WE spent so much time at Chillon that we decided to put in for the night at Evian; but first we circled round the Ilot de Peilz (or, as some call it, L’Ile de Paix), one of the three artificial islands of the lake, which has none of its own. It was created about the middle of the eighteenth century on the beine. It still bears the three elms which shade its seventy-seven square meters of surface. The waters at one time undermined it and it had to be repaired.

Later we got a good look at the other two islets. The one called La Rocher aux Muettes, near Clarens, was built up on a reef of rocks about one hundred and twenty-five meters from the shore and was walled up in 1885. It covers about sixteen hundred square meters.

The third is the Ile de la Harpe, in front of Rolle. It was protected by a wall in 1838 and bears a white marble monument in memory of the patriotic General F. C. de la Harpe—he who, by telling the Emperor of Russia that he wished he might use the words “My Country,” had his support in the struggle with Bern and was instrumental in winning the freedom of Vaud. This islet stands, or sits, on what is called a teneviÈre or group of stones heaped up by nature or by the work of man, and in prehistoric times served as a palafitte or village of lake-dwellers. This proves that the level of the lake was about the same two thousand years ago as it is now. The sluiceway at Geneva tends to make an artificial difference of height throughout the lake and there has been for two centuries a law-suit between Geneva and Le Pays de Vaud growing out of this disturbance. The Vaudois claim that raising the level of the water has flooded their roads and fields.

We ran over to Villeneuve and had an excellent luncheon at the HÔtel du Port. About half-way between Villeneuve and the pretty town of Saint-Gingolph, on the Morge, we crossed the current of the RhÔne, which, I suppose, owing to its swirling force and the sometimes really dangerous whirlpools it creates, particularly when there is a strong wind, is called “la BataillÈre,” and is dangerous for small craft. When the RhÔne is much colder than the lake it makes a subaqueous cataract, pouring down almost perpendicularly to the gloomy caverns below.

For a wonder there was very little air stirring from the lake at that time of the day, though there are always winds enough for one to choose from, not counting the bise or la bise noire, as it is called when it is particularly cold and disagreeable. Emile told us the various names of them; the bornan, which blows south from La Dranse; the joran, from the northwest; the molan, which (at Geneva) blows southeast from the valley of the Arve; the vaudaire, which blows from the southeast over the upper lake from the Bas Valais; the sudois, which, having full sweep across the widest part of the lake, dashes big waves against the shores of Ouchy. Then there are the day breezes, called rebat or sÉchard, and the night wind, the morget, which shifts up and down the mountains, owing to changes in temperature. In summer, he said, there is a warm, south wind, known as the vent blanc, which accompanies a cloudless sky. The natives call it maurabia, which means the wheat-ripener, from maura or murit and blla, blÉ.

“There is a charming excursion,” said Will, “from Saint-Gingolph. First a walk along the bank of the Morge to Novel, and then up to the top of Le Blanchard. Or, from Novel one can go almost twice as high to the Dent d’Oche. Perhaps a little later, when the snow is all gone, we can arrange to make it, if the climb would not be too much for you.”

“Too much for me!” I exclaimed, “What do you take me for—a valley-lounger?”

“There is an easier climb,” continued Will, ignoring my indignation, “up to the top of Le Grammont, which is only about fifty meters less in height. I have been up there several times. At the side of Le Grammont there are two charming lakes, Lovenex and—and—”

“Tanay,” suggested Emile.

“One gets an excellent chance, from the top, to compare the mountains of the Jura across the lake with the Alps. The Jura has been compared to a great, stiff curtain, without fringes or folds; even its colours are rather monotonous, its distant blue is a bit gloomy and tragic. It is curious, but this solemnity and monotony is said to affect the inhabitants. On the other hand, the Alps sweep up with green forests, and there are coloured crags, and the snows that crown them take on wonderful prismatic tints and sometimes look as if they were on fire—as if copper were burning with crimson and violet flames. The difference has been explained partly by the way the valleys run; those of the Jura are longitudinal and follow the axis of the range, so that the mountains are easy to climb, while the Alps are shot through with transverse valleys.

“In the Alps one finds even at this day, certainly in the remoter regions, a primitive, natural, pastoral life, while the natives of the Jura are quicker to take up industries and are broader-minded. One could hardly imagine a native of an Alpine valley interesting himself in politics. The Alpine herdsman looks down on the world; but the man of the Jura might even belong to a labour-union! It has been well said that just as in the Middle Ages, the common people of the Jura were under feudal lords, so, up to the present time, the manufacturers have controlled a large part of their time and their work, even of their lives. But the natives of the Alps never submitted to any such tyranny.

“I remember reading somewhere that the Alps gallop, as it were, with their heads erect far over the earth, while the Jura Mountains march peacefully along, noiselessly and unboundingly, to follow their career in a graceful and courteous fashion, but without any sublime Éclat. The Jura shows a simplicity, and spreads out distinctly and, as it were, prudently, offering nothing unexpected, exuberant, mad or magnificently useless, but, rather, a well-regulated behaviour, a calm and dignified, but somewhat gloomy, austerity, a cold and melancholy air.—Don’t you think that is pretty good?—

“This same lover of mountains finds even the snow different. On the Jura it falls on dark-green firs and pines and, mingling with the dreary foliage, gives forth only a sad and cautious half-smile. But in the Alps the white snow makes the mountains joyous. He compares it to a virginal mantle, embroidered with green and azure. When the morning has, for them, brought on the early day, they seem to sing gaily their reveille and their youth; a hymn of light floats high in the air above their heads and finds an echo of joy and of love in the hearts of mortals. In the evening they smoke like incense and, bending under the circling sky, they then offer a strangely fascinating image of prayer and of melancholy. From afar the Jura listens, and, like a dreamer, pursuing his way, plunges into the darkness.”

I may as well say, here and now, that a month later we carried out the plan of climbing Le[Pg 165]
[Pg 166] Grammont, (which, of course, means the Great Mountain). We went to Vouvry and first admired the exquisite view where the pretty church, as it were, guides the eye up to the mountains, and contemplated the canal which the descendants of that fine old “robber-baron,” Kaspar Stockalper, who claimed the right to dominate the trade over the Simplon and guarded it by a body of seventy men, built to connect with the RhÔne, though it remains unfinished. Then we easily followed the trail to the mountain-top. We chose a day which promised to be remarkably clear, and it fulfilled its promise. Words fail, and must always fail, to describe that panorama of splendour which includes the aerial heights of Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau to the south, the whole extent of the lake and the tamer peaks of the Jura to the north, and a rolling sea of petrified and frozen billows in every direction.

When one speaks of Switzerland one instinctively thinks of Mont Blanc, and it seems an unfair advantage which France has taken to keep possession of Savoy, which used to belong to Switzerland, and the crown of the Swiss Alps. History has made strange partitions of territories; but the more one sees of Switzerland the more one wonders that it could have ever become a united country, composed as it is of isolated valleys, separated by lofty mountain-walls, intercommunicable only by treacherous passes. That same dividing construction of the country was the ruin of Greece, where each little province or city, set by itself and developing various qualities of character, was opposed in ideals and ambitions to every other.

It is curious, too, that the general notion that the Swiss are peculiarly liberty-loving should be based on a legend. Probably no other country in the world ever furnished so many mercenaries. But it is now one united country and largely freed from the crushing burden of rampant militarism.

It was a fine view also we had from the top of Le Grammont, overlooking the delta of the RhÔne, which, from the height of nearly twenty-two hundred meters, lay below us. We could see how it was building the level marsh land into the lake. Perhaps some day the dÉbris from the mountains will quite fill up the gulf. It is amazing how much material is brought down in the course of a single year, even by a single freshet. We could see, also, the confining walls of the dykes which, together with breakwaters, form what is called la correction du RhÔne, preventing any riotous behaviour of that torrent when the floods sweep over the plain. The disreputable exploits of the river, before it was thus tamed and disciplined, explain why the region back of Villeneuve, regarded as desolate and uncultivated, is or has been compared to the vineyard-laden and fertile slopes of the Jorat.

But we are really not mountain-climbing; we are circling the lake and, except where some river or torrent forms what is technically called a cone, projecting out into the water, we are able to skirt close to the beine, often under tremendous, beetling cliffs. They become higher and higher, more and more romantic and magnificent. Only occasionally is there room for a village to cuddle in between the lake and the mountains, as, for instance, Meillerie, back of which one can see the great quarries gashing the mountain, and the tunnel through which the railway runs.

Samuel Rogers, in 1822, winging south on his Italian journey, so beautifully illustrated by Turner, was moved by the beauty of Meillerie to break out into song:—

The picture now is not so different from what it was almost a hundred years ago.

A half dozen kilometers farther down the shore is the famous castle of Blonay. The days of feudalism were certainly tragic not only for the baronial masters who were subject to feuds and duels, but also to the common people. Lords and villeins, however, die and forget their woes, and the turreted castles which they built and had built are a splendid heritage for those who live under different conditions. The gorgeous tapestries which they hung on their walls become food for generations of moths or, if they escape, and still preserve their brilliant colours and their quaint and curious designs, display them to thousands of visitors at the museums where at last they are pretty sure to gravitate. The solid gold plate is perhaps melted into coin to pay the price of liberty. And so the cost of a picturesque chÂteau, erected high on an almost inaccessible crag, and lifting its frowning battlements against a background of snowy mountains, even though it be reckoned in human lives, may be small compared to the value which it has in after ages, especially if it comes into the possession of the people themselves, to be for ever prized as a memorial of a stormy past.