the 2nd of February, there is upon these fields sunshine unimaginable, inextinguishable, the glory and the glow of patriotic heroism that shall bring fruit to far-off generations. The journey up the valley to the Engelberg is certainly made easy for one — some of us remember the long trudge up the hot glaring road, or the dust of our rolling carriage in days gone by — but there is little of historic interest for the traveller, save only that at Wolfenschiessen the wooden hermitage may still be seen beside the church, in which Conrad Scheuber, grandson of Nikolaus von der Fliie, lived in his Altzellen solitude, in odour of sanctity that has never been forgotten. For one thing, however, one regrets the change that this electric railway has wrought ; it does not allow of stopping to gaze long, as one would wish to gaze, at those glorious peaks of the Wallenstocke that rise up above one at Grafenort — and we may fairly quarrel with it again for the way in which it has dispossessed us of the beautiful road that looped back- wards and forwards through the forest as one ascended from the valley up to Engel- berg. It was rather a shock to find that the 142 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND picturesque little wayside restaurant of Im Griinenwald had been, by reason of the electric railway, entirely remodelled, and very little left of its old beauty and simplicity if we except the kegelbahn in the wood. But one thing that electric railway cannot touch — it is the sight and the sound of the grey torrent of the Aa swollen by the waters of the brook from the Triibsee, as now it flashes white, now passes into the darkest shadow through the woodland at our side. Nor could this new method of conveyance interfere with the first impressions of the heights that tower above the Engelberg valley ; the white dome of Titlis and the far-off Spannorts rose in the same untroubled majesty before our eyes. And as we neared our journey's end the church tower of the monastery of the ' Angel Mount ' and the ' Angel Mount ' itself gave us its welcome as of old. Yet I confess to the feeling of sorrow for the change that had come over Engelberg as I felt it when I stepped from the little railway carriage at the terminus, with its great building in the foreground blotting out all view of the valley. Hotel after hotel seemed to have risen up in mighty mushroom blocks all around one — it was no longer Engelberg but AT THE ANGEL MOUNT 143 Hotelberg to which I had come. An army of ' portiers ' waited for their prey, and 'busses with names unheard of before, invited hotel guests to their rich-cushioned luxury. It was not till having passed through the maze of hotels and up a street, that in its brand-newness reminded one of a Paris suburb, that we saw the grey-backed roof and the white walls and the green shutters of the monastery filling the distance, and the old Engelberg feeling revived. Nearing the gates of the monastery we stopped at the door of the old-fashioned Engel with the old-fashioned kindly welcome of the 'maitresse,' and found nothing but the monastery itself and the monastery church to intervene between our- selves and the Titlis dome, and the Spannort, and the Grassengrat range, and nothing but lilac bushes and the fir tree clump around the fountain to prevent fair vision of meadows that shone like cloth of gold in the evening light. There was nothing between us and the sound of the silver bells of the mouse-coloured mon- astery cattle that were filling the air with music; we realised then that Engelberg was Engelberg still, and that here, as of yore, one might well be visited unawares by the bright messengers of God. 144 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND But old-time Engelberg has disappeared ; it is true that opposite the Bergli-alp Inn the Engelberg tailor lives, as his fathers did, in a beautiful old timbered house — that next door but one on the same side of the street another relic of early Engelberg survives — that a little further on beyond the Miihlbach and the patch of green that still exists there, one or two other houses set down in the quaint loosely-ordered way of old still exist, shattered remnants of Engelberg's ancient glory. For the rest the main street is all white paint and stucco and iron balcony, and nothing of the grace of the old Switzer building has gone to the re-making of brand-new Engelberg. In the cool of the evening one entered the church, which, as churches go in Roman Catholic cantons, is, I believe, considered to be one of the most beautiful in the Oberland. The feature of the church is its spacious ante- portal, and entering, one is struck by its good proportion, its lighting and colour. Four chapels on either side, by their arches uphold a gallery which admits the orchestra to come from the monastery to the organ gallery. To-morrow is Whitsunday ; there is to be a great musical mass ; the organ, which is a very fine instrument, is being tuned for the AT THE ANGEL MOUNT 145 occasion. The carving in front of the organ loft is of its kind good but late work, and in keeping with the general bizarre and birth- day-cake ornament of the church. The barrel roof is painted with pictures, also modern and of no great worth, with scenes in the life of our Lord ; and flanking these are lesser pictures of the life of S. Benedict, the founder of the Order. Angels holding scrolls tell us the legends of these pictures beneath the arches of the side chapels. The church is marvellously good for sound, and it is cheerful and cleanly; one realised this when on a day of dreariest mist and cloud one followed the children to their morning service, and felt how much of warmth the general brightness of the church must add in dark days to the hearts of the worshippers. The coloured marbles are certainly beautiful, but they are spoiled by the tawdry over-laying, as in the case of the pulpit, with unnecessary gilding and ornament, and one feels that, whoever designed them, costly as they are, had little knowledge for the fitness of things or he would never have made a clock face the chief ornamental feature of the reredos above the high altar. The chancel is partially screened by the 146 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND reredoses of two side altars, one of them apparently dedicated to S. Sebastian, with his skeleton in evidence in a glass case. Each side altar contains relics of saints and martyrs — S. Anselm, S. Florian, and a portion of the skull of S. Mary Magdalen — all of them much bejemmed and bedizened with costly jewelry. But to him who enters the church the two monuments that will be of interest are the plain marble sarcophagi, which contain the bones, on the left-hand side of Conrad, the founder of the monastery in 1121, and of Adelhelmus the first abbot. At a glance one sees that the church is of late building ; it was rebuilt with the rest of the monastery, 1725, after destruction by fire. Then the monks decided to use as roofing for their buildings no longer wooden shingles, but the grey-brown slate of the country. These after rain assume a pitchy black hue, which, by contrast to the white snow-slopes on Titlis and the Grassengrat, give a very sombre hue to the whole building. The monastery is, however, a good specimen of late Benedictine building. The abbot's house and the conventual buildings forming, together with the church, an oblong quadrangle, are AT THE ANGEL MOUNT 147 flanked with the farm buildings of the monastery; and these, with their large courtyard, make an imposing mass seen from whatever quarter. In the olden time the abbot's powers here were very great — all the villagers held their lands of the monastery ; were not allowed to leave the village or even to marry without the consent of the abbot, who exercised functions of the highest court, in matters of life and death. One is not surprised that a revolt of the peasants took place, and that between the fifteenth and eighteenth century there was constant war between the people and the monks, which ended at last in the freedom of the people from the domination of the abbot. Napoleon in 1798 somewhat clipped the wings of the monastery in matters of finance ; but though it is poorer in this world's goods to-day than it ever was, it was probably never more useful in its work, for it has a college of 100 students, trained for the priesthood, law, and medicine, and its school premises are about to be enlarged. Many of the thirty monks in residence are well educated men ; whilst, as far as the people go, the old mis- understandings have passed away, and the monastery can always count on the friendship of the villagers. 148 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND One of the sources of its income is its great cheese farm ; and that the servants of the monastery are men of means may be seen from the fact that one of them, at this moment, is constructing a great new road on the side of Schwand, and apparently intends to dominate the village with a vast hotel. In the old days there was a famous Scriptorium within the monastery, and there is still preserved some of the work of the learned monk Frocinus. The days of the Scriptorium are numbered, and the nearest approach to the work of the olden time is the copying out of the various parts for the orchestra that is trained to perfection within the monastery. It was a dreary little service enough, the service that I attended on Whitsun Eve. The vast curtains were drawn across the choir, and the clergy had the chanting of the responses all to themselves. The chief worshippers appeared to be village children who, to judge by their faces, seemed rather to look upon the whole thing as part of their play-hour before bed-time. One aged dame crept in with her beads and a small black bottle, which she re- ligiously filled with holy water from the black- covered font that stood near the chancel steps. I left the church in the twilight, the AT THE ANGEL MOUNT 149 sound of monastery cattle-bells chiming in the pastures near by; and late that evening, look- ing forth from my window, it seemed as if the whole monastery and monastery church stood on enchanted ground turned into solid silver by some magic light. At the back darkly rose the Engelberg, the Spannorts, and the Titlis, all dimmed by the exceeding brightness of the church and monastery yard. The fact was, though I could not see it, that a great arc light had been lit in the street in front of the Angel Hotel, and had suddenly transformed the quiet grey buildings, whose roofs were wet with the recent thunder shower, to glowing and gleaming silver. Next morn at five o'clock the monastery bells were loud, and the people were already thronging the street to pass to prayer, as I gazed out to that grey-turbanned tower that looks down upon the quiet fields of Engelberg. From that hour till nine o'clock it seemed that people were going and coming to prayer, but at nine, though people still were going, none returned, for at nine the preacher was to preach a Whitsuntide sermon. I entered the church, and found it quite filled with a most devout and reverent con- gregation. The nuns had brought their I50 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND children from the schools hard by, they sat in the front seats near the chancel, and before the preacher began his sermon sang very sweetly an old chorale to the soft accompani- ment of the organ. Still throughout the sermon the crowd grew, the men packed themselves tighter into the seats, sat even in the confessional boxes, filled the gangway near the door, and then clustered in the vestibule behind, fine looking fellows — with dark eyes and such regular features, as made one think that they had Italian blood in their veins. They came in their snow-white shirt sleeves, they came in their richly em- broidered brown cloth blouses, most of them with rosaries in their hands, and all of them, young and old, as if their very life depended upon their being present. I could not help noticing how square the backs of their heads were, and how the hair at the back of their heads seemed to be blown up from behind and to be growing the wrong way. Centuries of the carrying of burdens upon their backs, and the pressure of their porters' wooden harness against their heads, may perhaps answer for this. As for the women, one noticed that they also were Italian in type of countenance for AT THE ANGEL MOUNT 151 the most part — tall stately women, many of them, with their hair beautifully dressed in two rolls, to suit the quaint silver and gold head ornaments that they wore. These were of three kinds — the unmarried women wore a large silver-gilt spoon-shaped bodkin, the broad end of which had handsome filagree and enamel work upon it, this passed through a loop in a carefully plaited little white target of ribbon or tape, sometimes solid and some- times interwoven with the hair of the head ; whilst the married women seemed to have encased the whole of the back of their heads in a double-leaf-shaped sheet of glittering silver. I learned that this was Niederwalden fashion, and that these ornaments were called Haar-Nadel. There were also married women from Obwalden present, they wore a variety of the Haar-Nadel which really looked like a double shoe-horn of silver run throuQrh their hair and ribbon plaiting. But the ornaments that completed their Whitsuntide dress were gorgeous necklets of silver gilt and filagree work, looped together with garnets or garnet- coloured glass beads. These queenly neck- laces were locally termed Halspitti, and truly they gave to the wearers an air of dignity and high estate which made one feel that one 152 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND was in the presence of the real ladles of the land. All this ornament was costly as it was beautiful, it meant that the men had cared enough about their women folk to see that, poor as they were, they should not lack of ornament if hard work could win it, and it looked as if the women felt that no care was too much to be given to the embroidery of the men's shirt fronts or blouse, and that they felt that no ornament that they could wear was too rich or costly for them to put on as they passed to prayer or worship, or too good as apparel for the pleasing of men they loved. Before the preacher had ended his thirty minutes' discourse a curious hollow echoing was heard in the hushed and silent church. One had the idea that somewhere at the back of the high altar and behind the great fres- coed draperies upon which had been painted the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, a huge piece of machinery had been set in motion. What really was happening was that from their monastery hall beyond, for church and monastery are under one roof, the young clerical students, each with his instrument of music, were filing into the sounding corridor, and so passing along the gallery high up on AT THE ANGEL MOUNT 153 either side the nave of the church, to take their places in the west end orchestra by the organ. But the preacher heard them not, and the peasants were, by their fine faces, in a world that no sound of men's feet could disturb. There was the faintest twangle of a violin being tuned, of a bass violin being screwed up. Then, as suddenly as it began, the service ceased, and in answer to the voice of a priest in the sanctuary the organ spoke, and a boy's voice floated out and fell in showers of sweet sound upon us. The orchestra joined in, the choir, well balanced, of boys and men followed suit, and the high mass, as set to music by Bernard Halen of Breslau, who passed to his rest about 40 years ago, began. I confess I forgot all the ceremonial at the altar, the movement hither and thither of red-robed priests and white-clad acolytes, the little gathering for apparent conclave, the passing off to the side ways to reappear with the great manuscript psalter or gospel or manual, the dressing and undressing of the abbot, the bowing and the motionless mut- tering of prayer, the coming of priest and clergy, the colour of the moving spectacle as seen through the clouds of fragrance, the 154 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND way in which that cloud moved, a symbol of the prayers of saints, came drifting lazily out of the sanctuary and gradually filled the church. I forgot all this ; it was as little to me as to Conrad in his marble tomb or Anselm with the jewels in his glittering skull near by. Only above the vast congregation of praying men and praying women I heard the organ and the orchestra now plead, now lead to praise, and I knew how the choir, in ad- mirable tune and with sincere feeling, bade men lift up their hearts unto the Lord, and ask His availing presence and His unending graciousness and mercy, even as it told forth His glory *ad saecula saeculorum.' The music was in parts quite beautiful, and though it did not seem so to satisfy as did the great Beethoven mass I had heard some years ago after the 'Abbot's Festal Day' in mid-May, I felt that it was full of devotion, did its work, and touched the heart of every worshipper present. Then came the clanging of bell, and the crossing of reverent breasts, more incense cloud, a lifting of the monstrance to crash of drum, and horn, and oboe, and violin, and voice, and organ ; the service was over, and the great congregation melted away. The men in their shirt sleeves hung about AT THE ANGEL MOUNT 155 the little shelter near the monastery gate. The women went down into the town to get their bread for the far-off chalets' Whitsun meal. A kindly postman went in and out of the crowd to give letters that might else be long upon their mountain road, and ere the last of the crowd had passed out of sight the bells in the tower clanged again, and other worshippers, men and women, came up the sunny way to hear the Whitsun message. What struck one about the crowd was that there were few really aged people in it. Does the hard labour, in this valley which means health for so many strangers, kill the native peasant before his time ? I know not, but as I wandered about in the little grave- yard by the Kloster Church, between services, I noted how many men and women had died in their prime or on this side of sixty. There was one grave I never could pass without a sigh. It was the grave of a young Cumberland maiden who perished a few years since when out here upon a happy holiday, by an accidental slip upon the banks of the grey torrent of the Engelberg Aa. Yet, as one passed it in its sunny peacefulness and noted how the sweet-scented 'arabis' had, as it would seem, consciously dressed the grave of 156 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND the girl who was the bride of death, and as one heard the church bells chime and watched the reverent people pass close by the foot of her tomb and turn and look at it and say, ' Poor girl, she came from England,' one seemed to think that here, though far from her home among the blue hills of the North, was one laid at rest, who nevertheless was at home among sincere friends ; one whose tombstone spoke, and for years would speak, more eloquently here to English hearts, than if it had been God's will she should have had the turf of her native home green upon her grave, and the dew of the Cumberland morning a blessing above her sleep. CHAPTER XIII. WALKS AT ENGELBERG. AT A iVAYSIDE SHRINE. ' Mutter Gottes hilf tins in jeder not.' ' Mary, thou mother of God, in all our ways Help us ! ' so runs the legend at the shrine ; The herdsman, as he drives afield his kine, Here, while they tinkle on, a moment stays, And the young lover with his heart ablaze Kneels here to ask of Mary grace divine. The village scholar murmuring line on line Of schoolday task here doffs his hat and prays. Mother of God, yea, help in everything. Help us in fruit of field and kine ! in choice Of love ! yea, help in schooldays' toil and stress ! Friends, wherefore ask the handmaid, when the King Pavilioned in such splendour, with the voice Of many waters, stands so near to bless ? Those who have not visited Engelberg can- not help being surprised by the smallness of the valley space. At no point is it more than half a mile across, and I suppose its 158 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND length does not exceed three miles. When the great monastery was almost the only building in the vale things were different, but now when, all the way from the monastery down to the western end of the valley above GrUnenwald, houses are beginning to grow and dot the plain after an ugly toy-house pattern that might have been copied from some Noah's Ark, and when the great hotels are crowding one upon another, one begins to feel that the valley space is very constricted. Until one passes out beyond the monastery eastward in the Herren-Rati direction one feels a lack of freedom and foot room. One also, I think, has the sense of a lack of shade in the village. Trees have been planted opposite the Titlis Hotel, but are not yet grown enough for cool ; and the broad meadow behind the Titlis and Grand Hotel has been laid out with ornamental water and a fir-tree plantation, but the trees do not seem, if one may judge by the lichens upon the branches of the limes, to be doing well, and the whole arrangement of seats and walks is so conventional and artificial that one can have but little pleasure in its well-intended shade. The little clump of fir trees and lime and lilac bushes near the WALKS AT ENGELBERG 159 Engel seems quite a godsend as one enters their shadow. But the latest hotel builders have planned evidently for sun and not for shade ; asphalte or concrete pavements seem to be the favourite material for encircling their domains withal. It is this absence of shade and the feeling of the crowding of the village hotels and hotel life that drives the visitor to the forests on either side the vale. The Kurverein Committee have been wise in their generation ; they have planned abun- dant paths to the upland pastures with seats in shady places throughout the woodlands, and very grateful must the wanderers be, as, leaving the village behind them, they take any of the well-known walks at morn or eventide. One would recommend one's friends to cross the valley through the monastery farm- yard or over the bridge from the town, and leaving the grey ' Aa ' running through its alders to the west, to climb by the little kegelbahn of the Bankli-Alp, and to pass up through a forest which at the end of May is in its lower part green, lighted with abun- dant sunshine let through the fresh beech leafage ; up beyond the beech-tree belt to the pine-tree belt, and so out on to the open Gerschni-Alp. Those who wish to go l6o FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND forward and climb to the TrUbsee should enquire, that is if they are at Engelberg at the end of May, if the snow will permit their passage. In mid- June the path is always open to the little mountain lake, and many tourists at Engelberg pass up there to the Trabsee and over the Joch pass to the Engstlen-Alp. To-day, the last day of May, the snows are heavy on the TrUbsee path, and we must be satisfied with such wandering over sunny knolls, such watching of the goat herds, such gathering of the mountain viola and bilberry flower as may content us, till we pass westward and downward through the tall pine forest — its trees all bearded with the grey lichens, to the Hegmatt and the lower pastures that will lead us by the rifle butts back to the village. But before we turn for home we must needs gaze at the grand view of that amphitheatre of cliff opposite us across the valley which encloses the boulder-strewn cul-de-sac that men hereabout call 'the world's end.' Very beauti- fully on the right hand, nearest to us, does the green shoulder of the Engelberg or Hahnen contrast with the grey mass beyond of the Gemsispiel, and as the eye follows round it stops involuntarily to gaze at the Riichberg, ■I— I .i,u. i lJj ^^jpw.iww 1 1 Ml » N n i .mi III mn i 1 ^''*'"*!i i 1^ i"»>.^'^^?F^''' Nm ^ WALKS AT ENGELBERG i6l at the Lauchenberg, and the quaint pinnacles of the Rigi-thal, till nearer home we watch the white flashing of Mehlenbach joined by the foaming tribute of the * Seven Springs ' and dashing downward to mingle with the waters of the Diirrbach that race towards the valley. One is glad to be here on this sunny alp in the pleasant Maytime, for the woods on Bergli are multi-coloured with the spring, and the light green of the beeches commingled with the dark spruce firs add much to the Engelberg valley, which visitors in July and August must always miss. , Engelberg is spoken of as a paradise of flowers ; it is quite true that in mid-May the meadows up Herren-Riiti way are blue with gentian patches, even as in August they are yellow with the great towery spikes of the golden sister of that same order. Indeed, the very term Goldboden has probably been given to the meadows by reason of that yellow gentian. And in the beginning of June, upon the Bergli-Alp, ' the cypripedium ' may be found that looks more pitcher plant than orchis, which the children hereabout call Mutter Gottes Finkle. Our hands may also gather the white spikes of the * Maien-blume ' and the Alpine * dryas ' ; but except for the l62 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND fact of the ' trollius globosus ' that abounds In the Schwand woodland, and the luxury of the purple cranesbill that purples the clover- covered slopes at the end of May, one would not look upon the valley, in the early part of the year at anyrate, as a flower hunter's Eden. One of the most rewarding walks on the lower slopes is doubtless the walk in the direction of Schwand, on the northern side of the valley. One crosses the busy little Miihlen- bach, and follows at a slow incline the leading of a path that has the precious gift for lovers of Engelberg, that when it has reached the reservoir above the Kuranstahlt, it blots out the whole of unsightly modern Engelberg, and leaves one only the view of the old monastery and meadows beyond. We ought to have said that we used to follow the lead of the path thus far. But this year an intrepid servant of the monastery has had the whole pathway up to the reservoir dug out by Italian workmen, to form his carriage road to what is to be his grand hotel upon the northern slope. We almost wished that the abbot had the plenary powers of old to prevent any building of more hotels. As one looked back upon the monastery itself one could see WALKS AT ENGELBERG 163 what an unsightly addition had been made in its neighbourhood, and what destruction of the beauty of the monastery building was wrought by the square block of the Hotel National, which seemed almost to be part of the monastery. Such unsightliness would never have been allowed beneath the autocratic rule of the abbots of olden time. Thence by a picturesque barn and chalet, and the grateful shadow of a grove of spruce and beech, the pathway takes one higher still to a little white wayside shrine, from which exquisite views may be obtained of the western crags of the valley, the Scheidegg, the Hut-berg, the Hang- horn, the Schwarthorn. Leading one forward by gradual ascent it brings one within sound of the glorious torrent of the Triibsee as it dashes down to Griinenwald. So onwards we fare by sycamores mossed from top-most bough to lowest trunk, through cool meadows golden with globe-flower, till one gains fair view of the blue-green depths of the lower Engelberg valley and the cobalt-coloured hills beyond. Another favourite walk which may be taken in the morning, and need not occupy more than two and a half hours, is the walk to the Fliihmatt and Bergli, returning by the same pathway which we have just described. We l64 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND leave the sheltering wings of our Angel and pass by the Schoolhouse up a steep path, which, after going a little to the right hand, through meadows that give us a very fine view of the monastery from the north-east, trends to the left. There at a place where the path divides, the right-hand path of which takes us over by a little shrine and chalets to the ' world's end ' we turn to the left, and mount slowly through a cool woodland filled to-day with the voice of the warbler and chaffinch. After about twenty-five minutes' ascent we find ourselves close to a picturesque chilet or chalet and byre, from which rough stone steps in the meadow grass take us up to a level pathway that runs parallel with the valley towards the west. We cannot help stopping at a wayside shrine in which a grim- faced Virgin Mary and a robust Joseph leading the little Christ formed the background for a rough wooden figure of a Benedictine monk. There is something very touching in the rude simplicity of these Engelberg shrines. Whether one stands before the tiny little votive box sunk into the face of the rock as one ascends to the Gerschni-Alp, or before the tiny shrine which has actually, by the growth of the tree, become part of it in the wood through which we have WALKS AT ENGELBERG 165 just passed. The hands that set these in their places were hands of men whose hearts were full of piety, to whom some blessing had befallen, and who felt that some expression of their gratitude to the Mother of God was due. And in this month of May, in which honour seems specially to be paid to her by the Roman Catholic Church, one seldom passes a wayside shrine without finding flowers stuck through the iron net-work that guards the tiny praying place from harm. Above us on our right as we pass through the Fliihmatt shines out silver-grey above our heads the rampart wall, fir crested, of the Fliih that gives its name to the meadow. We descend now towards chdlet-dotted folds in the bosom of the hill, which we know to be Bergli by the Swiss flag that flies above the little restaurant in their midst. Thence through paths that are a little perplexing for want of a sign, we strike into one that is evidently, by its grey gravel, well cared for, and which leads us west and then south below Bergli into a magnificent forest of pine. Zigzagging downwards, we obtain a fair out- look of the chalets and the little white chapel of Schwand, and turning from the edge of the forest in a southerly direction lose our- l66 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND selves for a time in its splendid depths of shade. I do not know in the Oberland anything more beautiful than this dropping down through magnificent pine trees, far enough apart for one to realise their beauty, that is here possible for the wanderer who will go from Bergli down to the regular path from the Schwand and so home to Engelberg. The woodpecker was laughing loud, the warbler trilling ecstatically from the topmost boughs as we struck the path that we knew of old, and found welcome shade and rest beneath the sycamore, while the sound of water filled the air with a sense of cool, and the globe-flowers made the dusky grass leap into light. From thence to Engelberg by the little white shrine is a feast of beauty for those who would 'lift up their eyes unto the hills.' Marvellously beautiful from here is that great rampart wall that guards the valley on the south from the far away Spannorts, by the white dome of Titlis, by the quaint peaks of the Wendenstocke, by grey Bitzistock, by dark Schwarthorn, by Hanghorn above the Arni-Alp, right round to the Hutstock and the horn of Scheidegg. How glori- ously it uplifts with its silver shining snow WALKS AT ENGELBERG 167 or grey glittering rock, now wreathed in cloud, now shining clear against the blue ! It is so beautiful that one forgets that below this range of mountain wall, from Goldboden to the Gerschni-Alp, from Gerschni right round to the Arni and Schwendli Alps lie meadows and forest groves sun-dappled and resonant with bells of kine and fall of water. And one would fain sit down upon the nearest friendly seat and gaze, and gaze, and gaze, and forget that mortal flesh needs material sustenance, and that at one o'clock the Angel who gives us shelter will ring a call to food. At eight o'clock this morning I was at the Monastery Church. The grave black-robed sisters were bringing their double cortege of girls and boys to mass. One could not help being amused with the expeditious way in which the boys kicked off their wooden sabots at the church porch without breaking the pro- cession as they passed into the church ; nor at the soldier-like way in which each little barefooted fellow who came late with his knapsack on his back, containing his books and food for the day, took his place, after a reverent bow to the altar, and behaved with the demureness of a grown-up man throughout the long service. l68 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND The service — which, as far as the congrega- tion went, was only attended by the children of the village school, and two or three old men from the poorhouse — was choral and orchestral throughout. What an education in music must this church of S. Benedict give to the whole village community, seeing that not only on the great feast days, but on many days in the week, the worshippers may hear the music of the mass sung and played with such exquisite taste as I heard it this morning. These children at Engelberg are, in their pretty manners, very engaging, and one can see in many ways what home training as well as church training they receive. I was outside in the churchyard a day or two ago when a little fellow with the face of an angel came on his way to school along the Klosterweg. He did not see me, but I noticed that he went up to a grave, and, taking the little bunch of juniper, he sprinkled the grave with water from the water dish which hung by it, and then passed on. I said to him, * It is thy mother's grave,' and he answered, ' Truly, sir, my mother lies here,' and, without another word, passed on to his daily task. This morning early all the rampart heights WALKS AT ENGELBERG 169 of the valley shone clear above a belt of fleecy cloud ; but by nine o'clock they were hid, and for all intents and purposes Engel- berg was a valley encircled by low alp ranges of grass and pine grove. It was no good going to Herren-Rijti, but we knew that at the further end of the Horbis-thal there would be at any rate a fine waterfall and torrent to hear and see, and, who knows, there might be flowers. Taking it slowly, the walk could not occupy more than an hour and a half in going, and that would give us time for flower-gathering and sketching before the call of the imperious 'Angel' to one o'clock dinner. We went by the Klosterweg through meadows gloriously clothed in flowers, of which the most striking in effect of colour was the deep rose- pink campion that the children call * Motte- ruseli,' though the purple cranesbill was already adding its royal colour, and the dandelions, that the people here call ' Maiblumen,' were broidering the vesture of the fields with gold. Turning sharply to the left after crossing the Diirrbach, beyond the poorhouse and orphanage, we ascended that part of the valley that leads to the 'End of the World,' which is known as Vord-Horbis. It is a disappointing walk at first — the constant overflowing of the I70 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND torrent has filled the vale with debris, which is barely hidden by the scant willow bushes which grow upon it. There is a general look of untidiness about the chalets hard by, the straggling clumps of pine which one passes add to the sense of forlornness, and it is not till one has entered the pastures happy with their meek-eyed fawn-coloured kine lying upon the grass in every conceivable attitude of repose ; it is not till one has passed beyond them to the little white chapel of the dale that one feels that one has really entered the true Horbis-thal. The chapel itself has been lately renewed externally, and is as unin- teresting as white plaster can make it. Inside it is gay with rude pictures that symbolise the safety that can alone be found within the ark of the Church, and quaint rhyming Latin mottoes beneath pictures of the Virgin go far to make one realise that after all for the shep- herds of this valley neither God the Father nor God the Son, but Mary, the Queen of Heaven, is the real Saviour. What else can one make of such words as these, * Sis aurora mortis hora,' — * O, sol ure cordis rure,' — ' Splende luna nobis una' ? The reredos above the altar seemed late i6th or early 17th cen- tury work, much regilded and restored. Over WALKS AT ENGELBERG 171 the entrance to the sanctuary was a model of the famous black virgin at Einsiedeln. A party of tourists, evidently from Lancashire by their accent, entered the chapel while I was there, and one of them called her com- panion's attention to the Einsiedeln Virgin thus, ' Look at that mummy with them two black things coming out of it.' The chapel had no other interest for them. We left the chapel, and passing the new little ' kegelbahn ' shed began a delightful walk through meadows and a fir grove, with the DUrrbach thundering on our left, and gained a slope of grass entirely girt about with pine forest, and here we began to feel we were in the world of flowers. Two kinds of the lesser gentian, ' Himmel Blume ' the children call them, and the finest blue gentians of the larger sort covered the grass. The soldanella was also here, and the white * dryas ' shone like patches of silver. Thence up to another level beyond the pine grove, with here and there great boulders that looked as if giants had been playing at bowls in some primeval time, and that gave one some idea of the forces of that early world before the mountains stood fast and the waters knew their torrent bed. And still above us and around us the great 172 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND cliffs towered into moving cloud-pack, that now parted for a moment to let us see the horn of Harnen, or the grey dome of the Gemsi- spiel, and now closed up and made us feel the towering cliffs more tremendous than they were in reality ; but always the sound of the water of the Barenbach, as the torrent in this further Horbis is called, was in our ears. And suddenly behind the cloud-rack that thinned as it drifted one might see the tor- rent spouting from the cleft, and know from what far heights of snow upon the Rigi-dal- stock the Durrbach was descending to the vale. A little further and another of those gigantic boulders was passed, so overgrown with grass and starred with flowers as made one wish that Ruskin had been this way and given us a transcript of it. But in a moment this land of beauty and life gave place to a world of desolation and death. We had reached the ' End of the World,' but the avalanche had reached it before us, and nothing more piteous or pathetic can be imagined than the wreckage of a pine forest when an avalanche has fallen. Already the busy dale-folk of Horbis-thal had cut and carried away the larger pines ; but all round us lay the flattened remains of the younger pines that the weight of the snows WALKS AT ENGELBERG 173 had pressed to the earth beyond recovery, even though the destroying snow had melted and passed away. What interested me was to note how, as the avalanche came down the ravine, it had snapped the larger pines clean off, two or three feet from the ground, as though they had been sealing wax. And it was curious to observe what an enormous amount of debris this same avalanche had brought with it to the valley bottom, so that as it melted it showed a kind of tesselated pave- ment of grey rock upon the mass of snow that as yet had not passed away. A herdsman and his goats made the dreariness of this place of doom and wreckage less dreary for us, for the pine branches that had been pressed to the ground were fine feeding for his charges. And one of the prettiest things in goat-world I remember having seen in Switzerland was the way in which the leader of his herd, after challenging the leader of a second herd that came tinkling up the valley to share the feast, made friends, and bade his fellows recognise the brotherhood and allow them liberty to feed. The waterfall flashed into whiteness, then, leaping underneath the snow, was hidden and flashed forth again. Downward, gay of heart, to Engelberg its waters went, as if, avalanche 174 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND or no avalanche, they had no care. The goat-herd yodeled and the goats frisked and sprang from rock to rock as careless as the waterflood. There was a sudden rift in the clouds, and the sun shone on Engelberg valley beneath us, and we went back with many angel voices in our ears and many angel flowers in our hands — back from the * End of the World ' that was indeed so much a beginning of the world in all its rocky solitude and show of primal forces — back to the Horbis chalets and our home. CHAPTER XIV. WALKS AT ENGELBERG. AT THE TRUBSEE. We hoped for waters laughing to blue sky, For grass with crocus and with gentian sown ; We found a dismal swamp snow-scorched and brown, And over-arched with leaden canopy — Such clouds as hang where souls in torment lie ; While, scared by avalanche-thunder roaring down, The swifts for silence far away had flown, A raven croaked, the wild fox hurried by. Then o'er that seething cauldron of the cloud High Titlis shone ; the hand that guards the pass Stood forth like silver, and we climbed up higher ; Thence gazing, the disconsolate morass Became a sea of glory, and a crowd Of angels moving on soft waves of fire. The mist lies like wool in the valley, there has been heavy rain in the night, and remembering how water-falls are best seen after rain, one walks across the valley, and taking the shady path of pine and beech 176 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND wood by the side of the Aa, one passes forward with the rushing ripple of the stream in one's ears, wondering at the clearness of a river that must surely come from glaciers, yet marvelling that it should be so clear and yet so grey at the same time. The 'trollius' is in full beauty by its side, and here and there among the alders the honey-scented tufts of lilac silk of one of the larger rues is seen in its beauty. We enter an alder plan- tation ; an avalanche has cast down a white load into the meadow just beyond, which will not pass away till the end of June. We cross a bridge, and passing the modern ' wirth- shaft' of Eienwaldchen, join the new road to Herren-Ruti. We seem to have left the river, but its voice is heard among the alder beds, and as we pass the Stalden chalets and are in thought congratulating the Kurverein on having chosen the woodland to run the road through — for it is quite certain that an English surveyor would either have ordered all the trees on either side to be cut down or else run his road outside the wood — we see far off above the dark pines the milk- white flashing from the cliff of the Tatschbach waterfall that we have come to visit. Onward we press, and by the little road- Hji ^76fl^>u.a jvr WALKS AT ENGELBERG 177 side restaurant turn off the road through a woodland grove, and soon feel the fine dew of the waterfall upon our faces and are de- lighting in its sound. This waterfall does not come from such a height as that it be- comes silent water just before it touches the valley. The best place to see the beauty of the fall is a hundred yards away along the road beyond the restaurant ; from that point one can see with what a glorious spring the waterfall leaps out from the precipice, and if the sun shines out, as it does this moment, the angels of the torrent spread golden wings, and there is such joy in the downward leap- ing of that fairy multitude who have come with their gifts of flower and fruit to the valley that we are glad to be face to face with them and to feel the blessing of their coolness upon one's brow. I walked back homeward by the old path on the north side of the valley, thinking much how public- spirited the Swiss are, in contrast to our English owners of waterfalls. In England one could hardly imagine a restaurant keeper not charging gate money to see such a waterfall as the Tatschbach. In Switzerland, unless there are pathways to be made and kept up at expense, as in the case of the M 178 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND TrQmmelbach, one is as free as air to enjoy sight of these mountain torrents foaming from the heights. In half an hour one was standingr under the porch of the Httle Holz Kapelle — a pretty- child repeating her task to her younger brother as she came along to afternoon school had a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley in her hand. I asked where they came from, and she pointed me to the woods up Herren-Ruti way. So then within a few days of the flowering of the * convallaria-majalis ' in the woods of Arnside in the Lake country the beautiful lily-of-the-valley is filling the air with fragrance in Engelberg woods that lie higher than the top of Skiddaw. I joined other children returning^ from their dinner hour to the schoolhouse near the monastery. The girls in neat aprons, without hats, and their hair tidily braided in one long plait ; the boys, all of them barefoot, but shod with clumsily-made wooden sabots that must require considerable training to keep on their feet, as there is no thong round the ankle, and the heel of the sabot goes flip-flop at every step the youngster takes. What struck one about these children was their courtesy to strangers. Each boy lifted his hat and WALKS AT ENGELBERG 179 wished one good day. One noted also an entire absence of roughness or horseplay one amongst another. It would be a sore tempta- tation to an English boy not to allow a bevy of schoolgirls with such hair plaits to pass them, if they were their schoolmates, un- challenged and unpulled, but the Swiss lad did not dream of any such thing. And again, when they came out of school there was no tearing wildly down the street with shouts and yells such as is common enough with us in England. Yet there seemed no want of animal spirits among the Swiss lads, only it was not good manners to yell like wild Indians. The Engelberg children in this matter of good manners did not appear different from the Swiss children of other elementary schools I have visited ; and though it is quite certain that the Swiss boy and girl seem to develop a real love of industry at an astonishingly early age, I cannot but think that there is something in the absence of class distinction, something in the sense of being in truth landed gentry, estatesmen, as we should call them in Cumberland, that breeds good manners even as it makes them good men and lovers of their country. l8o FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND That the scholars themselves and the scholars' parents believe in education may be seen in the fact that here at Engelberg in the depths of winter from their far-off highland homes the children come most regularly to school. A mother up in Horbis- thal, speaking of these winter schooldays, said, * Yes, the children often come back from school with their skirts and trousers frozen to the waist, but,' she added, ' I thank God they are none the worse for it.' One morning I visited the school, where there are 276 scholars, boys and girls, under the tuition of a male teacher and five sisters during the summer months, with an extra male teacher during the winter months. I spoke of this winter school-going. * Yes, it is true that our attendance in winter is almost as good as in summer, but the Com- mune helps us,' and leading me to a great kitchen fitted up with coppers and boilers, the housekeeper showed me how each day in winter as many pannikins of hot milk and bread as the children care to eat were pro- vided in an adjacent dining hall for all the children who came from ' the Berg,' that is) from the neighbouring Alp. ' At least a hundred,' she said, 'partake of this meal during WALKS AT ENGELBERG i8l winter.' Ah, thought I, there is the secret of the health of the Engelberg scholars who go through snow and storm to their task in winter. To-day is Trinity Sunday, and as the children gather at the Sunday School to go to the preaching at nine and the lesser mass that will be said after, I noticed they were carrying in their hands, jugs, and mugs, and basins, and glass vases, and tumblers filled with salt beautifully ornamented with the petals of wild flowers. They will take them to the church and place them on tables pro- vided near a side chapel by the holy water stoup at the entrance to the sanctuary, and if one watches carefully one will see that during the preaching of the sermon a white- robed priest and servitor with candle will be busy saying a form of prayer above these tables of flower-dressed salt-bowls ; he will end by sprinkling the whole with holy water, the lighted candle will be puffed out, and he will disappear just before the sermon ends and the music begins. All through the service I expect there are little hands and little hearts impatient to claim their own again. I stood by the tables at the end of the service and watched not only the children but aged crones press up and claim the holy 1 82 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND salt and take it homewards. Once outside the church they clustered together and took a pinch from each other's bowls for fellow- ship's sake, and so carried off their savour- giving prize, not without some thought, perhaps, that they, the carriers, were called upon to be the salt of the world, and that if they had lost their savour, they were of little good to the community in which they dwelt. One wished one knew the origin of this ceremony. What pagan custom did the early teachers of the new way dispossess of its power for harm, by adopting it into the Christian Church and using its symbolism for good .'* We gained much at the Reformation. We lost much — much of poetry, much of the refinement in ancient custom, much too of a centralising belief in the parish church as the friend of the people, which it fostered by bringing its ritual right into the people's home. As I walked from the Engelberg Church with the salt carriers, along the Klosterweg, I met a christening party coming from the meadow. In front walked a man with a great white bouquet or favour on his breast, such as a bridegroom might wear. Close by his side a woman with a wreath of flowers in her hair ; WALKS AT ENGELBERG 183 behind him two others gaily dressed, but less adorned ; and last, a nurse carrying apparently a little blue cushion covered with lace, in reality a tiny babe upon its pillow beneath a bright silken coverlet ; solemnly but gladly they walked forward, and the salt-bearers made way for them, and wished them the grace of God. We do not see anything on baptism Sunday in the countryside to suggest, as this little christening party seemed to suggest, that the folk at home an.d the church of the village were sure in their belief that baptism was more than a mere name-giving ; that in very truth it was an entering into a real covenant with the great All- Father. There is too much snow upon the hills this year, though it is now the end of the first week of June, to attempt either the Joch Pass or the Surenen Pass, but if one does not mind a little trudging through soft snow on the zig-zag that leads to the Triibsee, though one certainly will not see the water, for it is still a mass of ice, one at any rate can get near to the dappled Reissend Nollen and the white domed shoulder of Titlis, and enjoy near sight of the quaint Wendenstocke. And at this time of year there is a certain sunny bank near the Triibsee from 1 84 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND which the snow melts first, and on this bank one is certain to find in addition to the crocuses, the white, the pink, and the yellow auricula or ' Fluhblumen,' with their delicious nutty fragrance, and the interesting little anemone multiflora, which, with its rose-pink buds, looks as if some mischievous lads had been plucking appleblossom and cast it to the ground, and takes one back in thought to Devon orchards in the month of May. One is pretty certain also, as one walks up to the Triibsee, to find the Alpine anemone, whose white cup with the lovely outward curving of the lips is made so much more interesting by the blue-grey hue of the painting of the outside petals, and the whole of whose beauty is enhanced by the gold that lies within the tender chalice. The Triibsee itself is, at anyrate in the spring months, disappointing. When the snow melts it leaves a desolate sheet of water in a brown morass, and it is not till July that the brown gives way to green, and one feels that the lake has life and colour about it. Yet of course there is a charm of contrast between the savage upland lake and the smiling valley and the happy Gerschni-Alp below. It is this same charm of contrast that takes us to the lower reaches of the Surenen pass. Let us WALKS AT ENGELBERG 185 go thither. The walk is not a fatiguing one at any time, and now that a carriage road is made to Herren-Ruti we can be spared, if we wish it, the first hour of the journey, and thence go afoot. Soon after passing the Tatschbach the carriage winds through upland pasture towards the huts of Herren-Ruti. The little shrine upon the rock to the left, with the cross above it, tells us that the herdsmen know from whose hand comes the 'grass for the cattle and herb for the service of men.' On the summit of the slope, with the river Aa roaring beneath us, we leave the carriages and begin our walk. Before we enter the grove with its huge moss- covered boulders, all eyes must look upward to that huge fortress-looking rampart wall of gold and lilac-coloured rock, the Steyen-fluh, that seems to guard the left-hand portal of the pass. Thence passing on through the sun-dappled beauty of the woodland, one hears nearer and more near the thunder of the torrent, till at a certain point in the pathway's ascent we feel compelled irresistibly to mount the earthen bank at our side and gaze upon the flashing tumult of waters, whose sound is echoed back to us by the great precipices 2000 feet in height of the Titlis. Across the river beneath Titlis lies l86 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND one of the last possessions of the monastery, the Goldboden pastures, but we soon forget monks and their possessions in wonder at the snow-god's power and his continual possession of the mountain heights by the grey-green Grassen-glacier that hangs above the vale. There is nothing as far as colour goes that so often disappoints the eye that first gazes upon it as a glacier. Guide-books have filled one's imagination with pictures of blue and emerald transparent masses of solid ice hung like jewels upon the white mountain bosom ; the facts are, that except at near view the lower glaciers at any rate are more mud than jewel, and the Grassen-grat glacier is no exception to the rule. We have now gained a height from which we can see in the distance beneath the towering Spannorts, the little grey hut of Nieder Surenen upon its boulder-covered hill. We are close to the river bank, or what would be the river bank in time of flood, and can get a good idea from the grim and desolate shallows, with their straggling garniture of willow and alder, with what a mighty flood after heavy rains or sudden melting of the snows the Engelberg Aa must thunder on its way. Girls meet us with their hands filled with lilies of the valley found WALKS AT ENGELBERG 187 in the woodland on our left. For us the whitest things beside our pathway are the silver under-leaves of the dock that ripple and glitter from white to green beneath the cool west wind. We have reached the fiat little meadow jewelled with gentian at the foot of the rocky- stairway to Nieder Surenen, and in a moment pass from one canton into another, from Unter- walden with its power of the key, to Uri with its power of the bull as graven and painted for us upon an adjacent rock. At Nieder Surenen, though the fare is simple enough, one may rest and be refreshed, but those who wish to see how desolate an Alpine pass can be should pass the little shrine on the wall, drop down to the bridge, and, crossing the river, go forward to the middle of the meadow and gaze out eastward, or, if time permits, should walk on to the higher hut of Staffeli, twenty minutes hence, and thence obtain view not only of the Schlossberg, but of the Blackenstock and the Blackengrat glacier. The traveller who does not care to walk to the Stierenbach fall may content himself with a chat with the people of the Staffeli farm, whose worldly goods con- sisted, when I was last there, of nine goats and five swine and four cows, and who live patient lives of toil, with constant kindliness to the 1 88 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND traveller, through the months that the grass is green and no avalanches threaten to overwhelm them. We shall hear as we talk with them that as yet no travellers have come over the Surenen Pass, that the snow is too deep, and the danger from avalanche too real. And turning back for Engelberg and home we shall feel the fields are fuller of flower and the woods fuller of song, and the frequented ways of men less unlovely, by reason of the savage wilderness and silence from whence we have come. CHAPTER XV. A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY. THE MONASTERY, ENGELBERG. Grey roof, white walls, and jalousies of green, So Conrad's house two centuries has stood, Bold to withstand, as its forerunner could, All tides of change ; and firm to come between Our restless crowds of rovers and the scene Where, in simplicity of peasanthood, The herdsman tends his flock or fells the wood. And poor men live in piety serene. Abbot ! before thy day, Frocinus knew Good work must grow in quiet, he who wrote The parchment, laboured slowly ; though the world In specious clamour at thy gates be hurled. With meditation man thy fort anew And let distraction here find antidote ! I HAD much wished sight again of the cele- brated manuscript in the library of the monastery, which was penned and illustrated by Frocinus, the second abbot, at the begin- ning of the twelfth century. A new abbot 190 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND had come to reign over the monks since my former visit, who, I was told, did not en- courage visitors, so I sent across a card with a polite request, and the 'portier' returned with a long face. It was impossible. But nothing venture, nothing have, so I sat down and indited a note to the abbot. His Most High Leodegar Scherer, asking for a like honour as had been done by his predecessor, Abbot Anselm, and apologising for having brought no letter of introduction, as I might have done, from my Diocesan. The 'portier' came smiling back, saying a message would be sent in answer, in the afternoon. Table d'hote was barely finished when the son of the 'maitresse' of the hotel whispered to me that a 'father' was waiting at the great gate, and that if I desired sight of the monastery I must go at once. Obeying the summons I passed through the courtyard into the monastery door, and found the lattice gate open on the stairs, and at the top of the stairs a kindly-faced, grey-haired, blue- eyed 'father,' who spoke a little English, and who very courteously begged me to say what I wished to see. 'All,' I replied, and smiling he led me along the corridor with its picture of Christ driving the money-changers from A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY 191 the Temple at one end of it, and on to a higher gallery which gave me sight of various cells, with the names of their occupants written above them. Here dwelt Father Chrysostom, here Father Ignatius or Jeronzium, here Father Ambrose. One door was open. The cell was being painted and cleaned up for a new occupant. It was a pleasure to think that the Brothers of S. Benedict were so well and spaciously lodged. A large terra- cotta stove lit from the passage served to warm the two adjacent cells. Electric light was everywhere. As I gazed through the window of that vacant cell I felt I could have been content with my quarters. There was nothing between me and the white dome of Titlis. On the one side of my door silence, or now again the sound of chanting and praise in the Kloster Church, and on the other through the summer afternoon sweet jangling of the bells of comfortable kine. At that moment I heard other sounds — the sound of an orchestra. They are practising for the musical performance which will be given in that hall on the afternoon of next Tuesday, the abbot's name-day. ' May I go and listen ? ' ' Ah, that is more than I can give permission for ; you must go without kte! 192 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND my leave,' said the kindly father. They are the students. I went, and the black-gowned men of the fiddle, and double bass, and oboe, and flute, and horn were much too intent upon their scores to care that an impertinent foreigner was present. Soon rejoining the father I asked of the numbers of the fathers, and how my old friend of former years Father Bernard fared. ' We are about thirty in all — nine are working as priests outside the monastery, eleven are here as confessors, then we have about ten working as lay brothers, and there are a few novices. As for Father Bernard, after an illness of three months he has passed to rest, and his body is lying in the crypt beneath the church.' 'And what of yourself?' *I am,' said he, 'a Swiss of the family Horat. I was here as a young man, and have lately returned hither. My name in the monastery is Father Bede.' He seemed pleased to know that almost the last thing I was busy upon before leaving England was to promote the design and erection of a magnificent Anglian cross to the memory of Bede the Venerable, near Bede's first monastic home, Wearmouth, and he talked eagerly of Benedict Biscop, and of the great work Bede had done for Europe. A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY 193 ' And what of the school,' I said, * is that flourishing- ? ' 'So flourishing that there is about to be built on the land adjoining a build- ing which will accommodate as many more ; the school will be fitted up with electrical and chemical appliances, and all that is needed in a course of physics. Many of the students become doctors and engineers, some lawyers, and a few,' he smiled sadly as he spoke, *a very few, priests.' 'Where do they come from ? ' ' From Switzerland, for the most part. There are a few Germans, and one American.* ' But about their music, for surely it is from the scholars that some of the orchestra who play in the church are drawn ? ' ' Ah, yes, they are nearly all musical ; all, or nearly all, learn some instrument, and here we have a very clever and talented musician, Father Ambrose. He it is whom you heard play the organ last Sunday and Monday.' ' But where is the library.'*' I said. 'It is there at the end of the church, above the sacristy,' and he pointed across a large garden court, scrupulously well cared for in its planting, which lay inside the quadrangle formed by the church building on the one side and the three sides of the monastery buildings we were passing through on the other. 194 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND ' That is the garden where the novices and the elder students walk.' 'And your garden ? ' I said. ' Oh, that is on the other side ; we shall see it from the library window.' Passing along we now gained a kind of library anteroom, and thence entered a well- lit and spacious library, with a gallery running round it ; its walls decorated in the same kind of bride's-cake ornament I had noticed in the church. A late seventeenth century triptych from some adjacent rural chapel, gave a bit of colour to its west end, and over the door we entered hung a photograph of the kindly massive face of the late Abbot Anselm. We had some talk of the manner of the election of the abbot. 'The abbot is elected here at Engelberg by the chapter of the fathers and priests assembled,' said my guide and friend, 'and we are bound to consider not only who is the godliest and wisest, but who also is most intellectually gifted, and most able to be our leader and director.' * And what happens in case of even votes ? ' ' The matter is gone into again. Seven scrutineers are appointed. Our last election took from six in the morning till two in the afternoon.' ' But if at the end votes were A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY 195 cast even ? ' * Then it would be referred to Rome, and the Pope and his advisers would decide.' ' Have you any writers or handi- craftsmen or artists other than musicians in the monastery ? ' I asked. ' Yes, the tall man who passed us on the stairs is an artist and a portrait painter. And see,' said my guide, ' there is our own garden where the fathers walk, and that is Father Ambrose, the organist, walking in the garden.' A man with a refined face was pacing the little grass paths between the flower beds, now intently reading, now lost in thought. ' So this, then, is your garden ? ' * Yes, none but the fathers enter it. But that new build- ing with red tiles in the midst of it. Ah, that is the fathers' playhouse ; we can do what we like for recreation there. Some fathers feel that smoking is good for their digestion, and some are fond of a game of cards. We had a billiard table, but it was broken, and there was none to mend it,' and he spoke a little sadly, as if he wished one of the good angels of the Mount would send down another billiard table to bless the brotherhood withal. It was cheering, because it was so human, to hear of tobacco and cards in a monastery garden. One could not help being struck 196 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND by the commonsense that allowed some lightening of a life otherwise hard by separa- tion from earthly pleasures as men count them. But it was in quite another garden that I wished to be, for I dimly remembered that one of the pictures Frocinus had drawn was a picture of the bringing by the Almighty of Eve to Adam, and that another picture was a picture of the Temptation. Father Bede led me to a glass case, removed the cover, and pointed me to the manuscript. It was large folio size. On one side, in picturesquely-designed Roman type and in red colour, ran the title 'The Epistles of S. Jerome to Paulinus about Divine History.' On the opposite side were the pen and ink drawings I had wished to see. First, on the left hand at the top of the page, is a little vignette of the Almighty bringing with large but kindly hand an astonished and rather unkempt-looking Eve to an equally astonished and rather fierce-looking Adam. There is in the Almighty's face a suggested look of ' Now I have done what I can for you by way of a companion, and you must make the best of it.' Then in a little vignette on the right hand A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY 197 top side of the page is a drawing of the Temptation. The Serpent with barbed tail has fairly- taken possession of the tree. One wonders how it manages to bear his weight. He is looking at Eve, and holds an apple in his mouth. She is eating an apple, and Adam on the opposite side of the tree is also busy- munching one. Eve apparently sees that the Serpent has another for her, and with her disengaged left hand proffers a second apple to the apparently willing Adam. But the interest of the page lies in the picture below of Frocinus in abbot's dress, with crozier and mitre, on his knees proffering the manuscript he has executed and bound to the Blessed Virgin, who, tall and stately, and dressed with elaborate care, holds the child Jesus in her arms. On her head is a crown of somewhat mitre shape. Her face is sad, wistful, and wide-eyed. She still has upon her pale cheeks the two little round dots of colour which Frocinus set there with his brush more than eight hundred years ago. In the same crystal case was a single leaf in manuscript of very early date, said to be of the eighth century, of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. The rest of the book had been 198 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND burnt. Not surprising this, seeing that the Home which the Benedictines from the Black Forest, who migrated to the valley of the Angel 'Mount, reared, has been burnt to the ground at least three times since 1 1 20. On the opposite side of the case were illuminated missals, one probably of the best time of the Engelberg ' Scriptorium,' in all its fadeless glory of gold and colour. Father Bede took reverently down from one of the shelves a copy of his great namesake's work, and with more eulogy of the famous North- umbrian scholar and divine he led me back from the library, showing me as we went the elaborate precautions against fire that were now taken, not only in the library, but through- out the monastery. Back through the silent corridor, silent ever, except for the voice of the old-fashioned grand- father's clock, we went, to the refectory, a long low room, very severely furnished. A glance at the food upon one of the tables which had been spread for tea, showed that the furnishing of the meals both in substance and in crockery were again of the simplest. Round the walls hung fancy portraits of the abbots, Abbot Frocinus and Abbot Berch- told hanging on either side the doorway. A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY 199 Jolly-faced, round-bodied, bullet-headed men they seemed to be. Monastery life had agreed with them. So with courtesy and much pressing that I should without fail be present at the musical service on the following Tuesday, June 9, the abbot's name day, the worthy father led me back to the stairway, shook hands, and bowing me out, closed the lattice door and went back, for the bells were calling him to Vespers. And with much thanks in heart for the work Frocinus, the lover of the Scriptorium, and his followers had done to keep alive the study of the Scriptures, science, and theology, in a day when the printing press was not, with gratitude for what it is doing still for science and music, I left the monastery with its grey roof, its white walls, and its green jalousies, and passing beneath the gallery with the abbot's arms in stone upon the arch, joined the jingling herd of monastery cattle that were going down the street towards their afternoon pasturage. I felt that the visit had given one a kind of living sympathy with that monastic order of S. Benedict, which from the tenth century to the twentieth has not left men without witness in this valley that ' to labour was to pray.' CHAPTER XVI. IN PARADISE. OFF TO THE ARNI-ALP. With tender care they tempered every pack To strength and years — a boy the wood bowls bore, The sieves and strainers — this for daily store Carried the cheeses — on a brawnier back The giant caldron shone, and from a sack The silver meal- dust falling powdered o'er His brother's shoulders. Cow-bells chimed before, As staff in hand they took the upland track. They did not turn to take a last farewell, For other Edens brightened in their eyes. The clouds from off the mountain heights were curled, The torrents roared, the thundering avalanche fell. And to the music of an ancient world They went forth glad to Ami's Paradise. We had had two days of blinding mist ; the ramparts that surround the valley were blotted out ; we were no longer in wonderland, but in a common-place chalet-dotted little plain with low green hills and beech and pine groves on either hand of us. IN PARADISE 20 I But the guide had started with his employer for the Titlis, and the barometer was slowly- going up, and we had every expectation that to-morrow the dawn would break fair, and that we should again feel we were in the home of the gods. About half-past eight in the evening someone said ' the Titlis is clear, and there is a splendid after-glow upon it!' We walked out beyond the monastery, and found that though vapour still filled the valley it gave a weird and beautiful effect to the arc-light-illuminated village; a bright planet shone in a clear sky above the Niinalphorn in the west, and east- ward from Reissend Nollen to the Spannorts the white shoulders of the hills gleamed in fire and ivory ; we knew, then, that to-morrow morning we should wake to find the sun on the hills and the blue sky in heaven. And where should we go to but to Paradise, the proper place for angels ? So crossing the valley and the grey glittering torrent of the Aa we turned sharp into the white path that runs by its side to the west to Espen — with the alders on our right hand and meadows filled with gold dandelion light on our left — on towards the stone bridge that leads from the main road to the Arni-Alp, beyond the great wound in the meadows that the 202 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND engineers are making, who here intend to have a huge reservoir to help them in supply- ing Lucerne with electricity. One wonders why the Commune of Engel- berg admitted the invasion of the Lucerne engineers, until one realises that nearly all the supply of electricity in Engelberg is at present in the hands of private persons, and that the Cattani family could not in the winter time, from their three reservoirs above the Kuranstaldt, supply the town as well as them- selves with electric light. Again, owing to insufficiency of supply, the electrical railway company was in doubt if it could continue to run in mid-winter. What then was to be done ? The Commune was not wealthy enough to go in for great electrical supply works, but Lucerne was willing to spend three millions and a half of francs upon the necessary plant. Thus the owners of the concession from the Canton for the use of the Erlenbach water to develop electricity, were enabled, with the Commune's consent, to make such terms with Lucerne as that the town should obtain in perpetuity at a very cheap rate 350 horse- power, and the electric railway company 250 horse-power, on easy terms from the 11 00 IN PARADISE 203 horse-power which Lucerne will be able to obtain from the Erlenbach spring. This spring lies in the meadow adjacent to the monastery, is unfailing, clear as crystal, and, in volume almost of a little river, its water passes through the meadows on the south side of the town. It will be impounded at the reservoir ; it will go thence to a water tower at Schwand, and having filled that tower to the reservoir's level it will dash down through pipes to the electric station and the turbines in the vale below Griinenwald. How the old monks who came at the beginning of the twelfth century and decided to build their monastery where they did build it, because of that Erlenbach spring, would rub their eyes to think of its gentle waters being turned into II 00 horse-power of electric energy to drive the mills or light the streets of a town thirty miles away. Thence turning into the meadows on our left, we passed up an easy path to the chdlets of Oertigen, and there sat to enjoy the view either way of Hahnen and the Gemsispiel above the great white monastery and its grey-hooded tower, thankful that the village in its hideous newness is blotted out, and on the other hand looking down the wooded gorge towards 204 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Griinenwald and the blue hills beyond. The joy of that resting place, for me at any rate, was the marvellous beauty of the flower-full pastures. Such rose-red campions, such purple cranesbill, such golden hawkweed, such feathery parsley flower, such softening of the whole mass by the white globes of the dandelion seed, while there in the midst of the flowers two of the loveliest peasant children laughed and played, bare-legged, bare-armed, bare-headed, as full of sunshine as the meadow itself, the very angels of the meadow slope, the spirits and embodiment of happy spring. Thence, with fine featured young herdsmen, who were on their way with provisions for their milking chalet on the Arni-Alp, and who carried with ease such burdens as I could scarcely have lifted, we entered, by a well- made path, a picturesque grove of beech trees, through which, as yet unseen, but heard, the Triibsee torrent was thundering on its way. Presently a flash of light, and we found ourselves close to its white continuous waterfall. Crossing it we passed still through woodland with the Nunalphorn gleaming above us, till after nearly half an hour's ascent through sweet scented pine and glittering sycamore another torrent thundered, and we knew that one of IN PARADISE 205 the two Arni streams was coming full charged with music to swell the Aa river in the vale. Still upward, and the second Arni stream was crossed, and here we overtook a herdsman taking his swine to the upland pasture to fatten on the remains of the milk that is left each day from the cheese-making process on the Alp. He was in difficulties. A small newly-made bridge of larch had been laid across a feeder stream, and piggy absolutely refused to cross it. He could have dealt with one, but there were sixteen of them. He must needs wait for help. A good-natured herdsman joined him, and then began in earnest the transport of piggy. Laid on their backs, some were ignominiously dragged across, but the favourite plan appeared to be to lift the grunter bodily by tail and ear, and to judge by the noise, though it was effectual to the transpontine conveyance of pork, it was the least satisfactory method as far as piggy's sensitive nerves went. Still upward by a long zig-zag, till at the height of 1884 metres we found ourselves on the shining tableland of Arni, close to what in summer time must be a very welcome little Gasthaus, with 'all the world before us, where to choose' to rest and be thankful for that 206 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND great circling panorama of mountain heights and the flowery slopes that fell towards the pine forests in the vale. The Alp of Arni, unlike adjacent alps, is treeless. One's eyes go uninterruptedly with the pasture to the snowline, and that pasture to-day is filled with buttercups and marsh- marigold, so that as one passes through it one becomes shod with powdery gold. The other flowers that jewel the ground are the vernal gentian and the white windflower. Some kindly soul has placed a seat with a little iron flag beside it to tell us, I suppose, that that is the best place for a view of Engelberg ; his judgment is right, and we thank him gratefully. But there is another sign in the pasture set by the shepherds themselves between us and the Hanghorn precipices — it is the Sign of the Cross. These simple herdsmen feel that by its very presence a blessing is on their upland fields. But we would go farther, to the Schwandli- Alp north-westward, and crossing a third Arni torrent pass up by a milking chalet, where an old man with one eye is just packing up yesterday's cheese to be sent down to Engel- berg. He is a communicative, kindly old fellow, and shows me the milk of this morning cooling IN PARADISE 207 in tin panshons, in the great hollow trough of a pine tree filled with running water, that is to make the butter for one of the Engel- berg hotels. But this huge copper cauldron, beautiful in its shape as it is shining in its cleanliness, 140 litres in content, will be filled this evening twice over, with milk from the udders of his 36 kine, to go to the cheesemaking on the morrow. So up through banks of forget-me-not, that seem to shine like a blue ribbon upon the hillside, we pass to a higher milking chalet on the Schwandli-Alp. Here twice a day 56 cows are milked, and that no small labour is implied by this may be known from the fact that it will take the herdsman three hours to get through milking time. Upwards still to the Sign of the Cross set on the highest point of the pasture, and there delightful resting in the sunshine, gazing out south-west down the Griinenwald valley to the far off Buochserhorn, and the little red Grunen- wald inn like a toyhouse in the far green depth at our feet ; while if we look the other way and gaze out towards the Spannorts all the Engelberg valley and the grey- white Aa river, and the milk-white roads are laid like a map at our feet. But the beauty of this alp must ever be in those grey precipices of 208 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND the Niinalphorn, rising above us to the west, and the grace of the mossy sycamores and giant firs that stand apart on the lower terrace of the alp to the east, and give one all the feeling of English park scenery. It was time to return now, for it was one o'clock, to the seat of the Arni-Alp, and thence after luncheon to discover the way home. We discard the path by which we came, for the excellent little map that is published by Robert Hess of Engelberg shows us that we can pass on to the Stocken- Alp, thence across to Jungholz, and so down to Hegmatt and the chalets of Schlossli, then across the river, and on to the village. He who has not taken this walk is a wanderer outside of paradise ; it is to this paradise we would bid him enter. For as one makes one's way to the tiny deserted chdlet amongst the boulders and the globe-flowers on the Arni slope above us, one is able to see the extraordinary crag building and pinnacle build- ing that has gone to the making of the lower precipices of the Hutstock and Hanghorn. The snow lies heavy in the Jochli Pass, and the snow whitens the cliffs of the rampart wall head, but it has long since faded from these sheer-builded horns and grey shining IN PARADISE 209 citadels that look down in their naked grandeur upon us. We pick our way across the torrent at the ford, as best we may, and follow a fairly defined track into the paradise we shall never forget, for here with exquisite undulation of meadowy alp were grouped firs in every con- ceivable form of beauty. Fir trees they were, vocal with the song of the ring ousel ; — fir trees whose rosy tufts shone like rubies of a thousand facets, — fir trees which were set a- smoke by the least touch of the south wind that blew, and became, with their prodigal gift of pollen-dust, censer-bearers that called our hearts to prayer ; whilst always with varied depths of blue the Engelberg mountain peaks rose up to a shining cloudland above them, and here and there their dark groups made the snow on Titlis and the Grassengrat shine the whiter for their gloom. Always, too, as one sat and watched the wreathing of the clouds upon the nearer precipices of the Schwartzhorn, or the far-off dappled head of the Graustock, one saw the shadows of their vast wings moving now above the forest grove, and now above the golden pastures that were seen through and beyond them. Life and movement was thus given to these quiet up- lands, and this life and movement changed to 2IO FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND music of manly labour and of creature comfort as one heard the goatboy yodel to his fellow, and the axe clang in the woodland, and the sound of the cattle-bells come cheerily through the quiet air. Yet one of the beauties of this part of the walk one had almost forgotten to speak of — the beauty of fallen boulder, robbed of its fierceness by moss and lichen, clad for its nakedness with tufts of many-coloured Alpine flowers. These boulders gave character to the whole way as we passed down towards the huts of Stocken, and thence learned our best route to cross the Arnitobel and reach the Jungholz chalets on the Unter-Triibsee Alp. And here we would advise walkers not to trust too implicitly to the footpath map, for it shows a clearly defined path from Stocken to the Arni gorge which does not exist. It is best to take for guide the new wire and wood fence that runs down east- wards from Stocken towards the Arni stream, then, having gained the level, to turn to the left by a slightly indicated track till one reaches the stream at a place where one can cross it by stepping stones and a broken bridge. Thence the path is well defined enough, we pass over the Jungholz pastures IN PARADISE 211 below the huts, we cross another branch of the Triibsee stream, and so mounting a little upward find ourselves on the edge of the Hegmatt slope, where, sitting on a solid bench made from a roughly-hewn tree trunk, we may gaze our last at the glorious precipice of the Bitzistock, striated, as it would appear, by single pines on impassable ledges, and contrast its darkness, for it is now in shadow, with the white dome of Titlis to the left of it. If we turn a moment to the west and the south, we may delight our eyes with the glory that is showered by the sun which stands above a lucent cloud-veil high over the Hanghorn, and may make out, away south- ward, the crest of Stanserhorn above the blue hills of Stans. Now taking a step forward on the downward path through the gate, we find ourselves once more face to face with the Engelberg plain, its white roads, its grey river, its red hotels, its toy houses, and its solemn white-faced monastery. We must needs regret, as we gaze, that our rest is there in the valley and not on these heights, and that we are doomed to go from the paradise of flower-land and boulder-land and quiet pine- tree grove, back to the haunts of busy men and the crowded commonplace world of hotels. 212 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND We had begun to think that we had been in Paradise and felt the wings growing at our shoulders, but a few steps down that steep * intak,' as we should call it in our North Country, with nothing before us in the valley plain but sight of how men could destroy it by their presence, soon brought us back to reality. The feathers dropped off, and when one remembered that one was an accomplice in all this change for the worse in the face of nature, and that these hotels would never have existed except for such vagrants as oneself, we felt as sick and sorry as any moulting angel might be supposed to feel. I commend that path to the tender kind- ness of the Engelberg Kurverein ; it is now little better than a torrent bed, and so steep and rough that it is really only fit for goats to clamber up and down. A fortnight's labour of clever Swiss path-makers would turn this path from the Unter-TrUbsee Alp to Hegmatt into a practicable way for human beings. Luckily for us, half-way down, we found a footpath striking off towards the Schlossli chalets, and we passed through pleasant un- dulating pastures that serve by their grassy banks and tree fringes to shut out the valley IN PARADISE 213 of Engelberg, and leave us only the Hahnen and the hills beyond. Then swiftly by a zig-zag in the grass we dropped down to a bridge, and, not before we had been taken back in thought to the Cumberland fells by finding stag's-horn moss in tufted streamers upon the ground, and back to the sand dunes of that northern coast by seeing the dwarf roses in bud blossoming over the sunny meadow bank, with hands full of sweet-scented meadow rue and white ' spirea ' to our heart's content, we crossed the Aa. So through more meadows flowerless, for the scythe had been busy, towards the station and its uncompromising Terminus Hotel that seems to say, ' All the view that I can blot out, I will.' Thence to the white-fronted street of a Paris suburb, and home to the lilac bowers and the whispering fountain of the kindly Angel Inn. CHAPTER XVII. LUCERNE. FIRST MORNING AT LUCERNE. Once more with schoolboy's heart of joy I hear The river Reuss go rustling in its play, Before the city wakes to steal away Its morning song so jubilant, so dear : I, who have hither come for many a year, Loosed from life's toil and sworn to holiday. To change for sunny blue our skies of grey. And feel yon lake's inevitable cheer. The city wakes ; the Jesuit church's knell Clangs, and the drum goes rat-tat down the street, A thousand voices drown the river's tone ; But bringing back their discords into one. As if God's grace for all it would entreat, Booms forth with solemn sound St. Ledger's bell. It was the abbot's name day on the following morning, and I had an invitation through Father Bede to be present at what was called a ' pro- duction ' and an orchestral concert in the monastery hall in honour of the abbot, that was to take place in the afternoon. But the LUCERNE 215 clouds had come down, and a bitter wind had begun to blow, and we incontinently took our flight from the Mount of Angels to Lucerne. The last look at friends in de- parting, and the last long farewell often stays in one's memory, and I shall never forget the beauty of the Arni-bach as I saw it foam down its long stairway among the listening woods on the way to Griinenwald. We passed the quaint little double cupolaed church of Grafenort, past Wolfenschiessen and its frescoed porch, with the hut of the hermit hard by, and its memory of the bailiff Baumgarten, killed as told us of in Schiller's poem, and so by the mighty cliff cloud-capped of Dallenwyl. Once more the lower flanks of the Buochserhorn and the Stanserhorn rose out of the orchards of the plain, and passing Winkelried's old chalet farm upon our left, we swept on by Stans through meadows still untouched by the scythe and flowery fair, to the tower of Stansstad and the poplars and the reed beds that the warblers love. No sun was shining, but the air was filled with the perfume of the lilacs, and board- ing our boat we went along through the clear green water made greener by the shadow of the Burgenstock woods. We paused for a moment at the picturesque 2i6 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND little Kehrsiten-dorf, its brown-roofed chalets, its poplar cluster, and its little white chapel by the shore. Then having given our quota of passengers to be swung at the hook's end, and dragged up the cliff side to their rest at the great hotel that gleamed above us, our boat headed for Kastanienbaum, with its walnut trees and its magnificent orchards of pears. And many a time in that short passage did we say within ourselves, he who would see the Biirgenstock at its finest must view it from the steamer deck between Kehrsiten and Chestnut-tree Harbour. We call next at the landing-place that is blessed by the shrine of the patron saint of all boatmen, S. Nicholas, and leaving its rich brown chalet and its line of coral flowering horse-chestnuts, we round the point that gives us a view of Lucerne. Forward past the white pension Stutz and the factory chimney that some gentleman has built for his outlook tower, we go, wondering at the extraordinary insensi- bility that could mar a whole landscape by such an erection. As we approached it one could not help feeling that he who sees modern Lucerne first from the waterway, can have but little idea of the beauties that old Lucerne have in store for him. LUCERNE 217 All round the curving bay runs one vast wall of masonry that looks more as if a gigantic fort with innumerable casemates for guns, or vast military barracks, had been set there for defence against the foe, rather than as a welcome for friends. Coming nearer one realises that this vast wall of fortification is really but pile on pile of palatial hotels. What seems a green ribbon in front of them proves to be a line of chestnut trees that give shelter to the promenade. But always one's eyes are caught away upward to the three great linden trees, to the two delicate spires of the brown-roofed cathedral, and the nine towers upon the rampart wall seen clear against the sky, or dark against the grey hills beyond ; while higher and more high, with exquisite broken outline, slope up green fields and purple woods into the curling mists and floating cloud, from whose heights shine out on one side like white marble the Giitsch and the Sonnenberg above it, and on the other side the rose-red convent building of the Sisters of Saint Anne. As one's steamer comes to the quay side, the quaint-towered temporary building of the Museum of Peace and War, though it is but lath and plaster, gives one something of the feeling of the mediaeval town one has come 2l8 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND to see, and one is impressed by the dome and the fine proportions of the portico and facade of the new Bahnhof close by. But the ancientry of the place, if it did not fade away before the near presence of that great hall for the god of steam, would certainly be dissipated by the vast army of omnibuses that await the traveller, and it is not till one is crossing the Kapellbriicke and making one's way along the further quay side by the Rath- haus and the vaulted market place, that one begins to realise that Lucerne has had a history, and the men who built their wooden bridges in the fourteenth century, or rebuilt their houses in the sixteenth, have much to tell us and much to interest us as we stroll through their picturesque streets and by-ways. He is a fortunate man who, waking in the early morning at the Balance Hotel, listens before the city begins to awake, to the voice of the river Reuss beneath his window, for in the quiet dawn he can hear in the rustling water sound of magic organ music, sound of in- numerable bells, and feel something of the triumph and vigour of the stream as it goes upon its jubilant way. Mark Twain said that it went * hurrahing out of the town,' and Mark Twain was a keen observer. Then, as the LUCERNE 219 listener lies awake, called from his slumbers by the bell of the Jesuit Church opposite, he will hear the rattle of a drum and the sound of soldiers marching from the barracks beyond the Spreuerbriicke. Waggons will roll by drawn by white oxen, the milk-sellers' carts with the big dogs tugging at the wheel will rattle through the streets, and presently, with a voice almost of doom, he will hear the booming of the great cathedral bell. And happy he will be also as he sits at breakfast in the balcony above the clear green water with flowers at his feet and birds so tame that they hop upon his table. Rising from his sunny meal he will lean and look out towards Pilatus with a cap upon his head — a token of good weather, or beyond the Wasserthurm will watch the cloud wreath melt away from the Kulm of the Rigi, and if he gaze down into the water he will watch the shoals of fish moving, with the shadows that they make, in depths of liquid chrysoprase. But happiest will he be if that first morning in Lucerne be Tuesday or Saturday, for then the market boats will push up through the early dawn to the quay close beside him, and he will walk out from his hotel right into as picturesque a confusion of buyers and 220 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND sellers, and fruits and flowers, as he may- well hope to see in any town in Switzerland. Never for artist's eyes could a place so fitting have been found ; for here, close by the water- side, shadowed in part by young chestnut trees, and more entirely kept in cool shade by the vaultings of the Rathhaus and the arcading of the buildings that adjoin it, he will find in four or five well-ordered lanes of produce-sellers all the fruits and vegetables fresh or sun-dried that Switzerland can boast. The colour that is given to these green masses of garden produce will chiefly be found in the carrot bunches and orange heaps, but the white eggs gleam next the brown prunes, and the cheeses and curds and vast cubes of butter shine out against the cherries, and always and everywhere the good wives have brought in addition to the soberer fruits of the soil great bunches of wild flowers, roses, peonies, syringa, pinks; if we be here in early June, the Alpine rose, lady's-slipper, and campanula. There is no shouting or noise in the market. Everybody seems to be too intent on business to do more than pass the day — a kinder set of sales-people never existed. Here is one taking her little tureen of soup for her break- LUCERNE 221 fast, and a neighbour volunteers to do the selling while she takes her breakfast in peace. Here is a customer who wants his cheese of a particular flavour, or age ; the salesman goes across to a neighbour's stall and comes back with the article wanted. ' Everybody here helps everybody else, That so good fellowship may abound ! ' That is the kind of motto one sees written on the old grey arches above them. Not the least picturesque part of the market is the way in which fruit and flower-sellers crowd the Rathhaus steps or line the Rath- haus bridge, whilst as one gazes one sees the gaily-painted boats push off, making the green water doubly green as they move upon it, filled with the purchases for this or that great hotel upon the quayside — vast baskets of cherries or strawberries for the guests' mid- day and evening meal. Then by noon all is silent, the sweepers alone are busy, and the great barges, filled now with empty casks and barrels and crates, pass slowly from the margin of the market place, and heave their way beneath the bridges toward the lake. One has often been asked, where must a man go to obtain first impressions of Lucerne ? There can only be one answer to this question : 222 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND one must pass from the Corn Market, through the Wine Market, down to the Muhlen-Platz, walk through the Spreuerbriicke, remembering as he goes that it is not so old as the Kapell- briicke by nearly a century, yet has seen more than 450 years. Let him remember also that the pictures that Caspar Meglinger painted to bid the townsmen bethink them that death must one day call for them all, have looked down through the gloom on passers-by since the sixteenth century. Returning thence, let him go up the Musegg rampart wall by the Briiggli- gasse above the river, looking at the great brown barn-like building of the Zeughaus, once a convent, now used as a military store for ordnance and equipment. Thence, regret- ting the presence of a brand-new private house that is a note of discord in the harmony of its surroundings, let him pass through the city wall and go along the whole length of it, outside, by the Hinter-musegg Strasse, and carefully note the artistic way in which the tower builders of old determined to vary the form of each tower that they built. Those of us who knew Lucerne twenty years ago must much regret the way in which new buildings are dotting all the northern LUCERNE 223 slopes and hill ridges adjacent, on that side to the town ; but still if the traveller come in the first fortnight of May the beauty of the flowery meadows and blossoming pears, and cherries white against the city wall, will go far to make him forget the changes that have taken place. And still, as of old, Pilatus lifts its pinnacles, gloriously blue and grey, or flecked with snow, between the towers, and the blackbirds sing and the swifts scream high in air, and the people pray at the shrine, and light their votive candles and pass on. Still a few paces beyond the shrine, before we descend the hill, the green-blue lake lies in the sunshine against the grey cupola of the Church of Maria-hilf, and far distant peaks, in their silver and purple apparel, rise up to the south to touch the heart and cheer the soul. The pleasure of the walk on a peaceful May morning seems enhanced by the presence of those signs of early turbulent times when war at any time might flame against the walls, and men needed all their arrows within the quiver to speak with their enemy in the gates. Going forward down the Musegg Strasse let him ask his way to the Lion ; there rest- ing, let him feel the felicity of the choice 224 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND both of subject and of treatment for a national memorial to Swiss faithfulness and valour. There is about that Lion such expression of agony and yet of determination no death can quench and in pain is still constant to its trust, that as one gazes upon the paw with the claws still unrelaxed by death, and the jaws as yet not dropping in the death agony, and the tail as yet still uncurled, one almost feels that when the bitterness of that broken lance wound is past, it will rise from its swoon and assert its lion power to guard the lily shield that lies in the dust, but lies within his hold. Sometimes a fountain springs into middle air and falls a rainbow banner of lucent mist, type of perpetual hope that the brave shall not be forgotten, and their spirit shall live to serve the Fatherland. I always think no trees grow so green or tenderly, no water so reverently reflects that touching memorial scene, no birds sing so sweetly as here, where every Swiss may come each year to drink afresh of the fountain of heroic memory. Visitors often pass by, without notice, the little memorial chapel hard by, but if only for the sake of the eight Latin lines upon the altar front, it is worth a visit. Beneath the date of that memorable LUCERNE 225 loth August, when the Swiss Guards fell, run the lines which commence with 'Juratae fidei decus est perstare tenacem, Perstantem decus est in statione mori.' Thence let him ask his way to the Capuchin Monastery by the Wesemlin Strasse, and after visiting the Capuchin Church, with its gallery and quaint carven figures upon it, and its little ossuary by the door, with its terrible suggestions, by means of a painted glass window, of the dread Resurrection day — let him seek the Drei Linden, and from thence feel the grandeur of the panorama of mountains and lake and purple-roofed ancient town beneath him. It is from this point of view that he will feel how much the beauty of Lucerne is owing to that amphitheatre of lower Alp of rich meadows and dense wood that lie between the lake and the nobler mountain ranges. The Hochwald and Sonnenberg on the one side, and the Dietschenberg on the other, filled as they are with evidence of human life and activity, are a fair foil for those tremendous hills of splendour and silence above them. Time does not stand still on the Drei Linden Hill ; already villas and new carriage 226 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND ways are clotting and streaking that one-time slope of untouched orchard meadow. We can no longer sit beneath the shadow of the Three Linden as of old. Some wealthy pro- prietor has reared the red towers of his villa between them, and fenced them from public access ; but if the honeydew from the limes falls not upon our faces, and the scent of the lime flower and the murmur of the bees may hardly reach us, at least here, as we sit upon the public terrace in middle June, the sweet acacia fragrance fills the air, and from below comes up the murmur of the busy town to give the place of our outlook, by contrast of sound, restfulness and peace. Let him come from thence back by the Drei Linden Strasse to the Cathedral, thence, after passing within to look at the iron work of the baptistery, and studying the curious stone picture of the betrayal of Christ upon the wall beside the main doorway, let him come down the double flight of steps to the Schweizerhof Quay, and so under the chestnut avenue to the Schwanen-Platz and the ancient Kapellbriicke. In this way, in a single walk, he will have got a fair idea of the general sight of Lucerne. Other walks to points of vantage should LUCERNE 227 not be omitted. No one should leave Lucerne without walking out beyond the Hotel de r Europe, and asking his way to the new convent of the Sisters of S. Anne. He will pass up a shady road by the side of a tree- grown ravine, and emerge upon a magnificent orchard slope, from which no better view can be got of the town lying about its curve of emerald water with all Pilatus filling the western distance, and the Lake of the four cantons stretching right up beyond the Biirgenstock to Brunnen and the Mythen. After having seen the town and lake from this eastern side, let him wait for a fine evening, and make a point of going up to the Giitsch ; thence he will see, as in a map, laid out below, the purple town and towers with the Reuss running beneath the bridges, a stream of green and silver, and far off, if he gaze in a northern direction, he may see the rise of the Jura Hills and the grey-blue skirts of the Black Forest. There is something very solemn about a walk in the pine woods of the Giitsch ; few birds sing, and the tall- grown pines give one the feeling one is passing up the aisles of a great cathedral. In the old days a very beautiful walk took one down through this sombre forest of pines 228 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND to the sunny rolling meadows and farm-dotted dells of Littau, but the demands of dwellings for Italian workmen have turned the pastoral pleasances of Littau into a macadamised road and an unpicturesque street of detached dwellings, and one had better be content to return the way one came, and look at some of the more ancient houses on one's way to the Spreuerbriicke in that part of old Lucerne that was anciently called the Kleine Stadt. People sometimes complain that they are disappointed on their first visit to Lucerne to find the snow-clad mountains are so far distant ; for when in middle May the glory of winter fades from Pilatus' head, and the snows on the Oberbauen and the Schwalmis become each day visibly less ; it is true that the snow wonder of the Alps is not seen except on isolated peaks to the south from the lake-side quays. But these people who so complain should remember, that the very restfulness of Lucerne lies just in this fact, that the mountain heights are not so near as to excite or to oppress. The cheerfulness of the Lucerners, the general happiness upon the faces of all one meets, may in part be owing to this very . fact of their distance -. from the mountain heights. LUCERNE 229 But the complainer has not very far to go, for if he or she will but ascend Pilatus or the Stanserhorn, or even the Rigi, which can easily be done by a day's excursion from Lucerne, the grandeur and beauty of the higher Alps can be felt to the full. Nor, indeed, is it necessary to go so far afield, for it happens that there are in Lucerne two dioramas or panoramas of some of the noblest scenery amongst the higher ranges of the Swiss Alps. And though one may smile as one reads the extravagant account given in the prospec- tuses, one cannot help being astonished at the fidelity with which the scene-painters have been able, by carefully-contrived optical illusion added to their own art, to make one feel indeed the spell and power of sunset or sunrise upon peak and glacier in lonely places that only the chamois know. As an old traveller, one believes in maps, and here again one can be immensely helped by a visit to one of the oldest, and yet the best model of central Switzerland, which was constructed by Lieut.- Gen. Ludwig Pfyffer, somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth century. His wooden staff and the sabots that he wore, as he took his measurements for the construction of this re- markable model, hang on the wall beside the 230 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND fruit of his great labour. A walk round this model is a liberal education in topography. Another model near by of the S. Gothard railway is also an immense help to one in feeling one's way about for future tours. These models are both of them in what is known as the Glacier Garden, which in itself, as affording evidence of the churning power of potstones, and glacier movement, is well worth study. The pity is, that a peep-show feeling is given to the whole place by a stupid modern addition of an Oriental Labyrinth, with a model of the Alhambra, which seems to be an unnecessary adjunct to the glacier garden, and is vexatious by its incongruity and want of harmony with its surroundings, for we can never forget that the lion of Lucerne is close by. One of the charms of being at Lucerne is the absolute cleanliness of the town. There seems to be a place for everything, and every- thing in its place. One cannot enter a shop without noting the orderliness of the people, and this perhaps is accounted for by the fact that the Lucerners — proud of their houses, as is evidenced by the pains they take in decor- ating them — always live above their shops, and feel that shop and home are one. LUCERNE 231 One feels at Lucerne that one is amongst the people of the place. In other towns of tourist resort one seems to be amongst people who have come from Greece or Italy or Turkey with their tempting wares for merchandise — strangers to do business with strangers. It is not so at Lucerne. The tradesmen one deals with are proud to think that their fathers and forefathers before them dwelt in the same place and carried on the same business, and this business is carried on in the same way as of old. The milkseller comes round with his dogs harnessed to his cart ; the baker opens his little window and puts the loaf or cake upon the marble bracket outside for the purchaser ; and the butcher, being a man of refinement, refuses to expose to public gaze the bleeding carcases of newly-slaughtered animals, and takes care that an iron grill shall be placed between the passer-by and the interior of the shop, or, if he has no iron grill, will see that flowers shall at any rate adorn the shop front and help to hide the meat he has to sell. The good manners of the parents are re- flected in the children. One hardly ever passes a child without his lifting his hat and saying Good-day, and if one asks one's way 232 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND to any street it is nine chances to one that the boy or girl will offer to go out of their way to show it you. There is something better than good manners about these children ; there is a desire for learning, and there is reverence for the faith of their fathers. Go up to the grand school building for boys in Maria-hilf Strasse, or enter the old convent of Maria-hilf, which is now a girls' school, and I think the average Englishman who cares about Elementary Education will be astonished at the keenness of the children, as well as at their industry and attention. Or on Sunday, let him go to the children's service at nine o'clock for girls, or at ten o'clock for boys in the Maria-hilf Church. He will see there gathered together 250 of either sex entering the church with a single clergyman, and taking their seats like little old men and women, and throughout the hour's service seeming to pay as much reverent attention as if they were people of mature years and earnest experience of life. Again, at Lucerne one certainly feels that one is in a town of public spirit. One may regret the march of so-called progress. One would be glad, for example, if no trains thundered over the Seebriicke, and if no LUCERNE 233 iron bridge had cut in twain the emerald vista of the Reuss between the Town-bridge and the Kapellbriicke, and Emmenbriicke, alas ! But one must admit that whatever the Town Council have done in the way of planting their streets or providing seats for the people, and seeing after the cleansing of their ways, in procuring first-rate electric lighting and water supply, has been done well. And anyone who goes to the Bureau of Information in the Kapell-Platz and obtains gratuitously answers to any question he likes to ask in regard to his proposed tour in Switzerland, must feel that the whole town is working together to make the visitor's stay at the ancient lake city of S. Leodegar as pleasant and full of comfort as may well be. Take for example the official guide to * Lucerne, its lake and environs.' I do not know anywhere else in Europe where such a book, so full of information, so well illus- trated, could be found in the hands of all hotel-keepers to be given by them to their guests on their arrival, and this is but one example of the public spirit of the association which has been formed for the convenience of visitors, and the interests of those who cater for them. This association, composed 234 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND partly of local hotel-keepers, partly of hotel- keepers in the canton, and partly of tradesmen, pays each year into a central chest 7000 francs or more, at the rate, as far as hotels are concerned, of 40 centimes per bed. To this the town authority contributes another 6000, and an association of the younger merchants adds to this sum. By this annual income, the Association, the names of whose members may be seen in any number of the Fremdenblatt, keeps open its admirable Bureau of Information, advertises the attractions of the town and places of resort in the can- ton, produces maps of the various tourists' routes, and the guide book before mentioned, and generally does what it can to see to the convenience of the travelling public. At what tourist resort in Great Britain have we any such combination of merchants and city authorities and hotel-keepers paying into a common purse for such an object ? The secret of the success of the Lucerne Associa- tion is not far to seek. It lies in mutual trust and the feeling of brotherhood which made Lucerne brave and powerful in mediaeval times, and keeps it to-day public-spirited, honest, and industrious. To those who care for art work, whether LUCERNE 235 in iron, or wood, or fresco-work, or sculpture, or gold and silversmith's work, there is much that must interest the tourist who will stay a week or two at Lucerne. What such men as Bossard, and Schnyder, and Weingartner and his pupils have done for the revival of the decorative arts in Lucerne can only be known by those who will take the trouble to walk round the town and see for them- selves. Newer industries are arising — the making of basket chairs, of which, before, Bern seems to have had the monopoly, seems likely to become a considerable industry at Lucerne. And anyone who visits the magnificent hotels that have lately sprung up in mountain resorts, and is struck by the beauty of the colouring of the marble pillars and panels of the entrance and dining halls, will not be a little surprised to hear that these marbles come from no Italian quarries, but were actually made by the hands of men of Lucerne, who, taking iron as the centre core of the pillar, are able to produce something that will bear a weight no marble could have borne, and for beauty and effect can hardly be at first discerned from real stone, even by an expert. 236 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND But one must not leave Lucerne with only memories of what the daylight brings, for he who would see Lucerne aright should wait for one of the balmy twilights of the end of May or middle June, and sally forth beside the river Reuss when the rampart walls and towers of the city are dark against the clear green sky in which a single planet burns unwaveringly, and when the lights of the old town seem to set the dusky river ablaze with their reflected glory. Let him pass to the Schwanen-Platz, and so along beneath the bowery chestnut walk, in the direction of the Kurhaus ; then with the sound of music in his ears, and the whispering feet of the passers-by all round him, he may gaze round the curving bay jewelled with innumerable lights, and feel that he is back in some enchanted land of old Arabian tale. Boats with lanterns flicker hither and thither, and the lights on the far Stanserhorn ripple from base to summit with meteoric beauty, the stars upon the Rigi and Pilatus answer one another across the growing darkness, and the far-off villages by the lake shore gleam * like fire-flies tangled in a golden braid.' There is a delicious sense of laziness in the air, and as we saunter up and down beside the absolutely tranquil mirror of the LUCERNE 237 twilit flood, or pass along upon the embowered pathway that is dappled from the white electric light that shines through the chestnut leaves above, we feel that we have come indeed to the land of rest, and thank Heaven for the gift of old Lucerne and its lake-side loveliness. CHAPTER XVIII. WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE.^ BEYOND THE CITY IV ALL: LUCERNE. Happy the walls whose towers are set like these Above the blossoming orchards, where the fruit Feels a strong presence fencing branch and root From storms that rob and bitter winds that freeze ; Happy at night — here naught can vex their ease But sound of owls that in the distance hoot, By day swift arrows only swallows shoot, Come to possess their fortress over seas. But happier far the men, who fenced around With Truth for towers, and Faith for bugle call, Have cast all greed and lust of pelf outside, Content that gold should blossom from the ground, And fields with silver daisies should be pied, If only Freedom garrison the wall. ' In a town where the present is so beautiful, we may well let the past be forgotten.' So ^ I am permitted by the kindness of the Secretary of the Official Bureau of Information for Travellers at Lucerne, to republish the next two chapters, which were issued as a WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 239 writes the compiler of the useful little illustrated guide-book which is issued by the * Official General Information Bureau ' at Lucerne. But it must be remembered that he has in mind the great bulk of the 200,000 birds of passage who come to the vvalled city of S. Leodegar by the banks of the Reuss with no intention of doing more than enjoy the incomparable view from the * Drei Linden' or 'the Giitsch,' lounge along the * Schweizerhof ' or 'National' Quay, or listen to the band in the ' Kursaal ' gardens. These may, it is true, be tempted to the 'Hofkirche' to listen to a storm upon the organ ; they may walk over the ' Kapell- briicke ' and return by the ' Spreuerbriicke ' just to feel that they have done the right thing; and in the same frame of mind they will visit the ' glacier garden ' and pause for a moment before ' Thorwaldsen's Lion ' in his rock-hewn niche above the quiet water-pool. Perhaps some of these go so far as to express pamphlet in 1896, for the use of tourists, under the title 'The Revival of the Decorative Arts at Lucerne.' This is still in print and can be obtained at the Bureau for 50 centimes. I have added a third walk about the ancient < city of the wooden stork's nest,' which chronicles the Fresco Malerei and Decorative Work done since the publica- tion of the pamphlet. 240 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND satisfaction at the costly and careful way in which the authorities insist that their public buildings shall be designed and executed. They will stroll into the beautiful post-office that Gull of Zurich built and Lanz, the Bernese sculptor, has embellished. They will rejoice in the Renaissance decoration of the central hall. They will say, why cannot we do things in this style at our great city post- offices ? Perhaps as they look back at the New Station close by they will say Lucerne has evidently determined not to allow a railway terminus to disfigure its beautiful surrounding. So far so good. But there are a certain number of this vast army of travellers, each year swelling the city to nearly double its normal population, who come to Lucerne attracted not so much by its beautiful present as by its romantic past. These are the visitors who wander reverently up to the ' Musegg ' and 'go round about the city and tell the towers thereof,' who with some old sixteenth century map of the town in their hands trace out the ancient line of the walls in the ' Kleine Stadt,' and dream of the days long past away when in the eighth century the * Gross Stadt ' or Larger Town rose up round the convent of S. Leodegar. These are WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 24I the visitors who love each wooden pile and bolt-head in the quaint, tile-hooded wooden- bridge of fourteenth century workmanship by S. Peter's chapel ; who spend their time in peering up through sunlight and shade at the triangular pictures on the transom beams till they have made themselves masters of the legends of S. Maurice and S. Leodegar, and familiar with the heroes of Swiss history, and the ' Old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago.' These are they who as they pass out into the sunshine feel that there are at their sides the ghosts of the makers of a nation's inde- pendence, for it was in 1332 that Lucerne joined the Swiss Confederacy ; and it was in 1333 that the patriotic little city drove the first piles of the bridge of defence beside its Watch Tower. Visitors such as these sigh to think that the exigency of modern traffic has in this century dispossessed the town of its long ' Seebriicke,' and cast down within living memory eight or nine towers and gates upon the ancient walls, every stone of which, in a day which is beginning to care for such things, would have added their peculiar 242 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND interest to the town. Nor are these tourists when through the ' Spreuerbriicke ' they come solemnised by the thought of the shortness of life as thereunder depicted, likely to bless the good burghers of Lucerne for having so helped the destroyer, as they have done, hard by, by wiping away in the past few years the picturesque old city corn-mill, and for having replaced it with the most substantial and incongruous pile of factory workshops that could have been built at such a beautiful approach to their old city. It is true that even this has its admirers ; the writer of the guide-book before named speaks of it as ' the handsome Gewerbe Gebaude '; but the gods are just, and it is whispered that this attempt to make funds for the city chest out of the water power at the Miihlen- briicke, is not likely to prove so good a speculation as was hoped for. Meanwhile one of the attractions of the old town has passed away for ever ; and one feels as one approaches the ' Spreuerbriicke ' from the Miihlen-Platz now, much as one feels when standing in the cloisters of the Hofkirche, one finds that all the chief beauty of the out- look over the lake from that vantage-ground has been taken away by the great pile of WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 243 the Hotel National that rises between the fore-shore and the cathedral slope. Of course one can be answered that one cannot live by the beauty of natural scenery alone, that the workers of metal, the cutters of diamond, must have workshops and water power, and that for princely guests we must have princely hotels. And the answer is fair enough. Yet the visitor is by these very disappoint- ments driven to wander into the old town for sight of what remains of the middle-centuries Lucerne. Each carven angel or patron saint in its house-corner niche, each fountain pillar, each overhanging eave and quaint tiled roof, each grill and each ironwork sign, will have for him its own particular charm ; and as long as the beautiful tower stands up above the red-brown gable end of the Rathhaus, and as long as the market boats on Tuesday land their peasants in their quaint attire to chaffer and to trade in their old primitive way within the cool arcades beside the river, there will be much to make amends to him for the short-sighted destruction of ancient landmarks which this century has witnessed in Lucerne. As the traveller in search of that olden time passes into the heart of the burgher 244 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND city to-day, he may be cheered to think that a new spirit of reverence for the past has arisen in the last twenty years. Not only has the purely commercial mind recognised that each year ' Old Lucerne ' has a larger number of admirers, and that it will not pay to allow the attractions of a mediaeval time to suffer loss, but there has also been reborn in the hearts of the patriotic lovers of their town a desire to preserve what exists out of love for the past, and to give back to the present so much as can fitly be restored. Not a house in Lucerne in the sixteenth century but had its outside walls frescoed, and enough has remained, if not in fact at least on record, to enable genius and care to reconstruct and to repaint after the old method. As for the art of the ironworker it has never died out in the city. The black- smiths who made the gates of the side chapel in the Franciscan Church in the seven- teenth century, or the sanctuary screen and the baptistery gates in the Hofkirche at the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century, left behind them a race of smiths who as money or opportunity admitted wrought grills and balconies for the houses of their patrons. To-day there are in WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 245 Lucerne craftsmen in iron who can vie with the mediaeval workers and not be put to shame. It is a fortunate thing for Lucerne that just at the time when the decorative arts were being revived for pubHc use, there should be such master-smiths as the brothers Schnyder, Keel, Johann Meyer, Nick, Lep- pert, Frenzel, Sckell, and others resident in the place. Nor is it less fortunate that the School of Art should have at its head such a genius for decorative design as Seraphim Weingartner, and such painters as his assis- tant Meyer or his pupils Limacher and Segesser, or as Benz to whom belongs the honour of doing the earliest work of the fresco-revival in the city. But the history of this revival of art, which is likely to give us back in a few years the Lucerne of the Middle Ages, and will make the old town again a joy for ever, will in- separably be connected with the name of J. Bossard, the goldsmith. He has not only, by his real knowledge of art and antiquities, been able to counsel and guide, but he has inspired comrades among his townsmen with something of his own reverence for the past, and something of his own desire to see so 246 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND much of old Lucerne as remains handed on to future generations. Two other factors in this restoration of colour to the house fronts of Lucerne should be noted. First, there is, except from the funnels of the Lake steamers at the quay and of the railway engines at the terminus, a complete or almost complete absence of smoke and noxious gases in Lucerne. Secondly, there still exists in Lucerne the good old practice of the dwelling of the merchants and tradesmen at their places of business. The man who, caring for past days, will cover the front of his house with frescoes, has a motive at once, for he will work into the fresco, by means of inscription and picture and armorial bearings, the history of those who have preceded him as owners of the house, and of his own family connection with it. Let the tourist who cares about old Lucerne visit first the 'Hofkirche'; he will rejoice to think that the sacristan's house is still stand- ing, with its quaint gables and angle turret on the left of the Leodegar Strasse, and wiU pray that it, and the few remaining bits of the same type of native architecture may long remain to him. Passing up the steps towards the entrance, he may note the date 1506 on WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 247 the headstone of the lower window in the right-hand tower, and he may devoutly wish that some kindly fate would strip the layer of plaster from the old Rathhaus tower, and give it back to us in the same fair condition of honest stone in which these slender ' Hof- kirche ' towers still stand. As he enters the door, he will turn aside to look at the curious early sixteenth century stone-carving which represents the betrayal of Christ in the garden. Did ever sculptor with quainter realisation por- tray the heavy sleep of a very weary man as seen in the figure of S. James to the left, or the evident wish to appear that at any rate he had kept awake, of S. Peter, or the stolid slumbering of S. John, who well might be tired, if he had carried that huge bible with him throughout the day ? But our interest centres in the figure of Christ full of devotion and obedience to His Father's will as he lifts His face toward the rock of His salvation, wherefrom an angel with the cup of agony in his hands appears already strengthening Him. The suggestion of the powers of evil given by the tail of the serpent which has slipped into a crevice of the rock will be evident. But look at the faces of the men who have come to take the 248 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Christ. The man behind Judas who holds the flaming torch has evidently already his misgivings and would well be quit of this sorry work ; the Moorish soldiers and mus- tachioed ruffians who lean on the palings of the garden are a study in brute power and gaping wonder. We live in other days, but there is a force and pathos about this stone picture, which demands the admiration of all who value an artist's efforts after truth. This stone picture must have impressed the sculptor's contemporaries, for in the little chapel by the Biirglen church we find some of its details repeated. Enter now the doorway. Note the carved panels of patron saints upon the door. Ob- serve the way in which, above the carven image of S. Leodegar, the evil one in shape of a bat-eared jackal is slinking away along the cornice-heading. The lock of the door, the iron stays that hold the doors in place are excellent specimens of an iron-master's craft. The stalls and pulpit show how men carved wood in the seventeenth century. But the interest for lovers of iron-work centres in the sanctuary and baptistery screens, which probably date from the middle of the eighteenth century, and are well worth careful study WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 249 We leave the church of S. Leodegar not without thoughts of how here the eighth century fishermen first raised their wattled church above their simple huts, and while they rested from their toil and the cleaning of their nets on one day out of seven listened to the story of Him who had called men from their boats and nets to be fishers of men, and had not disdained though He were Son of God to be the leader and the teacher of the sons of simple fishermen. Passing the great building where the St. Gothard Railway administration has its offices, we may see evidence in the iron-work of gates and grills that the art-revival has begun. Inside the building is a good example of a stair balustrade from the same forge that the gates and balconies came from, the forge of Johann Meyer. Close by are the figures representing the four seasons on the house ' Vier Jahreszeiten ' by the distinguished sculptor Hugo Siegwart of Lucerne. But we are bent upon sight of such builder's art as was possible in the year 1385. It is the towers of the city wall in their variety and beauty of proportion that we have in mind. This being so, we shall do well before going 250 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Up the Musegg Strasse, to pay a visit to a certain ' Bier-halle ' in the Zurich Strasse called ' Muth's,' wherein, thanks to the skill of Weingartner, Director of the Lucerne School of Art and Industry, and his pupils, we may make ourselves acquainted with some of the glories of old Lucerne. You will say that it is an unlikely place to find either art or pictures of historical interest, but it chanced that the proprietor had a feeling for both art and archaeology — ' Die unser Alt Luzern Mit Thiirmen, Briicken, Mauern.' Here as he quaffs his 'bock' of beer, or takes his cup of coffee, the burgher of Lucerne may see what old Lucerne looked like in the days of Holbein, when it earned the name of the ' wooden stork's nest.' It is Weingartner's skill that has given us back that excellent reproduction of the wooden houses that lined the Reuss. Here too we may behold a specimen of the iron-work that the School of Art could turn out, in the sign of the inn which was wrought twenty years ago. As we pass from picture to picture, we are beyond measure astonished and troubled to note what destruction has been wrought upon WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 25 1 the towers and gates of Lucerne as late as in the latter part of this century. Here are re- presentations of the ' Biirgen Thor,' which was removed in 1865. The Schwarz Thor in 1862. — The Leder Thor in 1849. — The Hof Thor in 1833. — The Hofburg in 1842. — 1850. — The Musegg Umgang in 1865. — The Ober or Kriens Thor in 1837. — The Alte Kaserne or Basel Thor in 1862. — The Kessel Thurm in 1 85 1. — The Weggis Thor in i860. — The Senti Thor in 1835, and the Briick Thor in 1869. And last there is a picture of the great coffer dam made during the building of of the Reuss Briicke in 1738. We leave ' Muth's ' sadly enough, thinking of the glory that has departed, thence to retrace our steps to the Musegg Strasse, and so up- ward and outside of the w^alls, noting the variety of the build of the towers, each with its own particular name, and glad to recog- nise that the town authorities are doing what they can to preserve the city wall from further harm by wind and weather. Those armed figures that hold the weather vanes upon the ' Mannlithurm,' standing there in 1520 just as they stand to-day, probably cheated foemen from a distance with the idea that sentinels were on guard. 252 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Having reached the limit of the wall by the riverside, let us pass beneath the gate by the side of the round ' Nolli Thor ' and coming townwards by the Briiggligasse, delight ourselves with peeps of old Lucerne gables ; or turning up the slope to the left let us examine the former conventual buildings of Maria-hilf, now the Lucerne Girls' School ; and examine the frescoes on the clock tower in the rampart which, under the direction of Herren Meyer am Rhyn and Bossard, was repainted in its original colours and design by Benz in 1885. Having reached the Miihlen-Platz, we will walk across the Spreuerbriicke, not without a sigh for the evil day that saw the old town mill replaced by the hideous modern factory that now blocks the view. The paintings of the Dance of Death above us, as we pass from beam to beam, were the work ,of Caspar Meglinger in the seventeenth century, but were repainted in the eighteenth century. All who honour Longfellow will bear his poem of this Bridge of Death in mind, as they pass across the sounding Reuss into the * Kleine Stadt.' It is not easy without the help of some ancient map to trace the line of the ancient walls and gates and towers that till the middle WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 253 of the present century kept guard about this lesser town, for the K denser Bach that used to act as moat is entirely hidden in its culvert. But roughly speaking we may, if we follow the Hirschen-graben from the Zeughaus near the Spreuerbriicke round to the Kapellbriicke, feel that we are on the right track. We shall certainly be glad to have taken the walk if only because it brings us to the Franciscan Church square and the beautiful fountain with its figure of S. Francis, and allows us sight of finely carved choir stalls and of the inter- esting iron-work screen in the north chapel of the church. No better example of late seventeenth or early eighteenth century work remains to us in Lucerne. But before taking this round let us pass out of the shadow of the bridge and up along the riverside almost as far as the Krienser Bach, that we may note the quaint finish and bracket turrets on the ancient riverside houses, or the curious irregular roof cornices as seen in the Rossligasse ; and let us observe the admirable ornament in high relief which only lacks colour to make it magnificent, which has been added as enrichment to the pilaster divisions of the Corporation House just below the Spreuerbriicke. Here again the artist 254 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND has determined to help the historian, and we see at a glance that on three occasions the old house for government offices has been redecorated and rebuilt — in 1660, in 1844, and in 1895. As we stroll back to the Spreuerbriicke we get an admirable idea of the ancient town defence. The city wall and Musegg towers are seen at no greater advan- tage, in combination with the swift river that was patient to grind the beleaguered citizens' corn, but mighty to keep the besieging foe at safest distance. After returning to the Spreuerbriicke let us step outside into the Pfistergasse. We at once notice the workmanship of the grace- ful iron sign of the Angel Inn at the corner, then cross the road and, taking up a position with our back to the Barrack gate, we examine with much interest and curiosity the best example of ancient Swiss timbered and plastered house that exists in Lucerne. It is known as 'von Moos's Haus.' Three stories of quaintest wood timbering of a kind of scroll pattern rise from a basement on a first story of stone. The roof cornices, which are spacious and quaintly irregular, are decorated with a bold floral design upon a light ground. In the roof a kind of dormer arrangement is >Vsv,. wJi»«t. ;v:.. WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 255 made to shelter a picture of the Blessed Virgin and child in glory. The house has recently been put into most careful repair, and is a monument of olden time worth study. Students of John Ruskin will remember his delightful drawing of this building. We may visit next the Government buildings, formerly the Jesuit College. That part of the building known as the Schlossli was designed by Hans von Lyn of Trient, and its three stories supported on their slender columns are good specimens of six- teenth century building. Here are preserved the cantonal archives, and not the least interesting of the archaeological treasures are the copies by various artists of Holbein's frescoes on the faQade of the old Hertenstein House. From this we pass up the east end of Hirschmatt Strasse and see how the artist Meyer has enriched the block of building of which the Victoria Hotel forms part, though it must be confessed that here the house of Herrn Griiter, the dentist, must have ren- dered any painter's task well-nigh impossible. It should be noted that the painting of cherubs in the air, which is a feature of the decoration of one of the large wall spaces in 256 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND this block, is not al-fresco, but as it is luckily not exposed to the west it is probable that it may last for some years. The panels on the top story, however, are sgraffito, and are sure to endure though they are naturally more exposed to the wind and weather at their height. As we are now in the Hirschmatt let us look at the eight fresco panels the Director of the Art School has designed for the Victoria Hotel, magnificent goblins and floriation such as the best Renaissance time might have been proud of. Returning we shall, as we approach the back of the ancient Kapellbriicke House, note a bit of modern building' in the Theater Strasse which does credit to that brotherhood of the arts which enables the designer of a building to work harmoniously with the painter of it. Here beneath the motto ' Fortuna,' one .sees in true Holbein greys and blues, excellent festoon work and window-including enrichments, while on nearer view one is struck with the ex- quisite hunting frieze of hound and hare and fox and wild bear in full chase through tangled undergrowth. One must confess, however, to thinking that the balconies in their intense blackness jar and break the harmony of this house-front of the Electric WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 257 Station Works. We are now back by the river side and dreaming of the days which the old 1597 maps make so clear to one, when the Kapellbriicke ran a far longer course and allowed of people passing under the Bridge House which now stands, brave with turrets but no longer pierced for gates and passages, to the south of the present theatre. Thence we may pass back to the Kapellbriicke with its 154 paintings of local religious faith and national history and legend ; but before we enter upon it let us look back at the late en- richment of the Seidenhof building, which Cat- tani, the Arnold architect, was builder of. The iron-work of the balconies was wrought by Johann Meyer. The fresco on the fa9ade above the sculptured figures representing commerce with her ships and her steam-god in the background is also the work of the Art School, and was executed in 1889. -^s we enter the old fourteenth century bridge let us not forget to look behind us on the scenes, almost humorous in their quaint realisation of the three wicked soldiers, one of whom refuses to be converted by the saint's preaching, and coming up to him cuts his head of, while at the same instant the devil in the murderer casts aside his disguise, leaps forth into sight 258 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND as the full possessor of the miscreant's soul, and takes the villain by the ears and yells for joy. Before we cross the river, let us proceed a few steps, and turning up Seidenhof Strasse, look at the decoration of the Gundoldingen Haus. The knight in armour is all that knights should be, but this is not al-fresco work, and one looks forward with some fear to its not being able to withstand the weather gods' rough handling for all its mailed bravery. The artist has done well to take the key for his tone from the combination of rose-red brick and grey stone, and the purple or brown-red enrichments of foliage and figure upon the buff ground that are found on either side of the martial figure of the armed knight is in good harmony with the main building. One misses something of the humour of Weingartner's work, but the effect as a whole is pleasant to the eye. Nor let us forget either when we have passed over the bridge to gaze reverently at the early sixteenth century stone tarving of the Agony in the Garden upon the walls of the Peter's Kapell that faces us, and to think reverently of the great work for peace and confederation done for Switzerland by that WAI.KS ABOUT LUCERNE 259 old hermit, von der Fllie, whose aged figure worn by prayer and fasting confronts us on the same chapel wall. As we reach the bend of the wooden Kapellbriicke, our eyes which, when we had set foot on it, were attracted by the patch of white colour and painting upon the ' Gasthaus zu Pfistern ' beyond the Rathhaus, are first claimed by the evidently newly decorated river front of the house of one of the master butchers of Lucerne. The round shields upon the house possess additional historic interest as having been copied from the originals in the Rathhaus Museum, which were taken by the men of Lucerne from the Italians at the battle of Giornico in 1478, and it is doubtless this incident that has suggested the very living battle piece that is scrolled upon the house front. As to the facade of this Kaufmann Haus on the Reuss, it is characterised by the newly erected fifteenth-century gable. The escutcheons of the * J iertenstein' and ' Pfyffer,' joined by iron chain, are suspended on an iron ring ; the double window, surmounted by an arch, the blue and white striped window shutters, as well as two stylish stanchions (Mauer-Klammern) are the only ornaments, 26o FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND. and they in their simplicity stamp this gable as worthy of old Lucerne. On the projecting roof stand two dragons, and under the double window is a painted sun-dial, well suited to connect the gable with the windows below. The shape of the windows is the so-called ' lady's slipper,' an arch, pointed, but with jambs curved inwards, similar to many arches in old Lucerne. Be- tween the windows hang circular shields (the originals of which are in the old town-hall) taken by the Lucerners in the battle of Giornico in 1478; they are of wood covered with leather, and painted with crests and other original designs. A continuous garland, suspended by coloured ropes, hangs between the third and fourth stories. The spandrils between the arches are ornamented with circular shields, two of which bear portraits and two crests of Milan and Venice. The upper part of the building and the gable are painted in light colours, the lower part in imitation of a rustic building ; the arches terminate with masks. Two goblins enliven the space between the first and second stories. The design represents a scene from the battle of Giornico : On the 28th of December, 1478, six hundred Swiss WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 261 from Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, and Lucerne, put to flight 15,000 Italians under General Count Borelli. By the advice of Councillor Stangas they made the river Ticino to flood the meadows and highroad, so that the enemies had no standing-room and were obliged to retire, the Swiss led by Frischhans Theiling rushing after them. On the left side is depicted the attack of the Swiss, headed by the typical figure of a peasant of Uri, armed with a mighty halberd. Be- side him a man of Unterwalden is felling an enemy whose lance has pierced a Swiss. Over a fallen, fully armed knight bends a man of Lucerne, holding a sword in his right hand. Very touching is the scene, in which a youth, struck unto death, has sunk upon his knees, supporting himself by his ' two-hander ' whilst his adversary still clasps his broken spear. Another warrior is trying, in vain, to drag his fallen chief from the battlefield. The design for the gable is by Director Weingartner, as also are the cartoons for the wall-paintings, which have been executed by J. Meier, and by pupils of the Art School. It is pleasant to note that the present possessor of the house has introduced the 262 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND. crests of former proprietors, whose families have deserved well of Lucerne. What a day it will be for Lucerne when every fa9ade along the emerald Reuss follows the fashion set by the Gasthaus zu Pfistern and the ' Haus Kaufmann/ and the rippling shadows dance upon the walls and play be- neath the eaves resplendent in their medi- aeval dress ! We were going to say in their fourteenth century dress, but we remember that it was not till the beginning of the six- teenth century that stone houses with fa9ades adapted for fresco work replaced the old wooden houses of the ' Storks ' of Lucerne. We have now, after our round of the city towers, returned to the Kapell-PIatz, wherein the first important stone buildings in the shape of private houses rose. It was the fresco work preserved upon one of these houses till 1880 that began the revival of ' Fa9aden-Malerei/ and it was the sister house hard by which supplied the motive for the house decoration of another, and which, by having so supplied a motive, keeps alive to-day Hans Holbein's connexion with the town. We will do well therefore to start upon our second walk of enquiry from this point. CHAPTER XIX. WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE. FRESCO-REVIVAL AT LUCERNE. We are but after all the tools of Thought, We pass and deem that with our passing dies The fire that warmed us to our enterprise, The love that all our will to beauty brought. But we deem ill, the spirit-power that wrought Lives on tho' men forget, and our blind eyes Suddenly opened, lo ! we see arise The glory back from deathless ages caught. And here where stood the home of Hertenstein, Where Holbein painted on the merchant's wall, Virtue and Fame and Wars great triumphing And old legend of the son-slain king. Once more shall house to house the past recall, And all the street in robes of history shine. Opposite the Peter's Kapell there runs from the Kapell- Platz a little by-lane which leads to the Sternen- Platz. The corner house on one's right hand as one faces the entrance of this narrow street has carved upon its angle 264 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND. the Stone figure of an angel, which in former times gave salutation to another stone figure of the Virgin Mary under a shell-shaped baldachino opposite. This figure of the Virgin was carved upon the house of one of the noblest families of Lucerne, for this was the house of the Hertensteins, who from 12 13 to 1853 added fame and honour to their city. It is the former house, 'the Haus Willmann' we will first notice, for it was the stripping off of the sixteenth century frescoes of this house- front in the year 1880 that determined Herr Bossard the goldsmith to have photographs taken of them, and to reproduce them with such adaptation as was necessary on his own lately purchased house-front in the Weggis Gasse. But after all it is to the latter house that we would principally direct attention. We cannot by any effort of imagination conceive the present bald and ordinary looking building with its two shop fronts below, and with the words ' Credit-Anstalt in Luzern ' running along the front of the upper story, as the beautiful old house that existed in 1825 ; nor suppose that probably it had stood with very slight alteration since the year 151 1, when WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 265 Jacob von Hertenstein bought the old wooden corner house of Hans Wolf, and thereupon proceeded to set a fashion, which soon had a following, of erecting a stone mansion, to be decorated by fresco-paintings within and without. It was a fortunate thing for him that, when two or three years later he was casting about for some painter to whom to entrust the work, it happened that the elder Holbein and his two sons Ambrose and Hans were staying in Lucerne. It was more fortunate that Holbein the younger, who had up to this time, 15 16, done no important work, had attracted the attention of Oswald Myconius, a native of Lucerne, whose original name was Geishusler, a friend of Luther and Zwingli, who studied at Basel and became one of the leaders of the intellectual movement of the sixteenth century. He happened to be a friend of one of Hertenstein's sons, and strongly recommended the young painter for the task. It was most fortunate of all that as yet Erasmus had not recommended the younger Holbein to his friend Sir Thomas More, and that Holbein had not set out for England to seek his fortune as he did in 1526, at the court of bluff King Hal. Any- how, somewhere between 15 16 and 15 19, — 266 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND. whether helped in his task by his father or not we cannot certainly tell, — Hans Holbein might have been seen with his stolid face working away at the frescoes on this house- front of Jacob Hertenstein where to-day tlie hatter and the banker have, alas, their un- frescoed habitation. Beneath Holbein's hands it grew to be a perfect picture gallery of historical legend, allegory, and parable. If in 1825 the owner of the house had had an atom of the feeling for decorative art that is growing up to-day in Lucerne, or had realised what glory was departing from his town if he touched the faded frescoes on his house-front, it is possible that the old Hertenstein family mansion would have remained to us intact. As it was, it would appear that young Holbein's connexion with the frescoes had become nearly as dim as his paintings and for this some excuse is possible. We learn from Dr. von Liebenau's admirable account of the house and its frescoes that it was not till the hose of the town's fire engine had played upon the facade that these drawings were made plain enough for the artists to copy them. It is of course impossible to expect from these copies of the Lucerne artists, Schwegher, Ulrich von Eschenbach, Eglin WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 267 and Marzohl, to whom with the Italian Trolli von Lavena we are so much indebted, the delicacy and force of the originals. They omitted much of the scroll and wreath-work which Holbein was such a master of, and they passed over as unimportant details which were particularly characteristic of him, but enough remains to us to be able to know that Holbein as he worked at the Hertenstein frescoes had Mantegna for a master in his mind. We know also the subjects of most of the pic- tures on the inside walls, and we can conjure back the Fagaden-Malerei with the red- brown background that must have delighted the eyes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is reported that Hertenstein intended the lessons of this fa9ade for his own sons, but how many a young man who had caused his father the heart-ache felt rebuked as he saw the grey old king who would make trial of his sons' love by proclaiming that he would make him the heir who should shoot him through the heart ; how many a cross- bowman felt his own pulse beat the faster as in imagination he joined the triumphal pro- cession of the conqueror, who with trumpeters blowing, and the palm branches of victory 268 PLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND. borne before him, came home with all the spoils of war to enrich the land of his fathers : and how the children in the Kapell-Platz must have laughed to see the merry battle of the youngsters on the walls, whilst not an architect would go by but would stop to wonder at the admirable architectural skill with which Hans Holbein had brought all the openings of the window and doors and string courses and chimney-coigns into service. Not a burgher of the wooden-stork's-nest-town but would rejoice to see the new-fashioned stone house rising above the street with such a tale of uninterrupted family faith, prowess, and history, as the armorial bearings painted on the walls and the legends on the scrolls bare witness to. The doom of demolishment for rebuilding purposes that fell upon this house as late as 1825 renders it impossible for the liveliest imagination to conjure back the grand house with its five stories, the upper four of which were profusely decorated ; but we can still in fancy see the arabesques beneath the over- hanging cornice ; the five pictures of the Virtues from scenes in Roman history beneath ; and below this again the great triumphal pro- cession of Caesar that young Holbein copied WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 269 in its main arrangement from the engraving by Mantegna, though he modernised the dresses and the weapons. Below this, on the second story, between the six windows we may view the armorial bearings of Jacob Hertenstein and his four wives ; and on the same story we can see the great main picture — which, perhaps, had been the motive of the whole fresco, of the tale from the * Gesta Romanorum ' — the tale of the old king who tested the love of his sons by devoting him- self to the chance of death by an arrow from one of their own hands. Luckily for us, this picture was fairly preserved in 1825, and we can know how, beneath a kind of pillared vestibule, Holbein represented the death-pale and white-bearded monarch, stately and up- right still in his royal chair though his heart has ceased to beat, while one son points to the cruel wound and claims the reward, and a second breaks indignantly the bow in twain, and asserts his right to heritage. Below this ran the scroll whereon was doubtless written plain for all passers-by as well as for the sons of Hertenstein the teaching of the picture-parable. Again, beneath and to the left of the large middle window above the door, knitting the various lesser windows into 270 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND. separate groups, ran the festoons, and three allegorical female figures were depicted, the one holding a mirror in her hand and posed against a pillar, and of the other two, one with shields, and the other leaned upon a spear. Above the six windows to the right of the middle one was wreathed a group of children at mimic battle, or playing with cornucopia and trumpets and ribands and flowers. This lower story was marked off from the basement by a Tuscan pilaster, doubtless much after the fashion of the story of the house we may visit to-day in the Hirschen-Platz, which has in Holbein's honour been frescoed after a design from his own hand. Though the house of Hertenstein has perished, and we are after all but in fancy looking upon the frescoes, the power of the painter to impress our day has not perished. As we go upon our walk we shall see evi- dence that the memory of the young painter is dear in the town that was so dear to him. As Holbein laboured at the Hertenstein frescoes he learned much of the past history of Lucerne ; as he mixed with the goldsmiths and glass-painters and builders and carvers in the newly formed guild of S. Luke, or went WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 27 1 off to the butts with the crossbowmen com- pany he had become a member of, he saw much of the present-day Hfe of the city, and he loved it so well that some few years after, when he drew his pictures the ' Heavenly Jerusalem' and 'Jacob's ladder,' as illus- trations for a Basel Bible,^ he introduced into both of them the walls of his beloved Lucerne. Let us walk forward up the Kapell Gasse, not, however, without looking up at the sign of the Exchange Office which the iron-smiths Schnyder have wrought, noting the delicacy of the hammered metal foliage in the upper part of the bracket. We may take a peep up the Eisen Gasse, and we shall find that the painter Abry has glorified the house front of a building known as S. Joseph's with recumbent figures life-size, of a rather florid order, and added colour to the ever-shadow- ing eaves. At the corner of this street and the Kapell Gasse our eyes will immediately be attracted by a fine piece of wrought-iron work by way of a sign for the Golden Lion inn. This again is the work of the brothers Schnyder. The lion may seem a little lean, ^ Formed in 1506. Upon its books is the name of ' Meister Hans Holbein.' Mabr. 272 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND. but it is true to the old heraldic lion you may see upon the faded flags in the Rathhaus Museum. The house itself was formerly the Guild-house of the Farriers, and has two striking pictures (* Piquette ' and ' Chess ' — temp. Louis XIII.) in the basement. The skill with which the old cellarer is portrayed, springing from the lily flower to offer us a glass of his best, is only equalled by the grace of the little squirrel cracking his nut opposite, and the delicacy of the butterfly poised beneath. For lightness and simplicity of design, for graceful and life-like springing curve in the foliage of the vine- tendrils of the bracket this sign is a master- piece. In the adjacent and parallel street, the Fiirren Gasse, is the very simple but effective pendant lamp sign and bracket from the same ironsmith for the Hotel Kreuz. It is worth while going to look at it, because close by is the quaint tavern ' Dubeli,' with its scroll of flowers and its foaming tankard of ale painted above the low window of the room that is forever associated with Richard Wagner. Hither for his glass of ale, and his pipe, and his talk, came often at five o'clock' of an afternoon the great composer. WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 273 The verse that is inscribed above the bench on which he sat is sacred to his memory : 'Sei mir gegriisst, du heimelig, liebe Schenke, Die uns vergessen macht des Lebens Miih' und Qual. Wenn auch die Wande schwarz, gebrechlich Tisch und Banke, Du bist uns dennoch froher Gotter Saal.' We are writing of the revival of the decorative arts, but we cannot pass the little room in which Wagner thought and perhaps wrought at his imperishable art without a sense of gratitude, a sense of wonder at God's gift to man — the artist, who was creator, poet, painter, and music-maker in one : and though we may not all of us feel that this is our idea of Valhalla, we cannot but believe that this quiet tavern room that gave Wagner rest did a work for earth and heaven, and must have ministered to many a weary mortal's heart-ache before and since. We stroll into the adjoining parlour and gaze at the clever drawings in brown and white of various happy social gatherings in which the tankard figures : nothing coarse is suggested ; I doubt if in such surroundings a man could dare get drunk. On the wall is the motto : ' Ein Trunk in Ehren, Wer will 's verwehren ? ' s 274 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND and a pretty little waiting maid, not unlike the girl who greeted us on entering, speaks from another corner of the picture. As we are in the Furren Gasse, let us step forward a few yards and look at a beautiful bit of iron-work from the Schlossel- meister Frenzel which is in front of butcher Egli's shop-window, and so let us return back to the Kapell Gasse whence we started. A few steps further and we stand in admiration before a really beautiful * grill ' of hammered metal-work and examine the flowers and foliage, whose effect has been height- ened by colour and silver gilt, which screen from the view of passers-by the meat- stores of Balmer, the butcher. This is the work of Leppert, the iron-smith. Near the entrance of the adjacent Furren Gasse, one may see at the shop of another butcher, the butcher Kaufmann, whose house-front by the Reuss we have been gazing at, a second example of such a screen by the same hand, which is elaborate enough, but lacks the artistic feeling here displayed. A few steps forward, and on the right hand side of the street, we find ourselves smiling at the way in which beneath the feet of a Mercury who has evidently messages from WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 275 all the world there are lying in happy peace and prosperity certain elves of a grocer's order, this one with a chest of tea in his hands, and chuckling over a large sugarloaf, this with a packet of groceries ready made up for a customer, this with a pipe of tobacco in his mouth, jolly goblin-grocers they seem. They have been drawn in reddish brown outline upon the facade of a house which we are told was built in 1801, and is owned by J. Kniisel, the painter's name being Deckler. We enter the Rathhaus-Platz or Corn- market and gaze with delight upon that ancient pile with its comfortable breadth of rooftree, its quaint turret and its upstanding clock tower, which still does honour to its designer, ' Isenmann of Buchrain,' who built it in the year 1603. It was a thousand pities that in 1850 the town authorities were moved to daub their Rathhaus tower with a coat of plaster, and paint thereon, on a dry surface, the shields of the city, and below a battle-scene that represented the death of a Lucerne burgo- master, Gundoldingen, at the battle of Sempach ; for unfortunately the fresco painters knew little or nothing of their material and had not understood the art of 2/6 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND painting al fresco, that is, on mortar which is still fresh, and in consequence the storms from the west have washed the details away and have left only traces of the colour behind. The sketches for a new and adequate decora- tion are being prepared, and thus this monu- ment of old times may again appear in its ancient glory. Our eyes are caught away from the grand old Rathhaus by the colour and design upon the milk-white end of the ' Gasthaus zu Pfistern ' just opposite it, at the side of the Corn-market steps. The Guild of Bakers still has its committee in Lucerne, and a history it can boast of. In the year 1409 it was proud enough of itself to order that the coats-of-arms of its 59 members should be painted on parchment, and in the year 1903 we can, if we will, gaze up at the walls of the old public-house which was once their property and the meeting-place of their guild, and see in all the beauty of colour some of the coats-of-arms of those rich miller-bakers of old. The young man in hose and ruff and puffed sleeves and armour, holding over his shoulder the banner of the Bakers' Guild — a fair blue background for his fine face and hat and feathers — is a portrait rather "/ A(ci/.pM i(s/jy* -' \Uf-^MiiA WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 277 larger than life of Alois Sigrist, the son of the present proprietor of the inn, as the legend beside his coat-of-arms tells us. But what strikes one most is the skill with which upon the white background that always seems to be in sunshine, the painter and his assistants have contrived to spread the branches of the double-stemmed vine with such delicacy and little overcrowding, and yet have united with it such beauty and growth, that though from every branch the coats-of-arms hang, with here a picture of the Bakers' patron saint and there a pewter drinking pot, and here again a picture of a sack of flour, an oven and loaf of bread twisted into a double horn to symbolise the use of the old guild-house, there is neverthe- less a strength in the vine to bear this fruit- age of fifteenth century heraldic device in addition to its own grape clusters, and the birds may sing in the branches and feel they are perched upon a living tree. The legend at the left-hand side of the vine-stem, written plainly in black letter for all the marketers to read as they pass up and down the market steps, tells us the names of those companions of the order who bought and paid for this house on S. Bartholomew's 2/8 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Day, the 23th of August, 1407 ; that their armorial bearings are painted above ; and that Uri or Ulrich Lotz, the Baker, had the ordering of the transaction. Further, the legend goes on to say that Seraphim Wein- gartner the master, and his pupils Oscar Limacher, Robert's son, and Emil Segesser, Franz's son, painted the frescoes on the house in the year of salvation 1894, and that Carl Griot was the architect. We pass on and enter the Wine-market. Our eyes are at once attracted by the some- what pretentious painting of the double house that fills the east end of the square. This house, which we will call ' Das Haus zum Frieden,' is also dated as from 1 894 ; the colour, a light green as a background shaded with olive green may wear well, but it is not effective, nor does the kind of salmon-rose of the picture upon it seem quite to harmonise. But the artists, Strohmaier of Constance, and Renggli of Lucerne, are to be congratulated on the choice of subject, and on the grouping of the figures in the soldier's return home to the welcome of wife and child and faithful dog, ' when,' as the inscription from Schiller tells us, ' every soldier, bag and baggage, with a green bough in his hat, went to his WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 279 own home.' As if it were to accentuate the change of times, a huge figure of Caspar Hertenstein armed with battle hammer, and with his lower vizor up, stands on the right hand, on a bracket, with the date 1476 beneath, and on the left hand a similar figure of Frischhans Theiling leaning on his long two-handed sword is painted, with the date, while the principal motive of the house decoration, and of the central picture, is given in these words : ' Oh Peace, what a treasure thou art, but what a small place thou hast in the world ! ' One cannot help thinking as one moves away, how differently Holbein, with his grouping of windows and breaking up of space with his Tuscan pillars and the like, would have treated the house- front, and how he would have enjoyed so rare an opportunity for a display of his skill. As we turn, our eyes note a very striking piece of iron work, the sign of the old Club House of the Butchers' Company, which now invites men to the Butchers' Inn, 'The Gasthaus zu Metzgern,' on the south side of the Wine-market. One will have to go far before one sees a finer dragon than this one with the shield that carries the butcher's cleaver in its mouth, or a more graceful 28o FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND arrangement of the wine branch, which with leaf and grape-bunch forms the bracket that upholds the dragon and the inn's name. This is the work of Johann Meyer, and it may well encourage lovers of iron-work to seek out the sign of the ' Gasthaus Riitli ' in the Riitli Gasse, and when they next go to Brunnen to notice the gate-way that leads to the villa Schoeck ; if time and opportunity admit let them go up the hill there and look at the balconies of wrought-iron by the same hand. This sign calls us to notice the fresco work upon the ancient guild-house, which for three centuries and a half, from 1529 to 1879, was the Zunfthaus, or Club House, of the 'Butchers" and 'Fishers" guild. It is interesting, as being the first house in Lucerne (1884) which seems to have em- ployed the skill of Balmer and his helpers for the work of decoration. We note here that the ancient use and date of the house has been pictured forth, as evidenced by the large figure of the Butcher is his sixteenth century trunk-hose with his hand upon his axe head, and a corresponding one of a Fisherman in his beef-eater's hat, with pouch net and stang in his hand. The date of the renovation is given on the wall. We WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 281 have to thank the public spirit of the proprietor Miiller for this restoration, and his example has after nine years been well followed by his brother J. Miiller, the apothecary, next door. The house-front here has the additional interest of an oriel window with copper hood, and below are the faces in stone of the handsome man and his wife who first built the house in 1540. We have not only to admire the skill of the painter, but the cleverness and sympathetic fellow- workmanship of E. Vogt, an architect of Lucerne. The artist, Weingartner, has given whatever of local interest and history of the building he can to the fresco, and has shown his sense of humour as he worked. Thus, for example, the owl and the bat, whose blood used in old days to be dried and rubbed into powder as an invaluable medicine, appear in the gable, and underneath is inscribed an old Latin motto from the brass mortar, which is still in use in the shop, and which itself appears upon the house- front in fresco lower down : * Stultorum incurata pudor Malus ulcera celat.' Underneath in the panels of a cross-tabling are pictured the chief plants that are of use 282 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND in medicine ; beneath these the father of the ancient science, ^^sculapius, Cysatus the learned town clerk, Paracelsus the philo- sopher, and the goddess Hygeia, appear in medallions. Lower still, a band of delightful children who are fighting dragons and ser- pents and crocodiles, speaks to us in parable of the power of happiness, youth, and purity to combat disease. The Fall that brought ' Death into the world with all our woe and loss of Eden' is set forth by a picture of the serpent on the tree of life with a woman's torso. She reaches out her arm, and in her hand is an apple, and below runs the motto 'Amor medicabilis nullis herbis.' Beneath runs a band of crocodiles and cornucopiae. We note that to balance the serpent-twisted club of y^sculapius, there is painted a hand holding a root that has the semblance of a man. This is the ' AUerman Wurzel ' or * Wunder- Wurzel ' which in the middle ages was looked upon as having miraculous powers of cure, and often grew in a shape that seemed almost human. Wherever the serpent has been introduced it has been used as the symbol of disease ; wherever the crocodile has been drawn it has been used as a symbol for medicine. Not the least WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 283 interesting part of the house-front is its history of the earlier inhabitants. Thus, for example, the painter has introduced the crests of Cisat 1570, Forrer 1595, von Lauffen 1627, and Segesser 1836, where Miiller's own crest shines out upon this bracket of the oriel window. It is this love of keeping alive the human element and tradition in connection with the Art revival, that makes this work so precious for posterity, so interesting for the present. Close by and on the same side of the square may be seen an example of the kind of Fa^aden-Malerei which in Holbein's enriched the Wine-market. For though dimmed by years it is still possible to make out the colouring of the golden scallop shells and window friezes of the first floors, the rose red scallops and friezes and medallions on the second floor of the house No. 5 occupied by L. and M. Theiler, and generally spoken of as Bell's house. So faded are the colours, so forlorn and paintless the cornice, that the passer-by would probably never stop to gaze at it, were it not for the interesting bit of sixteenth-century iron-work upon the pro- jecting balcony. But none who remember how this revival of Art Decoration in Lucerne 284 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND owes its spirit to Holbein and his time will forbear to pause by the fountain in the Wine- market square and look up with reverence at this old house-front whose decoration may- well date from that day. Surely the owner will ere long allow a master's hand to give it back its ancient glory. The Wine-market has certainly had great interest added to it by its redecoration. Let us go forward and visit the fresco work that Meyer and Benz and Weingartner have ac- complished for the proprietor of the Hotel Waage. As we go we pause for a moment at the fountain which, with its statue of S. Maurice holding the hammer, and the armed knights below in their Gothic niches, keeps watch and ward above the pure water supply, and reminds men that they needs must be true knights also. It has spouted water through its dragon pipes since 1481. Thence turning slightly to the left, we find ourselves opposite Herrn Zahringer's quaint hotel facade. We can see at a glance that Weingartner has had his hand here, in breaking up the spaces, and giving architectural feature by his drawing to the otherwise plain house-front. The house's history is written plain upon the walls. Here in 1389 stood the Town Hall; WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 285 in 1503 the Town Hall had become the School House; in 15 19 it was the Inn with the Red Doors, for close by at that time were the shambles, whose doors were painted red; in 1586 the inn had become the house of the Guild of the Saffran ; in 1836 it was the Hotel Waage, or des Balances, as it is to-day. The legend further tells us that in 1893 it was decorated by the wish of the present proprietor, whose portrait and that of his wife are seen in stone, immediately above the arches of the windows adjacent. The picture of Justice and her scales above the main door speaks for itself. The clever group of men at dinner tells us that the Saffran Guild met here. The military procession in mediaeval costume marching along beneath the eaves, to the de- light and astonishment of the spectators who are represented as gazing on it, speaks to us of days when this, as the Town Hall, was the seat of municipal government. On the adjacent house-front, upon the balcony of which a rich carpet is hanging, may be seen a portrait of the chief magistrate of the town and his wife, her pet monkey beside her. Above in medallions are portraits of Gerard Pfyffer, and of Weingartner and his wife. This adjacent house, now part of the hotel, 286 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND used to be the ' Schiitzen-Haus,' and in honour of its use by the bowmen of old, S. Sebastian, their patron saint, is seen upon it. We wish with all our heart that many would follow Herrn Zahringer's example, not only in bringing the painter to add colour, but in commissioning the iron-smith to add such good examples of simple balcony work as from the hand of the Schnyder brothers have added interest to the river frontage of the Hotel des Balances, Close by, in the Metzger Rainli, we may visit the home of the brothers Schumacher, not so much because we wish to gaze on the portrait medallions of three of Lucerne's greatest painters, Wagmann 1560, Meglinger 1670, von Wyl 1623, as because this house decoration was one of the earliest efforts of the * Kunst-Gewerbe-Schule ' to turn its pupils ' art to the public service. Executed in 1885, the colour is in som6 parts fading. One is, however, struck by the humour of the designer even in this bit of fresco work. The motto is one that a pioneer in the revival of the decorative arts for public use might well have generally adopted. It runs thus : 'He who cannot find the right door will never get to Heaven.' WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 287 We go now to the Miihlen-Platz to see a simpler bit of wall-decoration, which dates from 1894, and which will keep alive a memory of the days when instead of the unsightly Gewerbe-Gebaude the citizens saw beside their Spreuerbriicke the quaint old city corn-mill. Whether the artist, by pictur- ing the fox in the vineyard, meant to suggest that the spirit of rapacity for gain had been the downfall of the mill, I know not, but there in the midst of simple scroll-work decoration, is painted in a bold sketch-like way the handsome features of Joseph Troxler, last of the Town millers, for this was the Miller's house. The legend tells us that he died in 1879, and further, that this house was burnt down in 1500, and rebuilt in 1640, and repainted in 181 2. We may bear this slighter type of fresco ornament in mind, for as we retrace our steps we shall meet with it again in the ' Hotel Hirschen' in the Hirschen-Platz. This house was redecorated in 1890, and in brightness of effect shows how a little colour will go a long way, but we shall be most attracted by the beauty of its iron-work sign. This really ex- quisite bit of work dates from the eighteenth century ; the golden stag in the hanging 288 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND garland of leafage and roses, the falcon's head and beak, are well worth study. But the feature of the Hirschen-Platz is the painted fa9ade of Herrn Bossard's house near it. As we gaze up at the fa9ade of this house of three stories with its richly decorated eaves, and its oriel windows running from a bracket in the basement right through the eave, and terminating in a quaint turret-spire, with finial and weather-vane, we are struck at once by the exceeding beauty of the house sign. This also is a bit of sixteenth-century iron-work, and was brought from Memingen. We note the coat-of-arms upon the turret oriel, which was defaced in the last century. The grills above the shop-window are modern, but are good copies of early work. We observe with what skill the left-hand windows in the three stories have been, by the simple fresco, so grouped as to appear to be single double-windows, and so to break the mono- tony which three windows in line with equal spaces would have occasioned. We note also the excellent effect of the festoons, or the eaves and the simplicity of the ornamental scroll-work above the windows. The design has been reproduced from the Haus Willmann in the Kapell-Platz above WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 289 mentioned, and is in colour identical with it. The chief modifications in the design other than were necessitated by the shape of this house-wall, were the introduction of the little children at either end of the scrolls above the windows. On the scrolls to the left of the oriel tower are seen children with the imple- ments of agriculture and the trappings of war ; whilst to the right the hunting and fishing and the jeweller's craftsmanship are represented by the children at their sport or at their work. The painting was done by Benz and Stirne- mann. Segesser was the architect in charge. This ' Haus Bossard ' has, by preserving to us a real bit of old Lucerne fresco, en- couraofed the revival of the fifteenth and six- teenth-century decoration of the town, and has, by the care bestowed upon it and reverence for old tradition, helped to form the true spirit in which alone such revival of the decorative art could be real and living. Apart from this, the house itself has an interesting history. It had apparently, if we may trust the sug- gestion of Dr. Liebenau in his book on Old Lucerne, helped the citizens of an earlier century to think of the need of the restoration or the preservation of what was of beauty or interest in the architecture of the city. 290 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND When the one-time mayor of Lucerne, the cornmaster Gasper Ratzenhofer, the then pro- prietor of the house, appHed to the Town Council at the beginning of the seventeenth century for help to rebuild the fallen corner-wall, we hear that they subscribed 60 gulden and gave him leave to take stone from the town quarry at a nominal sum ; and this they pro- bably did because they wished to encourage the repairs of private houses that added dignity to the city. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the house was considered to be of sufficient importance to be the residence of the Papal Legate. Eight portraits of these worthies still hang in the upper gallery of the inner court. Towards the end of last century the house came into the hands of a very wealthy lady by name ' Reding,' and she instructed her architect Jacob Theoring von Sonnenberg to put it into thorough repair. He did his work well and knowingly; this was about the year 1774. It must have attracted the notice of the French generals in 1798, or they would not have destroyed the coat-of-arms upon the oriel tower. After- ward it came into the hands of the Zanetti and van Moos families, but it appears to have been allowed to fall into disrepair, and when WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 291 the present owner came into possession in 1880, he at once set about its restoration. He ceiled the court with glass, he paved it with mosaic, and bringing together fifteenth and sixteenth-century furniture, with admir- able taste refurnished it in the true style of the olden time. Next we will pass into the Hirschen-Platz, and learn from Herr Bossard how in his determination to follow up his example of * Fa^aden-Malerei,' and to bring back to mind Hans Holbein's connexion with the town, he determined to restore and paint his father's house-front with a design which ex- isted in the Louvre, which had been prepared by Holbein for a house-front either in Basle or Lucerne. He of course had to make some modification in the plan, but he could repro- duce the main features of the design and the colour of the original, and so by the help of the architect Segesser and his chief workman Weingartner, brother of the Director at the Art School, and his friend the painter Benz, he set about preparing the design. As we look up at the house-front, we can see what modifications were made. The ar- rangement of the windows in the first story necessitated a slight alteration of design of 292 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND festoons and balustrade. In the second story the delightful * Ring Dance ' was introduced, Bossard choosing from his jeweller's collection certain valuable rings, and designing the pretty dance of the babes to the piping and drumming of their companions. In this same story he introduced upon the Tuscan pilasters medallion portraits of his chief workman Weingartner to the left of the spectator, of his friend Meyer am Rhyn on the middle pillar, and of his first patron Merian of Basle, upon the pillar to the right. In the third story there was a slight modification also, in the pose of the figures in the floral decora- tive song. The woman offers a cup instead of her breast to the god who clasps her, whilst in the top-story, wherein Holbein had depicted only three figures of Old Age de- stroying the work of life, it was necessary that a fourth figure should be added. This Bossard designed, — the second from the right hand ; and with some humour painted him as a man with his back to us in the act of pulling the pillar right on the top of himself, showing thereby his utter stupidity, a hint perhaps to his fellow townsmen that in the pulling down of their ancient walls and towers in the first half of the present century they had been WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 293 pulling down their own fortune about their ears. We shall be tempted oftentimes to come and conjure back the fresco work of Holbein and his time, here in the Hirschen-Platz ; and as we do it, we shall not only note the care of the worthy goldsmith to give us back the spirit of the design, but that fifteenth and sixteenth-century spirit also that made men feel that a man's house was his castle, and ought to declare upon its walls that it has an owner who is proud of it and a worker's life within. Here upon the bracket oriel of three stories that springs from a pilaster with a genuine sixteenth -century capital we see carved an example of the short dagger sword the old Swiss used, the original of which Bossard has among his * antiquities ' ; and hanging from it is the little ' soldering ' pot which declares that he who owns the dagger and he who now owns the house, is a goldsmith, for only goldsmiths use this little utensil. The very fountain in front of the house declares that here we are on sixteenth-century ground, for this bronze figure is a reproduction of the celebrated ' man with the two oreese under his arm ' which Labenwolf of Nuremberg wrought in 1540. 294 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND This restoration and decoration after Holbein was finished in 1887. In the same year Herr Muth gave Director Weingartner the order to execute the series of pictures of old Lucerne for his Bier Halle in the Ziirich Strasse. The leaven was already at work, and all the labour of the Art School — the Seidenhof, Herrn Schumacher's house in Hirschengraben Strasse, the Victoria in the Hirschmatt Strasse, the Waage, the Villa Ryser, the Hirschen, the Cornmiller's house in the Miihlen-Platz, the Gasthaus zu Pfistern, the Apothecary Miiller's house in the Wine- market, and the House Kaufmann by the Kapellbriicke, date since that time. Nor has this revival of Art-decoration only touched the outside of houses. Let us go forward down the Weggis Gasse to nearly opposite the English Church and enter the beer hall 'Eintracht' We shall find its pro- prietor has employed the hands and skill and knowledge of old times of the, painter Wein- gartner to good purpose. Round the great bar parlour and refreshment-saloon runs a series of paintings of the townsfolk of old Lucerne in their quaint dresses of two centuries ago. Here is a cheese sale going forward at the market; here three dandies of the WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 295 time come along ; here people are having a game of bowls ; there a love-making ; here a leave-taking ; minstrels are making music here ; the jovial cellarer is at work there ; there a dog runs at a beggar ; here folk listen to a good story ; another story is being told there ; and next to the old gossips whose dancing day is past is seen portrayed a village dance in full swing to the sound of an energetic orchestra of travelling musicians. Then there is a free fight, it is near the door, luckily, and the ruffian will make good his escape, but before him as he runs a pig is scampering, as much as to say, out you go, you pig ; the sun too is setting, a gentle hint to all who drink their beer at the Eintracht, that there is work to be done on the morrow, and that we must not sit here all night. The interest of this series of clever pictures is not only that they put on permanent record the dresses of the people of the olden days in Lucerne, but that they are all of them portraits of citizens of to-day. They thus preserve the type of feature in Lucerne in 1895 ^s they keep alive a memory of the time when every trade had its peculiar dress, when men and women were individuals, not 296 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND part of the sombre mob who wear black coats and round hats, till white coats and square hats shall come into fashion. ' In a town where the present is so beautiful we may well let the past be forgotten.' Our walks thus far will surely have disproved this assertion. The ancient city, — its wooden bridges, its picturesque towers, its narrow streets, its gabled houses, its quaint connect- ing passages, its little rain- washed squares that have been the whole world to generation after generation, — has a charm and atmosphere of its own that we cannot forget. Here, when the Revival of the Decorative Art we have been describing is complete, when the old town shines again in its mediaeval dress, however beautiful the present is, the past will haunt us, will inspire and delight our eyes, and fill our hearts with cheer. CHAPTER XX. WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE. A T THE SIGN OF ST. GEORGE. In Weggis-Gasse, where the merchants dwell Housed with their wares in amicable pride, Pictured I saw a full armed warrior ride Forth from the gate of his fair citadel, And, underneath, were verses writ to tell How he who owned the house had cast outside Seven dragons from their lair, and had defied The loathly brood by great Saint George's spell. ' House of the Seven Sins ! ' your golden star Shall shine for ever ; trusting on His word Whose power alone can keep the House of Life, How many sons shall here renew the strife. And 'neath the red-cross banner of the Lord Ride forth, Saint Georges, to God's holy war. Since the last two chapters were written six years have passed, bringing many changes to Lucerne, all of them more or less necessitated by the growth of the population and the 298 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND influx of visitors, some of them regrettable, others with compensations. Thus the Peace and War Museum near the splendid new station building, though it adds artistic effect to the scene as the steamers near their landing, is a great blot as one approaches the town from the lake, and effectually shuts out the Biirgenstock and the green slopes between us and Kastanienbaum, as one gazes from the Kapellbriicke or the river side. The Emmenbriicke has alas passed away for ever. The new bridge between Kapell- briicke and the Reussbriicke, though itself unlovely in its twentieth-century plainness, is no doubt a very great convenience to the market folk, and on market days is made picturesque by the flower sellers and the vegetable baskets that line one of its sides. The widening of the market quay from the Kapellbriicke is a gain in every way, and the new road beyond the Miihlenbriicke that passes along and pierces the Nollithor tower to the Hintermusegg has also done nothing to take away from the picturesque. The same cannot be said of the improvements, so called, of the Kapuchin Weg. A little path that wound up a grassy slope through orchards WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 299 and walnut trees, with its Stations of the Cross that gave it incident, has now been turned into a brand new road for Lucerne villadom, and one can hardly think of it as a path sacred to prayer or silent thought as one passes up it. The suburbs that have grown up almost as in a night, in the fold of hills beyond Ziircher Strasse or along the river side, and out towards Littau, have entirely bereft the city environs of their tranquillity, and given us for picturesque barns and farmhouses the worst type of Swiss villadom and suburban artizan dwellings. But the clock cannot be put back. The addition of the trams, though necessary, has not added to the artistic beauty or the sense of rest at Lucerne, but it must be ad- mitted that, as trams go, they are the least objectionable in Europe, for they make no noise, and there is no hooting of horns or jangling of loud bells which elsewhere is so much in vogue. Whilst, on the other hand, the arc lights that have been added to the various streets and to the quay sides give, in the evening, effects full of witchery and charm, and when the water of the lake is smooth as a mirror, and only the outline of the Peace and War 300 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Museum and the dark dome of the Bahnhof is visible against the blue slopes that melt into the bluer mass of Pilatus, the quay side lights and the station lights combined with their many reflections in the quiet water- flood, give one back the city of enchanted dream, and make one feel that Aladdin and his wonderful lamps must have his palace hereabout. Let us start for a third walk to see what additions of Fagaden-Malerei and house decoration or art work in the public streets have been made during the past six years. Passing from the Schwanen-Platz up the Gerber Gasse, we see at the end of the narrow way a tall house front with picturesque gabling, evidently newly ornamented, towering up above a low flat-roofed building, which is the Stadt-kellerei. The eaves of this house with their double ornament at once attract us. The interesting features of the decoration are first a central fresco of the worthy cellarer and his wife and child in mediaeval dress sitting at an open window in homely peace, the restfulness of which is accentuated by the child putting her hand on the head of the white cat which is sitting beside her on the balcony ledge. Above, running right across WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 30I the front, is seen a carefully drawn series of allegorical pictures representing, from left to right. Wisdom, Peace, Love, Honour, Work, Liberty, and Kindness. The pictures are woven into one another with bands of Renais- sance ornament. This is the work of Stromeyer of Lucerne, who executed many of the pictures in the waiting hall of the new Bahnhof, and who decorated also the house front of the Fritschi-stuhl, close by, in Bacchanalian fashion. The flat-roofed building below is the Stadt-kellerei proper. On either side of the doorway are hunting pictures in oil by Cammanini of Locano, and he also decorated the interior of the beer hall. The two grotesque masks carven in stone are by Hugo Siegwart. The feature of this hall is the beautiful vaulting from five pillars that are ringed round with brass ornament near the capitol for electric lighting. Very delicate and refined is the ornament upon the vaulting, the room is panelled round with wood ; above the panelling is a series of pictures by Cammanini, which it must be confessed are rather a medley. Cupids riding tigers have not much in common with the burning of the Cathedral, which is a little out of place by the side of three pictures of players 302 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND and drinkers in an Italian restaurant. One should certainly notice the quaint and artistic glazing of two of the windows. We leave the restaurant by a little passage called Theilung Gasse, which will lead us into the Weggis Gasse. Going a few steps to the right we shall note at the corner of the way where the Grendel Gasse runs into the Weggis Gasse a very interesting little fountain. This is a bronze figure of a young falconer in mediaeval costume with his pouch hung at his girdle and with his falcon upon his wrist ; the figure was modelled from one of the students of the Art School by Joseph Vetter, the sculptor and teacher there, and as at the school they have no means of bronze casting, it was cast at Florence ; it stands upon a granite pilaster in the midst of a simple basin of granite, and the enrichment of the pilaster and the water spouts therefrom in bronze are also worth noting, but the grace and dignity of the young falconer is beyond praise. Passing on up the Weggis Gasse we notice on the left-hand side the decorative work in Sgraffito of the house-front of Amrhein & Son. We have to thank Director Weingartner and his pupils for the refinement and simplicity WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 303 which has added interest to a house-front by pilaster work in black and grey, and which has linked the windows of the second and third story into one. Upon the nave, which has been decorated with colour, runs the motto : 'Ehre stets der Vater ehrsam Handwerk; Die Wurzel ist des Baumes grosste Stark'; but the real cleverness of Weingartner's de- signing power is seen when one turns the corner of the Werck-lauben Gasse and gazes back at the end of the house ; here the dulness of a great blank wall space is re- deemed by a spirited drawing of a knight in the armour of the middle ages galloping on his charger from under a gate-way, with the motto above him as follows : 'Dies Haus steht in Gottes Hand Zum Ritter Sanct Georg genannt. Die Drachen sind iiberwunden, Aus Haus und Hof verschwunden.' The house is evidently dedicated to S. George, by the little statue seen at the house angle, and Weingartner has emphasised this fact by the drawing of the knight, and the legend above which has reference to this fact, that the house originally was an inn, with the sign of the Seven Sins ; the present pro- 304 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND prietor has placed it under the banner of S. George, and would have us know that God, and not the devil, is the keeper of it. Notice, too, how cleverly he has joined the windows on the third story by a balcony in Sgraffito, and has enriched the other windows with his simple pilaster design used in the house- front. Upon the eaves on this side of the house, which are again decorated with colour, is written the motto : 'Wenn Handwerke nicht waren und deren Gild, So ware ein Bettelsack der Stadte Schild,' and at the eave angle may be seen a coat-of- arms, hands clasped beneath a star, which are presumably the arms of the proprietor. A few steps farther, and on the opposite side of the street, the house-front of W. Stofer, adjoining Bossard the jeweller, has been en- riched with a plaster ornament in high relief of the later florid Renaissance type, the central feature of which is a fine allegorical figure of Lucerne standing with a net in her right hand and with an oar in her left ; beneath are written the dates 1594- 1896. The design was by a Neapolitan, Bruniano, and the execution of it was entrusted to Karl Weit- mann of Lucerne. We are back in the Hirschen-Platz, now WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 305 the jewel of Lucerne, as far as house decora- tion goes, Weingartner has been busy again here, and the result will please all who look upon it. The proprietor of the Dornach House, which, with its fine Flemish step gable, with its side turret of blue tiling, and its ample eaves, is admirably fitted to lend itself to the decorator's art, had originally intended that the decoration of his house front, seeing that he is a merchant, should illustrate the mer- chandise of east and west. This accounts for the fact of the two figures in plaster that are leaning out as it were from the window, one with his chin upon his hands, gazing into the street, whilst a gnome- like figure above laughs down upon them. For these figures represent the east and the west, as may plainly be seen by the head-gear that they wear ; they are the work of Hugo Sieg- wart, whose figure of Tell in the Peace and War Museum will be remembered, and whose statue of Pestalozzi at Zurich is worth visiting. He was originally a scholar of the Art School at Lucerne. It chanced that in the year 1 899 there was held in Lucerne a commemor- ative festival of the 400th anniversary of the victory of the Swiss over the Emperor 3o6 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Maximilian at the battle of Dornach ; it happened also that the proprietor of the house acted in that festival as aide-de-camp to the Captain of the Lucerne soldiery. He therefore determined to give up the original design, and begged Herr Weingartner to enrich his house-front with a motive that would commemorate the 400th anniversary and the battle of Dornach. The first thing one notices is that the lower stories, being kept grey in tone, with their very simple Gothic decoration in Gris- aille, adds immense value to the bright decoration upon a white ground, which covers the front of the upper stories of the house. We notice above the windows the clever drawing of boys, like roguish elves, playing instruments of music, or holding up their hands in astonishment, and watching all that is going on. We note, too, the dedicatory in- scription, ' Dornach, 1499- 1899,' with the words, ' Traditum est memoriae,' beneath. The fine figure in armour, with the blue banner at his head, in the next story, is a portrait of the Standard-bearer of Lucerne to-day. In the background is drawn the Castle of Dornach. The figure above him on the next story, in coat-of-mail and riding upon WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 307 his charger, is a portrait of the present proprietor of the house. Both of these men are wearing long two-handed swords which were used at the battle of Dornach, and are actually preserved within the present house. One does not quite see what the very delight- ful hunting-scene that runs right across the house-front between these two portrait scenes had to do with the battle of Dornach. But whether one is admiring the keenness of the hound held in the leash, or the rush of the frightened deer through the thicket, or the flight of the timid hare, or the bold spear thrust into the heart of the bear, and the flank of the wild boar, one feels there is movement throughout the picture, and must congratulate the designer. The seven accessory figures that fill up the spandrils between the trellis work are repre- sentations of men in the armour that was worn at the battle of Dornach. That they are accurate may be known from the fact that Herr Bossard lent pieces of the veritable armour of that date to Herr Director Wein- gartner while he was preparing the design. The designer was happy in obtaining the services of Pfenniger of Zurich to carry out the painting of the design. 308 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND By the kindness of the proprietor I was enabled to see the dining-room within the house, the decoration of which he had also entrusted to Professor Weingfartner. It is panelled throughout with pine wood that has been slightly stained to a greenish brown tint, and has been enriched with carving in low relief, which has been copied from the Castle of Wortensee on the lake of Sempach and from the Rathhaus at Sempach. In the windows the panellings are painted with a rich floral design — in one of them is seen the name of the owner's father, R. Halter, and the date 1810, and in a panel opposite the name of the owner's mother. In the decoration above the window runs the motto : ' Einst unterthan und jetzt verbiindet, Luzern in Minne ist verkiindet.' A hint of the sorrow of Dornach times, and the pride and joy of Lucerne in the freedom of its republic. There are in the room a beautiful armoire, and table and chairs that have been specially made under Weingartner's direction to carry out the design of the room. Not the least interesting object is the little Gothic buttery hatch, which enables the food when it is prepared to come from the kitchen. As I went down the stairs I noted a WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 309 legend written up above them bidding all guests welcome, even though they brought no gold or jewels with them, if only they were the bearers of true joy and friendship. One felt, somehow or other, as if the worthy merchant draper, who had so cared both for the inside and outside of his house, must needs live in an atmosphere of thought, imagination, and refinement, which the task and care of mere business could never destroy ; he probably is one of many of such merchants in the old town of Lucerne. We will cross the Hirschen-Platz, and turn back a few paces to the Corn-market. The scaffolding round the Rathhaus tells us that the city fathers are determined to redeem their ancient City Council Chamber from blame for any decay. But we have come to-day to look at the latest addition to the Corn-market decoration — the house- front of Herr Greber. The lower part is painted in mineral colour, and consists of simple enrichment of the upper parts of the windows ; but the higher part of the house beneath the eaves has been painted in fresco and enriched with woodwork. Weingartner designed the scheme, and Otto Spreng executed the painting. 3IO FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND It is a pity that the allegory should have been placed at such a height from the ground as to render it impossible to realise the delicacy of its drawing. The idea Wein- gartner had in his mind are the stages of human age. On the left-hand side you have a child blowing bubbles and playing with toys, another child rides a rocking horse. In a third panel you have a lover with his arm round a maiden's waist. Then a man and wife stand up boldly in the prime of their life face to face with one another. Next comes a picture of happy old age, the two old people sitting quietly together. In the next panel the grey beard sits in his chair, and death comes to whisper in his ear ; alas the widow has not long to stay — death rings a bell above her head with one hand, and with the other holds the sand-glass of time. What one cares for about this house-front is the way in which the whole of the lower part has been plainly treated to make it subservient to the higher part of the gable. On the ornamented eave cornice is painted the motto : * Hiipfet und springet. Trinket und singet, Denkt im Getiimmel Auch an den Himmel' WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 311 We retrace our steps to the Wine-market. The fountain in the Wine-market has been entirely renewed by Joseph Wetter, the sculptor who is now Professor of Sculpture in the Art School. He has copied the original or oldest fountain of the fifteenth century, and not the later fountain of the seventeenth, which has been removed. This accounts for the fact that the figures are not painted as the later fountain was, and it is a distinct loss of colour to the whole Wine-market. But at anyrate we have gained in accuracy ; for the armour in which the knights are clad is more entirely armour of the fifteenth century, and the little pyramidal cubes of stone on ball feet, which before were surmounted with angels, have been replaced by Gothic flower finials of the fifteenth century, as existed in the original fountain. Passing from the fountain down the Wine- market-Gasse to the Kram-Gasse, one's eyes are arrested by the decoration over Leopold Lehmann's shop, which was designed by Art Director Weingartner, and executed by himself and his pupils and a teacher at the school, Waldishull by name. The motive of the decoration, as the motive upon its blue background, ' Hier zum Apfelschuss,' at 312 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND once leads us to realise, is the shooting of the apple from his boy's head by William Tell. Above the second story windows, which are enriched by pillars and an arch of rosettes, and flanked by other pilasters, upon which are medallions in golden lozenges, are seen two naked cherubs — one of them is sitting close to a skull, to a prisoner's girdle, and to iron handcuffs, and is examining the barb of the fateful arrow that is to give Tell freedom or death. The other cherub holds the same arrow with the apple spitted upon it in one hand, and in the other hand the wreath of victory, and beneath runs a legend in five couplets : ' Das Unschuld weint und Hochmut lacht Hat als man schreibet Schweiz gemacht. Not unverschlich weg erfint Das zeigt di That mit diesem Kind. Von dem der Vater schiesen solt Ein Apfel als der Amptman wolt. Bedrang der Vogt di leut erschreck't Und ward der Schweitzer Bund erweck't. Darumb wer herscht durch furcht und lieb Der log das er kein kurtzen schrieb.' Between the third floor windows a man is seen leaning on a balcony with a lute to sing us the song of Tell. The fourth story fresco WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 313 gives us the chief scene at Altdorf; on the extreme left of the picture Tells little son is seen standing against a cottage with the apple on his head ; children are crying in the street, and women are wailing and throwing up their hands in despair ; men are protesting, and Tells grey-headed old father is bidding them cease from their noise so as not to dis- tract or unnerve the brave archer, who is standing with his bow bent taking aim. On the extreme right of the picture, and behind Tell, is seen the tyrant Gessler, with his hand upon his mastiff's head, and a band of retainers standing by. Above, on the eaves of the house, are seen the three shields of Schweiz, Uri, and Unterwalden. We go forward a few steps, delighted with the picturesque grouping of the tower and roof- ing of the houses at the bottom of the street, and are at once attracted by the clever draw- ings in Sgraffito and Grisaille work by Wein- gartner and his scholars upon the house front of Chemist Boeglin ; but before examining it, we cannot help gazing away to the right, so beautifully does the bracket tower at the angle of the White Horse Inn seem to shine upward in the summer light to its copper cupola. 314 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND We shall do well if, before examining the house of the Apothecary, we go down to the White Horse Inn, and take a few steps into the Miihlen-Platz to see the simplest form of decoration in Sgraffito work that has yet been done. It will show how a very little effort is necessary to add interest to a house front. It may be summed up in a few words. A band of ornament half way up the house front, shows medallions to represent Work, Poetry, Art, and Philosophy. A little orna- mentation round the window heads — a few floral wreaths — and under the eave an in- scription which tells us that this house has a history from 1603 to 1901 complete the design. Then, before returning down the Kram- Gasse, let us pass a few steps back up towards the Wine-market to see one of the bits of Sgraffito in Weingartner's happiest manner, executed in 1897. This house, which was built in 1530, was originally a printer's house, with the name of the Two Hearts. Be- tween the first story windows is bravely drawn a man and his wife in mediaeval cos- tume, life size — the wife offering a goblet to her husband. Between these is seen a shield with a coat of arms — two hearts shot through WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 315 by one arrow. Above them runs the motto, ' Zu den zwei Herzen.' The windows are all enriched, and high up beneath the eaves is an excellent drawing of Seven Cats in various conditions of trying to leap up, with caterwauling, into the window of the house ; a hand is seen pouring a jug of water either upon the cats or upon the people's heads below, with a motto, ' Gutes Montag, 1877.' This puts on record an amusing incident in connexion with the worthy printer, the then proprietor of the house, who, at the time of the Carnival, 1877, had dared to say that he thought that the various Guilds, instead of spending their whole time in eating and drink- ing, should give a play to the town. The suggestion was not well received, and on the day the various Guilds met beneath his house to carry out the printer's wish, and give him a play all to himself of ' cat's music' To avenge himself he threw water upon them from his house window, which so enraged them that they made a forced entry and broke up one of his machines. The printer was a man of humour, and determined to have his revenge in return by putting it on record that he treated the cats, as they well deserved, with a shower bath from the top windows. 3i6 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND On the cornice of the eave, which is also enriched, runs the motto : 'Liesz doch der Herrgott hier auf Erden Zu Dornem und Disteln alle Klatsch-Zungen werden ; Dann frass sie der Esel, es hat keine Noth Und es weinte sich manch Auge nicht Roth ! ' This is as good an example as can be found in Lucerne of the way in which bold draughtsman- ship in Sgraffito can enrich a house front. The colours of fresco work in the open air must fade, this black and white ornament will last, practically speaking, as long as the plaster stays upon the wall. And the grey colour of the cement medium used for the background serves to show up any bands of ornament in white plaster with great effect. Let us now return to the Apothecary's shop ; for the motive of this house decoration, which is in Gothic style, we find that the painter has imagined sickness climbing up the side pillars from the ground into the house, and that he has depicted elves and gnomes as busily engaged in their laboratory con- cocting medicines by which they will drive the besiegers away. They are seven in number. Beginning from the right-hand side, one is stirring liquid in a vessel over a fire; two are busily engaged in pestling drugs ; a WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 317 fourth is weighing out chemics in scales ; a fifth lifts up a flask of liquid for the admiration of the others, as much as to say, ' This is the right article ' ; a sixth, with pen behind ear and spectacles on nose, is busily employed in reading some prescription ; and a seventh is humorously trying a water cure, and with a large squirt full in the face of the besieging death, has made him loose hand-hold, or rather claw-hold, of the pillar up which he was climb- ing. Between the windows of the third story, and above this group, runs an inscription in eight lines that was taken from a book of trades, written and illustrated by a certain well- known painter at Zdrich in the sixteenth century, named Yost Amman : *Ich habe in meiner Apotecken Viel Matire zu lieblich Schmecken. Zucker mit Wiirzen ich conficier Mach auch Purgatzen und Cliestier. Auch zu stercken den kranken Schwachen Kan ich mancherlei Labung machen. Das alles nach der Aertzte Raht Der seinen Brun gesehen hat.' Above again, and between the third and fourth story, runs Gothic decoration, with the word * Apotheke ' on a shield in the centre, and over this a coat of arms — a lion rampant on a golden shield, with the motto ' Virtus ' above it. 3l8 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Over all, running right across the house front, beneath the eaves, in colour, is seen the scroll of a vine with grapes as emblem of the tree of life ; and on the eave-boards them- selves is painted another vine, upon which are four shields enriched with flowers that are good for medicine. Amongst them we notice yellow gentian and the camomile. As one reaches the Reussbriicke, one stops to examine the nearly finished decorations upon the house of Herr Nager. They are panels that represent hunting and fruit gathering and fishing, copied from originals that were there, and executed in Grisaille in Louis XVI. style by Pietro Carlo Rezzonico ; but we must go on to the bridge to get a view backward of the decoration on the river front. These consist of three panels, representing Mars, Diana, and Pallas Athene, surmounted by a fine cartoon of Saturn un- covering the veil from a clock dial, while play- ing children hold the dial in their hands. On the opposite side of the clock face children who have stolen the scythe of Time seem to be playing with it, while on the handle of the scythe is sitting an owl. The legend current in Lucerne states that they who hear an owl hoot know that death is near. The allegory WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 319 points to the happy carelessness of youth and its waste of time, with the certainty that One comes who has counted our days, and holds the ending of them in His hand. As one crosses the bridge, one gazes up and sees that the Alpine Club Restaurant (date 1628) has decorated its eaves with coloured patterns and mottoes, and has enriched its river front with painting its house timbers with red brown on a white ground ; next our eyes are caught up to the Madonna and Child on the gable of the house on the left hand at the farther end of the bridge, and we are able to realise what an increase of interest is given to a grey house front by a patch of blue cloud and red robe and a bank of flowers. One may turn aside here for a moment to visit the Jesuit Church, to see the white marble statue of S. Louis de Gonzaga, lately executed with refinement and quiet power by Joseph Wetter, the sculptor at the School of Art. It stands in a rich rose-pink marble canopy over the altar of the second side chapel on the left hand. Anyone who cares for iron work will be glad to examine the beauty and simplicity of the iron screen work and doors that divide the entrance vestibule from the body of the church. Let us ask our way now to the H6tel Rotti 320 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND at the corner of the Riitti-Gasse and Hirschen- graben. We shall probably be directed a short way down the river side and be told to turn up the Burgen Strasse, down which of old ran a stream that was used for defence, but which now runs silent beneath the street in a culvert. Gazing upward at the Hotel Rutti one sees above an entablature, and beneath the eaves, in gayest colour, the arms of various European States and America boldly drawn upon a white ground and very decorative ; these were executed by Signor Rezzonico. But the interest of the Hotel Rtitti lies in its banqueting hall, and all who care to see how enterprising Swiss hotel- keepers are in the matter of seeing that their guests shall have delight for their eyes and thought for their hearts as well as pleasure for their palates, should ask for leave of the courteous proprietor Diesler to visit this banquet hall. As one enters it the general effect is of a well-proportioned hall, panelled high with wood of a walnut colour, its panellings at the upper part are enriched with a band of carving in low relief, the ground of which has been painted, and the leaves of which have also been slightly coloured, whilst the roof timbering in deep red cedar pine WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 321 has been enriched with rolls and billet mould- ing picked out with vermilion-and-white and blue-and- white. In the centre of the roof is a sky-light, round which runs the first verse of the ballad of William Tell. The windows which are on the left of the hall have been filled with unstained glass that does not in any way take from the richness of the colour of the wall paintings. As one enters the hall one notes that over the heads of the three doorways are painted in gay colours the arms of the various guilds of old Lucerne. Immediately on the right, dressed in mediaeval costume, is seen the proprietor of the house ; his wife appears in a corresponding position in the left corner of the room ; whilst to the left of the doorway is a picture from an old map of this part of the town, called in the olden time, Neue Stadt. Lying inside the Hirschen-graben with its towers, gateways and bridges, and water defences, the Bruck Thurm, the Kessel Thurm, are observed close to where we are now standing ; and the stork, which was of old the friend of Lucerne, is seen in the right-hand corner of the draw- ing. Going down the hall on our right hand are depicted scenes that commemorate a quarrel which the guild of Fritschi has with 322 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND the powers of the city who took away their rights of meeting once a year in the old theatre when the new theatre was built. It chanced that the President of the Fritschi Club was also President of the Lucerne Council ; he was unable, therefore, to use the powers of persuasion he might otherwise have used in defence of his Club rights. A cook boy is therefore represented as saying to a disconsolate girl who comes with her chickens and eggs to market from the village where the President was born, that no one in Lucerne will buy any of her commodities till the Fritschi Club has obtained its rights. On the opposite side of a picture of a mediaeval kitchen, with the master and mistress sitting at their meal, is another representation of the Fritschi Club Secretary showing how the Town Council have torn up the old deed or agreement by which he and his Club held their rights. Next comes a picture of the death of Gundoldingen at the battle of Sempach, and beyond the doorway, in the centre of the side of the room, stands one of the three confederates, Arnold of Melchthal, who gazes across the room to the two other confederates, who with one hand on their swords hold up WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 323 three fingers of their other hand in token of their sacred oath. Then follows a portrait group of the grandfather, father, and son of the Diesler household — the son represented as a man from Basel coming with a letter to the mayor of Lucerne, declaring war because of the town's treatment of the Fritschi Club ; and to judge by the likeness to the young man who courteously showed me round the room, I should imagine they are excellent portraits. But instead of war the quarrel ends in a dance, which is depicted in panels down to the end of the room. We leave modern history, and are taken away to ancient history by panels at the end of the room, and round on the opposite side between the windows of the various fortified towns in the Canton of Lucerne. But we must not omit to note that in the centre of the room is represented a portion of the old Musegg Wall of Lucerne, and that the centre tower, which is a clock tower, has been cleverly utilised to serve as a clock-case for the clock of the banquet hall. From beginning to end one is struck with the carefulness and thoughtful- ness of the work, and for this we have to thank the designer, Weingartner, and the painter, Waldstrubel. 324 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Herr Diesler seems to have entrusted the decoration of his smoking-room to another Lucerne painter, Jorgensen by name. It is, of course, in a more modern and lighter style, but the frieze, painted in tempora with gesso ornament to divide the pictures, is prettily executed, and certainly if one wants to feel hot and cool at the same moment one can do this by a visit to this ' fumoir.' The frieze consists of twelve pictures of well- known scenes at the Swiss lakes, interspersed with twelve other scenes from Egypt and the East. One a little wonders that the S. Gothard viaduct across the entrance to the Maderaner-Thal was chosen as one of the subjects ; but all the other subjects are full of quiet beauty and coolness, and as an Eastern traveller I can vouch for the accuracy of the colouring of the Egyptian scenes. We leave the hall, pass up the Hirschen- graben, round by the Protestant Church, to the Hall of Justice for the Canton, originally the Freihof, up to whose very doors the old KapellbrUcke ran. The School of Art has been busy with a fine Louis XVL frieze upon the eaves, and grisaille work between the spandrils of the pillars. The painters of this frieze were Rezzonico and Otto Spreng, WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 325 the designer Director Weingartner. The motive of the design of this frieze is evidently that Lucerne, the Hon-hearted one, here holds the sword and scales of justice with this result, that her children, who, as dwellers by the lake are set forth symboli- cally in the form of mermen, are enabled to be at peace, and to stop all wrong and robbery, and encourage all good. Here then we see that, whilst the mermen, with helmets on, are strangling the black crows that are the robbers, the mermen unclad in coat of mail, are peaceably feeding the home-loving Stork that in old days was the darling of Lucerne. We continue our way down the Hirschen-graben to the river side, and opposite the theatre stop to admire the exquisite floral decoration of the eave of the beautiful house of Herr Abt, the famous engineer. The artist, Benz of Lucerne, who planned that roll of twelve Renaissance flowers which have been used in the frieze, has set an example for boldness to all the painters of Lucerne, even as by his work in the Gothic Chapel, at the Landes Museum at Zurich, he has proved his skill and ability to design. Equally clever was he in obtaining effect by such simple method 326 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND as the painting of the shutter boards of the windows banner-Hke, with flamboyant rays of rose-pink upon a white ground. It is well worth while going across the roadway, and from under the shade of the pink flowering horse chestnuts by the river, to gaze up at that triple-turreted house-front and its quaint stone balcony at the angle, which has lately been restored by its owner. Now following the river, past the Kapell- briicke towards the post office, let us turn up a street to the right immediately beyond the H6tel du Lac, which will take us into the Pilatus Strasse, within a hundred yards of the Bahnhof. Arrived there, on our right hand we shall find the Restau- rant Flora, and from the shady garden we may pass freely into the restaurant hall, which has been painted throughout from Weingartner's design by Rezzonico, to illustrate Goethe's tour in Switzerland at the end of the eighteenth century. One must be struck at once by the fine effect of colour of the flowers and trees, which give the appearance almost of fine tapestry to the walls — the tree stems separating the pictures one from another, the flowers at the roots of the trees being carefully chosen WALKS ABOUT LUCERNE 327 to suit the localities depicted. But the interest of these scenes consists in the fact that they are taken direct from old copper- plate engravings of the time between 1795 and 1800, and these copper-plate engravings were by such masters as Gessner, Hess, and Meyer. I was enabled to see the original engravings, and know how carefully Rezzo- nico has copied them. Though the tour is illustrated from Bale to Chillon we need only take two of the pictures to show their historical import. One of them, number four, shows Lucerne at that time : poplar trees are growing where now the Bahnhof stands, and orchards and meadows alone are seen where now the Hotel National and all the rest of that huge hotel frontage has sprung up. Again, in number six, we may see the old devil's bridge of the S. Gothard route as it then appeared. It will be a happy day, indeed, for us in England when we turn our restaurants into books of literary associations and historical illustrations such as are found here. Let us conclude this third walk in Lucerne with the pious wish that whatever English folk are encouraged to make the tour we have sketched, they will carry home a 328 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND determination to urge our fellow-countrymen to encourage Schools of Art in our midst, by giving the students this kind of decorative work to do in their separate localities. We in Britain shall not be able to make Art a living thing of national use, till we bring it into the public places of resort, whether in a station waiting room, restaurant, coffee palace, or in our public streets, and thus make it part of the joy of the people's life. INDEX Aa, The, and the Trubsee, 142. Aare, River, 3, 39. Abbots' authority in old times, 147. Abendberg, 14, 37 ; Snow on the, 45 ; Meaning of, 46 ; Dawn at, 52. Abry, painter, 271. Adelhelmus, Anselm, First Abbot of Engelberg mon- astery, 146-194. Almen, Mrs. Von, and torchon lace-making in Lauterbrunnen, 79- Altdorf, William Tell at, 108 ; Picture of, 313. Altzellen, Conrad Scheuber at, 141. Ambrose, Father, musician in Engelberg monastery, 193. Amisbiihl, Restaurant at, 45, 47 ; Labours at, 49 ; Dawn at, 54. Amman, Yost, of Zurich, six- teenth century, 317. Amrhein & Son, House-front of, 302. Angel Mount, At the, 139, 142. Antiquities, destroyed, in Lu- cerne, 251. Art School, work by the, 257. Ar/s, Revival of the Decorative, at Lucerne, By Canon Rawns- ley, 239. Augsmatthorn, Snow on the, 45- Avalanche, in Miirren, 92 ; at the World's End, 172. Bachiholzi, Heinrich von Stratt- ligen's tomb at, 7. Bakers, antiquity of the Guild of, 276. Balances, Hotel des, 285. Baumgarten, BaiUfiF, Schiller's poem on, 215. Beatenberg, 10, 18 ; Foresters, 20 ; Schoolhouses in, 24 ; Church, 28 ; Walks at, 33 ; Potato planting at, 36 ; Com- ing of dawn at, 51. Bede, Father, 192. Bede, The Venerable, 192 ; Ecclesiastical History by, 197. 330 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Beethoven, Mass, 154. Benz, fresco painter, 245, 284, 289 ; Bossard's house reno- vated by, 291 ; house front by, 325- Berchtold, Abbot of Engelberg monastery, 198. Bible, Basel, illustrated by Hol- bein, 271. Birds, 15, 34, 47 ; at dawn, 53, 56 ; at Lucerne, 98 ; at Engel- berg, 166. Birrenfluh, Birds at the, 15 ; Fluh-blume at, 32 ; Flowers s^t, 35 ; Tower, 44 ; Dawn at, 51- Biscop, Benedict, 192. Blaue See, see Blue Lake. Boats, Market, at Lucerne, 219, 243- Boeglin, House -front of, 313. Borelli, General Count, defeated by the Swiss (1478), 261. Bossard, 235, 252, 307 ; Gold- smith in Lucerne, 245, 264 ; House of, 288-294. Boulders, Beauty of, 210. Bracken on the BUrgenstock, 131- Briinig Pass, from Lucerne, 95. Bureau of Information at Lucerne, 233 ; Secretary of the, 238. Biirgenstock, the, 1 27 ; Descrip- tion of, 128; Bracken on the, 131; Valley on the back of, 136. Burgundy, Dukes of, 3. Cammanini of Locano, pictures by, 301. Capuchin Church and Mon- astery at Lucerne, 225. Car, funicular, 10. Cathedral, Lucerne, 226. Cattani and the electricity in Engelberg, 202 ; Architect of Seidenhof, 257. Cattle in Switzerland, 43. Cells, Monks', in Engelberg monastery, 191. Chairs, Making of basket, in Lucerne, 235. Chalet building, 31. Cheese farming and the Engel- berg monastery, 148. Cheese-making, 42; inSchwandIi Alp, 206. Cherry harvest in Vitznau, 99. Christening in Engelberg, 182. Church, Protestant, 28 ; Church- going in Lauterbrunnen, 81 ; in Engelberg, 144-147 ; Fran- ciscan, in Lucerne, 253. Class distinction, Absence of, 1 79. College, Monastery, 147. Conrad, Founder of Engelberg monastery, 1121, 146. Corporation House, re-buildings of, 253. Cows, 42, 69. Cumberland maiden in Kloster churchyard, 155. Deckler, J. Kniisel's house pain- ted by, 275. INDEX 331 Dornach, battle of, 1499, 306 ; House, description,of, 305-309. Diesler, Decorations of the house-front of, 320, 324: family portraits of, 323. Drachenloch or Beatushohle, 12. Drei Linden Hillat Lucerne, 225. Dress, Head, of Swiss women, 81, 151. Dress of peasant women at Beatenberg, 1 9 ; of Swiss men, 150; Embroidery on, 152. Dynamite at Isleten, 107. Eagle, Alpine, 40. Ecclesiastical History by Bede, 197. Education in Switzerland, 24-27. Eglin, fresco painter, 266. Eiger, The, 14, 47 ; Dawn on, 52, 56 ; Moon on, 54. " Einspanner," 60. Election of the Abbot in Engel- berg, 194. Electricity in Engelberg, 202 ; in Lucerne, 299. Electric light in Beatenberg, 32 ; in Engelberg monastery, 191. Engelberg monastery, 143-156; Mass at, 167 ; A visit to, 189- 199 ; View of, 211. Erlach family, 61. Eschenbach, Ulrich von, fresco painter, 266. Estatesmen, Absence of class distinction in Swiss, 179. Fa^aden-Mahlerei, in Lucerne, 300. Farriers, Guild-house of the, 272. F"aulhorn, 14 ; Snows of, 46, 48. Fire, Precaution in case of, 32. Flora, Restaurant, in Lucerne, 326. Flowers, Wild, i, 17, 33, 38, 41, 47,64, 68, 86, 90, 94, 106, 114, 116, 120, 133, 161, 169, 171, 184, 204, 206, 213, 220. Fliie, Nikolaus von der, 141. Fliie, von der, and the Confed- eration of Switzerland, 259. Fluh-blume, 32. ' Fluh-blumen,' 184. P'luher, Joseph Francis, The martyr, 136. Food, Peasants', 22. Foresters, Smocken, 20. Fountain, by Joseph Vetter, 302; in the Wine-market, 311. Four Cantons, The Lake of the, 93- Fretndenblatt, 234. Frenzel, Master smith in Lu- cerne, 245 ; work by, 274. Fresco decorating in Lucerne, 246 ; by Holbem, 255. Fresco-revival at Lucerne, 262, 294. Fritschi Club, 322 f. ; Stuhl deco- rated by Stromeyer, 301. Frocinus, Second Abbot of the Engelberg monastery, 148, 189; Pictures by, 196; Por- trait of, 198. 332 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Fiirst, Walter, of Attinghausen, 105. Gardening, 21. Gasthaus zu Pfistern, in Lucerne, 259, 276. Gemmi tunnell, 63. Gessler at Altdorf, 108 ; Death of, 109 ; Picture of, 313. Gessner, copper-plate engrav- ings by, 327. " Gesta Romanorum," 269. Giomico, battle of (1478), 259, 260. Glacier Garden, 230. Goats at the 'World's End,' Goethe's tour in Switzerland, 326; from Bale to Chillon, 327- Goldboden, Meaning of, 161 ; Pastures, 186. Greber, Herr, House-front of, 309- Grindelwald, Vale of, 46 ; Dawn at, 57. Griot, Carl, architect of the Guildhouse of Bakers, 278. Gronbach, 10 ; Meaning of, 39. Griitli, 105; Meetingof the Con- federates, 109. Gull, of Zurich and Lucerne, 240. Gundoldingen, Haus, 258; death of, at the battle of Sempach, 275 ; picture of the death of, 322. Haar-Nadel, A head ornament, 151. Halden, Arnold an-der-, of Melc- thal, 105, 322. Halen, Bernard, of Bredlau, Music of, 153. Halspitti, A necklace, 151. Halter, proprietor of Dornach House, 308. Hammetschwand, 129, 131 ; Description of scenery in, 134- Heights, Mountain, Effect of the vicinity of, 228. Hertenstein, Caspar, portrait of, 279. Hertenstein House, Holbein's frescoes on, 255, 265 ; carved stone figures on, 264 ; frescoes, allegory of, 267, 270. Hess, copper- plate engravings by, 327. Hess, Robert, of Engelberg, 208. 'Himmel Blume,' 171. Hinter-musegg Strasse, in Lucerne, 222. Hofkirche, Lucerne, 246. Holbein, his frescoes in Lucerne, 255, 256, 262 ; his first work, in Lucerne 265 ; Basel Bible, illustrated by, 271 ; work by, 283 ; Bossard's house decora- ted after, 291. Holz Kapelle, 178. Horse, White, Inn, Description of house-front of, 314. H6tel des Balances, 285. INDEX 333 Interlaken, Monastery Church at, 13 ; Description of Scen- ery, 72. Ironworkers' art in Lucerne, 244. Isenmann of Buchrain (1603), 275. Jorgensen, painter, 324. Jungfrau, 14, 47, 87 ; Dawn on, 52, 56. Justisthal, 10. Justus, S. Beatus' friend, 12. Kander river, 62, 65. Kanderthal, The Blaue See, 59. Kanzeli, 32, 35 ; Meaning of, 37 ; Terrace of, 117 ; Rigi seen from, 118. Kapellbriicke, Lucerne, 257. Kapuchin Weg, 298. Keel, Master smith in Lucerne, 245. Kist of Whistles, 28. Kloster churchyard, 155, 168. ' Kulm,' The, View from, 113. Kurverein Committee, 159 ; Engelberg, 212. Kyburg, Counts of, 3, 4. Lace,Torchon, makingin Lauter- brunnen, 79. Lake, Blue, (Blaue See), 64 ; Beauty of, 66 ; Colours of, 68. Lanz, of Berne and Lucerne, 240. Lauterbrunnen, Dawn at, 57 ; Scenery, 74 ; Meaning of, 75 ; Waterfall, 76, 78. Lavena,Trolli von, fresco painter, 267. Lehmann, Leopold, Shop deco- ration of, 311. Leppert, Master smith in Lu- cerne, 245 ; work by, 274. Library in Engelberg monastery, 194. Liebenau, Dr., on Old Lucerne, 289. Limacher, pupil of Weingart- ner, 245, 278. Lion, The, at Lucerne, 223, 230, 239- Longfellow and the " Bridge of Death," 252. Lucerne, 2, 93, 214-237 ; Tower at, 8, 241 ; Beauty of, 97 ; Lake of, 115, 120, 138; The Biirgenstock and the Lake, 129 ; Electricity for, 202, 209 ; Cleanliness of, 230 ; Good manners in, 231 ; Evening in, 236 ; Lucerne, its lake and environs, 233 ; Walks about, 238-296 ; and the Swiss con- federacy (1332), 241 ; building of a bridge of defence in (1333), 241 ; Spoilt picturesqueness of old, 242 ; ' Wooden Stork's Nest,' 250 ; at the battle of Giornico, 261 ; revival of the decorative arts at, 297. Liitschine, River, 45, 74. Lyn, Hans von, of Trient, 255. 334 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Maien-Blume, i6i, 169. Manners of Swiss children, 178 ; of Lucemers, 231. Mannlithurm (1520), 251. Mantegna, Holbein's copy of, 269. Maps of old Lucerne (1597), 257. Market days at Lucerne, 219, 243- Mary, Virgin, Cult of, in Switzer- land, 170. Marzohl, fresco painter, 267. Maurer, Herr, and the Inter- laken meadow, 72. Meglinger, Caspar, Pictures by, 222 ; Dance of Death by, 252 ; Portrait of, 286. Meyer-am-Rhyn, 252 ; portrait of, 292. Meyer, copper-plate engravings by, 327. Meyer, Johann, Master smith in Lucerne, 245 ; Work by, 249, 255, 257, 280. Milk, Hot, provided for school children in winter, 180. Model of central Switzerland constructed by Ludwig Pfyffer, 229. Monch, 14, 47 ; Dawn on, 52, 56, Morat, Battle of, 8. ' Motteruseli,' 169. Miirren, 85 ; May in, 89 ; View from, 91. Museum, Thun, 5 ; of Peace and War at Lucerne, 217, 298. Music, Church, in Engelberg, 1 54. Music makers in Lauterbrunnen, 80. Music school in Engelberg, 193. Muth's Bier - halle in Zurich Strasse, Lucerne, 250. Mutter Gottes Finkle, 161. Nager, Herr, Decorations upon the house of, 318. Napoleon and the Engelberg monastery, 147. Nick, Master smith in Lucerne, 245. Nidwalden, Sunshine in, 141. 'Nothing but springs,' Valeof,7i. Oath of the thirty-three Con- federates, 105, 109. Obbiirgen, The Pastor of, 136. Oberland, At the gates of, 1 ; Panorama of, 14 ; Peaks, 47. Organ, Church, 28, 145. Paradise, In, 200-213. Pfenniger of Zurich, painter, 307. Pfyffer, Gerard, portrait of, 285. Pfyffer, Lieut.-Gen. Ludwig, 229. Potato-planting, 36. Preaching at Engelberg, 149. Rabenfluh, 1 3 ; Scenery of, 7. Railway, mountainous, in Switz- erland, 87. Reformation, Gain and loss, 182. INDEX 335 Relics in Engelberg Church, 146. Religion in Switzerland, iT-yt. Renggli of Lucerne, 278. Revival of the Decorative Arts at Lucerne, 297. Reuss, River, 94 ; at Lucerne, 218. Rezzonico, Pietro Carlo, 324 ; panels by, 318. Rigi, The Real, 112; At the end of May, 114; Seen from the Kanzeli, 118; Description of, 125. Rossberg landslip, 121. Rugen, The, 45. Ruskin, John, on Pines, 44 ; and Von Moos's Haus, 255. Riitli, 104. Riitti, Banqueting hall at the hotel, 319; Herr Diesler, pro- prietor of, 320 f. S. Anne, Convent of the Sisters of, at Lucerne, 217, 227. S. Beatus, Hill of, 9 ; Story of, II; Legend of, in verses, 30. S. Benedict, Pictures of the life of, 145- S. George Inn, formerly the Seven Sins, 303. St. Gotthard Pass, 107. S. Leodegar, 233, 239, 241, 248. S. Maurice, 241. S. Nicholas, Patron saint of boatmen, 216. Salt, Blessing of the, 181. Sch^rer, His Most High Leo- degar, 190. Scheuber, Conrad, at Wolfen- schiessen, 141. ' Schiller-stein,' 104. Schiller's poem, 215; Quotation from, 278. Schnyder, 235 ; Master smith, 245 ; Work by, 271, 286. School attendance in winter, 180. School, New, in Engelberg, 193- Schools, Elementary, 24 ; Fines, 25. Schreckhorn, 14, 61 ; Peaks of, 48 ; Dawn on, 54. Schwegher, fresco painter, 266. Schwyz Canton, 105 ; At the Battle of Giornico, 261. Schynige Platte, Woods of, 46 ; Dawn at, 55 ; Waterfalls of, 74- Sckell, Master smith in Lu- cerne, 245. Scriptorium in Engelberg mon- astery, 148, 198. Segesser, pupil of Weingartner, 245, 278 ; architect, 289 ; Bossard's house renovated by, 291. Sempach Waters and Swiss independence, 135 ; Arnold von Winkelried at, 140 ; Pic- ture of the battle of, 275. Seven Springs, 161. Shrine, Wayside, in Engelberg 164. 336 FLOWER-TIME IN THE OBERLAND Siegwart, Hugo, sculptures by, 249, 301, 305- Simplon tunnel, 63. Smdcken, Department of Bea- tenberg, 19; Electric light in, 32- Smoking, Peasants' habit of, 23. Snow, Devastations caused by, 123. Spirenwald, Department of Beatenberg, 20 ; School, 26 ; Electric light in, 32. Spreng, Otto, painter, 309, 324. Stadt-kellerei in Lucerne, 300. Staffeli farm, 187. Stauffacher, Werner, of Steiner, 105. Steyen-fluh rock, 185. Stirnemann, painter, 289. Stofer, W., house-front of, 304. Stone-carving in the Hofkirche, Lucerne, 247. Strattligen, Heinrich von, 7. Strohmaier of Constance, 278. Stromeyer of Lucerne, frescoes by, 301. Stiickelberg of Bale and the William Tell pictures, 108. Stutz, Pension, 216. Sulegg, 14, 37 ; Snow on the, 46 ; Dawn on, 57 ; Waterfalls of, 74- Sunrise in Switzerland, 53. Swiss Guards, on the loth of August, 225. Tailor at Engelberg, 144. Tell, William, 104 : Home of, 106; Shooting the apple, 108, 312; Escaping Gessler, 109; Statue of, by Hugo Siegwart, 305- Tell's Platte, 100, 105 ; Tell's chapel, 107, no. Theiling, Frischhans, at the battle of Giornico, 261 ; pic- ture of, 279. Thorwaldsen's Lion, 239. Thun, 2, 3, Scenery of, 4, 71 ; Lake of, 57. Trees, 7, 60, 94 ; in Thun, 7 1 ; Pines, 122, 130 ; in Engelberg, 1 58 ; Pine, 166, 227 ; Fir, 209 ; Horse chestnut, 216; Linden in Lucerne, 217. Triimmelbach, Scenery, de- scription of, 82 ; Waterfalls, 84. Twain, Mark, at Lucerne, 218. Two Hearts House, 314. Unterwalden Canton, 105 ; At the Battle of Giornico, 261. Uri Canton; 105 ; At the Battle of Giornico, 261. Uri, Lake of, 100, 103 ; Bull of, 187. Vetter, Joseph, sculptor, 302, 311; artd the Statue of S. Louis de Gonzaga, 319. ' Vier Jahreszeiten,' 249. Virgin, Black, at Einsiedeln, 171, INDEX 337 Vitznau, 97 ; Cherry harvest in, 99 ; Beauty of, iii, 119. Von Moos's Haus, in Lucerne, 254. Wages, Labourer's, 20. Wagner, Richard in the Dubeli, 272. Waldegg, 16, 49 ; Department of Beatenberg, 20 ; Electric light in, 31 ; Dawn at, 52, 57. WaldishuU and Leopold Leh- mann's shop, 311. Waldstrubel, painter, 323. Walks at Engelberg, 157, 162, 175- Waterfalls in Lauterbrunnen, 76; The Tatschbach, after rain, 176. Water tower, Schwand, 203. Waters, Valley of Sounding, 46. Wearmouth, Bede's first mon- astic home, 192. Weingartner, 235 ; Head of the School of Art in Lucerne, 245, 250, 261 ; and the Baker's Guild, 278 ; apothecary's house decorated by, 281 ; and the Wine-market, 284 ; portrait of, 285 ; work by, 302 : and the battle of Domach decora- tions, 306 ; house front by, 310,311,313,325; banqueting hall by, 323. Weitmann, Karl, of Lucerne, 304. Wetterhom peak, 48, 74 ; Pano- rama from, 82. Whitsuntide Sunday in Lauter- brunnen, 81 ; In Engelberg, 149-156. Winkelried, Arnold von. At Sempach, 140. Wolfenschiessen, Conrad Schea- ber at, 141. Wordsworth, Quotation from, 14, * World's End,' 160, 164, 172. Zahringer, Herr, 286. ULASGOW: PRINTSD AT TH« UNIVKRSITV I'KBSS BY ROBERT MACLRHOSK ANB CO. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-17ni-8,'55(B3339s4)444 i'HK LlBKAKl BHJVERSITY OF CALIFOKNLK -- UOS ANGELES ,t* 3Q R awns ley - 327 Flower-time in the ^19f Oberland '*'* 000130 043 3 DQ 827 Rl9f