From Zurich to Basle: Arrival in Basle: Our Hotel: Our visit to the Rhine Bridge: “The Watch on the Rhine”: The Market: The Cathedral and its sculpture, etc.: Erasmus: The Museum: The Zoological gardens: Leaving Basle: Arrival at Belfort: Belfort besieged.

As we journeyed from Zurich, we felt we were leaving behind us sights we might never see again. A certain poet’s words came to my memory:

“Beautiful world,
Though bigots condemn thee:
My tongue finds no words
For the graces that gem thee!
Beaming with sunlight,
Beautiful ever,
Streaming with gay delight,
Full as a river.
Bright world! Brave world!
Let cavaliers blame thee,
I bless thee and bend
To the God that did frame thee.”

Between Zurich and Basle we contrived to get a little relief from the excitement of new scenes. We had really been surfeited almost with the richness and beauty of our surroundings for so long a time that it was a relief to allow the train to speed on, and to get into a corner and contemplate and rest. We arrived at Basle in the afternoon, and found it a great railway centre, and indeed, a very important town, both for commercial men and for pleasure seekers. It is a great centre for cyclists, as there are at least forty castles to be seen within a radius of fifty miles. You can be in Germany in about twenty minutes. From the north, east and west, a number of the most important lines of central Europe are focussed here, and swelling to a mighty mass, branch off again in every direction to the interior of Switzerland. Thus inner Switzerland is laid open to the world’s traffic and pleasure. The surroundings of the city are very pretty, and we saw it when it was most charming, i.e., when the autumn tints are seen. Here we see field and forest around this grand old city in all the glory of the season’s attractions. We were advised by the manager of our hotel in Lucerne, to go to the Hotel Victoria in Basle, so we secured the usual fakeno to carry our luggage across, for it is only about two hundred yards from the station. We were, however, disappointed in the hotel and its management. They were neither obliging nor scrupulously true or honest, the very worst treatment we met with in all our travels.

The Rhine Bridge, Basle

However, our stay was short, so we determined to make the best of it, the bedroom was good; and, although close by the station, we slept well. We decided to see the city the day following; and going out, we soon found it to be a great centre of commerce. It has a population of about one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants. Great silk factories rear their heads in the centre of this great city. There are also manufacturies of chemicals, tobacco, machinery, etc.; also some very large breweries. It is said to be the wealthiest town in Europe, measured by its population. It has plenty of open-air spaces, as parks, gardens and monuments; cool avenues and well trimmed gardens are plentiful in the suburbs. We went to see the wonderful Rhine which flows through Basle, and we stood on that wonderfully constructed bridge of which the poet writes:

“A voice resounds like thunder peal
Mid dashing waves and clang of steel:
The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine!
Who guards to-day my stream divine?

Dear fatherland, no danger thine,
Firm stand thy sons to watch the Rhine!
They stand a hundred thousand strong,
Quick to revenge their country’s wrong;
With filial love their bosoms swell,
They’ll guard the sacred land, mark well.

While flows one drop of German blood,
A sword remains to guard thy flood.
While rifle rests in patriot’s hand,
No foe shall tread thy sacred strand!

Our oath resounds, the river flows,
In golden light our banner glows,
Our hearts will guard thy stream divine;
The Rhine, the Rhine, the glorious Rhine!”

For some time we stood and watched the rolling river flow by until tired of watching, we left after I had taken a snap-shot, and retracing our steps to the market, a place of peculiar interest, as everything seems different from our English ways. The stalls are set out differently, and their fruits, vegetables, pots, flowers and shoes, indeed almost everything you can need, we saw in the great space of the market here in Basle. The curious customs, dresses, language and money were all strange; and we thought the dress of the country folk was very quaint and queer. We spent sometime in looking over this great place, so many things offer attractions; without however, making any purchases save a few post-cards and a little fruit for our immediate use. We strolled on to the principal streets to note some of the very fine buildings that adorn the city. The Post Office is an imposing building, I should say it was partly ancient and partly modern. It is a Gothic building and seems to be well suited for, and capable of dealing with the work it has to do. The House of Parliament, or shall I say Government House, in the great market square, to look at it, it seems to rise terrace-like, up to the Martin’s Grasse; in the centre of each terrace is a court, round which the halls and the various offices are grouped. There is a fine statue close by the stairs representing a Roman pro-Consul, who had to do with the founding of the city. Of course, we must see the Cathedral. In all the continental cities there is a Duomo or Cathedral, and many of them are well worth a visit. The Cathedral of Basle stands on an elevation and consequently shows itself well. It has two steeples, not very lofty but very pretty. It dates from the year 1010, but has been restored and very nearly re-built, as there was a great fire which destroyed a large part of it in the year 1185. Again, in the year 1356, there was an earthquake, so serious that the vault of the central nave fell in, and the upper portion of the choir was thrown into the Rhine. Over the entrance is a fine stone gallery, and above this a very large window, with Madonna and Child in fine colours. There are several fine pieces of statuary inside. The Emperor Henry II. and his Consort Kunigundi, in colossal figures. To the left of one of the steeples is St. George in the act of killing the dragon. To the right, or St. Martin’s steeple, is a figure of St. Martin sharing his cloak with a poor beggar. On the side of the nave are some very fine works of art in sculpture, such as four life-size figures of the “Four Evangelists”; there is St. Peter and St. Paul; “The Seven Wise and Seven Foolish Virgins”; “Christ, as Judge of the World”; “John the Baptist and John the Evangelist.” Above these are seen angels blowing their trumpets; the dead arising from their graves and preparing for judgment; over the doorway inside, “The Wheel of Fortune.” There is an absence of the confessional, the Holy Water and other symbols of the weakness of the faith of the Roman Catholics. We were greatly interested with our visit to this, one more of the Continental Cathedrals, and especially so as one of the men who played some part in the great reformation lies buried here, I refer to Erasmus. He was a learned divine of the fourteenth century. He published some very fine pastorals and works of theology, that even now are considered worthy of reading. It does not seem that he ever joined Martin Luther in his crusade against the Pope and Popery in general, but he became a staunch protestant. It is said that King Henry VIII. offered him a church in Oxford. He travelled much, visiting Rome, Venice, England and Paris. He ended his days here in Basle, and in the sacred precincts of the Cathedral his dust reposes. The “blue house” is an attractive building; it was the residence of the Emperor and Empress of Austria during the war of liberation, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It has a fine front and commands a full view of the river Rhine. The museum is one of the quaintest and strangest I have ever seen. It is said to be the most interesting museum in Switzerland. I cannot pretend to tabulate all there is to be seen here, only indicate some of the most curious: “The dance of death,” “Tankards,” “Bowls,” “Carved Altars of curious designs,” but very costly; the gold and silver plate belonging to the Cathedral, many trophies taken in war and weapons also. There are ancient household implements; also several important heirlooms of Erasmus; some fine figures of Samson and Delilah are to be seen at the entrance.

“The Strassburg Monument” in the Elizabeth Gardens, close to the Central Railway Station, is a fine sculpture in white marble (I took a snap-shot) by Bartholdi, and was presented to the city by Baron Herve de Gringer, in commemoration of the assistance given by the Swiss in 1870, to the citizens of Strassburg when sorely pressed by the enemy. The Zoological Gardens of Basle are very extensive, and so far as I know, are the only gardens of this description in Switzerland. The way to it is full of beauty and interest. There is also another place some people might think important, we did not—that is the Crematorium. Many other places of interest in and around this fine old city, we had not time to visit, our time being limited. We could not help being struck with the fact that the ancient landmarks of this old world city are fast disappearing, and old buildings being pulled down and new palatial ones being erected on all hands. The crumbling walls of the middle ages are fallen; the moats are all filled in; narrow streets and alleys are being swept away in the onward march of time; and the broad squares and commodious dwelling houses are being put up. The beauty after all, is the rolling river Rhine. We closed our account at the hotel, wrote up our journals and prepared to leave this interesting old city. We left our hotel early in the morning, and were soon seated in a train for Belfort, in France. We had to cross the Rhine over a fine railway bridge, and as we crossed it we had a good view of the river as it rolled past. It comes through Alsace and Lorraine, the territory ceded by France to Germany after the great victory achieved by the latter, in the year 1870. The scenery, since leaving Switzerland, is less rugged and mountainous, but the foliage, in its autumn colours, is very pretty. A couple of hours brought us to the town of Belfort. It has now a population of about thirty thousand. We could see first of all, it was well fortified. The castle has a fine appearance in the distance, as it stands on a rocky eminence; something like our castle here in Nottingham. There is a fine old parish church (the religious element is well represented wherever we find ourselves). It is a manufacturing centre, especially for mats, but also wax tapers. There are several large breweries. This town was surrounded by the Germans in the great Franco-German war of 1870. But month after month it bravely, resolutely withstood all their attempts at capture; and although both food and ammunition became scanty, they still held on, until by sheer force of lack of provisions, they capitulated in February, 1871, to the great satisfaction of the Germans, and to the chagrin of the proud French. The Germans, in their generosity, and as a recognition of the bravery of the French soldiers, allowed them to march out of the town with full military honours. It is one of the towns that closely border Alsace and Lorraine of the Haut Rhin that was left to the French at the annexation in February, 1871.