The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-22 00:00:00

ALPINE TOURISTS.

(From the Tines' Correspondent)
INTERLAKEN, Sept. 17.
I went to the Giessbach last evening to see the
waterfall lighted up. I had no great faith in the
power of art to set off the beauties of nature, and
was disposed to look upon the performance as little
better than a mere trick, a" take in," a mountebank
jugglery. I am not satisfied that the Coliseum at
Rome could have any better illumination at night
than such as it receives for a good part of every
month by the pale moonbeams ; neither do I admire
the ghastly look imparted to the Vatican marbles
by the flaring torchlight. Nay I feel some inclina-
tion to quarrel with the aid that mere chemical or
mechanical means are made to lend to art itself. I
do not think much the better of Danneker's Ariadne
for all the pink hues with which her cold marble is
glowing in Bethman's garden, nor am I ever willing
to pronounce an opinion on the necklace and ear-
rings of Gibson's coloured Venus. There may be
authority for it in all classical models ; but we have
eyes of our own, and will not take the law from
Praxiteles himself. You may take what is good from
the Greeks, but need not take as good all that is
Greek.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding, it is a duty to
see and prove everything, and in the afternoon at 4
I took the steamer on the Lake of Brienz to see the
Giessbach lighted up. The Giessbach is an old ac-
quaintance of mine, not by any means the grand-
est, but certainly the loveliest, of Swiss waterfalls.
You go up a deep, narrow, gloomy glen, scooped
out of a rough mountain side, all grown up with
fir-wood to the summit, with open glades in the
middle, covered with rich verdure, and set off with
clumps of trees and flowerbeds, much after the
fashion of a nobleman's park. Indeed, I think I
have seen something off Taymouth, in the grounds
of the Marquis of Breadalbane, that bears some
faint resemblance to the Giessbach Glen. On your
right as you go up the winding pass you have a steep
hillside, and on the top of its smooth crest a deep
gap whence the water falls down in seven successive
leaps, bordered on each side by the dark fir-wood—
the monotony of which is pleasingly relieved by
beech bushes by the water-side, beech bushes rich
at this season with glowing gold and russet tints.
There are easy paths up each of the seven steps ;
there are three bridges thrown athwart the chasm ;
it is, in short, a kind of garden cascade, decked out
in all the charms by which the hand of man can
enhance the beauties of nature's work. It is acces-
sible at every point up to the summit, both in front
and here and there at the back of the arched pillars
of water, as they split, gushing on the rocks, and
come down in separate streams to join their waters
in the deep rocky shells, from which they again
branch out into sundered rills, till they find their
common rest in the still bosom of the lake. Stand
before the Giessbach, just outside the little chalet,
which Swiss industry has fitted up as a cafe and
restaurant, on the opposite side of the glen ; look
up to the eternal play of those laughing, limpid
waters—scanty as the long drought has made them
this season ; listen to their melodious, monotonous
plash, and the world must go hard indeed with you
if all your cares and sorrows are not lulled to rest,
if you do not feel supremely happy for the moment.

It was evening, and we had some trouble in tear-
ing ourselves away from the charming spot to attend
to the dull earthly duties of our 7 o'clock dinner.
The Hotel de la Giessbach is one of the most pic-
turesque in Switzerland ; it is one of those well con-
conducted establishments which in some manner re-
concile the illused traveller to absence from home.
The landlord greets you at the door as you come in;
he hovers about you like a guardian angel, invisible
yet omnipresent, during all your stay; anticipates all
your wants, forestalls all your wishes, and only leaves
you to the tender cares of his bevy of daughters—
he has, I am told, seven of them—and of other
maids, all tidy and blooming and pretty, waitresses
at board no less than in chamber ; mine host him-
self being the only individual of the male sex in at-
tendance whose foot is allowed to tread the floors
within his hospital threshold. It is as refreshing
as Mahomed's paradise. There is not another hotel
I know of in all Switzerland in which the heavy
tramp, the creaking shoes, the hot breath, the fuss
and clumsiness of waiters are superseded by the mi-
nistrations of these cheering parlourmaids. Fresh
and lovely they look in their Bernese costume, the
most coquettish of female attire--their black velvet
corsets, their spotless white lawn chemisettes, their
fustian jupons, their dangling silver chains, their
ribands and lace streamers, the strings of garnet
beads round their necks, the long golden trinkets at
their ears. It is the most modest, most becoming,
the most bewitching costume, and those brilliant
dames at the Paris balls who think nothing so fas-
cinating as a dress slipping down, far down below
the shoulders, and dragging far behind their heels on
the floor, must know but little of men or their tastes,
or they would sooner take their models from these
untutored mountain lasses than follow the law of
fashion as set by empresses and mantua-makers.
Well, the Hotel de la Giessbach isunder the direc-
tion of as provident a ruling power as that of the
Zahringer Hof of Freiburg, the very best in Switzer-
land, and has over that renowned caravanserai the
advantage of this happyinnovation of parlourmaids.
Neat and pretty as most of them are, the daughters
and handmaidens of Herr Schmidlin at Giessbach do
not come up to the grand queenlike beauty of what
old stagers like myself may remember, about a score
of years ago, as the three sisters of the Grimsel,
three damsels as far famed as the five sisters of
York, whose elegant toilette, high-bred manners,
and musical accomplishments offered so strange a
contrast to the wild scenery of that grimmest of all
mountain passes in which they had their summer
home. Grand and stately, and almost weird,
those three maidens looked, with their rich black
hair and black lustrous eyes, with their bare arms
on their harp, and the black silk dresses setting off
their somewhat gipsylike but right royal features
and splendid figures. What became of them people
gifted with a better memory than mine may
tell, I have some indistinct recollection of some
tragic catastrophe connected with that Grimsel
Hospice, some awful breaking-up of the hotel,
which may, for aught I know, be an 411-famed and
haunted ruin at the present day.
But I must not forget the waterfall. We walked