Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-08-17
l.ELIPERKINs,, IN SWITZERLAND

| Special CORRESPONDENCE of the Morning Meas.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, Aug. 6.-To
! go to Switzerland from Dion or Macon,
| in Central France, is like going to the
| Adirondacks from Central New York.
| The Swiss all speak French. You never
hear the Swiss language. They use
| French money. The Swiss, like the
French, oppose water as a beverage. In
| Switzerland the farms are all small, but
very productive. The manure heap is
the only sacred thing in Switzerland. 1t
is always to be seen directly in front of
the front door, where the farmer can look
at it all the time. There is no such thing
| as the Swiss Cottage in Switzerland; that
| is an invention of the poets. The real
Swiss residence is huge barn about 80
by 100 feet square; it has tiled roof and
a balcony across the front. In this barn
! are cattle, sheep, hogs, hens, hay, oats,
and, in one corner, lives the farmer him
self. His room is no better than the room
| occupied by his cows. To be sure it is q
little cleaner, but the floor and the sides
are the same; the floor is never cleaned.
| l have seen Swiss floors that for fifty
| years have never seen water. All the
Stops from the barn and the house are
poured upon the manure heap. The bad
smelling mass breeds flies and f1eas. The
| Swiss air is so full of flies that a bucket
of smoking rags is carried on the tongue
Of the wagon to keep the horses from be-
ing maddened by fly bites.
A SWISS COTTAGE.
My wife, who has always had romantic
ideas about the Swiss cottages, thought
| she would like to stay over night in one
l had seen them, but she would not believe
what l said about them, so, as our train
arrived at Geneva late at night, we con-
| cluded to stay over in a sweet Swiss viii
lage and get our first peep at Mont Blanc
| from the morning train. We stayed in a
| picturesque Swiss hotel, in a lovely Swiss
village. We will never forget it. The
floors were bare and had not seen water
| for y years. The tables IN the dining
room were of dirty pine without table
cloths. About u O'Clock we felt some
thing biting us. My wife said sit is
fleasV
''No," l said, ''they are bugs!"
| ''FIeas, Pm sure" said my wife.
After discussing the question for 10
! minutes, got up and lit a tallOw candle
and, for the first time in our lives, we
| found we agreed perfectly. We were
/ both right. There were 9,S76, 431 fieas and
1915, S42 bugs in each bed. 1t is needless
| to say that we sat up the rest of the night,
and went into Geneva the next morning
Ali faded out Since then my wife has not
res1ett ted Claude MelnOtte's poetic de-
scrintion of his Alpine home. The Swiss
| COTTAGE on a close examination, inVaria-
! blv turns out to be great barn full OF
cattle, hogs and men, and is always
erected behind gigantic PIE OF manure.
| The only exception to this is Wheh tne
! owner, living near or in a town, has MS
! business in his house. The wagon maker,
| iron caster and tanner always lives in
! one corner of his shop, foundry or tan
| merry. The brickmaker even lives in one
| corner of his kiln.
| WOMEN IN SWITZERLAND AND BAVARIA.
In many cases blowing is done with
| COWS hitched up like oxen. A horse and
| a cow hitched together is not an uEcOm-
mon sight, and in several instances
| have seen both Swiss and BaVarians
driving their wives and daughters in front
of the pillow. In Switzerland and Bavaria
women work harder than men; they al
ways do half the work in the fields. 1t
| is not uncommon to see women pitching
hay to their husbands on high stacks, and
carrying mortar up high ladders on their
backs. The women always work bare
footed, with a handkerchief pinned tight
ly over their heads. Men, the lords of the
creation, wear wooden shoes, but their
wives neVerl
Women on farms in Switzerland and
Bavaria have no social duties; they never
read; the newspaper is unknown. They
have no toilets to make. Theirs is a life
of brutal work. No slave ever lived so
far down in the scale of civilization.
AS Bavaria joins Switzerland 1 give
the essence of a little talk which / had
with a Bavarian farmer and his wife, be-
tween Geneva and Munich. They were
both in the field reaping wheat with a
sickle. A barefooted woman was picking
up straw in the next field.
"What do you get month for such
work ?" l asked.
eve get, both of us together, 80 marks
(S8. y said the man.
"And your board, tooY
eyes, our food, too"
what do you eat every daY?" 1
asked.
eve have flour soup for breakfast; po-
tatOes, bread and noodles for dinner; and
soup and noodles for supper. Twice a
week we have salt pork" Noodles are
made of black flour. scalded and dried.)
$50 you have coffee and sugar?'
''NOng!' they both said, shaking their
heads.
The bread they eat is made of rye. In
the villages the same bread is fed to
horses. 1t IS a common thing to see a !
man and horse eating from the same loaf. !
Girls, working as servants in cities, get /
about So month; and so it is with all the
labOring people on farms in Switzerland, !
France, Germany and Russia. How l
should like to have these poor OVer-WOrk- !
ed women see an American farmers wife
in her sweet home, beautifully carpeted,
surrounded with books and papers, and
eating meat and cake and pies three
times a day! The market gardener near
Munich and Dresden uses baref0oted
women to draw his vegetables to market |
in wagons over the stones. Women be-
come beasts of burden; still, they do not
grumble; they do not smile either-they
simply exist. The only liberty they have
is liberty to work; the only rest they have
is sleep. The existence of a cow or sheep
is a perpetual heaven, while theirs is
a perpetual hell. Poor European women!
GOING UP MONT BLANC.
OF course you have heard through
newspaper paragraphs that l went up
Mont Blanc. | shall not write much !
about it, because it has been ''done to |
DEATH by other writers. l propose to |
write of other things which other writers |
do not see. Mont Blanc, 10, 730 feet high, |
is the highest peak in Europe. 1t is |
higher than Pixies Peak, Mount Rainier, |
or Mount St. Elias, in Oregon, but it is |
not more beautiful than Mount Hood or |
Mount Adams, as seen from the Columbia |
river steamers. In going up Mont Blanc |
we first ride from Geneva, 15miles up the |
ChamouniX valley to the village of Cha |
mouniX. This is at the foot of the noun |
tain. Only two or three people go up the |
mountain annually, but it is not very |
hard trip. All that is wanted is a good |
constitution, good food, and warm |
clothes. The difficulties of ascending |
the mountain have been dreadfully exag- |
gerated.
We rode on mules 2 miles above Cha |
mouniX, and did the rest on foot. After /
an hours walking we now use ladders |
for passing the deep gorges. Four thous- |
and feet above ChamouniX we pass the |
timber line; here all vegetation ceases. |
At O'Clock we reached the first hating
point, called the Grand Mulets. Here is |
a hotel uninhabited. We now rested till
l O'Clock in the morning and then started
out in the moonlight. An hour brought
us to the Mer de GIdce, the sea of ice. !
This is a lake 2 miles long, which has /
never been thawed out. The sun has
melted deep creYices in it, but there is no
bottom to the ice. At 8 O'Clock we got |
beyond all rocks and nothing but ice is
seen. Mont Blanc is before us in sea of
icebergs. These we Chamber over and up.
Passing over the icebergs we come to the
rounded top of the mountain, which is
about 1000 feet higher, but very easy to
ascend.
THE VIEW FROM MONT BLANC