Letters from Switzerland

Alpine Horn—Beggars—The Rosenlaui Glacier—Beautiful Views—Glorious Mountain Scenes—Mrs. Kinney’s “Alps”—A Lady and Babe—The Great Scheidek—Grindelwald—Eagle and Bear—Battle with Bugs—Wengern Alp—A real Avalanche—The Jungfrau.

A beautiful Chamois was standing on the ledge of rock that overhung the path as I turned away from the Reichenbach Fall, and I was pleased to see so fine a specimen of the animal whose home is the Alps and whose pursuit has for ages been the delight of the mountaineer. He would have sprung from crag to crag at my approach and soon disappeared, had he not been held by a string in the hand of a boy who expected a few coppers for showing the animal. This is but one of a hundred ways and means of begging adopted by the Swiss peasantry. Of all ages from the infant to extreme decrepitude, they plant themselves along the highways of travel, and by every possible pretext seek to obtain the pence of the traveller. Some are glad to have a poor cretin or a case of goitre in the family, that they may have an additional plea to put in for charity. Others sing or play on some wretched instrument, and the traveller would cheerfully pay them something to be silent, that he may enjoy the beauties of the world around him without the torment of their music. But the Alpine Horn makes music to which the hills listen. A wooden tube nearly ten feet long and three inches in diameter, curved at the mouth which is slightly enlarged, is blown with great strength of lungs, and the blast at first harsh and startling is caught by the mountain sides and returned in softened strains, echoing again and again as if the spirits of the wood were answering to the calls of the dwellers in the vales. The man who was blowing, had but one hand, and after a single performance, or one blast, he held out that hand for his pay, and then returned to his instrument, making the hills to resound again with his wild notes.

The Rosenlaui valley into which we now enter is a green and sunny plain, where the verdure is as rich and the fruits as fair as if there were no oceans of never melting ice and hills of snow lying all around and above it. On either side the bare mountains rise perpendicularly: the Engel-Horner or Angel’s Peaks sending their shining summits so far into the heavens that the pagans would make them the thrones of gods, and the Well-Horn, and Wetter-Horn, bleak and cold, but now resplendent in a brilliant sun light. A small but very comfortable inn is fitted up in this valley with conveniences for bathing, and a few invalids are always here for the benefit of the air, scenery and the mountain baths. We rested at the tavern, and then walked a mile out of the way to see the Glacier of the Rosenlaui. After a short ascent we entered a fine forest, and followed the gorge through which the glacier torrent is rushing: an awful gorge a thousand feet deep it seemed to me, and if some mighty shock has not rent these rocks, and opened the way for the waters that are now roaring in those dark mysterious depths, they must have been a thousand years in wearing out the channel for themselves. A slight bridge is thrown across the ravine, and a terrible pleasure there is in standing on it and listening to the mad leaps of rocks which the peasants are prepared to launch into the abyss, for the amusement of travellers. I shuddered at the thought of falling, and felt a glow of pleasing relief when I was away from the tempting verge. I never could explain to myself the source of that half formed desire which so many, perhaps all have, of trying the leap when standing on the brow of a cataract, the verge of a precipice, the summit of a lofty tower. It is often a question whether persons who have thus perished, designed to commit suicide or not. It is not unlikely that some are suddenly seized with this undefined desire to make the trial: the mind is wrought into a frenzy of excitement, dizziness ensues, and in a moment of fear, desire and delirium the irresponsible victim leaps into the gulf. Many of the fearful passes of the Alps have their local tragedies of this sort, and I was not disposed to add another. We soon climbed to the foot of the glacier. We have come to a mountain of emerald. The sun is shining on it, at high noon. The melting waters have cut a glorious gateway of solid crystal: we step within and beneath the arch. A ledge of ice affords a standing place for the cool traveller who may plant his pike staff firmly and look over into the depths where the torrent has wrought its passage and from which the mists are curling upwards. The sunlight streams through the blue domes of these caverns, long icicles sparkle in the roof, and jewels, crowns and thrones of ice are all about me in this crystal cave. Its outer surface is remarkable for the purity of the ice, its perfect freedom from that deposit of earth and broken stone which mars the beauty of most of the glaciers of Switzerland. Great white wreaths are twisted on its brow, and on its bosom palaces and towers are brilliant in the sunlight; and from the side of it the Well-horn and Wetter-horn rise like giants from their bed, and stretch themselves away into the clouds. No sight among the Alps had so charmed me with its beauty and sublimity. These hills of pure ice, this great gateway only less bright in the sun than the gates of pearl, cold indeed, but with flowers and evergreens cheating the senses into the feeling that this is not real, it must be a reproduction of fabled palaces and hills of diamonds, and mountains of light. I am sure that I do not exaggerate: the memory of it now that I recur to it after many days is of great glory, such as the eye never can see out of Switzerland, and the forms of beauty and the thoughts of majesty, awakened as I stood before and beneath and upon this glacier, must remain among the latest images that will fade from the soul.

Excited by what I had seen and mindless of the path by which I had ascended, I threw myself back upon my Alpen-stock and slid down the face of a long shelving rock, leaping when I could, and gliding when the way was smooth, and reached the bridge and the ravine in safety, though the guides insisted that the longest way around was the surest way down. We are now at the foot of lofty mountains. The warm sun is loosening the masses of snow and ice and we are constantly hearing the roar of the avalanches. At first it startles us, as if behind the clear blue sky above us there is a gathering storm: the sound comes rushing down and multiplied by echoes themselves re-echoed from the surrounding hills, the thunder is forgotten in the majesty of this music of the mountains. We see nothing from which these voices came. There are valleys beyond these peaks where perhaps the foot of man has never trod, and He who directs the thunderbolt when it falls, is guiding these ice-falls into the depths of some abyss where they may not crush even one of the least of the creatures of his care. It is grand to hear them and feel that they will not come nigh us. Our path is now so far from the base of this precipitous mountain that if those snow caps fall, and we are constantly wishing that they would, we should be in no peril, and so we ride on with hearts full of worship, rejoicing in the thoughts of Him who built these high places, and whose praise is uttered in the silence of all these speechless peaks, and shouted in the avalanche in tones which seem to be reverberated all around the world. One of our own poets, with a soul in harmony with the greatness as well as the beauty of this scenery, exclaims in view of these towering heights—

My mind was full of such thoughts as these, so finely clothed in Mrs. Kinney’s words, when I met a party, of ladies and gentlemen, and one of the ladies was borne along in a chair, with a babe in her arms! Here was a contrast, and a suggestive sight. It was certainly the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, but I could readily understand that having overcome every obstacle in her strong desire to see the Alps, and to see them now, she was enjoying them perhaps more than any one of the group around her. And I did not fail to admire the energy of soul that in its love of nature, and its thirsting after these mighty manifestations of power and beauty, was equal to all the difficulties that opposed her way. Whether ladies may make these difficult passes, which must be made to see the inner life and real character of Switzerland, is merely a question of dollars and cents. The feeblest may be borne as tenderly as this infant was on its mother’s breast, and the most delicate will gather health and strength from the bracing mountain air, and new life will be inspired in the midst of these exciting scenes. To see Switzerland on wheels is impracticable. Its brightest glories are hid away in regions of perpetual ice and snow, where no traveller passes except to see. The highways of trade are not here. This is a secret place of the Most High, where from the foundation of the world, he has wrapt himself in storms and clouds, and thundered among the hills, and has been admired only by those who have come here expressly to behold his works. The solitude of such scenery adds intensely to the sense of the sublime. Mountains all around us and God! To be alone with him anywhere is to be near him: in the midnight, or on the ocean or the desert, it is a heart-luxury to feel that only God is near; that his presence fills immensity, and his Spirit pervades all matter and all space. But to stand in the midst of these great Alps, hoary patriarchs, monuments compared with which the pyramids are children of a day, is to stand in the high places of his dominions and to be raised by his own hand into audience with him at whose presence these mountains shall one day flow down like water and melt away. Heinrich, my young German friend, was peopling them continually with the creatures of Grecian mythology, and his classic history often led him to speak of the lofty seats of divinities where ancient poets had planted the council halls of the gods. I loved to believe that God had made these hills for himself, and as the people who dwell among them have no heart to appreciate them, pilgrims from all lands are flocking here, and offering the incense of praise at the foot of these high altars. How they do lead the soul along upward toward the great white throne! How like that throne is yonder peak in snowy purity shining now in this bright sun. It is very glorious, and no human footstep ever trod the summit. God sits there alone. Let us admire and adore. He is fearful in praises, doing wonders! Who is like unto him, a great God, and a great King!

But this is not getting on with the journey. You have the privilege of skipping my reflections as you read; but to travel without reflection, common as it is, is not my way—and if you would feel the sights that meet the eye in this world of wonders, you must indulge me in pausing now and then, to muse. All this time we have been going steadily up the Great Scheidek, and have now stopped at a small house, with the word tavern painted on it in two or three different languages. An apology for a dinner we got after waiting for it till an appetite for supper came. The view from this height into the Grindelwald valley is enchanting. The descent is so steep that we were willing to leave the mules and walk down, holding back by the alpenstock, and resting often to enjoy the sight, into the valley below. And now we have come to another glacier, in the midst of a sunny slope, stretching down into the bosom of verdant pasturage where herds are grazing and flowers are blossoming, and women and children are laboring under a burning sun. It is hard to believe, even as we stand at the foot of it, that this is everlasting ice: a segment of the frozen zone let fall into the lap of summer, and sleeping here age after age, perishing continually, but renewed day by day, so that it seems unchanged. It is a wonderful growth and decay; and the greater wonder to my mind, and one that does not diminish, is that so much life and beauty can exist and flourish in the midst of this eternal cold.—Yet there is a greater contrast even here. We are coming into the valley, and there another, called the Upper Glacier lies, and yet that is not to furnish the contrast of which I speak. It is in the wide and wonderful difference between this people and their country! Degenerate, ignorant, begging and demoralized, this people seem, and indeed are, unworthy of such a land as this. They have a history, but Switzerland was, and is not. The race has run down.—Disease and hardships have reduced the stock, till now we rarely meet a fine-looking man, never a fine-looking woman, as we cross the mountains and traverse the valleys of this noble country.

The vale of Grindelwald, into which we have now descended, is one of the most fertile, picturesque, and quiet in Switzerland. It is a place to stay in. The hotels, of which there are two, are crowded to overflowing. We sent our guide ahead to get room for us, but he failed. There was no room for us at the inn. We paused first at the Eagle, a very good-looking establishment, and the balcony running across the front of it was filled with good-looking people—but there were as many there as the house would hold, and we had to go on to the Bear. And the Bear would not let us in. The very best the landlord could do, was to give us a room with three beds in it, in a cottage across the way, where we would be quiet and comfortable. We went over. Up stairs, by as dark, narrow, dirty, ricketty, dangerous and disagreeable a passage as I had made among the mountains, we were led by a tall, skinny, slatternly woman, with a tallow candle in her fingers, and shown into our treble chamber. For the first time we were in such a house as the better class of peasants occupy in Switzerland. It had been taken by the proprietor of the hotel, as a sort of makeshift when his hotel was overflowing—the lower part of it was his bake and wash house, and this room was reserved for lodgings. I was worn out with the journey of the day, and glad enough to stretch myself on any thing that ventured to call itself a bed. The walls of the chamber around and above were rude boards, and the bare floor had been trodden a hundred years without feeling. The furniture was a mixture of the broken chairs of the hotel and the superannuated relics of the cottage, an amusing study, which helped to pass away half an hour, while our prison keeper, the ugly old woman, was scaring up something for us to eat. Bread and milk, with some cheese so strong that we begged her to take it off, made a frugal repast, but sweet to a hungry man: this mountaineering does give a man an appetite—and then he sleeps so well after eating. Alas! my dreams were short; a band of bloodthirsty villains attacked me in the dead of night, and for four hours I fought them tooth and nail. The battle made real the poet’s description of another scene—

How many of the foe found that night a bed of death in my bed, I cannot say, as we took no account of the slain, but the conflict was sanguinary and the destruction of life was immense. The sun rose upon the battle field, but it was hard to say which was the victor. Exhausted quite as much by the night’s exertions as the travels of the previous day, I rose to address myself to the journey. The rapacious landlord of the Bear charged us the same price for our lodgings that was paid by those who had the best rooms in his house, and I told him we were willing to pay him for the privilege of hunting in his grounds, which we had greatly enjoyed for several hours. He was too slow to take my meaning, but when he did, he had no idea there was any harm in a few fleas. All these mountain sides are covered with the huts of the shepherds, where during a part of the year a man remains to tend the flocks, and he takes with him some coarse food to last him during the months of his stay. The shepherds and their families live in the midst of their dogs and cattle, and fleas are no worse to them than they are to us. It only served to amuse the landlord of the Bear, when we related to him the sufferings of the night, and besought him never to expose travellers to such annoyances again.

The ascent of the Faulhorn is made from Grindelwald. It is a mountain eight thousand feet high, and the view from the summit is said to be an ample reward for the five hours’ walk or ride which is necessary to gain it. The long and glorious range of the Bernese Alps stands majestically in sight, and there are not wanting those who declare the prospect superior to that which is had on the Rigi. I took it on trust, and having loftier summits still before me, was willing to leave the Faulhorn. And I was willing to leave Grindelwald too—glad to escape the scene of my midnight sufferings, but I doubt not that at the Eagle (and not at the Bear) we might have spent a day or two very pleasantly in this charming vale. And how soon are these little vexations of life forgotten. They are worth mentioning only to remind us how foolish it is to be vexed at trifles, which in a single day are with the things that happened a hundred years ago. Thus moralizing and half sorry that I had made any complaint of my quarters for the night, I mounted my horse and set off to cross

The Wengern Alp.

The ride through the vale in the early morning was refreshing. Parties of travellers were emerging from cottages where they had found beds, and winding their way by the bridle paths, in various directions, on foot and on horseback, all seeking to see the world of Switzerland, and all enjoying themselves with the various degrees of ability which had been given them. We crossed the lesser Sheideck, and stopped on the ridge of it at a small house of refreshment to eat Alpine strawberries and milk. The berries are small and have very little of the strawberry taste, but are quite a treat in their way. They were apparently more abundant here than we had seen them elsewhere, and with plenty of milk they made a capital lunch. Well for us that we had the milk before a dirty boy who was playing at the door when we came up, plunged his mouth and nose into the milkpan and took a long drink, only withdrawing when his father wished to dip some out for a lady who had just arrived. Had she seen the operation, she would have declined the draught, but where “Ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise.”

We rested a few moments only at this chalet, and then pushed on, passing a forest, or the ruins of a forest, which the avalanches had mown down as grass. The stumps, and here and there a scraggy tree were the witnesses of the desolation that had been wrought. From the height we are crossing we have one of the most magnificent of Alpine views. The Jungfrau stands before us clad in white raiment, beautiful as a bride adorned for her husband: in the sunlight she is dazzling and seems so near to heaven, and so pure in her vestal robes, that we are willing to believe the gateway must be there. The name of this mountain Jungfrau, or the Virgin, is given, on account of the peculiar beauty and purity of the peak which until 1812 had never been sullied by the foot of man. Rising like a pyramid above the surrounding heights thirteen thousand seven hundred and forty-eight feet, and seeming to be as smooth as if cut with a chisel out of solid marble, she stands there sublimely beautiful, to be gazed at and admired. Lord Byron has made this region the scene of some of his most terrible passages, and I was forcibly impressed as I read them with the contrast, not the similarity, between his emotions and my own in the midst of these mountains. Here he conceived some of those images never read in his Manfred without a shudder. In his Journal he says “the clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling up perpendicular precipices like the foam of the ocean of hell during a spring-tide—it was white and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appearance.” Then in Manfred he does it into verse:

None but a mind surcharged with horrors, a mind which all bad things inhabit, could find such images to convey its emotions in view of these sights of grandeur, beauty, and glory. The mists were curling along up the precipices as I have seen incense in a great cathedral, mounting the lofty columns, and curling among the arches, a symbol of the praise that goes up from the hearts of worshippers to the God of heaven. These white clouds, not “sulphury”—so far from being suggestive of hell-waves, were heavenly robes rather, and as the sun now nearly at noon, was filling them with light, I loved to watch them, and then look away up to the summit of the mountains around me, rejoicing in the manifestations which the King of kings was making of himself in this dwelling among the munitions of rocks. With these thoughts full on me as I rode along the verge of the tremendous ravine that separates the Wengern Alp from the Jungfrau, we reached a small inn, on the brow of the ravine, where large parties, chiefly English people, were ravening for dinner. This house has been planted here in the Jungfrau, that travellers may rest themselves in its beauty, and watch for the avalanches that now and then come thundering down its precipitous sides. Streams of water are in some places pouring down. The music of the fall is constantly heard, and every five or ten minutes the roar of a snow-slide thunders on the ear. Few of them are seen. They break away from crags that are out of sight, and plunge into dark abysses where the eye of man does not follow them. But this is just the time of day when we might look for one, for it is past noon when the sun’s power is the greatest, and if the great toppling mass which seems to be holding on with difficulty would but let go its cold death grasp and come headlong into this mighty grave at the base of the mountain, it would be a sight worth coming to Switzerland to see.

We watched and wished, and the more we watched, the more it would not come. During the half hour we had sat wrapped up in our blankets, gazing at the cold snow hills, and shivering in the bleak winds, the dinner had been in preparation, and despairing of getting something to see, we determined like sensible people, to have something to eat. The long table was filled with hungry travellers, and all had forgotten in the enjoyment of dinner the wonders of the Alps, when suddenly the alarm was given, “Laweenen,” the “Avalanche.” Servants dropped the dishes and ran, gentlemen and ladies following them rushed from the table, over chairs and each other, crowding for the doors and windows: and had there been danger of a sudden overwhelming of the house, and the destruction of all the inhabitants, we could not have fled in greater haste and confusion than we now did, to see the descending “thunderbolt of snow.” All eyes were upon one point where a stream like powdered marble was pouring from one of the gullies far up the Jungfrau and lodging on a ledge. It differed in no respect from a stream of snow, nor indeed from one of water which is perfectly white in the distance when a small cascade is dangling from the rocks. Yet we are told, and there is no reason to doubt that this stream is made up of vast blocks of ice and masses of snow, dashed constantly into smaller fragments as it comes “rushing amain down,” but still weighing each of them many tons, and capable of dealing destruction to forests and villages if they stood in its path. We looked on in silence, and with disappointment mingled with awe. The stream that had rested for a while on one ledge now began to flow again, and the roar of the torrent increased every instant, filling the air with its reverberations, which were caught by distant mountains and sent back in sharp echoes, and again in deep toned voices that seemed to shake the sky. But I was disappointed. It was just what I did not expect, although I had read enough of them to be prepared for what was to come. This was said to be one of the grandest scenes this season! Of course we believed it, and report it accordingly. Grand indeed it was, and when we consider that at least four miles are between us and the hill side down which it is rushing, it is not surprising that the masses of ice should be blended into a steady and liquid stream. Certainly I prefer to see such a torrent at a distance, to being sufficiently near it to run any risk of being buried alive in an icy grave.

The Staubach Fall—Lauterbrunnen—Interlachen—Cretins and Goitre—Dr. Guggenbuhl—Giesbach Fall—Berne—Inquisitive Lady—Swiss Creed—Crossing the Gemmi—Leuchenbad Baths.

The Staubach Fall, nearly a thousand feet high, is far from being such a thing of beauty as I had hoped to find it. It comes from such a height and has so small a body of water, that it dissolves into spray, and falling upon the rocks gathers itself up again and leaps down into the valley. Byron compares it to the tail of the white horse in the Apocalypse. Wordsworth speaks of it as a “heaven-born waterfall,” and Murray likens it to a “beautiful lace veil suspended from a precipice.” It is just at the entrance of the village of Lauterbrunnen, which lies in a valley literally gloomy and sublime. The sides of the mountains that shut it in are precipitous and so lofty that in winter the sun does not climb the eastern side till noon, and so cold is it through the summer, that only the hardiest fruits can be raised. I counted between twenty and thirty cascades leaping over the brow of these mountains and plunging into the valley. In the calm of the evening, after the sun had ceased to shine in it, I rode from the village to Interlachen, and thought it the most mournfully pleasing ride in Switzerland. Others whom I met, and who passed me on the way, appeared to regard it as purely delightful, and perhaps few would find in it as I did, the materials of melancholy musings.

But all these feelings soon gave way to those of calm enjoyment, when a weary pilgrimage of a week was brought to a close in the beautiful village of Interlachen.

We were at the hotel des Alpes; the largest and best boarding establishment in the village, where, for a dollar a day the traveller finds every comfort that a first class hotel affords. It was a very bright day, and the sun had been shining with a ravishing clearness on the snow-white breast of the Jungfrau. At the dinner-table, one of a party of ladies inquired the meaning of Jungfrau, and being told that it was German for a young unmarried lady, I ventured to say that it could not be called the Jungfrau to-morrow. “And why not, pray,” was instantly demanded. “Because,” said I, “she is certainly clad in her bridal robes to-day.”

Beyond all doubt, it is the most beautiful single mountain in Switzerland. It is a calm, sweet pleasure to sit and look at her, as a bride adorned for her husband: white exceedingly; pure as the sun and snow; bright as the light, and glorious “as the gate of heaven.” Sometimes its lofty summit seems to be touching the vault of heaven, and I could easily imagine that angels were on it, and not far from home. The wide plain in the midst of which the village is planted is the theatre of those yearly contests of strength and skill in which the inhabitants of all the surrounding hills and valleys engage. On the overhanging heights on your right hand as we go to Lauterbrunnen is the Castle of Unspunnen, to which a legend attaches that I have not time to tell. Byron is said to have had this scene before him when he made his Manfred. Instead of telling you the doubtful story of this old castle, I would rather give you some account of a modern and more humble house on the hill.

It is in sight from the plain: not an imposing structure, but so far above the vale, that you are tempted to inquire what it is, and with a real pleasure you are told it is Dr. Guggenbuhl’s Asylum for Cretins. For weeks we have been pained almost daily with the sight of these miserable objects. More distressing to the eye is the victim of the goitre, which is a swelling on the neck, gradually enlarging with the growth of the unfortunate subject, till it hangs down on the breast, and sometimes becomes so heavy that the miserable individual is compelled to crawl on the ground. What a strange ordering of Providence it is, that these beautiful valleys should be infected with such a disgusting disease. In the higher regions it is not known, but in low, damp valleys where much water remains stagnant, it abounds. And so degraded are many of the inhabitants, that some families regard it a blessing to have a case of goitre, as it gives them a claim on the charity of others.

“Cretinism, which occurs in the same localities as goitre, and evidently arises from the same cause, whatever it may be, is a more serious malady, inasmuch as it affects the mind. The cretin is an idiot—a melancholy spectacle—a creature who may almost be said to rank a step below a human being. There is a vacancy in his countenance; his head is disproportionately large; his limbs are stunted or crippled; he cannot articulate his words with distinctness; and there is scarcely any work which he is capable of executing. He spends his days basking in the sun, and, from its warmth, appears to derive great gratification. When a stranger appears, he becomes a clamorous and importunate beggar, assailing him with a ceaseless chattering; and the traveller is commonly glad to be rid of his hideous presence at the expense of a batz. At times the disease has such an effect on the mind, that the sufferer is unable to find his way home when within a few feet of his own door.”

A young Swiss physician in Zurich, rapidly gaining fame and fortune in his profession, one day saw a little cretin near a fountain of water. His heart was touched with a sudden sympathy, not for the single unfortunate before him only, but for the thousands whom he knew to be scattered over his magnificent country. His noble heart was moved as he made an estimate of the numbers of his fellow beings in this helpless and now hopeless condition. In a single valley where some ten or fifteen thousand people live, not less than three thousand cretins are found. He could not redeem them all, but could he not do something for a few of them—put a new soul into these bodies—snatch them from the lower order of creation, from a lower level than the dog or the horse, and raise them to the scale of man? It was a noble impulse; it was the beginning of a noble work. In the virtuous heroism of the hour, he resolved to give his life to the cause. Such a man could not have lived even a few years in a community without gaining the affections of all the good, and when it became known that the young physician would leave Zurich to study abroad the subject to which he had consecrated his powers, the poor people flocked about him, and held his knees beseeching him not to forsake them. But his resolution was taken.

His observation and study taught him that in the more elevated regions of the country, he would find the only place to locate a hospital, with any hope of making improvement in the miserable cases on whom he might make his experiments. Coming to this lovely vale of Interlachen, and selecting a lofty and most commanding site, away above the old castle of Unspunnen, with all the property that he possessed, and what he could obtain from the charity of those who were willing to aid him in his doubtful but philanthropic enterprise, he purchased a tract of mountain land, and built a house of refuge, a hospital for idiots.

I rode a donkey up the hill, and with my German friend Heinrich on one side of me, and my American friend Rankin on the other, we had a delightful excursion through the forest; often emerging upon the side of the hill from which we could look off on one of the loveliest scenes, then winding our way by a most circuitous and sometimes a very steep path, we at last overcame the four miles of travel, and found ourselves at the door of the Asylum. At our call a young woman, evidently not a servant, came to the door and showed us into a plainly furnished sitting room, while she retired to announce to the Superintendent that strangers would be pleased to view his establishment. She returned with the register of visitors in which we were desired to write our names and address. She then carried the book to the Doctor, who soon appeared, gave us a cordial greeting, and invited us to walk with him through the house. While we had been sitting there, an uproar was going on overhead, as if the floor was to be broken through. Dr. Guggenbuhl led us directly to the room where the riot was in progress. It was hushed as we entered. But the cause was apparent. We were in the school-room, and teachers and pupils were amusing themselves in the recess with all sorts of diverting and boisterous plays. Here were thirty-seven idiots, of various ages from three to thirty, in the way of being trained to the first exercise of intelligent humanity, the art of thinking. The teachers are young women, the daughters of Swiss Protestant pastors chiefly, devoting themselves without fee or reward, like the Sisters of Charity, to this painfully disagreeable task. Around the room are hung large pictures of beasts and birds, which are designed to catch the attention of the cretins, and to induce them to make inquiries. The first indication of a desire to know any thing is seized upon with avidity and stimulated by every encouragement. While we were standing there, several came in with one of the teachers from a ramble in the woods. They had been for some years in training, and were now awake to the world around them. They brought in beautiful wild flowers which they had gathered, and were delighted to show to us, describing their varieties, and exhibiting a familiarity with the study that I did not dream of its being possible for them to acquire. Feeble as were the exercises of these poor things, it was a joy to know that they can be taught, and Dr. G. assured me that he has had the pleasure and reward of seeing some of them so far restored to sense, that they may be expected to provide for themselves, and have some of the enjoyments of rational beings. He is obliged to use his own discretion in the admission of pupils: his house will contain but his present number, and hundreds must be denied his care, to whom he would gladly extend it, if the rich would give him the means. He devotes all his own property to their relief, and expects to give his life to this self-denying work. In reply to my inquiries if his labors were acknowledged by medical men abroad, he referred me to a score of diplomas that had been sent to him from all the leading Societies on the Continent of Europe and in England, but I saw none from America. Does not my country know, and does it not delight to honor a man whose philanthropy and genius are alike deserving the admiration of the world?

Among the poor idiots in this institution is one, the son of an English Lord, sent far away from his native land, in the hope, faint indeed, that the wonderful skill of this heroic man may open the eyes of this child’s understanding. What indeed is wealth, and title, and power, to a fool? And O how happy they, who have joyous, bright and knowing little ones, though only bread and milk to eat, and little of that.

The good doctor followed us to the brow of the hill, and with us admired the lovely landscape away below, the richly tilled plain—the white cottages scattered over it, and in its midst the beautiful village—wide sheets of water around which the mountains stand and look down, solemn and grand, in their everlasting silence and gray heads: and then we pressed his hands long and earnestly, asking God to bless him, a noble specimen of a Christian physician.

While at Interlachen we made excursions to the Geisbach Falls, which have the preference in my view decidedly before all others in Switzerland. We also made a trip to Berne, and passed a few days at the Couronne Hotel, one of the best in the land.—Every body has read of the Bears of Berne, and there are many lions there to see, in the Museum and out. The view of the Bernese Alps is worth the journey to Switzerland. I saw them at sunset, in glory unrivalled and indescribable.

Returning from Berne in the diligence, an elderly English lady sitting in front of me, and hearing me converse with my friends, presumed I must be a countryman of her own, and opened a catechism as follows—

Lady.—“How long since you left England, Sir?”

I.—About two months, Madam.

Lady.—“When do you return, Sir?”

I.—I hope in the Spring, Madam.

Lady.—“Where do you spend the winter?”

I.—In Syria.

Lady.—“Good Lord, what a traveller you are!”

She took a pinch of snuff, and I resumed my notes and remarks with my companion. She listened, and grew impatient to get hold of something by which to learn who we were. She at last ventured to come toward the point by asking,

“In what part of England do you reside, Sir?”

I am not an Englishman, Madam.

Lady.—“Bless me, and of what country are you, pray?”

I am an American.

Lady.—“O you are, are you? Well, I would not have thought it. Would it be an indiscretion for me to ask you what is your name, Sir?”

I gave her my name of course, but she was not satisfied. “Will you,” said she, “have the goodness to give me your name in writing?”

I handed her my card, for which she thanked me, and then added, “I know that you are making notes, and will write a book, and I shall hear of you, &c.,” and so she chatted on, amusing me not a little with her loquacity.

We returned to Interlachen, and here a German lady who was travelling with her family, begged me to allow her son, a student of Heidelberg, to join my party, to make an excursion of a few days, and meet her at Geneva. To this I assented, as it would increase our number to four, and be quite agreeable. With this escort of young men, two Germans and one American, I set off at daylight in the morning, to make the Gemmi Pass. Along the shores of Lake Thun and by the castles of Wimmis and of Spietz, we entered the beautiful vale of Frutigen, where the shepherds and flocks, with their crooks and their dogs, gave us a sweet picture of pastoral life. At a little tavern at which we halted for lunch, I found the following Creed, framed and hung up in the dining-room. It was in French.

“I believe in the Swiss country, the brave mother of brave men, and in Freedom only begotten daughter of Helvetia, conceived in Grutli, by the patriot in 1308 who suffered under the aristocrats and priests, was crucified for many centuries, died and was buried in 1814; after sixteen years was again raised from the dead, came back into the bosom of true patriots, from hence she shall come to judge all the wicked. I believe in the human spirit which was delivered from ignorance by knowledge and raised by Education. I believe in a holy general brotherhood of the oppressed in Spain, Portugal, Poland and Italy, the communion of all patriots, the destruction of all tariffs, and the life everlasting of republics, Amen.”

This is scarcely better than blasphemy; and it is probably one of the formulas of faith on which the Continental conspiracies are formed. On and up, the road led us to some beautiful falls of water, and between perpendicular masses of rock that stood as if split asunder to give us a passage through. We reached Kanderstey in the middle of the day, and met parties returning from the Gemmi, who advised us against going on, as there was every prospect of a coming storm. We were determined however to press forward. I got a mule and a guide, and the young men were ready to walk. We set off in good spirits, but as soon as we struck into the defile which led up the hill, the mists began to thicken around us, and it was impossible to call it any thing but rain. Three hours of steady climbing brought us to the wretched inn of Schwarenbach, which Werner makes the scene of a fearful tale of blood. We were wet and cold, but found no fire, and the set of men and women inside were too dirty and savage to tempt us to spend the night with them, as we were now heartily disposed to do, if the quarters had been safe. I preferred to run the risk of getting over the mountain to staying here. This was the unanimous vote, and again we plunged into the storm. Dreary and dismal was the way, along by the side of the Lake; the Dauben See, and in the midst of broken masses of stone, strewed in wild disorder. We were near the summit when the rain became snow and hail, and the winds swept fearfully over us, so that I could not sit upon my mule. I had scarcely dismounted, before he slipped on a ledge and fell; I might have broken my neck had I fallen with him. No signs of a human habitation are on this lonely height. And if there were, we could not find them in this driving storm. There are no monks to come with their dogs to look us up, if we lose the way. We must go over and down on the other side, or perish. To return is impossible. Among the scattered fragments of rocks, no path was to be seen; and we frequently feared that we had lost our way. I followed the guide to the brink of a precipice two thousand feet deep, and perpendicular. Down the face of this solid rock leads the most wonderful of all the pathways in Switzerland. So narrow as just to allow two mules to pass as they meet, the zigzag path is cut out of the solid rock, and covered with earth and stones to prevent our feet from slipping. The mule, by a wonderful instinct, walks upon the extreme outer verge, lest in making the sudden turn his load should strike the rock and tumble him off.

Sheltered somewhat from the rain by the overhanging rocks, we pursued our weary way to the bottom; and then, through mud and mire and darkness, drenched to our skins, we reached the Hotel Blanche at Leukenbad.

This is the great bathing establishment of Switzerland. It is higher above the sea than the summit of any mountain in Great Britain. Again and again it has been swept away by avalanches, and is now protected by a strong wall above the village. The water bursts out from the ground immediately in front of our hotel, and supplies the baths, which are twenty feet square, and in which a dozen or twenty men and women may be seen, for hours, sitting with their heads only out of water, reading the newspapers, or books, on little floats before them; playing chess; or whiling away the time in some more agreeable manner.

The next morning, by a most romantic pathway along the borders of a vast abyss, the scene of a bloody battle in 1799, we pursued our journey to the valley of the Rhone, and taking the Great Simplon road, through Sion, went to Martigny.

The Char-a-banc—the Napoleon Pass—Travellers in winter—Monks—Dogs—Dinner—Music—Dead-house—Contributions—a Monk’s Kiss.

The weather was threatening when we set off from Martigny, and we had many forebodings that the dogs of Saint Bernard might have to look us up, if the storm should come before we reached the hospice. A char-a-banc, a narrow carriage in which we sat three in a line with the tandem horses, was to convey us to the village of Liddes. On leaving the valley and crossing the river Drance, we soon commenced the ascent, by the side of the raving torrent, with majestic heights on either hand. A terrible tale of devastation and misery, of sublime fortitude and heroic courage, is told of the valley of Bagnes, where the ice had made a mighty barrier against the descending waters, which accumulated so rapidly that a lake seven thousand feet wide was formed, and a tunnel was cut through the frozen dam with incredible toil, when it burst through and swept madly over the country below, bearing destruction upon its bosom. In two hours some four hundred houses were destroyed with thirty-four lives and half a million dollars’ worth of property. We were four hours and a half getting up to Liddes, where we had a wretched dinner, and then mounted horses to ride to the summit of the pass.

The rain, which had been falling at intervals all the morning, was changed into snow as we got into colder regions. The path became rougher and more difficult, and it was hard to believe that even the indomitable spirit of Napoleon could have carried an army with all the munitions of war, over such a route as this. Yet the passage now is smooth and easy compared with what it was when in 1800 he crossed the Alps.

Leaving the miserable village of Saint Pierre, through which a Roman Catholic procession was passing, we had an opportunity of refusing to take off our hats, though some of the peasants insisted on our so doing. We came up to heights where no trees and few shrubs were growing: flowers would sometimes put their sweet faces up through the snow and smile on us as we passed, and I stopped to gather them as emblems of beauty and happiness in the midst of desolation and death.