Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 202, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1914 — ON FOOT THROVGH SWITZERLAND [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ON FOOT THROVGH SWITZERLAND

CARL SCHURZ VROOMAN

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SWITZERLAND the way to get about the country, if one has the time and energy, is not by means of its railways, nor of its spletfdid system ——g* of diligences, nor yet by automobile, but simply and joyfully on foot, for, jSnaßp in order to see Switzerland aright,' ' Y one must use his feet as well as his / tmmmmmJ eyes- One summer which we devoted to doing Switzerland, or rather a part of it, in this primitive fashion, I still recall with a keen sense of exhilaration and delight. Early one morning about the middle of June, with heavy hob-nailed boots on our feet, stout walking sticks in our hands and knapsacks on our backs, we set forth to walk from Thusis over the Julier pass into the Engadine. Toward noon we snatched an hour’s nap at a wayside inn, after lunching on brook trout fresh from the water and vegetables fresh from the earth. We "stopped tor the night in a little mountain village where the charge at the hotel for breakfast and a large corner room with polished hard-wood floor, handwoven and hand-embroidered linen sheets and three daintily curtained windows framing magnificent panoramas of snow mountains and cascades, amounted to 48 cents each! The picturesque little proprietress apologetically explained that the extras which we had so recklessly incurred in the way of eggs and Jam for breakfast were responsible for the swollen proportions of thO bill. It seemed like flying In the face of Providence to hurry away at once, so, yielding to the protest of our tired feet and the combined charms of the place, the proprietress and the prices, we stopped another day in this little patch of paradise and started off next morning refreshed in body and soul, for our three days’ trip by easy stages down into the valley of the Engadine. Making our headquarters in St Moritz, wO walked all over this enchanting region, seeing it In its most glorious season, the month of flowers, when the fields are shot with every color of the rainbow and Alpine roses run riot over all the hills, while starry gentians make their part of the earth as blue as the sky and pansies and buttercups in the valley spread a cloth of pure gold for one’s feet. From St. Moritz we set out for a week’s walking trip to Andermatt through one of the least tourist-spoiled regions of Switzerland, stopping en route at little chalet hotels, where we ate, drank and slept with all the Joy and some of the power of the virile, voracious races of primitive man. At the tpp of the Oberalp pass the proprietor of the hotel welcomed us as Noah might have welcomed the dove that returned to the ark with the first sign of dry land. • Thus far, the pbor man told us, his season had been so superlatively- bad that his family had been obliged to eat meat! As we were somewhat puzzled by this paradoxical utterance, he hastened to explain that in the absence of guests (and I might add, cold storage facilities) there was nothing to do with the meat on hand but to allow the family to eat it Judging from his attitude we could imagine the sort of chastened pleasure with which his household must have partaken of this feast which, while undoubtedly ministering to their carnal satisfaction, betokened their financial undoing. From the pass we made a side excursion to little lake Toma —the source of the Rhone —on our way down to Andermatt, where we inspected, as much as is allowable to foreigners, the splendid fortifications which the Swiss promptly erected , on the St Gothard pass when Italian Imperialism threatened to rob them of their Italian-speaking cantons. The Swiss army is one of the most remarkable of her institutions. It is the ideal toward which the common people of every European country, weighed down with taxes for huge standing armies, turn with longing and hope. The Swiss have a wonderful system of militia which saves minions of money to the taxpayers and years of freedom from military service to the soldiers. Practically all Swiss serve In the militia and reserves. The training thus received would be in-.-* sufficient were it not preceded and supplemented by military training for boys in echoed, and rifle practice every year by virtually the entire male population. In this highly original and economical way little Switzerland, with a population of less than three millions of people, actually has at her ; beck mpA fall gn army of 337,000 of the most martial soldiers In Europe, armed, equipped and ready to take the field at an hour’s notice. Leaving Andermatt we crossed the Furka pass into the Rhone Valley and in the course of the summer we walked over a number of passes, the ■JObulgy Broalg, Gemml, Mclden, Augstburg and

Tet© Noir, each with its own special variety of Alpine scenery. None of these, however, opened up a view that could compare in grandeur of form and mass and mysterious beauty of color and shade with that which stretched out before us as we reached the summit of the Furka and looked westward over miles of glaciers, intertwined with green valleys and surrounded on all sides by chain after chain of snow-covered, cloudcapped mountains In an ocean of sunset glory. : On our walking trips it was interesting to watch the faces of people who passed *us in diligences, carriages or automobiles; some as they whirled by looked down upon us with plutocratic scorn, others with indifference or surprise, but those who realized what they were missing must have envied us as we strode along, inhaling great draughts of pure ozone, stopping to rest or read, or eat or sleep, whenever we wished, and always carrying with us the exultant sense of personal, physical triumph over this proud old Alpine world. But we were by no means total abstainers from the pleasures of occasional drives, which lent added zest to our tramps. One drive whioh we took over the Grlmsel pass is indelibly impressed on my memory. Having blistered our feet on the trip to the Grimsel Hospice we limped Ignominously into the hostelry and requested the proprietor to send us some liniment. Quick to take advantage of the situation, he inquired whether we would not like a carriage for the rest of the Journey to Melringen. “It is not much more expensive s than the dllk - gence,” he explained, “and of course there are many advantages In having one’s own private equipage.” The picture he drew of us rolling along in luxury proved so attractive that we at once fell in with his suggestion. . When our turnout was announced we descended in state, preceded by the porter, the concierge, the proprietor and the head waiter, all of whom had. lent their distinguished services in the matter of the carriage transaction and had been rewarded accordingly. So great was our consternation on being told that a rickety victoria drawn by a braying mnle was our much vaunted “equipage” and so ludicrous was the whole situation that we were too nonplussed to protest Moreover, the mule was braying so vigorously that any remarks we might have made would have been hopelessly swallowed ufl in the noisy confusion of our exit. Such a ride as that would be hard to duplicate at any price. The road twisted and writhed along the precipitous Bide of a deep gorge through which poured a mountain torrent This gorge was sufficiently aweinspiring even when content-

plated from a safe distance, but our mule had no idea of safe distance. His one thought seemed to be to leap the precipice, while the driver’s frantic efforts to frustrate these suicidal and homicidal attempts were badly seconded by a pair of feeble and worn looking reins and a brake, which, at critical moments, refused to work, thus precipitating the carriage upon the already overwrought and almost hysterical mule. Every time* we rounded a corner we held our breath in terror, for turning corners in this vehicle was a painfully precarious performance. When the prancing mule had safely negotiated the turn the crisis was by no means past, since the carriage wheels were suffering from some internal disorder that made them slide and slip, wabble and pitch forward rather than roll, while the harness, being pieced with ends of rope and bits of string, Was in imminent danger of collapse.

About an hour after we had started, hearing the diligence with its six sure-foot-ed horses coming up at full speed, we modestly directed the driver to turn aside, hoping the passengers would be enjoying the scenery too much to have any eyes for us. But just as the diligence came abreast of our “equipage,” the mule, having no taste for obscurity, lifted up his voice high above the noise of the waters and the start tied tourists, turning with one accord to look back at us, passed speedily out of our sight in a gale of laughter. By this time, suffering more from wounded pride than from blistered feet, we mechanically repeated the words of the hotel proprietor: “A carriage is not much more expensive than the diligence and of course there are many advantages in having one’s own private equipage." The last days of summer were now gone, and, according to our original plan our pedestrian tour had come to an end. But when the time came to get into a stuffy train at Meiringen and return to the smolxe and bustle of civilization we der

cided that it was impossible to leave Switzerland without at least one snow mountain to our credit. Accordingly, Instead of securing railway tickets we engaged two guides and set oft for the Ewigschneehorn, a mountain which is only 11,000 high, but which commands one of the finest panoramas in the high Alps and, in good weather, according to Baedeker, “presents little difficulty to adepts.” Unfortunately, however, by thus starting from a point only 2,000 feet above sea level, we gave ourselves a climb of 9,000 feet, which is over 2,000 feet more than from the Eggishora hotel to the top of the Jungfrau. We slept that night on straw between huge woolen blankets in an Alpine hut built by the Swiss Alpine club for the free use of all passersby. As we were drenched from walking all day in the rain and there was barely enough wood on *hand to make tea and heat our canned soup, we were forced next morning at four o’clock to get into Icy clothes. There is nothing more dangerous on such trips as this than new-fallen snow, which conceals the crevasses yawning in the glacier beneath. We were all roped together and as the head guide sounded the snow with his ice axe at every step, our progress necessarily was slow and monotonous. But when the ice ax suddenly revealed that *we were on the brink of a snowcovered crevasse which was a veritable death trap, we realized that our guide’s precautions -were neither perfunctory nor excessive. A few , minutes later an avalanche, carrying tons of snow, ice and boulders, came tearing down about five yards to our right, but so stimulated were we by the altitude and the novelty of the situation that we felt no emotion pave' a sort of intoxication of ecstasy and awe. 1 a In every direction, as far as the eye could reach, wah a region of dazzling white—of llfelesß, endless winter. We were tired and cold and hungry and wet, but our keenest and dominant sensation was one of exhilaration. A new aspect of nature had been opened to our view. Cold she was, and cruel, in this mood, but incomparably beautiful and pure. And when at last we turned our faces toward the familiar lower levels, it was with a feeling of exaltation that this once, at least, it had been our privilege to tread these corridors of flowing ice, to hear the thunder of the avalanche, to gaze face to face upon the Jungfrau, the queen of the Bernese Alps, with her court of spowy giants, and to enter, ae it were, the very holy of holies of this mighty temple of nature to which pilgrims flock from the ends of tne earth—a temple not built with hands, whiter than marble,, as enduring as the world itself and reaching to the very heavens.