THE road from Brienz to Lucerne, over the BrÜnig Pass, follows the valley of Meiringen for a long distance, and gives some very pretty views of Lake Brienz, the River Aare, and a number of cascades in the mountains across the valley. As the ascent of the pass begins the road is frequently overshadowed by hanging rocks, which seem about to topple over every minute.

As we wind around the mountains occasional glimpses are obtained of the valley far below, and then, after having gone over the summit of the pass, we have a long almost level stretch along the side of the mountain, from which we have a magnificent view of the valley of Sarnea, with its pretty little lakes and rivers, its long, straight, white roads, and its queer little towns.

Two hours later we come in sight of Pilatus rearing its lofty head high above Lake Lucerne, as though it were the guardian of that beautiful body of water. Then a long drive on the banks of the lake, where the road is cut out of the solid rocks, and in a short time we rattle over the rough stones of a pavement, across the Reuss River, and are in Lucerne.

This city, which is to Switzerland what Saratoga is to America, is prettily built at the head of Lake Lucerne, or, as the Swiss call it, the VierwaldstÄtter See, which resembles somewhat in shape a Roman cross, Lucerne being at the head. It is situated in an amphitheater, if the term might be so applied, facing the snow capped Alps of Uri and Engelberg, with Rigi on one side and Pilatus on the other. Around it are massive walls and watch towers, built in 1385, and still in a good state of preservation.

The hotels are nearly all located on the Schweizerhof Quays, which occupies the site of an arm of the lake that was filled up some fourteen years ago. From any one of these mammoth hotels magnificent views may be obtained on any clear day. Directly in front is the lake; to the right the Rigi group, with its hotel-crowned summit; in the center the Reussstock chain, and to the extreme right Pilatus. All of these mountains are full of points of interest, and are annually visited by thousands of tourists, who make up their parties at Lucerne. The sail across the lake to any part of the town on its borders, makes a delightful excursion that is always new and interesting.

The show sight here is the celebrated Lion of Lucerne, which photographs and pictures have made famous the world over. It is an immense figure, cut in the side of a great rock, about a quarter of a mile from the quay, in memory of the twenty-six officers and seven hundred soldiers who were massacred in the Tuileries, Paris, on the tenth of August, 1792, when the Commune obtained control of the government, and compelled King Louis to fly for his life. An immense lion, twenty-eight feet in length, lies dying in a grotto, transfixed with a broken lance. Under one paw, as though he would shelter it even in death, is the Bourbon lily. On either side of the lion are the names of the officers, and an inscription. The idea is a simple one, but the work was done by a master hand, (the Danish sculptor Thorwalsden being the artist) and is very impressive.

As a rule, people thrill when they look upon this famous Lion of Lucerne, but I declined to do anything of the kind. The death of these Swiss, in Paris, was a purely commercial matter. They were the hirelings of an infamous despot, who was crushing the life out of the French people by their aid. I have no sympathy for king, queen or noble, and when one dies I have a hosanna to sing immediately. And I cannot imagine anything more disgraceful than a man, Swiss, or of any other nationality, who would sell himself to a despot. These fellows, who fell in defense of Louis, had but one merit: they sold their blood, bones and sinews, and they carried out their contract. They were simply honest butchers, who contracted to do certain work for a lecherous French king, and did it. But the monument at Lucerne to these hirelings is an insult to humanity, and all the good I got out of it, was the contemplation of a wondrously carved lion, and the drawback to that satisfaction was the frightful fact that the men, to whose memory it stands, never should have had any monument erected at all. This inscription is the only one they deserved:

As a work of art, Thorwalsden’s lion is worth seeing—as a piece of sentiment, excuse me. I have seen too many soldiers in Europe who sell their sinews for pay, and I have seen too many starving people who are kept poor to support them. I do not like any soldiers but volunteers, and whenever the people get the upper hand of the other kind, I want to contribute for a monument to the people, not to their oppressors.

Aside from the bridges, whose only merit is their age, and one or two rather scantily furnished churches, there is but little of interest in Lucerne.

The Glacier Mills are an attraction, and are well worth seeing. There is no humbug about nature. You climb a hill after looking at the lion, and you come to a garden in which are a series of the great pits known as Glacier Mills.

These are simply great holes in solid rock thirty or forty feet deep, and about the same in diameter. In the ages gone by when this country was covered with glaciers, the action of water wore holes in the rock, great stones lost themselves in these cavities, the water came in and the stones, weighing many tons, revolved by the action of the water, wore away the rock and enlarged the pit at every revolution.

This work went on for ages. The water forced itself into the pit, the great rock revolved, by its action enlarging the cavity at every revolution, until finally the glacier disappeared and the rocks were at rest.

And here they are to-day, round as marbles, lying at the bottom of the pits they made, so many evidences of the irresistible forces of nature.

In this enclosure there are, perhaps, twenty of them, varying in depth from thirty to fifty feet, and about the same distance across.

Tibbitts believed they were artificial, and said he should dig a few for his Hotel and Ruin Company, but he is entirely mistaken. The glacier mills are genuine and the same forces are at work to-day under every ice-field, and doing the work precisely as this was done. However, there is no reason why he should not manufacture a few—tourists would take them just the same, and be just as well satisfied. He claims that with nitro-glycerine he can do in five hours the work that requires centuries to accomplish with water and rock, which demonstrates the supremacy of mind over matter.

Mont Pilatus, just out of Lucerne, is something you must see whether you want to or not. It isn’t a very remarkable mountain, but the astute hotel keeper and the more rapacious hackman, has made it necessary for you to spend more money than you want to, by seeing Mont Pilatus. It is a proper mountain to see, nothing extraordinary, as a mountain, but you are compelled to go anyhow, and you do. And this is why you go.

There has to be a legend for every point of sufficient interest to attract a traveler, and so Pilatus has its legend. You are told gravely that after Pontius Pilate washed his hands of the blood of our Savior, and saw him go to his death, instead of saving him as he might have done, he was struck with remorse, returned to Rome, and pursued by a feeling which he could not get rid of, made his way to this mountain in Switzerland, and lived in a cave therein, a recluse, expiating by a life of solitude the crime he had been guilty of in shedding innocent blood.

And they show you gravely and without a blush, a pond in the top of the mountain, where, after he became an old man, he ended the life that was a burden to him, by drowning himself therein, and they tell you of the earthquakes and things of unpleasant nature that followed his demise. The Arch Enemy of mankind was on hand in person to seize him, and when he had struck the water he was taken bodily by His Satanic Majesty and whisked away to the lower regions.

Did all this happen? Possibly. I was not there, and therefore cannot say positively that it did not. I wish to be truthful and reasonable. But I will venture my opinion that Pilate never came to Switzerland; that after his term expired as Governor of Judea he stole all he could lay his hands upon and went back to Rome, and went over to the new Emperor or Consul, or whatever they called the official who had the giving out of patronage, and got a new appointment somewhere else. That is what became of Pontius Pilate.

However, Mt. Pilatus is well worth seeing, and the legend is a very effective one, and the guide who tells it to you always gets several francs in addition to his original swindle.

You must have legends, and as people believe them it is the same as though they were true.

An imaginative friend of mine was once standing upon the railroad platform at Forest, Ohio, in the war years, probably the most lonesome and desolate station in the world. There were twenty passengers with him for a train that was so far behind that no one could guess as to when it would arrive.

He had cut a little switch from a tree near the platform, and as he flourished it ostentatiously, some one asked him where he got it.

With a quickness of invention—a fertility of lying that was simply admirable—he said it was the tip of the flag-staff of Fort Donelson!

Now this was nothing but a little switch cut within twenty feet of where they were standing, but immediately all the passengers came up and took it in their hands and examined it critically, and commented on it, as though it were something of actual importance. It was, to them. The battle was discussed, the merits of Grant as a soldier were discussed, and the whole war was with its causes and consequences, reviewed. And all this because a prompt liar, in an impulsive way, located a Forest switch as the tip of the flag-staff of Donelson.

We believed it, and handled the switch reverently. The tourist to Pilatus swallows the legend of Pilate, and it does him just as much good as though it were true.

The moral to all this is, the wise man swallows what is set before him and asks no questions for his stomach’s sake.

Never go into the kitchen in which your hash is made. Be ignorant and happy.

By this time we were ready for another mountaineering

expedition, especially as in this instance the ascent could be made in a comfortable railway car. To reach Vitznau, where the railway station is, we took a sail of about an hour and a half, through beautiful scenery. As we steam out from Lucerne, the city is seen to its best advantage, its long walnut-shaded quay, its massive hotels, churches, walls and towers, standing up from the water and thrown into relief by the dark green forests on the mountains behind it.

Soon after Lucerne fades away we see the cross-like formation of the lake, one arm, known as Lake KÜssnach, stretching way to the north, while on the other side is Lake Alpnach. Far ahead of us is the Bay of Buosch and Lake of Uri, forming the foot of the cross. At the head of Lake KÜssnach can be seen the town of that name. Here, in the central part of the cross, the view is particularly impressive; the Rigi, on the left, with its wooded slopes shining in the sunlight, contrasting strangely with the mist and clouds that envelope Pilatus, on the other side of the lake. As we see the clouds lowering around the high peak of Mt. Pilate, the legend told by Antonio, the guide in Sir Walter Scott’s “Anne of Gierestein,” comes vividly to mind. I have given my readers my notion of the legend of Pilatus—now they have it exactly as the guide books give it. You pay your money and you take your choice. Here it is in guide book talk:

It is perhaps needless to say that the prohibition has been long removed, and that every season a great many tourists ascend the grand old peak, to see the Infernal Lake on its summit. All do it who can afford to pay for it.

And speaking of these miracles and appearances, and all that sort of thing, they don’t take place any more. Pilate hasn’t appeared in person to any tourists for hundreds of years. His appearance is something that used to happen, but doesn’t any more.

Tibbitts remarked that when he got his hotel done, he would have Pilate appear, actually washing his hands, no matter what it cost him. He intended to have a lot of fresh miracles. He would treat his patrons decently, and not palm off upon them a lot of old legends. He could get a man to do the Pilate business for thirty dollars a month, and he wouldn’t be mean enough to stop at so small an expense as that.

Passing Weggis, a pretty village nestling at the foot of the Rigi, Vitznau is reached, and there we disembark for our ride up the mountain. The Rigi has long been a favorite resort for tourists, and as far back as 1868 an attempt was made to assist them in reaching the summit with less fatigue and greater comfort and security. In that year, one Riggenbach, of Olten, and an engineer of Aaron, named Olivier Zschokke, after having experimented for years on the subject, published a pamphlet, in which they declared that it was possible to construct a railway from Vitznau to the summit of the Rigi.

The treatise attracted a great deal of attention, and the following year the two engineers applied for aid from the Government of Lucerne to carry out the scheme they had devised. This aid was granted, and in two years the road was finished to Stoffel, over half the distance, and two years later to the very summit of the mountain.

The new system consists of two rails of standard gauge, such as are used on ordinary railways, firmly fixed on sleepers, which are solidly secured to the rock by every device known, to insure their solidity. Then a third rail, supplied with cogs, is placed between the other two, and on this the cogged driving wheel of the engine of a new construction propels the

engine up the hill. Engines of a special pattern were built, for as the ascent is often at an angle of twenty-five degrees, ordinary locomotives would not do. The boiler in the new engine is perpendicular and the rear is slightly elevated. The tread-wheels are connected with the cog wheel in the center of the engine in such a manner that each wheel bears its proportion of the weight. The road has been a complete success from the start, not a single accident having ever occurred.

The sensation after the car leaves level ground at the station in Vitznau and begins to climb steadily up the mountain is peculiar. The ground seems to melt away, and yet is always replaced. As we mount higher and higher, the view becomes more extensive. Now we can see the little town we have just left on the pretty little bay, at the foot of the mountains. Beyond it the lake stretches out to the mountains that seem to come to its very edge. Then the road passes through a tunnel, a marvel of engineering skill, for going through there the ascent is at a rise of twenty-five degrees.

Emerging from this tunnel, the train speeds across a bridge, over a yawning chasm, whose sides are lined with stunted trees and great bowlders, that are washed by a large stream which takes its rise higher up the mountain.

From this point the view is grand. Pilate, towering above the lake, is clearly seen on the right; just below is Weggis, and further on the bright buildings of Lucerne shine in the sunlight, while the lake, with its different arms, looks like “a painted sea.” All around and above are the huge red rocks of the Rigi. There are two or three stations along the route, but we push steadily on, the views becoming grander and grander with each successive step, until the summit is reached, and then the panorama is complete. You see the Alps in the eastern part of Switzerland, the massive pile of the Loudi, all the western mountains of Schwyz, and to the north the cantons of Zug, Zurich and Lucerne spread out like a map at our feet. Way down the valley can be seen eleven different lakes, with little clumps of houses, the villages on the shores of the “VierwaldstÄtter See.”

Passing by the great hotels that flourish here so high above the world, we go to the great bluff which is so prominently seen from Lucerne, and there the view is magnificent. As far as the eye can reach on the south are the countless peaks of the Alps, covered with snow the year around. Near at hand are beautiful valleys with winding rivers and straight, thread-like roads.

As we stand there, lost in wonder at the overpowering magnificence of the scene, the sun, which up to this time had been shining brightly, was obscured by clouds, and we were treated to a thunder storm which raged with terrific fury for half an hour or more. Then the sun broke forth again in all his splendor and we saw the clouds disappear beneath his powerful rays.

Sunrise as seen from the Rigi Kulm is said to be one of the most magnificent sights imaginable. One enthusiastic German writer gives a very glowing account of it, which has been literally translated and is sold in all the book-stores in Lucerne. The translation is so good (?) that it should be universally read. A portion of it is reproduced:

The ride down, while full of surprising views, is not so interesting as the ascent, for one is familiar with every turn, and has not that feeling of novelty that impresses him while going up.

Going back to Lucerne we are treated to a magnificent sunset, old Sol sinking behind the mountains with a grand blaze of glory that tinges the peaks all around the horizon with a brilliant golden outline.

On the eastern border of this wondrously beautiful lake is

a chapel, built, it is said, upon the spot where Tell leaped from the boat of Gesler, the Austrian tyrant, while on his way to prison, and shot him. It is a pretty little structure, at the water’s edge, and is every year visited by thousands of people who come to enthuse over the alleged Swiss patriot.

I should have enthused with the rest, only ever since I have been in Switzerland I have been investigating Tell, and to my profound grief I find that like Sairy Gamp’s Mrs. Harris, “There ain’t no sich a person,” and never was.

When I say to my profound grief, I mean it. In my boyhood—alas, that was many a year ago—I had several pet heroes among men and things. Tell shooting the arrow off his boy’s head and saving another arrow to shoot Gesler had he harmed his son, was one of them; Jackson and his cotton bales at New Orleans was another; the maelstrom, sucking down whales and ships, as depicted in the school geographies, was another; and then came Wellington with his “Up guards and at ’em,” at Waterloo, the quiet but heroic General Taylor at Monterey with his “A little more grape, Captain Bragg!” with others too tedious to mention. Among my especial hatreds was the cruel King Richard, of England, who slaughtered the infant princes in the tower.

Alas for history and geography! One by one these idols were dismounted. Later geographical investigation proves that there is no maelstrom on the coast of Norway; that the statement was founded upon a few rather ugly currents that swirl and eddy among some islands, but which are yet perfectly safe for vessels of light draft.

I had scarcely recovered from this before it came to light that Jackson’s riflemen did not rest their unerring pieces upon cotton bales. When one thinks of it, it would be rather risky to fire flint-lock rifles over such inflammable material as cotton, to say nothing of the confession of that Brobindignagian fraud, Vincent Nolte, who confessed that all there was of the cotton story was this: He was moving a few bales of cotton he had in New Orleans up the country for safety, when it was feared the British would burn the city, and one of his mule teams, with two bales upon the wagon, was passing where some Tennesseeans were throwing up an earthwork. The wild backwoodsmen, in sheer mischief, upset the wagon, cut the mules loose, and buried the two bales and the wagon under the earth. Then, as he sued the government, per custom, for the price of five hundred bales, it was said that the battle was fought behind cotton, and the pictures show it.

For Wellington to have said “Up guards and at them!” would be to presume that Wellington was in the extreme front with the guards, and Taylor, to have made his exclamation, must have been sitting on his horse beside Captain Bragg, something generals never do.

But I said, though all these are gone, I have my Tell left me. Alas! Swiss and German investigators have proved conclusively that there never was such a man as Tell; that Gesler is quite as much of a fiction, and that the whole business of the apple on the son’s head, the leap from the boat, and all the rest of it, is a poetic legend, the counterpart of which may be found in the literature of all old people. There is no mention either of Tell or Gesler in any authentic history.

But I thank heaven my objects of dislike are proved to be just as much fictions as the others. For up comes an English essayist who proves that Richard III. did not smother the infant princes, that he was not a cruel, humpbacked tyrant, but was the wisest and best king England had ever had, and that his untimely taking off was one of the greatest misfortunes that ever befell that country.

So these investigators have reduced humanity to a sort of average dead level, with no Mt. Blancs of goodness and no Jungfraus of badness.

Tibbitts was very indignant when I told him this about Tell. He remarked that he preferred not to believe the investigators; he preferred to believe in Tell. He didn’t care a straw for the investigators, he defied them. Suppose Tell didn’t shoot the apple? What then? Tell shooting the apple made a picturesque picture, and it pleased him. He protested against reducing all mankind to the drawing of molasses and the hewing of calico. He wanted heroes and heroines, and if they didn’t appear in real life the poet gave them to us, and it did just as well.

By this time Tibbitts got wound up. “How does any one know that there was no Tell? I demand proof. You can’t prove that there was not such a man, and that he did not do the feats ascribed to him. Very well! I assert there was such a man; that there was a Gesler; that Gesler put his hat on a pole in the market place, and required everybody to bow to it, and Tell refused; and then Gesler insisted that he should shoot an apple from his boy’s head, and he did it. You have no proof that this is not so. I have proof that it is. I can show you the market place, and an apple. That the feat is possible every schoolboy knows, for have we not all seen Buffalo Bill do the same thing in the theaters? And, then, if it were not precisely true, it should have been. We want such incidents to keep alive a love of country, a healthy spirit of patriotism, and a wholesome hatred of tyrants who go about putting caps upon poles and requiring people to bow to them. Admitting it to be a fable, we want more such fables. What difference does it make if it is a fable? Does it not inculcate a great principle just the same? And inculcating a great principle is the main thing. I hold to Tell with all the simple faith I had in childhood, and even more. For in childhood Tell was merely a romantic and highly colored sensation—now he has grown to the sublime dimensions of a moral necessity.”

And in spite of the bald facts staring him in the face, he went into ecstacies in the chapel, and spoke of it as a “shrine,” and remarked that it would be better for the world had it had more Tells, and said everything that everybody says.

The Young Man who Knows Everything ambled in at this point with the remark that worms were made for sparrows, and the sparrows know it. It is a beautiful provision of nature that the strong eat the weak. If intellect and strength won’t provide a living, what is the use of intellect and strength. A man might as well be a fool as anything else, if he can’t live on his mental endowments.

Which, as it had no earthly application to the subject under discussion, was characteristic, very. But it satisfied him.

But you had better not express any doubt as to Tell to any of the Swiss, especially in this region. They believe in him as firmly as Americans do in Washington, and in the apple as steadily as we do in the hatchet. There was a book published in Berne, proving Tell to be a myth, and it was suppressed by the government, and all the copies in circulation siezed and burned.

Tell is a national pride, and besides, the legend brings tourists into the country, and keeps them longer after they come, which is a matter of national profit. And so, between pride and profit, they keep up the fiction, and will, to the end of time.

However, I still believe in Washington’s hatchet, and in Franklin’s eating bread in the streets of Philadelphia. I am going to cling to something of my youth. But I suppose somebody will disembowel these legends in the course of time, and life thereafter will be as monotonous as a mill-pond—all on a dead level.