Chapter X (2)

Right across the ravine, which appeared like a deep crevasse, scarcely half a mile wide, was a huge blue wall of ice, seamed with great chasms, rent into great fissures, cold, still, awful, and terrible, with its background of lofty mountains covered with eternal snow. Now we had a view of the Jungfrau in all its majesty, as its snow crest sparkled in the sunshine, twelve thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven feet in height. There were the Silverhorn and the Schneerhorn, springing their lofty peaks out of a vast expanse of snow and ice; a whole chain of gigantic cliffs, so lofty in height that you seem to look up into the very heavens at their peaks of dazzling whiteness; the Shreckhorn, twelve thousand two hundred feet high; the Black Monk, a dark mass of rocks, twelve thousand feet, in striking contrast with the snowy mantles that clothe the other mountains.

Great glaciers, miles in extent, put a chill into the air that makes you shudder. The gap that I thought half a mile wide is a space nearly six times that distance across; we feel dwarfed amid the immensity and stupendous grandeur of the scene, and, as we unconsciously become silent, are struck with the unbroken, awful stillness of the Alps.

We are above the murmur of brooks and the rush of waterfalls; no bird or insect chirrups here; there is not even a bush for the wind to sigh through. Now and then a deep, sonorous murmur, as of the sigh of some laboring gnome in the mountain, or the twang of a gigantic harp-string, breaks the silence for a moment, and then dies away. It is a distant avalanche. We listen. It is gone! and all is still, awful, sublime.

We rode on; the view took in a whole chain of lofty mountains: now we pass great walls of crag, three or four thousand feet high, now looked across the ravine at the great glaciers, commencing with layers of snow and ice, and running out till they became a huge sheet of blue ice, the color deepening till it was blue as vitriol; but we were doomed to pay one of the penalties of sight-seeing in the Alps, for swiftly came a thick cloud, shutting out the whole view, and out of it came a heavy shower, drenching all thoroughly. A quarter of an hour of this, and the cloud had passed on, and we had nearly reached the little Hotel Bellevue, our point of destination, and come in sight of a verdant hill-side, a vast green, sheltered slope, in striking contrast to the ice and snow of the other part of the pass.

Our guides made us first halt, and look at the herd of cattle that were feeding upon it, and then pause, and listen to the tinkle of their bells,--more than three hundred in number,--that sounded like a vast music-box in the Alpine stillness. Then we looked away across the valley, and saw the little village of Mürren, the highest village in Switzerland, five thousand and eighteen feet, on a mountain-side; and finally we reached the hotel on the highest point of the little Scheideck, six thousand two hundred and eighty-four feet (Righi is five thousand five hundred and forty-one feet), and as we approached across the little plat of level ground in front of it, found we had arrived at a "reapers' festival;" and there was quite a gathering of peasants, who assemble here on the first Sunday in August, dressed in the Grindenwald costume, for dancing, wrestling, and other festivities. They had been driven in-doors by the rain; the entry of the little hotel was crowded; and however romantic and picturesque the Swiss mountaineer may look in his national costume in the picture-books, or poetical he and the Swiss maiden may be in songs and ballads, there is an odor of garlic and tobacco about them at close quarters that seriously affects poetic sentimentality.

As the rain had ceased, the peasants once more betook themselves to dancing to the music of a cracked clarinet and a melodeon; and another group got up an extemporaneous fight, two of them tumbling down a dozen or fifteen feet into a gully without injury, while we put the house under contribution for wood for a fire in the best room, and were soon drying our clothes by a blaze of claret-wine boxes. A capital mountain dinner, in which tea, honey, sweet bread, butter, and chamois chops figured, was so much better and cheaper than the soggy doughnuts, indigestible pie, sour bread, and cold beans that used to be set before the traveller at the Tip Top House, Mount Washington, New Hampshire, for the tip top price of _one dollar_ a head, that we could not help drawing the comparison.

A rest and an enjoyment of the grand view of mountain chain, snowy peaks, and vast glaciers that surround us, and we start for the descent to Grindenwald. Grand views we had of the Wetterhorn, the Faulhorn, and the upper and lower glaciers of Grindenwald. We pass where avalanches have torn down the mountain-side, and thrown huge boulders about like pebbles, then over patches of open field, where stunted herbage grows, and Alpine roses redden the ground with their blossoms; then we come to woods, pastures, and peasants, and reach Grindenwald just before nightfall, to find our carriage waiting to take us back to Interlaken, which we reached after an absence of about eleven hours.

Interlaken is a grand depository and mart of the Swiss carved wood work, Alpine crystals, &c.; and grand stores of this merchandise, after the fashion of the "Indian stores" at Niagara Falls, attract the tourist. Some of this carving is very beautifully and artistically done, and some of it is cheap and not worth the trouble of taking away; but it is positively amusing to see how some American travellers will load themselves down with this trash because it _is_ cheap. Some of the smoke crystals and rock crystals, fashioned into sleeve-buttons and watch-seals, were both handsome and low priced.

I strolled into the little shop of an honest old Hebrew from Prague, who had a cheaply-painted little sign, in English, that he sold "Garnets, real Stones," and found that he did not, or had not learned to charge extravagant prices; he spoke English, and was teaching it to his little daughter, from a primer, when we entered, for "English and Americans buy garnet, and must be talk wis." The old fellow's garnets were excellent and cheap, and I soon had sleeve-buttons, and scarf-pin, large pin, and small pin, studs, and the garnet in forms enough to render me ruddy for the next ten years, and was preparing to take my departure, when leaning too heavily upon the little show-case, my elbow went through it with a crash. Here was a chance for damage! To be sure the pane of glass was little larger than a sheet of foolscap; but we must pay what the proprietor charged; and was he not a Jew? Well, this Jew thought two francs would amply reimburse him; but monsieur had been so kind, be could only charge him one.

After being deceived in the Rue de la Paix, cheated on the Boulevards, swindled barefacedly in the Grand Hotel, and humbugged outrageously in the Palais Royal, I rather relished being "Jewed" in this manner; none the less agreeable and satisfactory from its being so un-Christian-like a transaction. Accordingly I hailed two other Americans from the street, men who "bought everything everywhere," one of whom had got one of his trunks so mixed up, and tightly packed with shirts, curiosities, gloves, carved wood-work, stockings, photographs, crystals, boots, guide-books, under clothing, fans, and stereoscopic views, that he denominated it the Chinese puzzle, gave up trying to find his articles of wearing apparel in it, and sent it back to Paris. I hailed these two as they were passing, commended the merchandise and "much kindness in the Jew," and the old fellow, in less than half an hour, felt that he had brought his glittering gems from Prague to some purpose, as many of his best jewels changed places with the gold Napoleons of the Americans.

The little hotel at Giessbach was full when we arrived, although we had telegraphed a day in advance for rooms; and a polite porter met us at the pier, as the boat drew up, with regrets, and commended the "Bear," which was situated in the village of Brienz, opposite, where we could sup, lodge, and breakfast, and row over to see the Giessbach Falls. There was no resource but to go to the Bear, and we went; and after a bad supper, a boat's crew of two men and a woman rowed us back across the lake to Giessbach to see the lime light illumination of the falls. From the landing to the terrace commanding the falls is a good twenty minutes' climb; but in the darkness, preceded by a couple of guides bearing lanterns, there is not much opportunity for a critical examination of the surrounding scenery: however, we determined to revisit it by daylight, and all agreed that the idea of exhibiting a waterfall on a dark night, by means of an illumination, at a franc a head, was an idea worthy a Barnum, or at least the inventive qualities of an American.

We reached the terrace, and there waited in the blackness of night with an expectant group. We could hear the torrent dashing and tumbling down opposite to where we stood, and high above among the cliffs, but our vision failed to penetrate half a dozen yards into the Cimmerian gloom.

Suddenly a little rocket shot out from below us; another, above, with momentary flash revealed a tumbling cascade and the dark green foliage, and then all again was blackness. In a moment or two, however, a bright glare shot out from below, another above it, another and another flashed up, and then from out the blackness, like an illuminated picture, we saw the beautiful fall, a series of seven cascades, leaping and tumbling down amid the verdant foliage, every twig of which stood out in the powerful light, while through the romantic and picturesque ravine poured a mass of foam of molten silver, beneath the colored light, rich, gleaming and dazzling. But while we gazed, the hue changed, and purple equal to Tyrian dye for robe of Roman emperor tumbled over purple rocks, and dashed up violet spray into the air. Once more, and the rocks were ingots, the stream was Pactolus itself, the bark on trees at the brink were as if Midas himself had smote them, and the branches bore gold leaf above the yellow current. But it changed again, and a torrent red as ruby gushed over the rocks, the ravine was lighted with a red glare as of a conflagration, and as we gazed on those spurting, tumbling crimson torrents there was something horribly suggestive in the sight.

"Blood, blood! Iago."

But we did not see it long in that light, for the herbage, trees, and foliage were next clothed in an emerald hue, till the ravine looked like a peep into Aladdin's cavern, and the torrent was of that deep green tinge which marks that great bend of the falling water when it pours with such majestic sweep over the crag near Table Rock, at Niagara.

The green faded gradually, the torrent leaped a few moments in paler light, cascade after cascade disappeared; we were again in darkness, and the exhibition was over. Preceded by our lantern-bearers, we gained the boat, and our crew started out into the blackness of the lake for the opposite shore, and for one of the dozen groups of lights that marked the landings.

We were compelled to bear with the "Bear" for one night, but cannot commend it as the "Great Bear" or a planet of much brilliancy; so we bore away from it early in the morning for the opposite shores, again to see the falls by daylight, ere the steamer started on the return trip to Interlaken. The ascent is a series of curves up a delightful, romantic pathway, and when part way up crosses a bridge commanding a view of a portion of the falls; but from the charming terrace near the hotel, the sight of the series of six or seven successive leaps or continuous cascades of the water as it rushes down an impetuous foaming torrent from a height of three to four hundred feet in the mountain wall is magnificent. We sat beneath the trees and enjoyed the sight till the last moment, and saw, by turning towards the lake, that the steamer had left the opposite shore, then reluctantly tore ourselves away from the charming scene, and descended to the pier.

A pleasant sail back to Interlaken, an omnibus ride over to a steamboat landing, and we were once more embarked on another Swiss lake,--Lake Thun,--a beautiful sheet of water ten miles long, a portion of its banks covered with vineyards, and the view of Alps on Alps, in every direction in the distance, most magnificent; there were our old acquaintances, the Jungfrau, Monk, Eiger, and Wetterhorn, also the Faulhorn, and dozens of others, with their pure frosted summits and blue glaciers all around us as we paddled over the little blue lake, till reaching the town of Thun, we stepped into the railway carriage of the Central Swiss Railway, and in an hour were at Berne, at the fine hotel known as the Bernerhoff, which commands a view of the whole line of snow-clad Bernese Alps in one continuous chain in the distance, looking like gigantic ramparts thrown up by Titans. This city is on the River _Aare_, or, rather, on the high bank above it; for the river is more than a hundred feet below, and that portion of the city towards its bank seems placed, as it were, on a grand terrace for a lookout to the distant mountains.

If the tourist has not previously learned that the Bear is the heraldic emblem of Berne, he will learn that fact before he has been in the city a quarter of an hour. Two granite bears guard the city gates; a shield in the Corn Exchange is upheld by a pair of them, in wood; fountains have their effigy carved upon the top; and in the cathedral square, keeping guard of a large bronze statue of a mounted knight in full armor, Rudolf von Erlach, are four huge fellows, the size of life, in bronze, at the four corners of the pedestal. Then the city government keep a bears' den at the public expense--a huge circular pit, in which three or four living specimens of their tutelar deity solemnly promenade or climb a pole for buns and biscuits from visitors.

Wood-carving can be bought at Berne of very pretty and artistic execution, and the wood-carvers have exhausted their ingenuity in producing groups of bears, engaged in all sorts of occupations. I had no idea what a comical figure this clumsy beast makes when put in such positions. We have stopped at many a shop window and laughed heartily at the comical groups. Here were a party of bears playing at ten-pins: a solemn old Bruin is adding up the score; another, with one foot advanced and the ball poised, is about to make a ten strike, and a bear with body half bent forward watches the effect of the roll. Another group represented a couple at the billiard table, with one, a rakish-looking cub, making a scientific stroke, and his companion, another young "buster," with arm akimbo and cigar in mouth, watching them. There was a group of bear students, all drunk, arm in arm; two old bears meeting and shaking hands on 'Change; whole schools studying, with a master putting the rod upon a refractory bear; and a full orchestra of bears playing on every variety of musical instrument; in fact, bears doing almost everything one had seen men do, and presenting a most irresistibly comic appearance. These figures were all carved from wood, and were from a couple of inches to six inches in height. Scarce any tourist leaves without a bear memento.

The great music-box and carved wood-work stores here are museums in their way. Of course the more elaborate and best wrought specimens of wood-carving command high prices, but nothing like the extortions of the fancy goods stores in America. Berne is a grand place to buy music-boxes in carved wood-work, and cuckoo clocks; some of these contrivances are very ingenious. We visited one great "_magasin_" near the hotel, where they had photograph albums, with carved wood covers, that played three tunes when you opened them; cigar buffets that performed a polka when you turned out the weed to your guests; work-boxes that went off into quadrilles when you lifted the lid, and tables that performed grand marches when you twisted their drawer-knobs. Every once in a while the cuckoos darted out of one or two of the threescore clocks, of which no two were set alike, bobbed their heads, cuckooed, and went back again with a snap; and there was one clock fashioned like a Swiss _chalet_, from the door of which at the hour a figure of a little fellow, six inches in height, emerged, and, raising a horn to his mouth, played an air of a minute's duration, and retired. Fatigued, I sank into a chair whose arms were spread invitingly, when I was startled by that well-known air, the Sailor's Hornpipe, going off as if somebody had put a band of music into my coat-tail pocket. Springing to my feet, the music stopped; but as I sat down, away it went again right underneath me. It was a musical chair, and I _sat_ it playing.

We strolled through the curious old streets with the sidewalks under the arcades of the buildings, saw the curious old clock-tower, where, a few minutes before the hour, an automaton cock crows, and then it is struck by a comical figure with a bell and a hammer, while a troop of automaton bears appear, and march around on a wooden platform. An old fellow with an hour-glass turns it over, and the cock concludes the performance by again flapping his wings and crowing.

One of the most delightful places of promenade in the city is the cathedral terrace, a broad, shady walk, three or four hundred feet long and two hundred or more wide. It is one hundred feet above the river, and about ninety above the city street at the base. This terrace commands a fine view of the whole range of distant mountains, and is a favorite resort on summer evenings, where one may enjoy an ice-cream, cigar, cup of coffee, or light wine, and long after the twilight has deepened in the valley, watch the rosy hue that varies its tints upon the shining mountain peaks in the distance.

At the old cathedral we heard a finer and larger organ than that at Lucerne, but an inferior performer, which made even the beautiful harmony that pealed beneath the Gothic arches seem tame in comparison. From Berne by rail, a ride of an hour and a half brought us to Freiburg, where we tarried a few hours to see its great suspension bridges, and hear its great organ. The hotel at which we stopped commanded a fine view of both the bridges, black threads spanning a deep ravine. Freiburg is upon a steep rocky hill-side, at the base of which winds the river, and extending over the chasm, to the opposite bank, are the graceful and wondrous bridges. The first we crossed was nine hundred and eighty-five feet long, and one hundred and seventy-five feet above the river beneath, and is suspended by four chains of about twelve hundred feet in length. The ends of this great bridge are secured by one hundred and twenty huge anchors, fastened to granite blocks sunk deep into the earth. After crossing, we took a pleasant walk upon the lofty bank opposite, from which we had a good view of the town, with the River Sarine winding close about it. We passed on to some distance above, where the other bridge, known as the Bridge of Gotteron, spanned a romantic rocky ravine; and from the centre of this structure we looked down two hundred and eighty-five feet, into the very streets of a little village directly under us, jammed in between the cliffs. This bridge is seven hundred feet long.

The great organ in Freiburg is said to be one of the finest in Europe, and a little guide-book says it has sixty-seven stops and seven thousand eight hundred pipes, some of them thirty-two feet in length. We heard almost the same programme performed as at Lucerne, and had, therefore, opportunity of comparison. The instrument was not managed with the consummate skill of that at Lucerne, and the vox humana stop was vastly inferior; but in the Storm piece the performer, in addition to the music of the convent organ, faintly heard amid the war of elements, also introduced the pealing of the convent bell, a wonderfully correct imitation; and in the Wedding March the blast of the trumpet was blown with a vigor and naturalness not exceeded even by human lips.

From Freiburg we sped on to Lausanne, and, without stopping in the town, rode down to the little port of the place, Ouchy, on the very bank of the very blue and beautiful Lake Leman, and stopped at the Hotel Beau Rivage. This hotel is another one of those handsome and well-kept hotels, which, from their comfort, elegant surroundings, and many conveniences, add so much to the tourist's enjoyment. This house is three hundred feet long and five stories high, fronts upon the lake, and has a beautifully laid out garden and park of nearly two acres in front and about it. My fine double room looks out upon the blue lake, with its plying steamboats and its superb background of distant mountains. At the little piers in front of the hotel grounds are row and sail boats for the use of visitors; and some of the former are plying hither and thither, with merry parties of ladies and gentlemen beneath their gay striped awnings. Flowers of every hue bloom in the gardens. A band of eight or ten pieces performs on the promenade balcony in front of the house every evening from six to ten o'clock. There are reading-rooms, parlors, and saloons. The table is excellent, and attention perfect. Prices--for one of the best rooms looking out on the lake, for two persons, eight francs; breakfast, three francs each; dinner, four francs each; service, one franc each; total, for two persons, twenty-one francs, or four dollars and twenty-five cents, gold, per day; and these are the high prices at the height of the season for the best rooms. Reasonable enough here, but which they are fast learning to charge at inferior inns, in other parts of the country, on account of the prodigality of "shoddy" Americans.

The view of Lake Geneva, or Lake Leman, as it is called, is beautiful from Ouchy. The panorama of mountains upon the opposite shore extends as far as the eye can reach, and in the sunset they assume a variety of beautiful hues--red, blue, violet, and rose-color. We have been particularly fortunate in arriving here while the moon is near its full; and the effect of the silver rays on the lake, mountains, and surrounding scenery is beautiful beyond description.

Up in Lausanne we have visited the old cathedral, which is built upon a high terrace, and reached by a dirty, irregular flight of plank steps, about one hundred and seventy-five in number; at any rate, enough to render the climber glad to reach the top of them. From the cathedral terrace we have a view of the tortuous streets of the town, with its picturesque, irregular piles of buildings, a beautiful view of the blue lake, and the battlements of the distant peaks of Savoy. The cathedral, which is now a Protestant church, is very fine, with its cluster columns supporting the graceful vaulted roof over sixty feet above. It is three hundred and thirty-three feet long and one hundred and forty-three feet in width; and at one end, near where the high altar once stood, we were shown deep marks worn into the stone floor, which the guide averred were worn by the mailed knees of thousands of crusaders, who knelt there, one after the other, as they received the priestly blessing as their army passed through here on its way to do battle with the Saracen, and recover the Holy Sepulchre.

From the Beau Rivage Hotel we took steamer, and sailed along the shore, passing Vevay, with its handsome hotels, the romantic village of Clarens, and finally landing at Villeneuve, rode up to the beautifully situated Hotel Byron. This hotel, although small compared with the others, was admirably kept, and is in one of the most romantic and lovely positions that can be imagined. It is placed upon a broad terrace, a little above the shore, and, being at the very end of the lake, commands an extensive view of both sides, with all lovely and romantic scenery.

There, as we sat beneath the trees, we looked upon the scene, which is just as Byron wrote about it, and as true to the description as if written yesterday. The "clear placid Leman" is as blue as if colored with indigo. There was Jura; there were "the mountains, with their thousand years of snow;" the wide, long lake below; there, at our left, went the swift Rhone, who

"cleaves his way between
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted in hate."

At a little distance we could see

"Clarens, sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep love;"

and there, directly before us, was the "small green isle" that the prisoner of Chillon saw from his dungeon window; and only a quarter of a mile away is the Castle of Chillon itself. Down the dusty road we started to visit this celebrated place, which almost every visitor who has read the poem feels that he is acquainted with.

The castle, which is small, is on a point of land that juts out into the lake, and its whole appearance realizes an imagination of a gloomy old feudal castle, or prison. It was formerly surrounded by the waters of the lake, and is still connected on one side with the land by a drawbridge, and the lake washes up to its very base, seven hundred feet deep, on the other. Something of the romance of the place is taken away by the railway track, within a few rods of the drawbridge, and the shrieking locomotive rushes past the very point where once stood the castle outworks.

The massive, irregular walls of this old castle have five or six towers, with the loopholes and battlements of old times. We crossed the bridge, passed into the old rooms--the Hall of Knights, and the Chamber of Question, where the rack and other instruments of torture were used upon the victims of jealous tyrants. Here we grasped a now useless fragment of old shattered machinery, which had once been bathed with the sweat of agony, as the victim's limbs stretched and cracked beneath the terrible force of the executioner. Here was the huge stone that was fastened to the sufferer's feet when he was hoisted by the wrists to the iron staple above. This was the square chamber in the solid masonry, where the victim's groans were unheard by those without, now transformed into a peaceful storehouse for an old wagon or two, with the sun streaming in at a square opening in the thick wall. But a few steps from here, and we come to the _oubliette_, the staircase down which the victim made three or four steps, and then went plunging a hundred feet or more into the yawning chasm of blackness upon the jagged rocks, or into the deep waters of the lake below.

But what we all came to see were the dungeons beneath the castle, the scene of Byron's story. These dungeons are several cells, of different sizes, dug out of the rock upon which the massive arches of the castle seem to rest. The two largest of them are beneath the dining and justice halls. From the latter we were shown a narrow staircase, descending into a little narrow recess, where victims were brought down, and strangled with a rope thrown across an oak beam, which still remains, blackened with age. Near it was another narrow, gloomy cell, said to be that in which the prisoner passed the night previous to execution, and near by the place where thousands of Jews were beheaded in the thirteenth century, on accusation of poisoning the wells, and causing the plague. The gloomy place fairly reeked with horror; its stones seemed cemented with blood, and the very sighing of the summer breeze without was suggestive of the groans of the sufferers who had been tortured and murdered within this terrible prison.

Next we came to the dungeon where

"There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,"

and there _are_ the pillars to which the prisoners were chained, and there is the stone floor, worn by the pacing of the prisoner, as his footsteps, again and again as the weary years went by, described the circuit of his chain. Bonivard's pillar, to which he was chained for six weary years, hearing no sound but the plashing of the waters of the lake without, or the clanking of his own chain, is thickly covered with autographs, carved and cut into it. Conspicuous among them is that of Byron, which looks so fresh and new as to excite suspicion that it has been occasionally deepened, "Old Mortality" like, in order that the record may not be lost.

Here we were, then,

"In Chillon's dungeons, deep and old."

Now every word of Byron's poem, that we had read and heard recited at school, and which made such an impression on our mind when a boy, came back to us.

Which was the pillar the younger brother was chained to?

There was "the crevice in the wall," where the slanting sunbeam came in.

Here was the very iron ring at the base of the huge pillar; there were the barred windows--narrow slits, through which the setting sun streamed, and to which the prisoner climbed to look upon the scene without,--

"to bend
Once more upon the mountains high
The quiet of a loving eye."

I stood, and mused, and dreamed, as my companions passed on, and suddenly started to find myself alone in that terrible place, and, with a shudder, I hurried after the voices, leaving the gloomy dungeon behind me; after which the white-curtained, quiet room of the Hotel Byron seemed a very palace, and the beautiful view of lovely lake and lofty mountain a picture that lent additional charm to liberty and freedom.

Is it to be wondered at that so many people quote Byron at this place? For it is his poetry that has given such a peculiar and nameless charm to it, that if one has a spark of poetic fire in his composition, and sits out amid the flowers and trees, of a pleasant afternoon, looking at the blue lake, the distant, white-walled town, the little isle, with its three trees, that the prisoner saw from his dungeon, and even sees the eagle riding on the blast, up towards the great Jura range,--Jura, that answered,--

"through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, that call on her aloud,"--

and follows up his thought by reading part of the third canto of Childe Harold, in which Lake Leman and a thunder storm in the Alps are described, he feels very much like repeating it aloud.

Not having Childe Harold to read, I found relief in quoting those passages that everybody knows, and doing the following bit of inspiration upon the spot:--

Dreams of my youth, my boyhood's castles fair,
That seemed, in later years, but made of air,
Are these the scenes that now my soul entrance,
Scenes hallowed in dim history and romance?
This dark old castle, with its wave-washed wall,
Its ancient drawbridge, and its feudal hall,
Its dreary dungeon, where the sweet sun's ray
Scarce tells the tenant that without 'tis day;
These seven grim pillars of the Gothic mould,
Where weary years the chainéd captive told,
Waited, and wept, and prayed for freedom sweet,
Paced round the dungeon pillar, till his feet
Wore in the floor of rock this time-enduring mark
Of cruelty of men, in ages past and dark.
Glorious Childe Harold! How, in boyhood's age,
Longing I traced that wondrous pilgrimage.
Thine imperishable verse invests these mountains grand
With new glories. Can it be that here I stand
And gaze, as thou, upon the self-same things?
The glassy lake, "the eagle on the blast," who slowly wings
His flight to the gray peaks that lift their crests on high,
In everlasting grandeur to the sky?
There rise the mountain peaks, here shines the lake;
Familiar scenes the beauteous picture make.
The "white-walled, distant town," glassed in the tide,
And on its breast the whiter sails still ride,
As when thine eye swept o'er the lovely view;
Thy glorious fancies and imagination grew
T' immortal verse, and with a nameless charm
Embalmed the scene for ages yet to come.
Others shall, deep in Chillon's dungeon drear,
Muse round th' historic pillars, for 'twas here,
If we accept th' entrancing fable of thy lay,
The brothers pined, and wasted life away.
The guide clanks here the rusted iron ring--
We shudder; "iron is a cankering thing."
Through the rent walls a silver sunbeam flashes;
Faint is the sound of waves that 'gainst them dashes;
There is the window where, with azure wing,
The bright bird perched the prisoner heard sing;
Here, 'neath our very feet, perhaps, the place
The boy, "his mother's image in fair face,"
Was laid. 'Tis but a fable; yet we love to trace
These pictures, hallowed in our youthful dreams,
And think thy lay all truthful as it seems.

We leave Villeneuve, and the pleasant Hotel Byron, with regret, and

"Once more on the deck I stand,
Of my own swift-gliding craft;"

or, in other words, we are again on board one of the pretty little lake steamers, paddling through the blue waters of Lake Geneva. Back we went, past Vevay and Ouchy, with their elegant hotels and gardens; past Clarens, and amid scenes of exquisite and picturesque beauty, for five or six hours, till we reach Geneva, at the other extreme of this lovely sheet of water, about fifty-five miles from Villeneuve. There is nothing very striking in this city to the tourist,--none of those curious old walls, towers, cathedrals, or quaint and antique-looking streets that he finds in so many of the other old European cities. There is a long and splendid row of fine buildings upon the quay on the river bank, elegant jewelry stores and hotels, a few other good streets, and the usual amount of narrow alleys and dirty lanes.

The pleasantest part of the city seen during our brief stay was the fine quays, and the town at that part of the lake where it began to narrow into a river, with the splendid bridge spanning it, and a little island at about the middle of the bridge, or rather just at one side of it, and connecting with it by a pretty suspension bridge. This little island is Rousseau's Island, has his bronze statue, and pleasant shade trees upon it, a charming little promenade and seats, and is an agreeable resort, besides being an admirable point to view the blue lake, the River Rhone emerging from it with arrowy swiftness, and the snowy Mont Blanc chain of mountains in the distance. From the windows of our room in Hotel Ecu de Genève, we look down upon the swiftly-flowing blue tide of the river, upon which, nearly all day, black and white swans float, breasting against the current, and apparently keeping just about in the same place, arching their necks gracefully, and now and then going over to their home on a little isle just above Rousseau's, or coming on shore here and there--popular pets, and well cared for.

The display of jewelry, particularly watches and chains, in the splendid shops along the grand quay, is very fine. Geneva is headquarters for watches and chains, and nearly all Americans who mean to buy those articles abroad do so at Geneva, for two reasons; first, because a very good article can be bought there much cheaper than at home; and next, because they are always assured of the quality of the gold. None is sold at any of the shops in Geneva under eighteen carats in fineness. Very handsome enamelled jewelry, of the best workmanship, is also sold in Geneva. Indeed, the quality of the material and the excellence of the workmanship of the Geneva jewelry are obvious even to the uninitiated. In Paris more elaborate designs and a greater variety can be found, but the prices are from fifteen to twenty per cent. higher.

I had always supposed, from a boy, that Geneva was overflowing with musical box manufacturers, from the fact that all I used to see in the stores at home were stamped with the name of that city. Judge of my surprise in finding scarcely any exhibited in the shop windows here. At the hotel a fine large one played in the lower hall, with drum accompaniment, and finding from the dealer's cards beside it that it was intended as a sample of his wares, we went to his factory across the river, where the riddle was explained in the fact that the retail shopkeepers demanded so large a commission for selling, that the music-box makers had refused to send any more to them for sale. This may be a good move for their jobbing trade, but death to the retail trade with foreigners. Berne is the place for music-boxes.

Returning across the long bridge to our hotel, we saw a specimen of Swiss clothes washing, and which in a measure may constitute some of the reasons why some of the inhabitants of this part of the world change their linen so seldom. Beneath a long wooden shed, with its side open to the swift-flowing stream, were a row of stout-armed, red-cheeked women bending over a long wash-board, which extended into the stream before them. Seizing a shirt, they first gave it a swash into the stream; next it was thoroughly daubed with soap, and received other vigorous swashes into the water, and was then drawn forth dripping, moulded into a moist mass, and beaten with a short wooden bludgeon with a will; then come two or three more swashes and a thrashing by the stalwart washerwoman of the garment down upon the hard board before her with a vigor that makes the buttons spatter out into the stream like a charge of bird shot. After witnessing this, I accounted for the recent transformation of a new linen garment by one washing into a mass of rags and button splinters. This style of washing may be avoided to some extent by particular direction, but the gloss or glazing which the American laundries put upon shirt fronts seems to be unknown on the continent.

The sun beat down fiercely as we started out of Geneva,--one of the hottest places in Switzerland I really believe,--and for fifteen miles or so its rays poured down pitilessly upon the unshaded road. Grateful indeed was a verdant little valley, bounded by lofty mountains, and the cliff road shaded with woods, that we next reached, and rattled through a place called Cluses; and going over a bridge spanning the River Arve, we entered a great rocky gorge, and again began to feel the cold breath of the mountains, and come in sight of grand Alpine ranges, snowy peaks, and rushing waterfalls. Finally we reach Sallanches. Here we have a fine view of the white and dazzling peaks of Mont Blanc towering into the blue sky, apparently within two or three miles from where we stand, but which our driver tells us are nearly fifteen miles away.

Again we are in the midst of the magnificent scenery of the great mountain passes, verdant and beautiful slopes, gray splintered peaks, huge mountain walls, wild picturesque crags, waterfalls dashing down the mountain sides far and near, the whole air musical with their rush; and the breath of the Alps was pure, fresh, and invigorating as cordial to the lungs.

We that a few hours ago were limp, wilted, and moist specimens of humanity, were now bright, cheery, and animated; we quoted poetry, laughed, sang, and exhausted our terms of admiration at the great rocky peaks that seemed almost lost in the heavens, or the fir-clad mountain side that jutted its dark fringe sharply against the afternoon sky. Beyond, as ever, rose the pure frosted peaks, and as they glowed and sparkled, and finally grew rose-colored and pink in the sunset, it became almost like a dream of enchantment, that darkness gradually blotted out from view.

We had started from Geneva with coat and vest thrown aside for a linen duster; we descended into the valley of Chamouny with coat and vest replaced, and covered with a substantial surtout. As we came down to the village, the driver pointed out to us what looked like a great blue steel shield, thousands of feet up in the heavens, hanging sharply out from the dome of impenetrable blackness above, and shining in a mysterious light. It was the first beams of the rising moon, as yet invisible, striking upon the clear, blue ice of a great glacier far above us. It gradually came more distinctly into view, flashing out in cold, icy splendor, as the moon began to frost the opposite mountain, from behind which it seemed to climb into the heavens with a fringe of pale silver. We had expressed disappointment at not being able to enter Chamouny by daylight, but found some compensation in the novel scene of moonlight upon these vast fields of ice, with their sharp points rising up like the marshalled spears of an army of Titans, glittering in the moonlight, or stretching away in other directions in great sheets of blue ice, or ghostly snow shrouds in the dark distance. We reached the Hotel Royal at nine and a half P. M., thoroughly tired with our eleven hours' ride.

Fatigued with travel, I certainly felt no inclination to rise early the next morning; and so, when a sonorous cow-bell passed, slowly sounding beneath our window at about four and a half A. M., I mentally anathematized the wearer, and composed myself for a renewal of sleep. Scarce comfortably settled ere another cow-bell, with a more spiteful clang, was heard approaching; clank, clink, clank, clink, like the chain about a walking ghost, it neared the window at the foot of my couch, passed, and faded off into the distance. That's gone; but what is this distant tinkle? Can it be there is sleighing here, and this is a party returning home? Tinkle, jinkle, tinkle, tinkle--there they come!

"Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open"--the curtain, looked out through the sash,--
"When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But"

a procession of goats being driven to pasture by a girl in the gray light of the morning! With an ejaculation more fervid than elegant, the couch was sought again; but it was of no avail; a new campanologian company was heard approaching with differently toned instruments of torture; this was in turn succeeded by another, till it seemed as if every note in the bell-ringing gamut had been sounded, and every contrivance, from a church to a tea bell, had been rung.

After half an hour of this torture, flesh and blood could endure it no longer, and I went once more to the window, to find that beneath it ran the path by which the goats and cattle of the whole district were driven to pasture, and, casting my eyes upwards, saw the gorgeous spectacle of sunrise on Mont Blanc, whose glistening peaks were in full view. Half an hour's admiration of this spectacle was enough for one not clad for the occasion, and having made the discovery that the cows and goats were all driven to pasture before half past six A. M., we took our revenge in two hours of tired nature's sweet restorer after that time, before discussing breakfast and topographically examining Chamouny.

Chamouny appears to be a village of eight or ten hotels, a church or two, and a collection of peasants' huts and poor Swiss houses, surrounded on all sides by the grandest and most sublime scenery ever looked upon. It seems to be a grand central point in Switzerland for the tourists of all nations. The great hotels are full, their _table d'hotes_ are noisy with the clatter of tongues of half a dozen nationalities, and gay with the fashions of Paris. The principal portion of the inhabitants are either employés of the hotels; or guides, and these Chamouny guides are the best, most honest, and most reliable of their craft in Europe. They are formed into a regular association, and bound by very strict rules, such as not being permitted to guide until of a certain age, not to take the lead till after a certain amount of experience; and absolute honesty and temperance being requisite for the service. Indeed, I find that some consider honesty a characteristic of the Swiss in this region; for upon my remonstrating with a fellow-tourist, an old traveller, for leaving his watch and chain exposed upon his dressing-table during his absence from his room at the hotel, he replied there was no danger, as the attendants in the wing of the house he occupied were all Swiss, and no English, French, or Americans ever came there. To be a guide upon the excursions from Chamouny requires a man of very steady habits, and of unquestionable skill and endurance; and all of these men that we saw appeared so. They are very jealous also of their reputation, and never allow it to be injured by incompetency, dishonesty, or any species of imposition upon travellers.

Here we are in the midst of Alps, a whole panorama of them in full view on every side. The River Arve, a dark-colored stream fresh from the glaciers, roars and rushes through the valley into which Chamouny seems sunk. Above us are great mountains with snowy peaks; great mountains with dark-green pines at their base, and splintered, gray, needle-like points; glittering glaciers, like frozen rivers, can be seen coming down through great ravines; waterfalls are on the mountain-sides; and towering up like a gigantic dome, the vastness and awful sublimity of which is indescribable, is Mont Blanc, which the lover of grand mountain scenery will pause and gaze at, again and again, in silent awe and admiration. But whither shall we go? There are dozens of excursions that may be made. Looking across a level pasture of the valley from our window, we see a waterfall leaping down the mountain. An easy path to it is visible, and we make a little excursion, in the forenoon, to the Falls of Blatière, just to get used to climbing; for at two P. M. mules were at the door, with trusty guides at their heads, and away we started for the ascent of the Flegère, a height on the spur of one of the mountains, commanding a fine view of the Mer de Glace and Glacier des Bois, which are directly opposite. The ascent of this occupied some three hours, and the path reminds one very much of the ascent of Mount Washington, New Hampshire, although the distant scenery is of course incomparably more grand. We went through woods, and over rocks, across stony slopes, and up zigzags, until finally we reached the Cross of Flegère, the point of view.

From this perch we looked right over across on to the Mer de Glace, where it gushed out like a great frozen torrent around the Montanvert, and the Glacier des Bois, another silent ice torrent, that flowed out of it. At our right, far down, five thousand feet below, rested Chamouny, with the cloudy Arve running beside it. Away off to the left were a number of needle-like peaks, with vast snow-fields between them; and nearly in front of us, a little to the left, rose the sharp, jagged points about the Aiguille Verte, and a right lofty needle it was, its point piercing the air to the height of twelve thousand five hundred feet; and then there were the Red Needles, and the Middle Needles, and, in fact, a whole chain of peaks of the range--the best view we have had yet, including, of course, the grand old snowy sovereign, Mont Blanc, at the right, overtopping all the rest.

An hour was spent gazing upon this magnificent scene; after which we began the descent, which was made in about an hour and a quarter, bringing us to the hotel door at seven P. M. Our leading guide we discovered to be an experienced one, of many years' service, who had guided Louis Napoleon, on his visit here in 1861, soon after Savoy was annexed to France--a service of which he was quite proud, as the emperor held his hand during his excursion to the centre of the Mer de Glace (always necessary for safety); he was also interested in the American war of the rebellion, and, like all the Swiss who know enough to read, was strong on the Union side of the question. Being an old soldier, the song of "Tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," had especial charms for him, and he called for a repetition of the "Glory, glory, hallelujah" chorus, till he had mastered the words himself, from a young Union officer of our party. Of course we were glad to engage our cheerful _vieux moustache_ for our excursion on the morrow to the Montanvert and Mer de Glace. In the evening we were called out to see the lights of a party at the Grand Mulets, where they had halted for the night, preparatory to completing the ascent of Mont Blanc. The sight of the little twinkling flame, away up in the darkness, I confess, awakened no desire in my mind to make the ascent; and I fully agree with one of the guide-books, which says it cannot conceive why people will undergo the trial and fatigue of the ascent, when they can risk their lives in a balloon for one half of the expense.

Next morning we started with guides, and on muleback, for the Montanvert, directly opposite the Flegère, the scene of our ascent the day before, twenty minutes' ride across the meadow, and by the river side; and then we began to ascend the mountain, through romantic pine woods, and by a zigzag pathway upon the brow of the mountain, crossing, occasionally, the deep channel of an avalanche, or an earth-slide, and getting occasional glimpses of the valley below or the mountain opposite, till, after a three hours' climb, we stand upon a rugged crag, overlooking the tremendous and awful sea of ice, and the huge mountains that enclose it.

This great petrified or frozen stream, between its precipitous banks, seemed more like a mass of dirty snow or dingy plaster than ice. Looking far up into the gorge between the mountains, we could see where the ice and snow looked purer and more glistening than that directly beneath us. Indeed, we began to imagine that the terrors of the passage, told by travellers and letter-writers, were pure fables; and, to some extent, they are; and a marked instance of magnifying the dangers is shown in the account of Miss Frederika Bremer's experience, quoted in Harper's Guide-Book, which, to any one of ordinary nerves, who has recently made the passage, appears to be a most ridiculous piece of affectation.

We descended the rocky sides of the cliff, seamed and creased by the ice-flood, and stood upon the great glacier. At first, near the shore, it seemed like a mixture of dirty snow and ice, such as is frozen in a country road after a thaw, and its surface but slightly irregular, and but little trouble to be anticipated in crossing; but as we advanced far into its centre, we began to realize more forcibly the appropriateness of the title given to this great ice-field. On every side of us were frozen billows, sharp, upheaved points, great spires of ice, congealed waves, as if a mighty torrent were tumbling down this great ravine, and had been suddenly arrested by the wand of the ice-king in mid career. We came to crevasses,--broad splits,--revealing the clear, clean, blue ice, as we looked hundreds of feet down into them. We crossed and passed some of them on narrow ice-bridges, not more than two or three feet wide, where notched steps were cut for us by the forward guide's hatchet, and we held the firm grasp of one before and one behind, to guard against a slip, which might have been fatal.