The Spell of Switzerland

Juste Olivier, however, goes into ecstasies over the names of some of the Swiss mountains. He says: —

“What more charming, more fresh and morning-like than the name of the Blümlisalp? What more gloomy than that of the Wetterhorn, more solid than that of the Stockhorn, more incomparable than that of the Jungfrau, more aerial and whiter than that of the Titlis, more superb and high sounding than that of the Kamor, more sparkling and vivid than that of the Silberhorn, more terrible than that of the Finsteraarhorn which falls and echoes like an avalanche!”

He is still more enthusiastic over the Alps of Vaud: – Moléson with its round and abundant mass so frequently sung by the shepherds of Gruyères, the slender, white, graceful forms of La Dent de Lis and Le Rubli. And he finds in the multitude of names ending in az– Dorannaz, Javernaz, Oeusannaz, Bovannaz – something peculiarly alpestrine and bucolic, as if one heard in them the horn-notes blown by the herdsmen, and their long cadenzas with the echoes from the mountain walls; and the solemn lowing of the cows as they crop the flowery grass and shake the big copper bells fastened to their necks. There is an endless study in names of places as well as in names of people. Often centuries of history may be detected in a single word.

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 shores. 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 lochère, any excuse for telling his occasional passenger (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 Rhône 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 Rhône was stopped and, as it were, piled up at the so-called Banc du Travers – a bar or shallow between Le Petit 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 shore is chiefly what is called, in the language of the country, a côte, 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 shores 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 masses. 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 latitude 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 shore-line of one hundred and sixty-seven kilometers, the north shore 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 Rhône 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, coarser near the shore, 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 Rhône 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 passed. Ancient writers supposed that the Rhône ran through Lake Leman without mixing its waters; they did not know that the lake is the Rhône.

Emile told us that after the bise, that is, the northeast wind, had blown for several days, the muddy water of the Rhône shows green along the shore for several kilometers. This is called les troublons du Rhône. 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 Fée– 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 shore 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 “Glück 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 association was formed to go into competition 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 spyglass we could see the faces of its passengers.

“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 passage-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 passenger, 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 Salève 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 Charrière 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 circumference 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 passages 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 shore, 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 Brontë 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 Marché, and the green fields with scattered houses, and enjoyed the tall trees and the fine old château de l’Aile and, farther back, the noble tower of Saint Martin.

Vevey has been rather unfortunate in its piers. In 1872 the municipality 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 Vévey-la-Tour were the clustered 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 Château des Crêtes. 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.