David Ross Locke

THE scenery from Chamonix to Geneva, by the way of Sallanches, St. Martin, Cluses and Bonneville is magnificent. Leaving Chamonix the road winds down the beautiful valley with the Glacier des Bossons, overshadowed by Mont Blanc, on the right, while on the left are the pretty hamlets and fruitful farms that relieve the barren, rugged mountains on either side.

The road, which is a marvel of smoothness, as are all the roads in Switzerland, crosses and recrosses the river Arve, until, after passing through a long tunnel, hewn through a massive rock, it strikes another valley and makes a wide sweep around the horseshoe-shaped mountain, giving a splendid view up and down the valley. Far across this valley is a long high range of mountains down which at different places great cataracts of water come tumbling, dashing the spray high in air.

Here we pass through the pretty village of St. Gervais, with its celebrated baths. Then a long straight drive for an hour or more, and with an extra crack of the whip the carriage whirls into Sallanches, where the horses are changed, while the weary, hot and dusty travelers rest and refresh themselves.

At St. Gervais is one celebrated bathing establishment conducted by an Englishman and patronized almost entirely by English and Americans, the principal treatment being for rheumatism and kindred diseases, and especially for the alcoholic habit. It is claimed that the most inveterate drunkard can be cured by the use of these waters, and therefore it is continually full of men who have burned life’s candle at both ends, and who need rest from their vices, and moral, as well as physical recuperation.

MR. TIBBITTS’ LETTER.

Tibbitts determined to stay a week and test the efficacy of the waters.

“I shouldn’t need it if I could have the regular Oshkosh sod-corn, but a foundation of vile English brandy, and the edifice built up and topped off with French cognac is too much for me. I will test the waters.”

The fact that a half-dozen very wild Americans of his own age and tastes were at the establishment was really what induced him to stay, but he repeated over and again, that what he wanted was to stay a while in a place where rum was impossible. He wanted to get away from it.

We left him, and the next week I received a letter, the following being an extract therefrom:—

“I did not go over to the Cure at once, for the day you left I met a young American, troubled as I was, who decided to go with me. Slosson (he is from St. Louis) and I, having met the proprietor of the Cure and taken a fancy to him, determined to do him a good turn, and to that end we would not go to his establishment till we had got ourselves into a condition that would make a cure creditable. I am always ready to make sacrifices for those I love.

“We then went over to the establishment to get out of the way of rum.

“We had been in the house perhaps five minutes, when the proprietor took us one side and remarked, casually, that while he would not advise any one in the establishment to drink, if one must, he could furnish much better liquor than could be had in the village. And it was injurious to those taking the baths to walk much either before or after.

“It is a good thing to get out of the way of rum.

“The bar man was an American who could mix a cocktail, and so we drank to the old flag and went to our dinner. The wine at the place is excellent.

“After dinner we walked up to the village with an American to whom I was introduced, and he took us to a very comfortable place where the cognac was good, very good, and we sampled it several times.

“If there is a place on earth where the alcohol appetite can be cured it is here.

“On the way down the main street of the village we stopped in another place like the first one, for the purpose of seeing whether there was any difference in cognac.

“There are superior facilities for getting away from rum at this place.

“There is a museum in the village which has a smoking room attached, which we visited that evening. The cognac was better than at the first place.

“To have the vile stuff out of reach is a great help to the struggling victim of strong drink.

“What we would call a drug store in America was the next place we visited, to have some prescriptions filled, and the proprietor, an Englishman, insisted upon our tasting some very old brandy he kept for medicinal purposes.

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THE PATH TO THE VILLAGE.

“There is no place in the world where you are so safe from the destroyer as here.

“Returning to the Cure we thought it unfair not to patronize it. We did—twice.

“St. Gervais offers inducements for those really trying to reform.

“We went to our room and sat down to a quiet game of poker. It was suggested that it would be dry work, and a bottle of cognac was ordered, and if I remember, there wasn’t enough left to make a cocktail for a flea. The very smell was gone.

“For absolute absence of temptation to drink, St. Gervais is the place. I will write you concerning the water when I have tasted some.

“P. S.—I forgot to mention that another thing you come here for is to get regular sleep, and plenty of it, in the early part of the night. Having resolved upon this, we played poker till three in the morning.

“If you have a friend who desires to reform, by all means advise him to come to St. Gervais. There is no such place on the continent for reform. A man in the next room, with acute inflammatory rheumatism, actually complained of us this morning. He said he couldn’t sleep with us near him. We sent word to him that there were other hotels, but that we couldn’t peril our chances of reform by moving. We were determined to persevere till we had made new men of ourselves. We were very positive, and would not move.

“We could hear the rheumatic gentleman swear, through the wall, but we sat there reforming all the same, and smiling at his irascibility. Why will such men come to places intended as reformatories? What is a man with rheumatism, inflammatory or otherwise, to five men trying to mend their ways? I think we played an hour longer than we would, for the pleasure of hearing him profane.

“St. Gervais is a good place to come to to get away from rum, but it is of no account for rheumatism. This man thought so, for he left the house in the morning. I will write you about the baths to-morrow. I have no doubt they are good. It is said they do away with the rum appetite.”

From Sallanches the road is through a most beautiful country. As we approach St. Martin the carriage is stopped, so that we can have one last look at the dazzling peaks of Mt. Blanc. They are at the very head of the valley, and although twelve miles away, in a straight line, they loom up so magnificently that they seem only a short distance from where we stand. It is a sight never to be forgotten.

The valley now assumes a more barren appearance, with but little to interest one. An occasional waterfall, a handsome hedge or two, relieves the dull monotony of the ride, till Bonneville, a picturesque town, the capital of the province, is reached. There we have dinner, and then on towards Geneva, passing the two ruined towers of the ancient castle of Fancingny, after which the province was named. Crossing the long substantial bridge of the Foron river, we come to Annemasse, and then rush through a number of pretty little villages, reaching the suburbs of Geneva, and, after having been on the road since seven o’clock, finally draw up at the hotel on the lake, a thoroughly tired, hot and dusty party.

This is the especial part of Switzerland where beggary is reduced to a science. Your carriage is going at a very rapid rate, but in advance you notice one of those ugly Swiss cottages. The mother is in the door, holding well in hand four children, ranging in age from five to ten, boys and girls. As you get opposite the door, she looses her hold upon them, and then commences the chase. These children, trained as they are, can keep up with a carriage at a seven-mile an-hour pace, and, bare-headed and bare-footed, they do it, two on each side. They make no appeal; they say nothing, either by word or look; they simply run by the side of the carriage, as though it were a race intended as a test of the endurance of Swiss children against Swiss horses. After ten minutes of this, you begin to feel some concern for the children, and you ask the courier what they want.

“Vat dey vant? Oof you vants to kit rid mit dem, fling ’em some sous. Dey vill run into Zhenave oof you ton’t.”

And so, merely to get them out of your sight, knowing that they dare not go home to their mother without something, a shower of sous fall in the dust, which the children gather, and return to the cottage to wait for the next coach. Sometimes they catch one on the return trip, which is good luck.

It is the most systematic begging I have yet encountered. The strong point in it is the not asking. There is no professional whine, no story; nothing but a sturdy assault upon your sympathies. They make the legs take the place of the tongue. It is very well done, and, as carriages loaded with tourists pass every half hour, it must pay well. I presume the rent of these cottages is fixed with reference to their facilities for begging. An advertisement of one of them reads as follows, I suppose:

The journey by cars from Geneva to Interlaken is delightful. The road follows the left bank of Lake Geneva until Lausanne is reached. Now and then a break in the woods gives a glimpse of the blue waters of the lake, with the mountains beyond, then a long, dark tunnel shuts off every view, but only for a few minutes. Then we enter a country that is magnificent in its quiet beauty. The hillsides are cultivated to the summit. Rich vineyards with their luscious grapes fast ripening in the sun, fine farms with the variegated fields hide from sight the cold gray stone that makes the Chamonix valley so desolate.

After passing Lausanne, Lake Leman is left behind and we go nearly due north to Friburg, a beautiful town situated on a rocky eminence and nearly surrounded by the River Sarine.

Friburg, like every Swiss city, has its organ and legend. The organ is one of the finest of Europe, and is played every afternoon and evening, provided the admissions amount to twenty francs. If there is not the vast amount of four dollars in the house the curtain does not go up, or rather, there is no performance. However, there are generally enough tourists present to justify the performance, and the listener is well rewarded for the expenditure of time.

In front of the council house is an immense lime tree, partly supported by stone pillars. It has its legend. It is said that a young man of Friburg—a participant in the great victory of Morat, in the year 1476, was sent after the battle to convey the glad news to his townsmen. He arrived, breathless and exhausted, so much so that he had just strength left to gasp the word “Victory!” and expired. There was in his lifeless hand a lime twig which the citizens planted, and it grew to be the patriarch of trees it now is, and it is guarded with as much care as though the legend were actually true.

How many in our late war ran from battle-fields, who might have had lime twigs in their hands if they had waited long enough to get them. But they did not. They were in too great a hurry to reach Canada, from which they will all (1882) return to claim pensions under the arrearages of pensions act.

It would have been well for the country if all of this class had imitated the example of the young man of Friburg, and expired. The citizens could well have afforded the time to plant the twigs in their hands.

Only a short stop is made here, and then to Berne, one of the most interesting cities in Switzerland.

Berne is the city of bears, and were it located in Wisconsin would be called Bearville. A bear was its origin. Berthold DeZahringen, some centuries ago, killed a tremendous bear on the ground now occupied by the pretty city, and founded a town in commemoration of the event, and so the bear became as common in Berne as the lion is in England, or the eagle in America. There is bear everywhere. The public decorations are in the form of bears, the flags have bears on them, the bread is stamped with bears, the pot you drink your beer out of is in form a bear; the children’s toys are all bears, and the city keeps two bear-pits, in which a dozen, more or less, fine specimens are kept. Not many years ago an English officer, who, with his lately wedded bride, were doing Switzerland, fell into one of these pits, and after a desperate struggle with the ferocious brutes, was literally torn to pieces in the sight of his agonized wife. I could not learn who it was the heart-broken wife married the next year, or whether she married well or not.

It is a quaint and curious old city, and well worth a day or two. The situation is particularly beautiful, and as it has preserved the peculiar characteristics of the long ago, it is an instructive place.

In the older section the streets have no sidewalks, the ground floors being made into arcades, with the houses above supported upon arches, under which you walk. It is always well for an American to visit the older portions of these cities, that he may more fervently thank heaven that his lot was cast in a new country, where there is no ancient and inconvenient rubbish to worry him. There is more of convenience in any one modern American house than there is in all of the old part Berne, or, for that matter, of any ancient city. They do well to look at, but that is all the use they should be put to. I have a profound sympathy for the people condemned to live in them.

Berne is the capital of the little Republic, and here its Congress meets. Its sessions last a month, as a rule, and then Congress adjourns, and the members go home. The country is too poor to have much to steal, and consequently a short session is sufficient.

I was shaved in Berne, and, speaking of shaving and barbers generally, I want to say all I have to say on that subject at once.

There is no barber like the American barber, and no such comfort anywhere in barbers as we enjoy at home. Tourists have complained of the straight chairs, the dull razors, and all that sort of thing, and with some reason, though it is not as bad as represented. I have never known of any one being absolutely killed by an European barber, either at sight or sixty days.

It is true that you do not have the luxurious reclining chair, nor the soothing manipulations of a deft artist, nor the delightful hair dressing, and all that. In England you are seated in a common, straight-backed chair, a napkin is adjusted closely about your neck, a dab of soap, three strokes of a bad razor, and you are permitted to staunch the blood and wash off the soap yourself. If you desire your hair dressed, as a very clumsy brushing is called, it is “tuppence extra.”

In France the operation is the same, only the barber, being always a statesman, talks you to the verge of madness. He knows that you do not understand a word of his language, but he talks on cheerfully just the same, till he is through, and really believes he has entertained you.

The German barber does not talk you to death, for he is by nature phlegmatic. He stays by you longer, however, and leaves less of your face to carry away than either the English or French torturer. He wants to earn his money, and he does.

The Swiss is less airy than the Frenchman, and more active than the German, for, very likely, he is of both nationalities. He is more careful, likewise. When his razor enters the flesh, he does not slice the whole side of the face off, for his time is not occupied with talk, as is the Frenchman, nor is he so heavy as the German. No, indeed! When he sees that his razor has cut through the skin, and is entering the flesh, he stops right there, and calls your attention to the fact that he has stopped, and claims some credit for not carving off a half pound or more.

French, German, and Swiss allow you to wash your own face, and comb your own hair, and otherwise fix yourself, but the Swiss is the best of the three.

But even in Switzerland, it is better for the tourist if he has his own shaving material, and does it himself. He may cut and scar himself, but he will have some skin left, and may console himself that the cutting was the result of his own lack of skill, and not that of another.

The continental barber has much to learn in the matter of shaving. The English barbers say they would like to adopt the American system, but their English customers will not. I understand it. Their fathers were scarified, and why should they not be? It would be un-English to change. And so they go on with the same straight-backed chairs, the same clumsy contrivances, and they will so go on, till the end of time. The last Englishman will be so shaved, when he might have had comfort and luxury all his life.