WHEN we arrived at Lucerne nobody shanghaied us in the pleasant Geneva way, and as it was not even lunch-time, we resolved to walk about and explore the town before deciding where to lodge. We fed the ducks and swans, wandered over the covered wooden bridge inspecting the quaint old paintings of the Dance of Death, beat around through the older part of the town, and all at once coming back to the river, beheld the Gasthaus zu Pfistern.
We had no sooner seen it than we recognized our fate. The wall toward us was covered with frescoes representing a great tree spreading from cellar to garret, from whose branches, instead of fruit, hung coats of arms. Away up near the top in very big figures was the date 1579. Down below stood a gigantic warrior in coat of mail with curling plumes. He was a very satisfying warrior. The hotel was built directly upon the river’s brink and its lowest story was hollowed out in lovely arcades, where a fruit market was held.
Let no one suppose it was a stylish hotel. It had been chosen as the headquarters of the noncommissioned officers of the artillery regiment stationed at Lucerne. The dining-room was full of cartridges and flags belonging to them and trophies of the Schützenfest societies which also met there. Otherwise I imagine the patronage was chiefly from the smaller class of commercial travelers. Of tourists, there was never a hint.
How we reveled in it! The clean little bedrooms looked out pleasantly over the river and city. But it was the dining-room that charmed us most, with its great blackened old sideboard twenty feet broad and the red wine poured from huge stoneware flagons. They had a genius of a cook at that place and another genius presiding over the dining-room. I know not whether she was an employee or the proprietor’s wife or daughter, but she was a most cheerful, capable, tactful young woman who put everyone in a good humor on the spot. She told us something of the history of the house. It had been built in 1579 as a guildhall for the bakers, whose ancient name, now obsolete, was Pfistern. The original frescoing had been preserved outside, with only the necessary touching up from time to time. This great dining-room, with its huge rafters and lofty ceiling, had been the original meeting-place of the craftsmen. Except that she was evidently a very busy person, I think we should have lingered to talk to her half the afternoon instead of going out to see the city.
Once outside we did, perforce, faute de mieux, what everybody does, visited the ghastly War and Peace Museum, the curio shops and Thorwaldsen’s Lion.
The next morning was scheduled for the ascent of Rigi, but the weather continued too thick. We spent the forenoon about Lucerne, shopping, having a look at the old city ramparts and the two-spired church. We still had a lingering hope that it might clear off in time for us to go up Rigi by rail. But it did not, and we took an afternoon steamer for Tell’s Chapel, which marks the spot where he is supposed to have jumped ashore that day of the storm, pushing away the boat with his foot as he did so, and thus escaping Gesler’s vengeance and getting the chance to arouse the slumbering revolt against Austrian tyranny.
The Tell Chapel, with its paintings of incidents in Tell’s life, is a sort of national pilgrimage spot whose sacredness is not greatly reduced by the fact that all educated Swiss now admit that Tell himself was a myth. It is only sentimental foreigners who know nothing about him but his name and the apple story and perhaps Schiller’s play, who insist on believing in his reality.
From the chapel we walked along the very beautiful Axenstrasse that skirts the lake to its terminus at Flüelen, regretting the clouds which shut out all but the nearest mountains. Thence we continued by ordinary highroad to Altdorf, where the hat and apple incidents are supposed to have taken place. They have a rather fine but aggressively modern statue of Tell and his little son (erected in 1895) in the village square. During the summer the villagers play Schiller’s Tell, once a week, I think. We had intended to time our visit to Altdorf for one of these representations. But the week devoted to influenza had delayed us just too long, and the dramatic season was over. The place is so accessible to tourist routes that the play has probably become sophisticated anyhow.
We dined that evening at an inn near the station and played cards to keep awake till the St. Gotthard train came along. It was a slow and crowded train, and we were very glad to arrive about 11 P. M. at Goschenen and follow the porter of the Lion to that very excellent hotel.
Next morning we were up betimes and starting afoot over the St. Gotthard carriage road. It is a very fine piece of engineering, zigzagging back and forth in long loops to keep the grade easy. The scenery is, like that of the Simplon, Tête Noire and other carriage roads, picturesque rather than magnificent. One of the chief scenic elements is furnished by the Reuss, a foamy mountain stream whose course the road follows, the interest culminating at the famous Devil’s Bridge.
Everybody knows the story which has been attached, with local modifications, to numerous other bridges and buildings, about the engineer who, finding his task too great for human skill, invoked the aid of the Prince of Darkness. This potentate gave his assistance in return for the soul of the first passenger who should cross the bridge. Whereupon the engineer, taking a mean advantage of the Devil’s confiding nature, drove over a dog.
On the face of the rock above the bridge there is a very crude painting much reproduced on local postal cards of his Satanic Majesty, very black, with horns and tail and breathing fire from his nostrils, jumping back in surprised disgust before the polka-dotted animal of uncertain species who is trotting across the bridge.
What interested us more than the hackneyed devil legends was the armored gate with loop-holes for musketry, whereby the Swiss government can, when it chooses, effectually close this road. In connection with the mountain batteries known to exist on surrounding heights, this gate would seem to make it practically impossible for an invading army to get by.
The Banks of the Reuss, Saint Gotthard Pass
While discussing the thoroughness of the Swiss defenses, we recalled the death of an Italian staff-officer a few weeks before who had “accidentally fallen off of a precipice” while taking notes in the forbidden Swiss zone, and we decided we did not care to explore the near-by heights.
Not far from here was the scene of a fight during the Napoleonic wars, and a monument with an inscription in exotic characters is dedicated to the Russians who fell there.
At Andermatt quite a large detachment of troops is stationed, and indeed we met members of the Swiss citizen soldiery all along this road.
It was our intention to go to the summit of the pass and then return to Hospenthal for the night, but a thick snow-storm shut in around us, and at the fork, which we afterwards learned was only about a mile from the Hospice at the summit, we evidently took the wrong branch, and arriving nowhere, grew discouraged and turned back. We lost nothing in the way of scenery, as it was impossible to see ten feet in any direction.
At a considerably lower level we came upon a little road-house and entered to get thawed out. Frater and I called for hot milk, but Belle Soeur rashly ordered coffee. I do not know of what strange herb this drink was brewed. Certainly not the coffee bean. We suspected catnip mixed with a decoction of hay. The color was green and the flavor incredibly unattractive. Belle Soeur decided that she also preferred milk.
We put up that night at the Hotel de la Poste in Hospenthal, than which I never saw a cleaner nor more severely plain little inn. The postmaster’s wife ran it, and we found her a most admirable Hausfrau. The postmaster was, I don’t doubt, a most worthy character also, but he and I had a battle royal over my mail because I had no passport to claim it with. I told him a visiting card was enough at Geneva or Lucerne, and he said the postal authorities there must be very lax. I showed him Frater’s passport, which he said was all right for him, but no good for me. However, he handed me out my letters after a while, but declined to turn over a package which Anna, in a characteristic spasm of caution, had had the unhappy thought of registering. I knew just what articles it contained and told him in detail, even to the darns, requesting him to open the package if he wished to verify my statement. This suggestion seemed to alarm the old man, and he turned it over to me intact, fortifying himself only by taking my signature and address in a dozen or so different places. But he regarded me with strong disapproval, and frowned when we met, and I suspect his kind old wife put an extra egg or so into the omelet to make up!
Hospenthal is a rather quaint little village dominated by a robber baron’s castle—at least, I think he was a robber baron. Anyhow it makes a good photograph, and we took several next morning as we started out, rejoicing in sunshine and blue sky.
We bought some black bread and cheese to carry along for luncheon (all we could get, but it turned out delicious—no hardship at all), had the village shoemaker drive some new nails into our soles, and swung off gayly to the right on the Furka Pass road. This, with the Grimsel, is one of the most interesting of the carriage-road passes, the scenery toward the end being quite wild and Alpine. The sparklingly clear and bracing atmosphere added much of course to our enjoyment.
At a road-house where we stopped to get something liquid after the dryness of our admirable bread and cheese, we found the wall adorned by a charcoal cartoon of slightly bibulous aspect, left probably by some traveling artist in lieu of paying his bill, and the following ingenious poem:
“Das Wasser ist von jeder Zeit
Die Best von aller Menschengaben.
Mir aber lehrt Bescheidenheit
Man muss nicht stets vom Besten haben.”
Which may be translated: Water is at all times the best of all the gifts to man. Modesty, however, teaches us that we should not always take the best.
We had intended stopping for the night at the hotel on the summit of the pass, but were so unfavorably impressed by the financial shiftiness of the polyglot clerk who airily told us that he spoke equally well “französisch, englisch, italienisch—Was Sie wollen,” and tried to double the Baedeker prices on us, that we turned him down and walked on. Truth to tell, we felt grave doubt as to whether we should find any other accommodation short of the Rhone Glacier Hotel, which it would have been highly inconvenient for us to go down to. But principle is a great thing, and we were prepared to sacrifice ourselves for it.
Luck was with us, though, and we found the Bellevue, a first-class hotel on the upper brink of the Rhone Glacier, still open, though preparing to close on the morrow. We enjoyed an excellent dinner and night’s rest after watching the lovely views of glacier, valley and snow mountains pass through the various phases of sunset, twilight and full moon.
In the morning we started out with a guide across the glacier and over the Nägelis Grätli, a stony height on the far side, from which the views are very fine, and the path descends directly to the Grimsel Hospice.
To our surprise we found ourselves making far better time than the Baedeker schedule. We mentioned this to the guide, who said that the path across the glacier had been shortened several years ago, but Baedeker hadn’t found it out yet. “Everything in this world changes, except Baedeker,” he said, and was so much flattered by our appreciation of his bon mot that he repeated it at ten-minute intervals during the rest of the trip.
As soon as we saw our way clear ahead, we sent back our guide, who was a little unduly addicted to his cognac bottle as well as to his Baedeker anecdote, and continued alone.
The Grimsel Hospice and the two turquoise lakes lay right below us. A yodel came floating up through the clear air, and standing out in front of the hotel we soon identified the stocky form of Fritz Biner waiting for us.