{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45642/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45642","id":"gutenberg_45642","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45642","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - European","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Travel Writing","Lucerne Lake (Switzerland)"],"text":"[Illustration: FL\u00dcELEN AND THE ST. GOTHARD VALLEY.]\n\n\n\n\n  _Beautiful Europe_\n\n  _The Lake of Lucerne_\n\n  _By\n  Joseph E Morris_\n\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n\n  _A. & C. Black, Limited,\n  Soho Square London W\n  1919_\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n  FL\u00dcELEN AND ST. GOTHARD VALLEY                     _Frontispiece_\n\n                                                        FACING PAGE\n  PILATUS ABOVE A SEA OF CLOUDS, FROM THE BASE OF THE RIGI        9\n\n  THE OLD BRIDGE, WITH SHRINE, LUCERNE                           16\n\n  THE GUTSCH FROM LUCERNE                                        19\n\n  OLD HOUSES AND BRIDGE AT LUCERNE                               22\n\n  THE SEVEN TOWERS LOOKING OVER LUCERNE FROM THE GUTSCH          25\n\n  LOOKING ACROSS THE LAKE                                        32\n\n  PILATUS FROM STANSTAD                                          43\n\n  LOOKING UP THE LAKE FROM BECKENRIED                            46\n\n  BECKENRIED                                                     51\n\n  LAKE URI FROM BRUNNEN                                          54\n\n  WILLIAM TELL'S CHAPEL (FROM A SKETCH IN 1895)      _On the cover_\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAKE OF LUCERNE\n\n\nI\n\nIf Lucerne is the most widely advertised lake in the world--if its\nname, in recent years, has come to be associated, less with ancient\ngallant exploits of half-legendary William Tells than with cheap\nPolytechnic Tours and hordes of personally conducted trippers, it has\nluckily forfeited singularly little of its ancient charm and character,\nand remains, if you visit it at the right moment--or at any moment, if\nyou are not too fastidious in your claims for solitude and \u00e6sthetic\nexclusiveness--possibly the most beautiful and unquestionably the most\ndramatic and striking of all the half-dozen or so greater lakes, Swiss\nor Italian, that cluster round the outskirts of the great central knot\nof Alps. \"Cluster round the outskirts,\" for it is characteristic of\nall these lakes, just as it is characteristic of most of our greater\nEnglish meres at home--of Windermere, for example, or Bassenthwaite,\nor Ullswater--that, though their upper ends penetrate more or less\ndeeply (and Lucerne and Ullswater more deeply than any) among the\nbases of the hills, yet their lower reaches, whence discharge the\nmighty rivers, invariably trail away into open plain, or terminate\namong mere gentle undulations. Of all this class of lake, then--lakes\nof the transition--Lucerne is at once the most complex in shape, the\nleast comprehensible in bulk, and the most immediately mountainous\nin character. The most complex in shape, because, though it is usual\nto describe this as a cross, yet the cross is so distorted in its\nlower and major member as practically to lose all really cross-like\ncharacter, and to remind one rather of a wriggling viper. The least\ncomprehensible in bulk, because there is actually no point on its\nsurface, or on its immediate margin, or perhaps indeed anywhere,\nwhence it is possible to grasp its basin as a whole, as it is\npossible, for example, in a rough kind of way, to grasp the shape and\ndimension of such a much larger lake as Geneva from the vineyards in\nthe neighbourhood of Aubonne. The most immediately mountainous in\ncharacter, because no other big Swiss lake, as already intimated,\nextends itself so deeply into the heart of giant hills, or is bordered\nso immediately by steep and rugged mountains. Thus Lucerne gains in\nsurprise and mystery what it loses in simple graciousness; is dramatic\nand startling where other lakes are tranquil and merely soothing; and\nis certainly, to sum up, the most splendid and magnificent lake in the\nAlps, if not the most dignified and beautiful.\n\n\nII\n\nThose who approach Lucerne directly by the railway fitly approach\nthe most dramatic of lakes by the most dramatic of vestibules. For\nthose who use their eyes, indeed, there are abundant distant hints of\nthe coming splendour; the Alps are first visible, in tolerably clear\nweather, as we descend the long wall of Jura on to the Aar at Aarberg;\nand further on, beyond the peaty flats round the Mauensee, and as we\nquit the lake of Sempach, Pilatus and Rigi, like two tall sentinels--\n\n     \"Mountains that like giants stand\n      To sentinel enchanted land\"--\n\ncome suddenly into view as the railway describes a giant curve, whilst\nbetween them, at greater distance, is glimpsed the enchanted land\nitself, made substantial in the Alps of Unterwalden. Such, too, or\nsomething similar, was the young Ruskin's first view of the distant\nAlps on the Sunday afternoon from the city promenade at Schaffhausen.\n\"Infinitely beyond all that we had ever thought or dreamed--the seen\nwalls of lost Eden could not have been more beautiful to us; not more\nawful, round heaven, the walls of sacred Death.\" Yet in spite of these\nreiterated hints, previsions, and premonitions, when we step finally\nfrom the noise, and bustle, and subdued light of the railway-station at\nLucerne into the brilliant morning light of the river quays outside,\nthe great vision that then breaks upon us for the first time in its\nentirety--levels of shining lake, and long, horizontal precipices of\nwooded Rigi, and beyond, in splendid background, white confusion of\nshattered Alps,\n\n     \"A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys,\n      And snowy dells in a golden air\"--\n\nstartles and almost shocks us with the same sense of unearthly wonder\nas when for the first time in childhood the green baize curtain rolls\nup suddenly, and we gaze, with child's eyes, straight into the green\nmysteries of fairyland.\n\n[Illustration: PILATUS ABOVE A SEA OF CLOUDS.]\n\nThis first view, then, of the Vierwaldst\u00e4ttersee from the quays at\nLucerne--far more than the first view of Lake Leman from the bridges\nof Geneva, or of Zurich from the quays of Zurich city--is dramatic in\nits complete and abrupt transformation, in its turning upside-down,\nand twisting inside-out, of all our previous conceptions of our\ncommonplace, workaday world! The thing in a way is sensational, but\nsensational within the modesty of nature, and certainly to be enjoyed\nat least once in a lifetime, and especially if one happen to be young.\nIf one happen to be older, or has seen the thing before, there is\nreason good enough to quit the train at Sursee, fifteen miles short of\nLucerne, and approach Lucerne thence gradually, on bicycle or foot, by\na zig-zag route of gradual introduction that is pursued, I suppose,\nby hardly anyone, and certainly not by Cook's tourist or Polytechnic\nstudent, each of whom has borrowed Atalanta's heels. Sursee itself,\nthough entered by a medieval gateway, has little else to show in the\nway of particular antiquities. Yet the town itself, in every lane\nand corner of it, is antiquity itself, and altogether delightful in\npossession of local colour. This is German Switzerland, and proclaims\nits Teutonic stamp at every turn: the very gate by which we enter\nstill bears above its arch the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman\nEmpire. From Sursee inquire your way by the long ascent to the little\nupland town of Berom\u00fcnster, where a college for secular canons was\nfounded in the eleventh century. In Murray's invaluable handbook, worth\nhalf a dozen Baedekers, it is stated that \"the church is eleventh\nto twelfth century, though much altered in the eighteenth century.\"\nThe description is misleading, for, though the core may be really\nold, it is overlaid with later classical work till most traces of\nmedievalism are entirely obscured--the very piers of the nave arcades\nare monolithic shafts of pink marble. None the less it is well worth\nvisiting, for the sake of its grand Renaissance choir stalls and sunny,\nsilent cloister. Hence to Sempach you may find a pleasant, unfenced\nlane, through the open pastures and apple-orchards, that falls by\neasy gradients along the north shore of the placid lake. Sempach is\none of the sacred political sites of Switzerland--like Morat, like\nMorgarten--for here was fought, in 1386, one of those great battles\nthat vindicated her freedom, and linked her name for ever with\nEngland's as a synonym for liberty:\n\n     \"Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,\n      One of the mountains.\"\n\nThe legend of Arnold von Winkelried, like that of Tell, has been\nquestioned of recent years; it first appears, more than half a century\nafter the supposed event, \"in an interpolated notice in a Zurich\nchronicle (1438 or later), and a popular song of the latter half of\nthe same century.\" True or false it will bear retelling, and indicates\ncorrectly enough the national spirit, even though it err in narration\nof historical fact. After all, most children know it by heart: how\nArnold von Winkelried, finding it impossible by any other means to\nbreak the serried Austrian ranks,\n\n     \"For victory shaped an open space,\n      By gath'ring, with a wide embrace,\n      Into his single heart, a sheaf\n      Of fatal Austrian spears.\"\n\nArnold is said to have come from Stans, where his statue still stands\nin the market-place; where his armour is still preserved in the\nRathhaus; and where it is certain at least that a family of the same\nname was resident in the neighbourhood at the time of the great fight.\nHis house is also shown on the skirts of the little town--or, more\ncorrectly, may be found by those who seek it with much diligence; for\nthough the victory itself is not forgotten in Switzerland, and was,\nindeed, celebrated with much pomp at its quincentenary in 1886, it is\nhard to get lucid instructions in Stans itself as to the whereabouts of\nthe national hero's birthplace, or even to authenticate its continued\nexistence. I found it at last--a little old farm in the suburb, \"of\nwhich one portion, including a low archway with groined entrance and\nlow pillars, may be as old as the time of Winkelried.\"\n\nSempach itself, like Sursee, is a picturesque old town, with another\nquaint old gateway. The lake, though five miles long, is quite outside\nthe mountains, though the splintered crags of Pilatus give a distant\nhint of Alpine splendour. The remaining nine miles or so to Lucerne\nare perhaps a trifle dull, and the entrance to the city is through the\nusual straggling suburb--out of all reasonable proportion to the place\nitself--that conducts us too frequently to a town in Switzerland.\n\n\nIII\n\nIn France I always reckon that a town of less than fifty thousand\npeople is likely to retain untouched its medieval character, or at any\nrate its atmosphere of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Exceptions\nof course occur--I make one in the case of Aix-en-Provence, which seems\nto have been mostly rebuilt, though in very delightful fashion, as late\nas the eighteenth century. Mere modern watering-place growths, again,\nlike Biarritz or Vichy, must also be eliminated--they had obviously\nno character to lose. But apart from towns like these, my general\nproposition will be acceptable, I think, to anyone who dwells, on the\none hand, on places like Beauvais, or Cambrai, or Chartres, or, on\nthe other, on bigger cities, such as Angers, or Orleans, or Tours. In\nSwitzerland, which appears to me, much more than France, to be bursting\nwith prosperity and redundant population, it seems on the whole harder\nto suggest a general rule. Neuch\u00e2tel, for example, with twenty-five\nthousand people, is virtually a handsome modern town. Berne, on the\ncontrary, with a population of over ninety thousand, preserves its\nancient aspect in remarkable degree. Luckily Lucerne, in a middle\nposition, with a population of forty-one-odd thousand souls, leans more\nto the example of Berne than to that of Neuch\u00e2tel or Lausanne. The\nimmediate front to the lake, of course, just as at Geneva, is blatantly\nnew of mode--it is largely, in fact, a conglomerate of palatial modern\nhotels. But immediately behind--immediately you quit the broad sweep\nof quays and promenades, and plunge almost anywhere at random into the\nnetwork of ancient streets--you are able to forget at once, whether you\nlinger in the shadow of the fifteenth-century church of the Bare-foot\nFriars (the Barf\u00fcsserkirche, or Church of the Franciscans); or bask in\nopen sunlight on the narrow quay, at the back of the sixteenth-century\nRathhaus, by the side of the green and rushing Reuss; or climb the\nsteep pitch of hill behind the town to the line of ancient walls, with\ntheir long line of stately watch-towers (like those at Fribourg and\nMorat) that stretches with so much picturesque dignity across the base\nof the blunt angle--so blunt as scarcely to be an angle at all--between\nthe river and the lake; or seek shelter from the glare in the long\ngalleries of the two old wooden bridges, with their mellow red-tiled\nroofs, that manage to survive across the river--plunge, I repeat,\nwhere you will into this labyrinth of old thoroughfares, with their\nplastered and painted house-fronts, and gaily splashing fountains in\ncourts and corners, and broad eaves that project far across the street,\nand you are reminded at every step, not of the modern tourist resort\nof world-wide reputation that is visited by hundreds of thousands of\ntourists every year, but of that old Lucerne that grew up gradually\nround the Benedictine monastery that was founded here in the year 750,\nor thereabouts, by the abbots of Murbach in Alsace, and that gets its\nname from that St. Leodegar, or Leger, who was patron of the monastery.\nThe monks gave way to a college of secular canons in 1455. Unhappily,\nof the old collegiate church there are virtually no remains. The twin\nwest spires, indeed, date from the beginning of the sixteenth century,\nand are good Flamboyant Gothic; but the body of the existing building\nwas erected after a fire in 1633--the date is on the west doorway--and\nis purely Classical, though quite a good example of its particular\nstyle and date. Correspondingly late is the woodwork inside, including\nthe fine stalls in the choir. Other points of interest will be found\nby those who seek for them: the panels of old glass (one is dated\n1650); the ironwork and carving of the great west door; and the two\nrichly sculptured reredoses at the ends of the two aisles, one of\nwhich has a Piet\u00e0, and one a Death of the Virgin. Even more remarkable\nis the stately, classical cloister that encompasses the whole church\nlike an Italian Santo Campo. All is very splendid, yet all would be\ngladly surrendered in exchange for what the relentless flames devoured\nin 1633. The one is a work of the completed Renaissance--learned,\ncorrect, and conscious, but perhaps a trifle cold. The other, we may be\ncertain, though it may have presented to the critic a thousand faults\nof detail, whispered at least from its dim aisles and chapels \"the\nlast enchantments of the Middle Age.\" The one is the laborious product\nof the textbook and the studio; the other the inevitable offspring\nof a vigorous and vital art. The one is the clever expression of an\nindividual talent; the other the collective offering of a people's\nenthusiasm and faith.\n\n[Illustration: THE OLD BRIDGE WITH SHRINE, LUCERNE.]\n\nThe Hofkirche, then, may be entered casually, examined\nsuperficially, and quitted without regret. Time will be better spent in\nlingering on the old wooden foot-bridges that still span the green and\ninsurgent Reuss at some little distance below its exit from the lake.\nFormerly there were three; but the longest--the old Hof-br\u00fccke--was\nsacrificed in 1852 to the passion for spurious improvement. Of the\ntwo that survive, the Kapell-Br\u00fccke is by far the most important, and\napparently gets its name from the old St. Peter's Chapel on the north\nshore of the river, to which it leads diagonally across the clear and\nvoluminous stream. In actual touch with this, but nearer the southern\nshore, rises the picturesque old Wasserturm, which is said once to\nhave served as a lighthouse (_lucerna_), and to have given Lucerne its\nname. The Premonstratensian Abbey of La Lucerne, near Avranches, in\nNormandy, is stated in Joanne's handbook to have got its title from\nthe same source; but the Swiss Lucerne is perhaps better derived (I\ndo not profess to understand by what strange process of corruption)\nfrom the name of its patron, Leodegar. Anyhow, this old Water-Tower\nis a decidedly striking object, and conspicuous in most photographs\nand pictures of Lucerne, with its typical octagonal cap. Both the two\nold wooden bridges, as is common in Switzerland, are protected from\nthe weather by open timber roofs; and inserted in the framing of these\nlast is a series of eighteenth-century paintings, representing, in\nthe case of the Kapell-Br\u00fccke, scenes from the history of the city,\nand from the lives of its patronal saints, St. Mauritius and St.\nLeodegar; and in the case of the lesser Spreuer, or M\u00fchlen, Br\u00fccke\na late, post-medieval representation of the grim, medieval humours\nof the ghastly Dance of Death. This strange _memento mori_ was a\nfavourite morality of the Middle Time; Death in the form of a skeleton\n(Wordsworth's \"Death the Skeleton\") presents himself in turn to all\nkinds and conditions of men--in the great series at the old abbey\nchurch of La Chaise-Dieu (Haute-Loire) in France to actually not less\nthan thirty-five, now setting his foot with timid determination on the\ntrailing robe of a sacrosanct Pope; now greeting with mocking glance\na Cardinal, who averts his head with hasty terror; now dancing with\ninsolent familiarity in front of an aged man; now laying his bony grasp\non a troubadour, who lets his mandoline clatter to the ground in access\nof sudden fear. These are subjects depicted at La Chaise-Dieu; but\njust the same spirit of gruesome raillery inspires the _danse macabre_\nwherever found:\n\n     \"Le pauvre en sa chaumi\u00e8re o\u00f9 le chaume le courve\n        Est sujet \u00e0 ses lois;\n      Et la garde qui veille aux barri\u00e8res du Louvre\n        N'en d\u00e9fend pas nos rois.\"\n\nAt Hexham there are still four paintings on panel, representing Death\nwith a Pope, an Emperor, a King, and a Cardinal. Browning tells us in\nconnection with the old revellers of Venice how\n\n     \"Death stepp'd tacitly and took them\n      Where men never see the sun\";\n\nbut the Death of the _danse macabre_ at Hexham, as perhaps always, so\nfar from stepping tacitly, is a grinning and grisly contortionist,\nwrithing his repulsive anatomy into a dozen different shapes of\nderision. The victims alone have dignity, whilst Death is merely the\njester or buffoon. Different, indeed, is the shadowy Death of the\nApocrypha--\"And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and he that sat upon\nhim, his name was Death\"; or the mysterious, shrouded, blood-sprinkled\nfigure (to couple small images with great) of the Masque of the Red\nDeath. These particular paintings at Lucerne are necessarily small in\nscale, and perhaps not very legible in the dim recesses of the roof.\nI have never had the patience to decipher them, nor do they perhaps\nconform, since so unusually late in date, to the stereotyped convention\nof the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.\n\n[Illustration: THE GUTSCH, FROM LUCERNE.]\n\nThere is just one other spot in Lucerne which ought not to be\nneglected, and this, though sufficiently far removed from Death in\nhis merely antic aspect--from the Death of \"graves, of worms, and\nepitaphs\"--has also to do with Death in his nobler guise, for it is\nthe monument of the twenty-six Swiss officers, and seven hundred and\nsixty Swiss Guards, who fell in defending the Tuileries and their\nKing on August 10, 1792. \"Honour to you, brave men,\" writes Carlyle,\n\"honourable pity, through long times! Not martyrs were ye; and yet\nalmost more. He was no King of yours, this Louis; and he forsook you\nlike a King of shreds and patches; ye were but sold to him for some\npoor sixpence a day; yet would ye work for your wages, keep your\nplighted word. The work now was to die; and ye did it.\" The monument\nis fitly a lion, and was hewn out by Lukas Ahorn of Constance, after\nthe model of Thorwaldsen, from a face of living rock; he is pierced by\na broken lance and already at point of death, one paw hangs forward\nlimp and helpless, but the other, with claws outstretched, still\nclutches and guards the Bourbon lilies--a monument of faithfulness\nto death. The attitude and face of the great lion, \"having the most\ntouching expression of broken strength, subdued pain, and courageous\nself-surrender,\" are both very grandly conceived. It is sad indeed\nthat the rock itself, though the sculpture is boarded up to protect\nit from winter frosts, is badly cracked in more than one direction.\nClosely adjacent to this fine monument, and certainly worth a visit, is\nthe very curious Gletscher Garten, with its wonderful \"pot-holes,\" or\n\"glacier-mills,\" some of which retain their \"mill-stones\" still in situ.\n\n\nIV\n\nLooking eastward from the quays or the lake at Lucerne across the\nshining expanses of water to the great background of snow-clad\nAlps--visualizing those Alps in memory as we sit later on at home,\nby the side of a winter fire--most of us have probably an impression\nonly of a very lovely, and very magnificent, but also very vague and\ninchoate, huddle of confused and indefinite hills. The highest peak\nseen at Lucerne from the Schweizerhof Quay is apparently the T\u00f6di\n(11,887 feet), supreme at the point, or very nearly at the point, where\nUri, Glarus, and the Grisons meet, and next to this in actual dignity\nis perhaps the snowy Titlis (10,627 feet), which rises above Engelberg,\nand also belongs, like the T\u00f6di, to a bunch of three converging\ncantons--in this case Uri, Unterwalden, and Berne. Yet these two\ngiants, with their groups of attendant satellites, are so remote from\nthe margin of the lake itself, and so lost amidst the company of their\nhardly less magnificent peers, that they strike one on the whole with\nless impress of overwhelming individuality--associate themselves on\nthe whole less easily with our necessarily blurred and imperfect\nrecollections of the Vierwaldst\u00e4ttersee when the lake itself is no\nlonger seen--than two other striking hills of far less elevation, and\nin one case of far less noble outline, that yet rear themselves more\nimmediately from the exact levels of the lake, and that stand more\nor less aloof, in conspicuous isolation, not merely from one another,\nbut from the general confraternity of hills. Wordsworth reminds us in\nan admirable sonnet how\n\n     \"Pelion and Ossa flourished side by side,\n      Together in immortal books enrolled\"--\n\nyet surely not Pelion and Ossa (I have never seen them) dominate\nThessaly more insistently, or confront one another with more marked and\ndivergent character across the intervening valley, than Swiss Rigi and\nPilatus confront one another across the blue spaces of the Lake of the\nFour Forest Cantons, or dominate its waters from the exact margin of\nits shores!\n\n[Illustration: OLD HOUSES AND BRIDGE AT LUCERNE]\n\nOf these mountain twins of central Switzerland, Pilatus is by far the\nmore imposing, not merely in point of elevation--the Rigi is less\nby a thousand feet--and immeasurably in grace of peaked and rocky\noutline, but also in wealth of legendary lore, and even of actual\nhistorical significance. Of legend, because Pontius Pilate, according\nto one account, smitten with remorse after the crucifixion of Our\nSaviour, ascended these lonely summits in the course of his miserable\nwanderings, and drowned himself here in the little pool (which is\nnow dried up) on the Br\u00fcndlen Alp, which lies on the less well-known\nslopes of the hill descending from the highest peak, or Tomlishorn\n(6,995 feet), in the direction of the Rumligbach. According, however,\nto another version, which first appears in the pages of Eusebius,\nPontius Pilate committed suicide at Rome; and it was only after a\nseries of strange vicissitudes and wanderings, recalling, though less\nhallowed than, those of the body of St. Cuthbert, that his corpse was\nflung at last, like so much carrion, into this little mountain tarn.\nFirst it was thrown into the Tiber, but the evil spirit could not rest,\nand storms and floods that fell upon Rome necessitated its removal to\nVienne, near Lyons, where again it found watery burial in the Rhone.\nVienne, however, was now visited in turn by commotions like those at\nRome; the Lake of Geneva, the next place of interment, proved equally\ninfelicitous; and it was only finally in untrodden solitudes, beneath\nthe grey limestone peaks of the Frackm\u00fcnd (or _Fractus Mons_), that the\nhateful body, which earth refused to receive in peace, was suffered at\nlast to hide itself in uneasy but permanent sepulchre. For \"even\nhere the wicked spirit could not rest from evil-doing. Storm and rain\nenveloped the mountain, the lake burst its banks, Alps were ruined, and\nherds swept away. At last a travelling scholar confronted the ghost,\nand by his magic forced him to accept a pact by which, on condition of\none day's freedom, he was to remain at rest for the remainder of the\nyear. The bargain was kept. The land was at peace, but yearly on Good\nFriday any shepherd who approached the haunted tarn saw, seated on a\nthrone of rock above the water, a terrible figure clad in the red robes\nof magistracy.\" One would hasten to suppose that the story had been\ninvented in explanation of the name; but the name Pilatus (perhaps from\n_pileatus_, the capped mountain, from its well-known cloud-compelling\nqualities) is said to date only from the eighteenth century, whilst the\nstory is at least as old as the fourteenth.\n\n[Illustration: THE SEVEN TOWERS, LOOKING OVER LUCERNE FROM THE GUTSCH.]\n\nSo far the realm of legend. The realm of actual history is scarcely\nless astonishing, and attaches itself to legend by imperceptible ties.\nIt is history that the city of Lucerne in the Middle Ages did actually\nprohibit the ascent of the mysterious hill: it is history that six\npriests in 1307 were condemned to several months of imprisonment for\ndaring to visit the forbidden lake. The legend of the pact with the\ntravelling scholar had at least one important variant, for it was\nbelieved that by throwing a stone into the pool the spirit could be\nat any time provoked, and his evil influence set free to work havoc\non lake and fell. It was to avert this constant menace at the hands\nof audacity, or scepticism, that the city fathers promulgated the\nlaw by which access to the hill was prohibited. It was only with the\nRenaissance, and with the birth of the new spirit of rationalism,\nthat the old beliefs became untenable, and that the old terrors were\nrendered empty--as Gareth cleaves the helm of the silent terror that\n\n     \"Names himself the Night and oftener Death,\"\n\nand reveals inside \"the bright face of a blooming boy.\" The terrors\nwere already grown more than a little threadbare when Conrad Gesner,\nthe naturalist, ascended the mountain in 1555; they must nearly\nhave vanished altogether in another thirty years, when the Cur\u00e9 of\nLucerne, \"before a crowd of witnesses, flung stones and rubbish into\nthe lake without raising anything more than a ripple.\" At the bottom,\nhowever, of all these wild stories there is a substratum of truth, for\nPilatus is really a great brewer of storms, and the peasants of the\nneighbourhood still prognosticate the weather from the disposition of\nthe clouds upon its summit. Thus Roseberry Topping, in Cleveland, or\nwhat greedy iron-masters have left of it, was supposed as long ago as\nthe time of Camden to foretell the coming storm:\n\n     \"If Roseberry Topping wears a cap\n      Let Cleveland then beware of a clap.\"\n\nRoseberry and Pilatus are in other respects curiously analogous; each\nis of a typically peaked appearance; and each is situated on the\nextreme edge of the hill group to which it belongs. Pilatus, it may be\nnoted, is now ascended by a railway, and thus heaps of \"unappreciative\ntrippers\" are now lightly conveyed every fine summer day to the once\nweirdly mysterious summit, to which the medieval climber won only\nsurreptitiously, and perhaps in awe and terror. It is surely the\nanti-climax of unromantic common sense.\n\nThe Rigi, which confronts Pilatus across the lake in such startling\ndissimilarity, is perhaps the most popular hill in Europe, and is\ncertainly in a sense the most vulgar. It is bad enough that a hill\nshould be desecrated by a single mountain railway: it is intolerable\nthat it should be degraded by three! How many people ascend to the\nRigi Kulm on a day of tolerable weather in August from either Vitznau\nor Arth-Goldau one would hardly dare to guess; how many are housed at\nnight in one or other of the monster hotels--at Rigi Kulm, at Rigi\nKaltbad, at Rigi Staffel, at Rigi Scheidegg--that oppress and burden\nits weary summits is a matter not to be dwelt on. This is not the place\nto attempt a dissertation on the _qu\u00e6stio vexata_ of mountain railways.\nTo the writer (who is prejudiced) the thing seems axiomatic: all that\ngoes to make up mountain grandeur, all that is of the spirit,\n\n     \"Of eye and ear--both what they half create,\n      And what perceive\"--\n\nall that renders a mountain a mountain, as opposed to a mere elevated\nmass of matter--\n\n                  \"Of stratified rock\n      Inclined at an angle of xty degrees\"--\n\nis gone in a moment when you thus strip a hill of its proper\nattributes--of its mystery, of its remoteness, of its difficulty of\naccess; and there remains nothing save bulk, which you get in the\nGreat Pyramid; and prospect, which you get from the Eiffel Tower;\nand a clever bit of engineering (diabolically clever), which is just\nas well got in the Great Wheel at Kensington. Yet frankly it must\nbe confessed that if something had to be sacrificed to gratify the\nsensation-mongers, and the lazy, and the impotent, the Rigi might best\nbe immolated. Just this one hill, perhaps, might be spared: but was it\nnecessary to bind to the horns of the altar every other hill of medium\nsize in Switzerland--the Niesen, and the Brienzer, Rothhorn, and the\nSchynige Platte, and the Beatenberg; to say nothing, on the shores\nof Lake Lucerne itself, in addition to the Rigi, of the Burgenstock,\nand Pilatus, and the Stanserhorn; and elsewhere in Switzerland of the\ndeeper crime of the Jungfrau, and in Savoy of the crowning infamy of\nMont Blanc?\n\nThe Rigi, in fact, owing to its peculiar configuration and structure,\nis less hurt by this eruption of mountain railways than any other\nmountain in the Alps. The hill is really a whole agglomeration of\nhills--of which the Rigi Kulm (5,905 feet) is merely the culminating\nsummit--which occupy very roughly the rectangular area that lies\nbetween the lakes of Lucerne, Zug, and Lowerz, and are formed largely\nof horizontal layers of red conglomerate, or pudding-stone, rock. The\nhill is thus distinctly of the lumpy type of mountain, as opposed to\nits rival, Pilatus, which belongs to the vertical, or peaked; and owes\nwhat beauty it possesses to its long bands of ruddy precipice, down\nwhich dangle short spouts of more or less exiguous cascade, and to the\nsolemn masses of dark wood that gird its middle flanks. The towering\ncrags of Pilatus, like tongues of shivering flame, have here no rival\nin these long, parallel belts of forest, rock, and open lawn, that rise\nabove the lake in stately tier above tier, and are hardly wilder at\ntheir summits than along the margin of the lake:\n\n                \"And as the ranks ascend\n      Shade above shade, a woody theatre\n      Of stateliest view.\"\n\nIt is not difficult among glades like these for a mountain railway\nto worm its way obscurely, and to hide its ugly presence beneath the\ngarment of thick woods.\n\n[Illustration: LOOKING ACROSS THE LAKE.]\n\nIt is the fashion to spend the night on the Rigi, and to witness the\nsunrise next day. The writer has done it once, but the experience was\ndisappointing: it was already broad daylight, and the whole landscape\nwas already coldly visible, when the little group of shivering\npenitents was marshalled on the summit to watch the up-burst of a sun\nthat itself seemed cold and grey. It may be better worth the trouble\nif one rises for actual daybreak, or when the sun issues forth more\nroyally from his chamber in the east. On the whole, perhaps, it is\nbetter to avoid the Rigi in its stereotyped sensational aspects,\nand to investigate its secret--for secret to yield it assuredly\nhas--unconventionally, and out of the season. I have crossed its saddle\nfrom Goldau to Weggis, between the Rigi Rotstock and the Schild, during\nthe later days of March, when the track by which I climbed was still\nwhite with virgin snow. This was, in fact, the old pilgrim path by\nwhich devotees once ascended--may possibly still ascend--to worship at\nthe little upland chapel (rebuilt in 1715-21) of Our Lady of the Snow\n(\"Maria zum Schnee\"). This shrine is the centre of a little colony,\nthe oldest and quaintest of all that have developed on the Rigi; and\njust because it lies in a hollow of the summit peaks, and commands no\ndistant views, has escaped the bitter ravages of modern exploitation.\nThe spot is called Rigi Kl\u00f6sterli, because inhabited all the year round\nby a little group of Capuchin friars from the community at Arth,\nwho dwell in the little hospice and serve the little chapel. This\nwas an old centre for goat-whey cure, and the inns are delightfully\nold-fashioned of aspect; the whole appearance of the spot, indeed, is\nfull of local character, whereas most other settlements on the Rigi are\ncosmopolitan and commonplace. The salvation of the place is its utter\nlack of view: you must scramble up steep grass slopes, towards the\nsouth, to the summit of the saddle, to enlarge your horizon in a few\nsteps from a barrier of green hill-side to a prospect so vast that you\nseem suddenly to have before you all the kingdoms of the earth and the\nglory thereof. I do not know, indeed, that the actual range of view is\ngreater than that commanded in France from the top of the Puy-de D\u00f4me--\n\n     \"Si D\u00f4me \u00e9tait sur D\u00f4me\n      On verra les portes de Rome\"--\n\nand certainly it is not so majestic as many more restricted views of\nparticular groups of Alps, seen--as mountain views are almost always\nseen to best advantage--from the slopes, or from the summits, of lesser\nhills. But except from the marble roofs of Milan Cathedral there is\nperhaps no other generally recognized and easily accessible point of\nview from which it is possible, merely by turning the head, to command\nso long a line of crowding Alpine summits, extending from the Sentis,\nin the extreme east, to Pilatus in the west, for a distance of roughly\none hundred and twenty miles--\n\n     \"Hill peers o'er hill, and Alps o'er Alps arise.\"\n\nYet here, when we stand on the crest in unaccustomed solitude in the\nfirst stirrings of the spring, when the giant hotels are still mostly\nshut and empty, and when the high-level railway between the Kaltbad\nand the Scheidegg is happily obscured beneath icicle and snowdrift,\nthere is yet no intimate revelation of the true inward spirit of Alpine\nscenery:\n\n     \"The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,\n      Where the birds dare not build nor insect's wing\n      Flit o'er the herbless granite.\"\n\nThe Land of Promise lies fair before us; but here, on the saddle of\nthe Rigi, we still linger on the threshold, though the biting morning\nbreeze come, pine-scented, through the forest, and though the musical\ncow-bells tinkle for ever on the \"high mountain pastures, where day\nfirst appears.\"\n\n\nV\n\nOf the five great primary divisions of the Vierwaldst\u00e4ttersee--and one\nis driven, however anxious to preserve the configuration of the cross,\nto recognize a fifth, and separate, division in the Bay, or Lake, of\nUri--of the five great divisions of the Lake of Lucerne, that which\nextends to the quays of Lucerne itself is the most placid and domestic\nin respect of actual shore-line. True, there is always a background\nof lofty mountain, sufficiently magnificent and sufficiently near\nat hand to impress itself on the landscape as a component, and even\ndominant, feature; but the actual littoral in this compartment of the\nlake--and Lucerne, unlike Zurich or Geneva, but to some extent like\nComo, is literally partitioned into compartments--is softly arcadian\nin character, with low, gently swelling hills of slight, inconclusive\ncontour, knee-deep with hay and flowers, and shoulder-deep with\napple-blossom and orchard. Next, I think, in ascending scale is the Bay\nof K\u00fcsnacht, so called from the big village at its head. The north-west\nshore of this is again of mildly pastoral character; but directly from\nits south-east margin rise the deep, dark woods of the Rigi, supplying\nthat hint of real Alpine sublimity--it is still merely a hint--that\nis wholly absent from the immediate shores of the little Lucernersee\nstrictly so-called. The road from Lucerne to K\u00fcsnacht, where it skirts\nthis bay beyond the big, scrambling village of Meggen, is one of the\npleasantest view-points within easy touch of Lucerne whence to enjoy\nacross the water the noble mountain background that screens the south\nshore of the main lake. On a mild spring evening, when this splendid\nlandscape is an \u00e6therialized study in black and white; when the\nsnowflakes and cowslips are pushing up in thousands through the quickly\ngrowing grass; when the host of margent rushes scarcely quivers in the\nstillness; and when the opposite mountains are reflected without a\nripple in the calm and silent lake, it is hard to believe that all this\nexquisite beauty, which seems so unearthly and unexplored, is really\nthe much boasted, much advertised, much visited \"Lovely Lucerne\"--it\nis difficult to realize that the paddle of a steamer ever churns this\nunruffled mirror, or that the harsh whistle of the ascending locomotive\never wakes the echoes on steadfast Rigi. Those who visit Lucerne only\nin the deadly oppression of the high season, when every lake-side quay\nswarms like an ant-hill, and every village rings like Babel, are apt to\ncarry away wrong impressions of this still absolutely unimpaired lake.\nThe playground at seasons is densely packed, but the place has received\nno permanent wrong; those who can reconcile Nature and a crowd will be\nhappy here even in August, when\n\n     \"All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out;\"\n\nthose, on the other hand, who seek the mountains, not exactly perhaps\nin the spirit of Manfred, but at any rate in Manfred's happier mood--\n\n                        \"No eyes\n      But mine now drink this sight of loveliness;\n      I should be sole in this sweet solitude\"--\n\nwill easily find solace here in early spring, or late autumn, when the\nplace is like a desert. No one has done the place a permanent wrong.\nWho can claim as much for the holly steeps of Windermere--for the\ndistorted Clarens shore of Lake Geneva?\n\nK\u00fcssnacht itself is a large, typically Swiss, village, at the foot\nof the low pass--yet altogether too low to be dignified by the name\nof pass--that at this point intervenes between the basins of Zug and\nLucerne. The place has this significance, that here for the first time,\nas we perambulate the lake, we encounter spots associated with the\nlegend of William Tell. I suppose one must call it legend, and concede\nso much to the \"higher critics,\" though Ruskin's clarion anger rings\nloud and clear. \"A sort of triumphant shriek, like all the railway\nwhistles going off at once at Clapham Junction, has gone up from the\nFooldom of Europe at the destruction of the myth of William Tell. To\nus, every word of it was true--but mythically luminous with more than\nmortal truth.... The myth of William Tell is destroyed forsooth? and\nyou have tunnelled Gothard and filled, maybe, the Bay of Uri--and it\nwas all for you and your sake that the grapes dropped blood from the\npress of St. Jacob, and the pine-club struck down horse and helm in\nMorgarten glen?\" If the history of William Tell itself is unauthentic,\nwe must not demand authenticity for its visible memorials and sites.\nGesler's Castle above K\u00fcssnacht--or the fragments that remain of\nit--certainly never belonged to Gesler; whilst the chapel at the head\nof the Hohle Gasse, or Hollow Way, was certainly rebuilt in 1644,\nand did not exist at all at the end of the fifteenth century. This\nis the traditional spot where Tell, after escaping from the boat at\nthe Tellsplatte, and running by way of Schwyz and the back of the\nRigi, waited for Gesler on his return from Altdorf, and shot him dead\nwith his terrible cross-bow before he could reach his castle-gate\nat K\u00fcssnacht. It is worth the traveller's while to press on a mile\nor two further in the direction of Arth, though this is to exchange\nthe basin of the lake of Lucerne for that of the lake of Zug. The\nZugersee lies almost at once beneath us, at a slightly lower level\n(roughly sixty feet) than the Vierwaldst\u00e4ttersee, and altogether of\nmore placid and softer character--a pleasant thing to look at in the\ntender evening light, with its shore line embowered amidst orchards\nand deep rich meadows, and dotted in every direction with peaceful\nfarms, but destitute of mountain grandeur, save immediately towards\nits head, where the dark forests of the Rigi, towards the west, and\nof the Rossberg, towards the east, open a gloomy \"Gate of the hills,\"\nbeyond which, though really above Schwyz and the little lake of Lowerz,\nthe tall, bare rock pyramids of the Great and Little Mitre (Gross and\nKleine Mythen) tower up in cleft magnificence above the cradle of Swiss\nfreedom.\n\nAs to the story of William Tell, this, alas! has gone the way of our\nown tales of Robin Hood (whom Mr. Sydney Lee dismisses as a \"mythical\nforest elf\") and his Merry Men of Sherwood Forest. The legend first\nappears in the manuscript \"Weisses Buch,\" so-called from its white\nbinding, that is still preserved at Sarnen, and which was written\nbetween 1467 and 1476; and in the poem called the \"Tellenlied,\" which\ndates from about 1474. Tell, however, is supposed to have lived at\nabout the commencement of the fourteenth century. There are certainly\nsome scraps of evidence that suggest in combination that the later Tell\nmyth (as, for that matter, are presumably most myths) is based on some\nsubstratum of solid historical fact. Thus, there is said to be evidence\nthat a religious observance of some kind was instituted in connection\nwith Tell in the place where he lived in 1387; and it is stated, though\nnot earlier than 1504, that a chapel was erected on the Tellsplatte, as\nthe country people believed in commemoration of the landing there of\nWilliam Tell, in 1388. The story as now commonly reported--that Tell\nrefused to do obeisance to the Austrian Arch-duke's cap at Altdorf;\nthat he shot the apple off his son's head at the brutal bidding of\nGesler in the market-place of the same town; that he afterwards escaped\nfrom Austrian custody by springing from the boat to the shore at the\nTellsplatte during the onset of a sudden squall; and that he shot\nthe tyrant through the heart as the latter neared his castle hall\nat K\u00fcssnacht--first assumed its present form, in which it has been\ndramatized by Schiller, at the hands of Tschudi of Glarus, in the\nfirst half of the sixteenth century. Even as early, however, as the\nclose of this same century the very existence of William Tell had been\nquestioned by Guilmann in his _De Rebus Helveticis_. Voltaire was duly\nsceptical as to the story of the boy and the apple (\"l'histoire de la\npomme est bien suspecte\"); but the patriotic faith of Canton Uri was\nstill sufficiently strong at the close of the eighteenth century to\nconsign to the flames at the hand of the public hangman the sceptical\n\"Guillaume Tell; fable danoise.\" The result, however, as expressed\ncurtly in Murray's handbook, is that Tell has been banished from\nauthentic history. Exactly similar legends or sagas of the tenth\ncentury are found in Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Holstein, and on the\nRhine; and our Clym of the Clough shoots at an apple on his son's head--\n\n     \"But Cloudesle cleft the apple in two,\n            His son he did not nee'.\"\n\nThus William Tell, like Arnold von Winkelried, recedes into the dim\nborderland of legend and history. After all, it is no irreparable\nloss. The individual Arnold, the individual Tell, were units merely of\nthe great company of authentic, unnamed heroes who smote the Austrian\ntyrant at Sempach and Morgarten, who triumphed against the Burgundian\nat Grandson, Morat, and Nancy.\n\nThe third division, in still ascending scale of mountain grandeur,\nof the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons is that which extends\nsouth-westward from the intersection of the cross, and is\nknown--certainly towards its extremity, and perhaps throughout its\nlength--from the little village at its head as the Lake of Alpnach.\nHere the general effect is more definitely mountainous than that which\nhas awaited us in sailing the two previous compartments: Rigi is now\nexchanged for Pilatus as the presiding genius and dominant monarch of\nthe scene; whilst the Alps of Unterwalden, and, beyond the low pass of\nthe Br\u00fcnig, the greater Alps of the Berner Oberland--the triple Maiden,\nMonk, and Giant--the Peak of Storms, and the Peak of Shrieking--at last\nsupply that mountain background which everyone must have missed when\nlooking up the water towards K\u00fcssnacht or Lucerne. The Oberland giants,\nit is true, are set at too great distance to impress the eye, however\nmuch they may affect the imagination, with the same sense of impending\nmountain majesty as we find in the Bay of Uri; but Pilatus and the\nStanserhorn are both immediate and splendid objects; whilst even the\ndark, pine-clad crags of the little B\u00fcrgenstock, which is literally,\nlike Catullus' Sermio, \"all-but-island\"--for it needs but the raising\nof the lake a very few feet, and the consequent flooding of the low\nisthmus between Stans and Buochs, to complete its insulation--push out\ninto the lake with an assertive individuality that is wholly out of\nkeeping with their relatively insignificant height (actually less than\nfour thousand feet). Roughly half-way up, at a point where the lake is\nnarrowed to the dimensions of a river by the sudden, sharp intrusion of\nthe tall black cliffs of the Lopperberg (a footstool of Pilatus), the\nstrait thus strangely created is spanned across to Stanstad by an\nugly iron bridge. The crass utilitarianism, in fact, that mars, though\nit cannot wholly disfigure, so much that is beautiful in Switzerland,\nand that contributes so little to the honour of the modern Switzer\n(however well it may fill his purse), is altogether painfully too\nevident along the shores of this division of the Lake of Lucerne. The\nhideous lines of electric wires along the margin of the lake are only\nless detestable than those that degrade the Pass of Llanberis; this\nbridge across the narrows is as ugly as may be; whilst Baedeker (with\nhis usual businesslike lack of romanticism) duly chronicles in a single\nbreath the presence of \"water-falls and Portland cement factories\" in\nthe neighbouring glen of the Rotzloch.\n\n[Illustration: PILATUS FROM STANSTAD.]\n\nThe visitor is now fairly landed in the state of Unterwalden, the\nsecond most mountainous and romantic of the Four Forest Cantons. The\nSwiss have solved to perfection the problem of Home Rule: here is a\nlittle territory of less than two hundred square miles, and with a\npopulation in 1900 of less than thirty thousand people (less than that\nof Peterborough), which is yet, for all domestic intents and purposes,\nan independent sovereign state. Nay, not content with this, since\nthese thirty thousand odd people, on their odd two hundred miles of\nmountain-land, were ill-content to dwell together in amity, the state\nis actually sub-divided, like B\u00e2le and Appenzell, into two independent\nhalves. Each of these is confined mostly to a single big valley, with\nits tributaries; and each has a capital that would hardly pass muster\nin the mill districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire for a fair-sized\nvillage. The half-canton of Obwalden is thus roughly conterminous\nwith the valley of the Obwalden Aa, and has Sarnen, on the great\nhighroad from Lucerne to Meiringen across the Br\u00fcnig, for its rustic\nmetropolis, whilst Nidwalden comprises most of the valley of the\nNidwalden Aa, and finds its seat of government at Stans. Both these\nvalleys, though largely sub-Alpine (the head of the Nidwalden Aa alone\npierces deep into the heart of the greater hills, in the neighbourhood\nof Engelberg), are full of lovely scenery, though perhaps apt to be\nneglected by the too impatient tourist in his eagerness for the greater\nglories of Uri and the Bernese Highlands. It is pleasant, again, after\nso much destructive historical criticism, to encounter traces in these\nvalleys of a less widely recognized Swiss hero, whose services to his\ncountry, if less dramatic than those of Tell and von Winkelried, are\nat any rate more authentic, and perhaps of wider import. Nicolas von\nder Fl\u00fce has found no niche in popular school histories, has evoked\nno \"Battle of the Books,\" and has inspired no great national drama.\nNone the less his mild personality appears with high significance at a\ntremulously critical period in the evolution of Swiss unity and Swiss\nindependence. Whether or not we accept the story of the famous meeting\non the R\u00fctli, it is certain that the foundations of free Switzerland\nwere laid in August, 1291, by the perpetual alliance, for the\nmaintenance of their ancient rights and liberties, of the three Cantons\nof Uri, Unterwalden, and Schwyz.\n\n[Illustration: LOOKING UP THE LAKE, FROM BECKENRIED.]\n\nThis is the stock whence has sprung the present Confederation of\ntwenty-two free states; but the stock nearly perished at the root from\na little worm of discord in 1481, when the Confederates quarrelled at\nStans over the admission to the Union (which then already numbered\neight members) of the towns of Fribourg and Neuch\u00e2tel, and perhaps\nalso over the division of the spoil that they had lately wrung from\nCharles the Bold. The Diet had already debated for three days, and had\nbroken up on the evening of the third with what seemed little chance\nof peace: the morrow threatened secession, and most likely civil war.\nNicolas von der Fl\u00fce (often called affectionately Bruder Klaus; his\nreal name was L\u00f6wenbrugger) was born at Fl\u00fchli, where the Melch Thal\njoins the Aa valley, in 1417; and after many years of active life,\nincluding some experience of war, retired, in about his fiftieth\nyear, to a hermitage in the gorge of the river a few minutes' walk\ndistant from his native village, where he is said to have subsisted\nsolely on the Sacramental Wafer, of which he partook once a month.\nHe died in 1487, and was afterwards beatified, and in the course of\nlast century, sainted. It so happened that his Confessor in 1481 was\nthe head parish priest of Stans, a certain Heini Ingrund; who, early\nin the morning of the day succeeding the break-up of the Diet, sought\nout Nicolas in his hermitage, and obtained from him a message to the\ndeputies urging reconciliation and peace. Armed with this exhortation\nhe then hastened back to Stans, where he arrived, as we are told, all\nwet with perspiration, and hurriedly made the round of the inns where\nthe deputies were still lodged, and prevailed on them, by his tears\nand entreaties, to meet yet once again in consultation to hear the\nsecret message of Brother Klaus. The words of this are not reported,\nbut its effect was immediate and startling; in less than an hour\nthe irreconcilables were reconciled; and the morning, which rose so\ngloomily with presage of disaster and dissolution, finally resulted in\ngreater strength and union, as ratified in the Convention of Stans. A\npicture was painted by command of the government of Nidwalden, and may\nstill be seen in a passage in the Rathhaus at Stans. It is curiously\nunhistorical in character, for Nicolas is here represented as appearing\nbefore the Diet in person, whereas nothing is better attested than that\nhe merely sent a messenger of peace. Stans itself has other points\nof interest; the house of Arnold von Winkelried has been already\nalluded to; and there is a statue of the hero in the middle of the\nmarket-place, and another, with a fountain, near the church. Like\nmost little towns in this part of Switzerland--like Sarnen, Arth, and\nAltdorf--the place is delightfully quaint and old-fashioned, with its\noften painted houses, and its wide-projecting eaves. Above it towers\nthe Stanserhorn, with perhaps more bulk than shape; whilst a mile or\ntwo down the valley, on the opposite shore of the lake, the graceful\npeaks of Pilatus give a welcome note of contrast. The church has a\nRomanesque tower; but the body, like most of those in the Alps, is\nClassical rebuilding. In the graveyard, however, stands the medieval\nbone-house, which, like others in the neighbourhood, is a separate\nand complete little church. The bones have been removed, and perhaps\ndecently interred; but a tablet on the exterior still testifies to\nthe appalling slaughter here of the people of Nidwalden--women and\nchildren, as well as men--to the number of more than four hundred, by\nthe savage French Republicans in 1798. This frightful massacre at the\nhands of a brutal soldiery, infuriated by long resistance, lacked no\ncircumstance of horror--\n\n              \"Wasting fire and dying groan,\n      And priests slain on the altar-stone\"--\n\nthat, after the lapse of another century, may rival the German triumphs\nin Belgium. The visitor will find himself repaid by prolonging his\nadventure up the valley of the Nidwalden Aa to the upland vale of\nEngelberg, where still stands the famous Benedictine monastery that\nwas founded circa 1120, and that received its present name (\"Mons\nAngelorum,\" or Hill of Angels) at the hands of Pope Calixtus II., from\nthe tradition, celebrated by Wordsworth in some feeble lines in 1820,\nthat the site was pointed out by angel songs. Roughly half-way up the\nvalley is the village of Wolfenschiessen, hard by whose parish church\nis the little wooden house, or hermitage, that was inhabited by the\nhermit, Conrad Scheuber (1480-1559), a grandson of Nicolas von der\nFl\u00fce. This was built on the mountain pastures of the Bettelir\u00fct, high\nabove Wolfenschiessen, in 1547; and was transplanted to its present\nsite in 1867. On the hermitage, or church--I foolishly seem to have\nmade no note on the spot, and my recollection is misty--is a series\nof na\u00efve paintings, representing scenes from the life of the hermit,\nand showing him engaged (unless I mistake) in the congenial medieval\nhermit-task of outwitting, or otherwise discomforting, a very material\ndevil, or devils.\n\n[Illustration: BECKENRIED.]\n\nSarnen, the capital of Obwalden, is situated at the north end of\nits lake of the same name, and is as interesting in its way as its\nrival Stans; but the green pastoral valley of the Obwalden Aa, though\neverywhere bordered by lofty hills, is altogether more open and less\nrugged than its Nidwalden namesake, and terminates, unlike the latter,\nin the gentle pass of the Br\u00fcnig, instead of the lofty, snow-clad\nsummits of the Spann\u00f6rter and Titlis. High above the little mountain\ntown, on a green pedestal of hill, is the stately, Classical parish\nchurch, commanding sweeping views across the wide sub-Alpine vale.\nHere, in the crowded burial-ground, I searched in vain in the early\nmonths of 1914 for memorials of any age--almost every cross or stone\nhad been erected since I had last passed along this valley, in driving\nin the diligence from Meiringen to Lucerne, not quite a quarter of\na century earlier. The old bone-houses stand nowadays mostly empty;\nbut the Swiss dead, I suspect, are still frequently deposited in\ngraves that hold them only in temporary tenancy. Here, as elsewhere\nin Switzerland, you will note the local custom of often letting a\nphotograph of the deceased into his head-stone, beneath a protecting\nsheet of glass. A mile or two to the south-west of Sarnen, by the shore\nof the placid lake, is the little village of Sachseln, the church of\nwhich (Classical again) is lucky in its possession of the bones of\nBruder Klaus. I remember in 1887, on the occasion of the drive already\nmentioned, passing somewhere in this neighbourhood a long procession\nof pilgrims, who were doubtless making their way to the shrine of the\npatriot-saint. \"His bones,\" says Murray, \"lie in a glass case above\nthe high altar, the shutters of which are opened for travellers, and\nare also withdrawn at stated seasons, in order to exhibit the relics\nto crowds of pilgrims.... There is a wooden figure in the transept,\nclothed with the saint's veritable robes.\" I could not, however,\ndiscover this aerial place of sepulchre when I explored this church\nin 1914, nor do I remember the wooden figure, though I found statues\nof the saint, and of his grandson, Conrad Scheuber, in the parish\nchurch of Stans. The same two statements appear substantially in an old\nedition in my possession of 1872, and have perhaps escaped revision; or\nperhaps my own memory and observation are at fault. I turn with little\nhope to the last edition of the egregious Baedeker (1913), and find\nthat the burial of the saint at Sachseln is there entirely ignored. I\nfind, however, as I expected, the number of bedrooms, and the rate of\npension, at the Kreuz, the Engel, the L\u00f6we, and the R\u00f6ssli--at none of\nwhich doubtless excellent hotels I have ever stopped, or am ever likely\nto want to stay!\n\n\nVI\n\nThe big central division of the Lake of Lucerne, extending from the\nintersection of the cross to the great right angle (it is practically\na right angle) at Brunnen that marks the commencement of the Urner\nSee, or Bay of Uri, is considerably the largest, and probably in\nsome respects the most beautiful, but otherwise perhaps the least\ninteresting, of all five reaches of the lake. It lacks, indeed, the\nsuperlative grandeur of the Bay of Uri, which corresponds, in English\nLakeland, to the head of Ullswater, or Wastwater--curiously so, since\nin all three cases we have, not merely a climax of severe and even\nsavage sterility, but in all the vista up the water is closed chiefly\nby a single, great, pyramidal hill: at Wastwater by Great Gable, at\nUllswater by Caudale Moor, and here, at the Bay of Uri, by the dark\noutline of the Bristenstock. The Urner See, then, is the grandest and\nmost imposing, and in some lights gloomiest, lake in Switzerland,\nthough the Walenstadtsee, in Glarus and Gallen, will in these respects\nby some be thought a rival; but the mid-reaches of Lucerne, to the\nsouth of the red cliffs and dark woods of Rigi, and contained towards\nthe west by Pilatus, and towards the east by the twin Mythen--the last\nthree nobly peaked--excel, I think, in open sunny beauty. Contrariwise,\nthese reaches have but small historical interest, with the single\nexception of Gersau, as compared with the other four members: the Tell\ntraditions, as we have seen, or shall see presently, are confined to\nthe Bay of K\u00fcssnacht and to the lake of Uri; Arnold von Winkelried and\nNicolas von der Fl\u00fce belong to Stans, and Stans, though actually set\nback a couple of miles or so from the margin of the lake, essentially\nbelongs to the Bay of Alpnach; whilst even the little Lucernersee,\nthough so humble in scenic splendour, leads at any rate to the quays of\nLucerne itself, with its girdle of towers and ancient bridges, and with\nthe banners in its Rathhaus that were wrested from the Austrian on the\nfield of Sempach, and the armour there stripped from the dead body of\nDuke Leopold. Of most of the villages on this central reach, or reaches\n(for the division is sub-divided by the narrow strait between the\nNasen)--whether Weggis, Vitznau, Buochs, or Beckenried--there is little\nto be said, save that all are quaint and characteristic, and that all\nare delightfully situated on the margin of the lake. Each, of course,\nis not without its page in history--Buochs, for example, was burnt by\nthe French in 1798; whilst Weggis was only finally incorporated into\nthe Canton of Lucerne, after years of struggling independence, in\n1535. Gersau, however, of all this group of littoral settlements, is\nin some respects by far the most significant. This is a mere village,\nat the foot of the wooded Hochfluh--the last big point to the cast of\nthe strangely isolated Rigi massif, and apparently the loftiest (5,574\nfeet), with the exception of Rigi Kulm. Hardly bigger than K\u00fcssnacht,\nand decidedly smaller than Brunnen, this town--if town it may be\ncalled--of less than fifteen hundred souls, with its neighbouring strip\nof lake-side territory, maintained for more than four long centuries\nits status as the smallest independent sovereign state in Europe. The\nplace once belonged to the Dukes of Hapsburgh, who \"levied duties on\nlambs, goatskins, fish, and grey cloth,\" and by them it was mortgaged\nto the barons of Ramstein, who parted with its possession to the house\nof Von Moos, of Lucerne. From the latter Gersau bought its freedom in\n1390 for the sum of 690 pfennigs, which it had painfully \"scraped\ntogether after ten years of hard toil.\" \"They had already, thirty-one\nyears before, concluded a league with the Four Forest Cantons, and had\neven rendered assistance to the Confederates in the battle of Sempach;\nwhere a native of the town captured the banner of Hohenzollern and\nbrought it home and placed it in the church of Gersau, which even in\nits present form bears witness to the pride of the little territory.\"\nThus Gersau freed herself in the Middle Ages from the house of\nHapsburgh, and triumphed against the house of Hohenzollern, just as\ncivilized Europe, more than five hundred years later, agonised and\nstruggled only yesterday:\n\n     \"Haud aliter puppesque tu\u00e6 pubesque tuorum\n      Aut portum tenet aut pleno subit ostia velo,\n      Perge modo, et, qua te ducit via, dirige gressum.\"\n\n[Illustration: LAKE URI FROM BRUNNEN.]\n\nThis central compartment of the lake is closed towards the east, as\nalready stated, by the bare rock peaks of the Great and Little Mythen.\nThese have been compared, unless I mistake, to the twin Langdale\nPikes, in Westmoreland, as seen from the head of Windermere; and\nprobably the comparison has just as much validity as comparisons of\nthe sort are ever capable of asserting. Nature, who is studious never\nto reproduce herself with complete and meticulous accuracy, is fond\nenough of teasing us with suggestion and reminiscence, and often enough\nfinds pleasure in moulding \"two lovely berries\" on a single stem. The\nMythen are removed, again like Wordsworth's \"lusty twins,\" to a quite\nappreciable distance from the margin of the lake; but here, whereas\nin Westmoreland the intervening country is the sweetest confusion\nimaginable of undulating pasture and coppice along the broken course\nof the Brathay, the broad plinth that rises up in slow but persistent\ngradient from Brunnen to the foot of the Mythen is, to the writer's\nway of thinking (and he knows of no support from the judgment of other\ncritics), the weakest bit of composition along the whole basin of\nLucerne, and a tract of country--it is luckily very small--as dull\nand profitless as any to be found among the Alps. Yet this, in fact,\nas part and parcel of the Canton of Schwyz, is in a sense the very\nheart and core of Switzerland, and the veritable holy cradle of Swiss\nfreedom. It has given its name to the whole Confederation, and the\nlittle town of Schwyz itself, which is visible rather too obviously\nas the land slopes up in the distance, though with less than eight\nthousand inhabitants, might very justly complain of Berne that the\nlatter has usurped its proper dignity in attracting to itself the\nSwiss seat of federal government. Brunnen, which is called the port of\nSchwyz, and from which it is distant about three miles, is singularly\ncrushed and over-weighted by the great hotels on the Seelisberg and the\nAxenfels, and has suffered perhaps more severely by the exploitation\nof its neighbourhood than any other single station on the lake. The\nattraction here, of course, is the majestic Bay of Uri, which comes\ninto view with startling suddenness, in a few revolutions of the\npaddles, as the steamer approaches the quay at Brunnen; and whose\nsplendour, luckily, neither monster hotel, nor monster crowd, nor the\npresence of the great St. Gothard railway (here first insistently\napparent on the margin of the lake),\n\n                \"nor Man nor Boy,\n      Nor all that is at enmity with joy,\n      Can utterly abolish or destroy.\"\n\nOne would have preferred, no doubt, to have approached this inner\nshrine of the hills--which is also the inner shrine of the great\ntraditions of Swiss liberty--with somewhat less obtrusive parade of the\nengineering triumphs of the nineteenth century. One remembers for the\nmoment how William and Dorothy Wordsworth came hither, and on foot, in\n1820. \"We descended,\" writes Dorothy in one of her journals, \"by a long\nflight of steps, into the Vale, and, after about half a mile's walking,\nwe arrived at _Brunnen_. Espied Wm. and M. [her brother, William, and\nhis wife] upon a crag above the village, and they directed us to the\nEagle Inn, where I instantly seated myself before a window, with a\nlong reach of the Lake of Uri before me, the magnificent commencement\nto our regular approach to the St. Gothard Pass of the Alps. [Hitherto\ntheir approach from Calais had been devious, by way of the Rhine and\nthe Oberland.] My first feeling was of extreme delight in the excessive\n_beauty_ of the scene--I had expected something of a more awful\nimpression from the Lake of Uri; but nothing so _beautiful_.\" There was\nthen no St. Gothard railway; no over-weening hotels; not even, perhaps,\na steamboat on the lake!\n\nIt is singular, perhaps, that neither this superlative Bay of Uri, nor\nall its varied traditions of the Tellsplatte or the R\u00fctli, should have\nsucceeded in evoking a single verse from the poet whose inspiration had\nbeen kindled to such splendid effort in Scotland, less than twenty\nyears previously, by the vision of a sweet-voiced girl by the spray of\na Highland waterfall, by the careless evening greeting of a woman by\na lake. The magic period of plenary inspiration was passed, indeed,\nfor Wordsworth at the time of this continental tour in 1820; and yet\nit was after his return to England that he composed the great sonnet\non King's College Chapel. The R\u00fctli lies across the lake scarcely half\nan hour's row from Brunnen, yet it does not appear from Dorothy's\njournal that her brother even visited it. Here, on a green shelf of\nmeadow by the side of the greener lake, and over-topped towards the\nwest by the dark woods and cliffs of the Sonnenberg, are the few square\nyards of sacred soil where the three founders of Swiss freedom met\ntogether and conspired, if fables do not lie, for the rooting out of\nthe Austrian tyrant in 1307. Their actual names are given, and the\nvery day of meeting--November 7, in \"the dead vast and middle of the\nnight\"--yet the imp of modern criticism, which has spared neither Tell\nnor Arnold von Winkelried, is clamorous again to rob us of this famous\ndrama of conjuration on the R\u00fctli. On the opposite shore of the lake,\nbut considerably further to the south--to the south, in fact, of the\nlittle village of Sisikon, which itself may be reckoned as roughly the\ncentre of the Bay of Uri--on the immediate margin of the water, and\nbelow the great, vertical, twisted precipices of the dark and towering\nAxenberg, is the little ledge of the Tellsplatte, where Tell is said to\nhave sprung ashore from the boat, and from the custody of his warders,\nduring the onslaught of a sudden squall, when on his way as a prisoner\nfrom Altdorf to K\u00fcssnacht. The chapel was rebuilt towards the close of\nlast century, and is visible as we pass from the steamer. Behind it\nruns the great St. Gothard railway, on its way from B\u00e2le to Milan; and\nhigher up the cliff is the famous highroad of the Axenstrasse, which\nwas driven along the face of these sheer and impracticable precipices,\nin alternate cutting, embankment and tunnel, by the zeal of the Federal\nGovernment in 1863-64, in order to better the communication between\nCanton Ticino and the rest of Switzerland. Ticino, or Tessin, the fifth\nlargest of the states in acreage but the seventh in population, lies to\nthe south of Uri, across the wild pass of the St. Gothard, on the sunny\nItalian side of the Alps, and was only admitted to the Confederation in\n1803, though earlier by a dozen years than units of such importance as\nNeuch\u00e2tel, Geneva, and the Valais. One is rather apt to forget that the\nSwitzerland of the days before the French Revolution--the Switzerland\nwhose name is a synonym for liberty; the Switzerland of Sempach,\nMorat, and Morgarten--consisted only of the thirteen German-speaking\nstates that are clustered mostly to the north and west of the original\nmountain nucleus of Uri, Unterwalden, and Schwyz.\n\nWith Fl\u00fcelen, exactly at the head of the lake, we conclude our\nperambulation of the Vierwaldst\u00e4ttersee. I do not know that this little\nvillage has much of particular interest; but a couple of miles beyond\nit is the small mountain capital of Uri, where Tell is reported in the\nimmortal legend to have shot the apple from off his boy's head, and\nwhere his statue still stands in the diminutive market-place. The vale\nof the Reuss at Altdorf, and indeed as far south as Amsteg, where it\nis blocked, as it were, by the huge pyramid of the Bristenstock, and\nwhere the floor of the valley first begins to rise in earnest towards\nthe far-away _col_ of the St. Gothard, is merely a prolongation of the\nmountain basin of the Urnersee, with the substitution of flat green\npasture for a pavement of crystal lake. Of the Bay of Uri itself I feel\nthat I have said little, yet feel, with some sincerity, that there\nis little to be said. Its elements, though majestic, are exceedingly\ndownright and simple, whereas those of the rest of the Lake of Lucerne\nare multiform, subtle, and complex. Whatever be the impression that\nit effects on the spectator, it is likely to accomplish this at once;\nit is no finer at the head than at the foot; and all that it has of\ngrandeur (and nothing of the kind in the Alps is grander) is flashed\nupon us in a moment, in complete and final revelation, when first it\ncomes into vision between the piers at Trieb and Brunnen. It varies, of\ncourse, in splendour as the day is bright or dull; but less, I imagine,\nthan the lower reaches of the lake, which depend more for their effect\non screens of mountain more remote, and are capable of assuming softer\nand lovelier colouring exactly because their atmospheric distances are\ngreater. In gloom, or rain, or heat-haze, it is the one division of\nthe lake that will fail to disappoint us, but perhaps it is also the\none division that responds less readily to the vivifying influences\nof sunshine and blue sky. Nor is it really wild, if one may say so\nwithout paradox, in the sense in which Ennerdale is wild, or Wastdale\nHead, or Langstrath, among the familiar fells of Cumberland. The cliffs\nthat drop directly to its eastern shore are indeed tremendous and\nunapproachable, but above them, as we know, are gentle Alpine pastures\nthat are musical with cow-bells, and meadows that are fragrant with hay\nand flowers. The tops of distant snow-clad mountains, again, though\nvisible from its waters, are really removed to immense distances,\nabove it and beyond it, and though they ring it round in insuperable\nbarrier, almost belong to another world. Land where you can, or will,\nand you find your immediate environment scarcely wilder, if wilder at\nall, than the lower slopes of Pilatus or Rigi. It is only, in fact, in\nthe upland vales of Switzerland--at spots like the Grimsel Hospice, or\ntowards the summits of passes like the Simplon or the Spl\u00fcgen--that the\nordinary wanderer, who is not a climber, will realize that _abandon_\nof wild and savage sterility that delights him in a hundred glens\namong the mountains of Scotland or Carnarvonshire, in Glen Sannox, or\nGlen Sligachan, in Llanberis, or Cwm Llydaw. The Bay of Uri is indeed\nmajestic, and its framework of distant summits is indeed magnificently\nwild, yet not here, I think, shall we taste with Shelley the strange\n\n              \"Pleasure of believing what we see\n      Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.\"\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n[The principal reference is given first.]\n\n\n  Ahorn, Lukas, 21\n\n  Alpnach, Lake of, 41\n\n  Altdorf, 61, 40\n\n  Axenberg, the, 60\n\n  Axenfels, the, 57\n\n  Axenstrasse, the, 60\n\n\n  Beckenried, 53\n\n  Berom\u00fcnster, 10\n\n  Bettelir\u00fct, the, 49\n\n  Bone-houses, 48, 50\n\n  Bristenstock, the, 52, 61\n\n  Br\u00fcnig Pass, 50\n\n  Brunnen, 57, 52\n\n  Bruder Klaus (see Fl\u00fce, Nicolas von der)\n\n  Buochs, 53, 54\n\n  B\u00fcrgenstock, the, 42\n\n\n  Capuchin Friars, 32\n\n  Carlyle (quoted), 20\n\n\n  \"Dance of Death,\" the, 18\n\n\n  Engelberg, 48, 44\n\n\n  Fl\u00fce, Nicolas von der, 46, 45, 49, 50\n\n  Fl\u00fcelen, 61\n\n  Fl\u00fchli, 46\n\n  Frackm\u00fcnd, the, 24\n\n\n  Gersau, 54\n\n  Gesler, 37, 38, 40\n\n  Gesler's Castle, 37\n\n  Gesner, Conrad, 26\n\n  Goat-whey cure, 32\n\n\n  Hapsburgh, Dukes of, 54, 55\n\n  Hochfluh, the, 54\n\n  Hohenzollern, House of, 55\n\n  Hohle Gasse, the, 37\n\n\n  Ingrund, Heini, 46\n\n\n  K\u00fcsnacht, 36, 40\n\n  K\u00fcsnacht, Bay of, 34\n\n\n  Leopold, Duke, 53\n\n  Lopperberg, the, 42\n\n  Lowerz, Lake of, 38\n\n  Lucerne, 14-21, 53\n    Barf\u00fcsserkirche, 14\n    City Walls, 14\n    Gletscher Garten, 21\n    Hof-Br\u00fccke, 17\n    Hofkirche, 15, 16\n    Kapell-Br\u00fccke, 17, 18\n    Lion Monument, 20\n    M\u00fchlen Br\u00fccke, 18\n    Quays, view from, 8, 21\n    Rathhaus, 14, 53\n    St. Peter's Kapel, 17\n    Spreuerbr\u00fccke, 18\n    Wasserturm, 17\n\n  Lucernersee, 53\n\n\n  Meggen, 35\n\n  Mountain railways, 33\n\n  Mythen, the, 55, 38, 53\n\n\n  Nasen, the, 53\n\n  Nidwalden, 44, 47\n\n  Nidwalden Aa, the, 44\n\n\n  Oberland, Berner, 42\n\n  Obwalden, 44\n\n  Obwalden Aa, the, 44\n\n  \"Our Lady of the Snow,\" 31\n\n\n  Pilate, Pontius, 23\n\n  Pilatus, Mount, 23, 25, 30, 42, 53\n\n\n  Ramstein, Barons of, 54\n\n  Reuss, River, 17, 61\n\n  Rigi, 27, 23, 32, 38, 53\n\n  Rigi Kl\u00f6sterli, 31\n\n  Rigi, view from, 32\n\n  Rossberg, the, 38\n\n  Rotzloch, the, 43\n\n  Rumligbach, the, 24\n\n  Ruskin (quoted), 8, 37\n\n  R\u00fctli, the, 59\n\n\n  Sachseln, 50\n\n  St. Gothard Pass, 60, 61\n\n  St. Gothard Railway, 57, 60\n\n  St. Leodegar, 15, 17, 18\n\n  Sarnen, 44, 49\n\n  Sarnen, Lake of, 50\n\n  Scheuber, Conrad, 49, 51\n\n  Schwyz, 38, 56\n\n  Schwyz, Canton, 56, 61\n\n  Sempach, 12, 10, 41, 53, 55\n\n  Sempach, Lake of, 7, 10\n\n  Seelisberg, the, 57\n\n  Sisikon, 60\n\n  Sonnenberg, the, 59\n\n  Spann\u00f6rter, the, 50\n\n  Stans, 47, 11, 44, 45, 46, 51\n\n  Stans, Convention of, 47\n\n  Stanserhorn, the, 42, 47\n\n  Stanstad, 43\n\n  Sursee, 9\n\n\n  Tell, William, 37, 39, 53, 60\n\n  Tellsplatte, the, 60, 38, 39\n\n  Thorwaldsen, 21\n\n  Ticino, Canton, 60\n\n  Titlis, the, 22, 50\n\n  T\u00f6di, the, 22\n\n  Tomlishorn, 24\n\n\n  Unterwalden, 43, 8, 41, 61\n\n  Uri, Bay of, 61, 34, 52, 57, 58\n\n  Uri, Canton, 61\n\n\n  Vierwaldst\u00e4ttersee, 5, 9, 34, 35\n\n  Vitznau, 53\n\n  Von Moos, House of, 54\n\n\n  Weggis, 53, 54\n\n  \"Weisses Buch,\" the, 39\n\n  Winkelried, Arnold von, 11\n\n  Wolfenschiessen, 49\n\n  Wordsworth, William, 58\n\n  Wordsworth, Dorothy (quoted), 58\n\n\n  Zugersee, the, 38\n\n\nPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD\n\n\n\n\nTranscribers' Notes:\n\n\nPunctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a\npredominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not\nchanged.\n\nSimple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced\nquotation marks retained.\n\nAmbiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.\n\nThis book does not have a Table of Contents.\n\nText uses both \"K\u00fcsnacht\" and \"K\u00fcssnacht\"; both retained.\n\nIndex not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.\n\nFrontispiece: \"FL\u00dcELEN\" was printed as \"FLUELLEN\" and \"FLUELEN\" but\nchanged here for consistency with all other occurrences of the name.\n\nPage 9: \"Vierwaldst\u00e4ttersee\" was printed as \"Vierwaldstattersee\" but\nchanged here for consistency with all other occurrences of the name.\n\nPage 19: \"courve\" probably is a misspelling for \"couvre\".\n\nPage 48: \"Engelberg\" was printed as \"Engelburg\" but changed here for\nconsistency with all other occurrences of the name.\n\nIndex: \"Tellsplatte\" was printed as \"Tellplatte\" but changed here for\nconsistency with all other occurrences of that name. \"Axenstrasse\"\nwas printed as \"Axentrasse\" but changed here to match the [correct]\nspelling on page 60. \"Lopperberg\" was printed as \"Loffenberg\" but\nchanged here to match the spelling on page 42. \"Spreuerbr\u00fccke\" is\nprinted as two words on page 18.","title":"The Lake of Lucerne","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":12748}