The Spell of Switzerland Part 7

Meantime we have been speeding along, cutting through the fabric of the lake as if we were a knife. Behind us radiated two long, dark blue lines tipped with bubbles and mixing the reflections of the gracious sh.o.r.es. Oh, this wonderful lake! Vast tomes have been devoted to its poetic, picturesque, scientific characteristics. Almost every inch of its vast depths has been explored. No longer has the wily boatman, as he steers his lateen-sailed _lochere_, any excuse for telling his occasional pa.s.senger (as he used to tell James Fenimore Cooper) that the water is bottomless. Every fish that swims in it is known and every bird that floats on its broad bosom.

A lake is by no means a lazy body of water and Leman, or Lake Geneva, as it is often called, is not so much a lake as it is a swollen river.

If the Rhone is an artery, the lake is a sort of aneurism; there is a current from one end to the other which keeps it constantly changing.

Then, owing to atmospheric conditions, at least twice a year (as in even the most stagnant ponds) the top layers sink to the bottom and the bottom layers come to the top. There is also a sort of tide or tidal fluxes, called _seiches_. The word means originally the flats exposed by low water, but is applied here to variations averaging ten inches or so in the level of the lake, but sometimes greatly exceeding that. There were three or four in one day in September, 1600, when the lake fell five feet and boats were stranded. De Saussure, one August day in 1763, measured a sudden fall of 1.47 meters, or four and a half feet, in ten minutes' time. Eight years previously, the effect of the great earthquake which destroyed Lisbon was noticed in the vibration of the lake. Various explanations of this curious phenomenon have been given. One was that the Rhone was stopped and, as it were, piled up at the so-called Banc du Travers--a bar or shallow between Le Pet.i.t Lac and Le Grand Lac which begins on a line between La Pointe de Promenthoux on the north and La Pointe de Nernier in Savoy on the south. It is probably due to the sweeping force of the winds. When there is a heavy storm waves on the lake have been observed and measured not less than thirty-five meters long and a meter and seven tenths in height.

James Fenimore Cooper in his novel "The Headsman of Berne," published anonymously while he was United States Consul at Lyons, thus describes this wonderful body of water:--"The Lake of Geneva lies nearly in the form of a crescent, stretching from the southwest towards the northeast. Its northern or the Swiss sh.o.r.e is chiefly what is called, in the language of the country, a _cote_, or a declivity that admits of cultivation, and, with few exceptions, it has been, since the earliest periods of history, planted with the generous vine.

"Here the Romans had many stations and posts, vestiges of which are still visible. The confusion and the mixture of interests that succeeded the fall of the Empire gave rise in the middle ages to various baronial castles, ecclesiastical towns and towers of defence which still stand on the margin of this beautiful sheet of water, or ornament the eminences a little inland.... The sh.o.r.es of Savoy are composed with unmaterial exceptions of advanced spurs of the high Alps, among which towers Mont Blanc, like a sovereign seated in the midst of a brilliant court, the rocks frequently rising from the water's edge in perpendicular ma.s.ses. None of the lakes of this remarkable region possess a greater variety of scenery than that of Geneva, which changes from the smiling aspect of fertility and cultivation at its lower extremity to the sublimity of a savage and sublime nature at its upper."

It seems almost incredible, but Lausanne lies a good deal nearer to the North Pole than Boston does. The degree of lat.i.tude that sweeps across the lake where we started cuts just a little below Quebec, nearly touches Duluth and goes a bit south of Seattle. There are really three lakes, forming one which, in its whole extent, has a sh.o.r.e-line of one hundred and sixty-seven kilometers, the north sh.o.r.e being twenty-three longer than the south. Its greatest width is thirteen and eight-tenths kilometers, and it covers an area of about five hundred and eighty-two square kilometers. Its maximum depth is 309.7 meters. It is a true rock basin. The Upper Lake is, for the most part, a level plain, filled by the greyish-muddy Rhone which uses it as a sort of clearing-house. Being denser than the lake, the water of the river sinks and leaves on the bottom its perpetual deposits of mud, coa.r.s.er near the sh.o.r.e, finer the farther out one goes. When the bottom of the Grand Lake is once reached, it is as flat as a billiard-table. Sixty meters from the Castle of Chillon it is sixty-four meters deep and shelves rapidly to three times that depth.

Deep as it seems--for a thousand feet of perpendicular water is in itself a somewhat awesome thought--still, in proportion to its surface-extent, the lake is shallow. Pour out a tumbler of water on a wooden chair and the comparative depth is greater.

Pure as it seems to be--and the beauty of its colour is a proof of it--the Rhone carries down from it to the sea a vast amount of organic matter and, as it drains a basin of eight thousand square kilometers, it is not strange that Geneva, which has used the lake-water for drinking purposes since 1715, has occasionally suffered from typhoid fever. In 1884 there were sixteen hundred and twenty-five cases; but, since the intake-pipes have been carried farther into deep water, the danger seems to have pa.s.sed. Ancient writers supposed that the Rhone ran through Lake Leman without mixing its waters; they did not know that the lake is the Rhone.

Emile told us that after the _bise_, that is, the northeast wind, had blown for several days, the muddy water of the Rhone shows green along the sh.o.r.e for several kilometers. This is called _les troublons du Rhone_. He told us also that the lake-water is warmer than the air in every month except April and May. I asked him if it ever froze over, and he replied that there was a legend that once it did, but never within his memory.

One of the most interesting things in winter is the mirage. Almost every day one can see the land looming; it seems as if there were great castles and cities, and sometimes boats are sailing in the air.

Places that are out of sight rise up, and gigantic walls and colossal quais appear where there are no such constructions.

This _Fata Morgana_ gave ground for the magical Palace of the Fairy--_le Palais de la Fee_--and is perhaps the basis of the legend of the fairy skiff of the lake. Those that have the vision see it drawn along by eight snow-white swans. In it sits a supernaturally tall woman with golden locks and dressed in white robes, accompanied by chubby sprites. If one's ears are keen enough one can hear the song that she sings, accompanied by a beautiful harp. Wherever her bark touches the sh.o.r.e bright flowers spring into bloom. Unlike many of the magical inhabitants of the mountains, she is a beneficent creature.

Even the sight of her brings good fortune. But, since steamboats began to ply up and down and across the blue waters of the lake, she has not been seen; she was scared away. She appears only on post-cards accompanied by the German words "Gluck auf"--"Cheer up."

"By the way," said Will, "did you know that the first steamboat to sail on Lake Geneva was built by an American?"

"No? What was his name?"

"That I don't know; but he made a great success of it so that an a.s.sociation was formed to go into compet.i.tion with him with two new boats and, when they were launched, they offered the American a sovereign a day to let his boat lie idly at the dock. He accepted the proposition and was spared all the worries of navigating the lake and of seeing his profits cut down by opposition. That was about a century ago."

We were interrupted by an odd, droning noise from the direction of Montreux and, looking back, we saw what might have been taken for one of those huge birds, the _roc_, which we used to read about in the Arabian Nights. It came rapidly nearer and we saw it was a hydro-aeroplane darting down the lake. It must have been at least a thousand feet in the air, but with the spygla.s.s we could see the faces of its pa.s.sengers.

"I'd like to go up in one of those," said Will, "but this tyrannical little wife of mine has made me promise that I won't. Don't you think that she is exhibiting an undue interference with her lord and master?"

"Am I not perfectly right, Uncle?" asked Ruth with a show of indignation. "I suppose some time they will be made safe; but, till they are, a man who has a wife and children has no business to take such a risk. Suppose a _bise_ should suddenly come down from the mountains."

Of course I took Ruth's side; Will would not have liked it if I hadn't; but I made up my mind then and there that, at the first opportunity, I, not being cramped by any marital obligations, would have a sail in a hydro-aeroplane. What is more, I carried out my purpose. One day everything seemed to favour me; the weather was fine and promised to continue so; Will and Ruth were occupied in some domestic complication; so I went out ostensibly for a walk, but hurried to the station and took a train for Vernex. I found the quai where the hydro-aeroplane starts, and, having been told that it cost a hundred francs, I had the pa.s.sage-money ready in a bank-note.

I have seen a wild fowl rise from the surface of an Adirondack lake; the wings dash the water into foam, but after it has made a long, white wake, it rises and speeds down the horizon. So, as soon as I had taken my place with one other pa.s.senger, a Russian gentleman, the motor was set in motion and we glided out on the lake. Then, with a slight motion of the rudder, as our speed increased, we left the surface and, in an easy incline, mounted high into the air. I liked it all except the noise of the motor; that was deafening.

My favourite dream has always had to do with an act of levitation. I would seem to be standing on the great, granite step of my grandfather's old house, and then by sheer will power lift myself--only there was no sense of lifting--high out over the river which flowed between the steep banks, a wide, calm stream, and, having made a turn above the swaying elms, come back to my starting-point without any sense of shock.

This came nearest to that dream. I had no sense of fear at all.

Looking down, I could say with Tennyson's eagle, "The wrinkled sea beneath me crawls." The whole lake lay, as it were, in the palm of my hand. It was an indescribable panorama, flattened except where very high hills arose, and in the distance an infinitude of blended details. It was vastly more exciting than being on a mountain-top. The wind whistled through the wires and almost took away my breath.

Thanks to having twice circled the lake--once by motor-boat and once in the automobile--I knew pretty well what the towns were over which we sailed. We made a wide circuit over Geneva and, mounting still higher, cleared the crest of the Saleve and then returned like an arrow to Vernex. I now knew how an eagle feels when in splendid spirals it soars up toward the sun until it is lost to human sight, and then, with absolute command of its motions, descends to its eyrie on the top of a primeval pine planted on the mountain's dizzy side. I now knew how Icarus dared fit those wax-panoplied wings to his strong arms and with mighty strokes ply the upper skies, looking down on the sea which it was worth dying for to name through all the ages.

Over this very lake once floated the balloon sent up by Madame de Charriere de Bavois, kindled to enthusiasm by the invention of the celebrated Montgolfier brothers. It was nearly two meters high and two or three times that in circ.u.mference and was made of paper and a network of wires. But it caught fire, and fell like a meteor, and Lausanne forbade any more experiments of the sort without permission; there was too great risk of setting the woods on fire. What would Rousseau and Voltaire have said to see men flying a thousand feet above their heads? But what at first seems like a miracle soon becomes a commonplace and, now that I have been up in a "plane," ordinary locomotion will seem rather tame.

But, to return to our trip around the lake. The buzzing hydro-aeroplane sped over our heads, going at a tremendous clip and of course filling us with wonder and admiration. While those above us were free from every obstacle, except the air itself, which Kant, in one of his poetic pa.s.sages in the "Critique," shows is the very support of the bird's flight, we were making good progress in the "Hirondelle," running not far from the sh.o.r.e, but of course avoiding the shelving edge of the _beine_--to use the local term.

We were near enough to admire the beautiful villas which occupied commanding and lovely sites at frequent intervals between Lutry and Cully. When Emile pointed out Villette I wondered if Charlotte Bronte got the name of her autobiographical romance from it. Pretty soon we glided slowly by Vevey, where we could see the crowds of people on the Place du Marche, and the green fields with scattered houses, and enjoyed the tall trees and the fine old chateau de l'Aile and, farther back, the n.o.ble tower of Saint Martin.

Vevey has been rather unfortunate in its piers. In 1872 the munic.i.p.ality began to build a solid and handsome structure along La Place de l'Ancien Port. Several years were spent on it and it had been completed about eighteen months when one hundred and nine meters--all of the western part--suddenly, and without any warning, sank into the lake. The physical explanation of the catastrophe was very simple.

Almost a hundred years earlier--in June and again in November, 1785--some of the houses on what was then La Rue du Sauveur, now La Rue du Lac, being founded on the same unstable basis, gave way. It happened again in 1809. The weight of the superimposed structure caused the mud and gravel deposits to slide down into deeper water.

Even now one almost expects to see the white, gravelly beach, just beyond, sink into the depths, with all the chattering washer-women who use the lake as a bath-tub. Similar catastrophes have happened on several other Swiss lakes.

It was like a moving-picture to see the succession of interesting places. Beyond Vevey-la-Tour were the cl.u.s.tered villas of La Tour-de-Peilz, where Count Peter of Savoy once enjoyed the beauties of the lake; then Clarens, suggesting memories of Rousseau and Byron.

Far up on the height we could see the Chateau des Cretes. We made beautiful scallops in around by Vernex, and doubled the picturesque point on which Montreux roosts, and looked up to the far-away Dent de Jaman; we skirted Territe and then came close under the frowning, historic walls of Chillon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAKE LEMAN AT VEVEY.]

CHAPTER VII

A DIGRESSION AT CHILLON

Chillon is probably the best-known castle in Switzerland. It commands the one pa.s.s between the mountains and the lake, and there, in the old days, two hors.e.m.e.n could defend the pa.s.sage against a host. On Mont Sonchaux, a spur of the high crags of Naye, with Mont Arval rising on the east, and torn with ravines and landslides, between the two torrents, the Veraye and the Tinere, it stands, "a ma.s.s of towers placed on a ma.s.s of rocks."

We sailed all around, from one side of the bridge to the other, and managed to approach near enough to clamber ash.o.r.e. We fastened the boat to a tree by the long _maille_, as they call the painter on the lake. Then we went all over the ancient fortress. Happily the Canton has at last awakened to the propriety of not merely keeping it in repair, but also of restoring it to something like its pristine condition. In the earlier castle Louis le Debonnaire confined his kinsman, Count Walla, the friend of Lothaire, on the ground that he was the instigator of that prince's revolt against his father. At that time the country was a wilderness, and there was only a chapel where now Montreux gathers a wealthy and luxurious population. Walla spent many years in Chillon, but was ultimately transferred to the fortified Island of Noirmontier. Then he was set free, and died in 835 in the Abbey of Bobbio, sixteen leagues from Milan.

In 1235, Duke Pierre de Savoy received the Province of Chamblais, extending from Saint Bernard to the torrent of the Veveyse and to the Arve on both sides of the lake.

He erected many castles--one at Martigny, at the entrance to the pa.s.s leading up to Saint Bernard; one at Evian, on the south side of the lake; and still another at the village of Peilz--and he reconstructed Chillon. Having mastered the Pays de Vaud, he governed with moderation. He organized troops of archers and halberdiers, established shooting-societies, and maintained strong garrisons at various points. In 1265, Rodolphe, Duke of Hapsburg, invaded Vaud and besieged Chillon. Pierre suddenly attacked him and won a great victory. They took the duke prisoner, together with eighty barons, lords, knights and n.o.bles of the country. After this Pierre had things his own way; he settled down at the Castle of Chillon and one of his pleasures was to go out rowing on the lake.

In 1358, when the plague ravaged Europe, the Jews were accused of poisoning the water. "The Court of Justice of Chillon," says the local hand-book, "caused these unhappies to be tortured and they would confess and then were burnt." So roused against them were the population that on one occasion a rabble forced the gates of the castle and put a number of them to death.

In Pierre's day it must have been a magnificent residence. Even now, viewed with the eye of imagination, one can get some notion of what it was in its period of splendour, though Thomas Jefferson Hogg, in his "Journal of a Traveller," declares that it is ugly, with its whitewashed walls crowned with a red-tiled roof. It is built in the form of an irregular oval. In the centre is a high, square tower which contained a great alarm-bell, the deep tones of which must have often echoed over the waters to call the defenders to resist the attacks of fierce enemies. On the north side are two ranges of crenelated walls and three round towers. On the east is the ma.s.sive square of the princ.i.p.al tower, through which is the only entrance, formerly closed by a drawbridge extending from the sh.o.r.e to the rock. The rooms where the counts and their ladies dwelt in state were on the south side. On the first floor is the great apartment once occupied by the Governor of Chillon. In one of the rooms is a magnificent fireplace with sculptured columns. In the story above are the chambers where knights habited. Here are pillars richly carved, ornamented with ancient coats of arms, and once draped with banners. Then come the chambers of the duke and d.u.c.h.ess, communicating by a private door. The d.u.c.h.ess's windows look down on the blue waters of the lake, while that of the prince looks into the courtyard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CASTLE OF CHILLON.]

Religion was not neglected in those days; in the chapel one admires the beautiful ogive of the nave. From the Hall of Justice a stairway leads down into the vaults below. These are caverns about a hundred meters long. The floors are only eight feet above the lake, which goes off very abruptly down to the deepest depths. These vaults are part.i.tioned off into chambers of different sizes, separated by narrow, dark s.p.a.ces and used for dungeons. Each of the subterranean cells contains a row of pillars, surmounted by ogive arches. They are like the sombre and almost magical dungeons under the ancient King Arkel's castle, where Pelleas and his jealous brother grope in Maeterlinck's marvellous drama.

The last and largest of these terrible apartments is the one where Bonivard was confined. It is entered by a low, narrow doorway, and is divided by seven huge pillars, around one of which is the legendary groove hollowed by the restless pacing of the prisoner's circling feet. Above are several narrow slits admitting a dim light. On bright days the light reflected from the lake casts a weird radiance on the ceiling. Little trembling waves go chasing one another across.

Bonivard could tell when it was morning, for then the light is blue, while in the afternoon it has a sickly, greenish hue.

Francis Bonivard was born at Seyssel and was educated at Turin. At twenty he became prior of Saint Victor, a small monastery near Geneva.

He joined the political organization, called "The Children of Geneva,"

which was engaged in a revolt against the Bishop and Duke of Savoy. He said--"I foresee that we shall finally do what our friends in Berne have done--separate from Rome. I was twenty years old and I was led like the others more by affection than by counsel, but G.o.d granted a happy issue to all our foolish undertakings, and treated us like a good father."

The duke managed to capture him and imprisoned him for two years at Gex and Gerolles. Later, he fell a second time into the duke's clutch.

Bonivard tells how it happened:--"At Moudon I resolved to return to Lausanne. When we were in the Jorat, lo, the Captain of the Castle of Chillon, Antoine de Beaufort, with some of his companions, comes out of the forest where he was concealed and approaches me suddenly. These worthy gentlemen fall on me all at once and make me a prisoner by the captain's order and, though I show them my pa.s.sport, they carry me off tied and bound to Chillon, where I was compelled to endure my second suffering for six years."

This was from 1530 till 1536. He was treated mildly at first, but afterwards he was thrown into the dungeon and fastened to one of the pillars. "I had so much time for walking," he says with a sort of grim humour, "that I wore a little pathway in the rock, as if it had been done with a hammer."