The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-03-24
OUR FOREIGN LETTER.
Especial correspondence of the rRrss.l

1
Especial correspondence of the PREss.1
LAKE LEdAN, LAUSANNE.
| 1t is days trip from Martigny to Lau-
same. The train takes the traveller to Bou-
veret, which is near the entrance of the blue
Rhone into the lake through low delta land.
Here a steamer was waiting to convey the
| passengers to Lausanne. The western shores
of the lake are quite unsettled, while the cas-
tern side is built up in many pretty hill
towns, where one must possess good pedes-
trian ability to become familiar with the
| country roads. The fine air. clear sunshine
and sturdy exercise may have as much to do
with the invigoration Of the summer board
ers and invalds, who flock to Veyay and
Montraux In September as the supposed heal
ing properties Of the grape. This must be
tedious and disagreeable course of medical
treatment, as the variety of grapes raised in
this vicinity have a sour, thin favor, and are
only fit for the poor wine that is made in
Switzerland. We did eat few rich grapes
but most of them are vastly inferior to our
| common fruit of the vine to which no ecstat-
| ic poet ever dedicated odes. The vineyards
failed to meet our conception Of rural beauty,
as they look precisely like acres of string
beans, tied to stunted poles; yet they COM
bine with other features to make pretty
landscape, as they creep up to the base OF
the barren lodges, whose sides glisten with
tiny silver cascades.
| We passed the castle of Chillon, and felt
| pang as we thought of the wretched prison.
| er, shut up in those vile walls, year AFTER
| year, without hope of release from his hylng
entombment which Byron has described so
wildly in these familiar words:
| double dungeon-wal and wave
| Have made, and like living grave,
| Below the surface of the lake
The dark vault lies wherein we lay
We heard it ripple night and day:
Sounding 0 er our heads it knocked,
| And have felt the winters spray
Wash through the bars when winds were high
| And want0n in the happy sky:
| And then the very rock hath rocked,
| And have felt it shake unshocked
| Because could have smiled to see
| The death that would have set me free.
The waters of the lake are wonderful in
coIors varying from pure sapphire blue to
deep peacock and mazarine tints, and so clear
| attimes that one can actually catch glimpses
| of the buried ruins beneath, as this is the
region where have been immerged some of
| the ancient lake cities.
Toward sunset we landed at Ouchy, the
| port of Lausanne, to find our train gone; and
| we had no choice but to take seats in a little
car, and be pulled up the cliff by ropes and
| cogged wheels, to the sitely city of Lausanne,
whichis quite the seat Of Swiss education.
All these lake towns are finely located and
have very thrifty look about them. Here
we found the Richemont hotel every way
desirable, but what would Americans say of
the parsimony of the proprietor ofthe Adams
House, or Young's, to post about his halls in
letters so clear that he may run that readeth
it, "Guests are allowed two serviettes on
Sunday, one on Tuesday, and one on Friday
in winter, five each week in spring, and seven
each week in summer"
The next day our trains were very accom-
modating to allow us several hours at the
| quaint old town of Berne, where we might
| have spent several days with profit and de-
| light; but unluckily we were not well in
formed, and had forwarded our luggage to
Interlaken. AS we enter Berne two i'm.
mense stone bears guard the portals at the
Murat Gate; when fairly in you see bears
everywhere; bears on the escutcheons, bears
on the fountains, bears on the door knockers,
bears on the gingerbread and lastly the pet
bears kept at the city'S expense, to maintain
ancestral customs in the Baringraben in the
public square. Strange freak of sentiment
or patriotism in some queer old spinsters to
bequeath legacies for the support of these
dirty, uncouth beasts. We gathered with
crowd of foreigners from distant climes, all
bent on not leaving anything undone, or
missing any fun, to see the famous mechani-
cal clock in the old tower strike the midday
hour. just before twelve cock begins the
performance by tapping his wings and crow
| ing; then circle of bears glide around an
| image of Father Time; buffoon in cap and
! bells strikes gong, and life-sized figure
rings the bell in the tower with the heavy
| strokes of hammer; finally the cock crows
| again, Father Tine tips the hour glass, and
| the bears nod their approval of the passing
hour. Near by is carving of an ogre, over
| fountain, with his pockets full of bawling
| babies who behold with open-mouthed ter
ror one Of their mates being crunched in the
| very jaws of the monster, and await with
| horror their turn. All the statues about the
town are grotesque and represent the work
and the heroes of barbaric days. As we prob
ably cannot return to Berne to ransack its old
curiosity shops we will generously inform our
friends, that nowhere on the continent have
we found such feast of fat things as we
stumbled upon in the dark shops of Berne
| The sharp-eyed and quick-scented relic scay-
engers of America have overlooked this
| treasure house. There were old carved
| chests, armour, candlesticks, oderiferous
draperies spoons, all battered and bitten by
generations OF baron's babies, and lovely
cracked dishes 1t was good for sore eyes,
for some of us to poke over these piles
of priceless, worthless rubbish. But those
| dreadful custom house officers, who strain at
| gnat in their zeal to uphold the laws re-
strained our greed. We did want a half ton
of these things so much, we were almost
ready to box the political compass and go in
for free trade.
CATHEDRAL AT BERNE.
This ancient cathedral is unique and ex-
ceedingly interesting. 1t took the place of
an old church built by the Knights of the
| Teutonic Order in twelve hundred and sew
enty-six. This building was begun in 1920,
but was not completed for two centuries.
! There are more elegant edifces in many Eu-
ropean cities; but nowhere did one impress
us more with its antiquity and the power it
must have exerted over the people of the
buried past. Somehow many of these ca
thedrals seem isolated from the hearts and
lives of their parishioners; but here we felt
the communion of the worshippers whose
family names even have dropped out of the
church records, yet their coats of arms still
surmount the pews once filled by their fami-
| ly groups. The seats are rubbed smooth,
and the floor scared with the feet of rest
less children. The sight of the stone stairs,
really scooped out by the tread of many
preachers, whose voices are long since
stilled, affected us with sense of sadness.
The carving of the Day of Judgment over
the main entrance is curiosity. This is
one of the few monuments of art and by-gone
grandeur of which Switzerland can boast
In their oft-repeated struggles for freedom,
the invincible Swiss. to show their abhor-
renee of their tyrants, made a clean sweep of
| the chateaus cathedrals and all the accOutre-