The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-08-14
n CALIFORNIAN
ABROAD.
By Thomas Fitch
SWITZERLAND.
Thomas Fitch
SWITZERLAND.
Copyright 1e04.]

a rusty curved sickle, while the form
err will drive reaper around his field
III an hour
From the grandest art gallery of Eu-
rope L go to one of the greatest
achievements of modern science; from
the undying pigments of Tintoretto to
the limitable force of nitro glycerine;
from the chisel and n1ailet with which
Angelo created a Madonna, TO the
steam drills and compressed air en-
gines with which Mount Gents was
bored; from an categorical representa-
ton OF the Alps seven centuries old,
to a double track tunnel under the
Alps seven miles long.
And so We pass in a day from Italy
back to France, from Lombardy into
Savoy
1t is great fun to barter with a
French or Italian shop-keeper-afte
you are quite sure he does not under
stand word of English-if you can
keep your countenance and make it
utter one thing while your voice says
another. Anxious to oblige, anxious
to sell and not understanding your
words. he watches cadence and express
sion. and so frames his replies. !.
1 approached one in Turin, and at
fecting to greatly admire a scarlet
neck scarf, said to him with a gest-
ure of appreciation and a tone which
indicated delight:
This scarf is, suppose, a wretch
ed. ill-made. shoddy AFFAIR."
"Oui, Monsieur"
And the price you ask-six francs
lis, perhaps double what you would
demand of me if L were not a strang
er?'
"Oui, Monsieur
with finger and thumb in my right
vest pocket, as If in the act Of produc-
ing the money to purchase IT'D
You are doubtless great scoundrel
in most of the relations of Hfe?"
''Oui, Monsieur with emphasis)
HCertainement."
Permit me to tie the miserable thing
about the weak-eyed, gaping, shrivelled,
honey-combed, weather-beaten face of
madame-ah, does not this enhance her
natural and acquired ugliness?'
''Oui, QUA pause, a glance at the
enraged countenance of the lady, dim
suspicion of a hoax, and the sentence
ended with an indescribable shrug.
n is a most beautiful valley-that
of the river Iser-all the way from ST.
Michel to Chambery, with it's crag
crowned castles, it's verdant fields, and
its foaming cascades.
:HThere.-look quick before the train
passes-yonder is the castle where Che
Waller Bayard was born"
'Oh, for knight like Bayard
Without reproach or fear,
My light glove on his casque of steel
My love knot on his spear
hummed my companion.
What did Bayard do, anyhow" said
I. suddenly. He has been held up to
the nineteenth century as a model of
virtue and department about long
enough. If it comes to riding around
on a breast plated mustang, carrying a
pain of number nine ladies' kids in his
cast metal hat, and f1ourishing a lot of
cheap ribbon on the end of a fish-spear.
any crazy ass could do that; I could do
it myself. But what hospital did he
ablish? What college did he endow :?
What new mine has he ever opened?
Where be his railroads, his telegrap phi
lines, his Hoosac tunnel and things?
VIII some of you literary people who
are Ike seraphims and cherubims, and
continually do cry the praises of Bay
ard. be kind enough to give me a list
of his useful achievements?
I paused for reply. l am pausing
yet.
What useful things are produced in
Savoy now?'' inquired the lady
Monkeys" replied the writer,
and hand-organs, and men with
velvet jackets and scarlet-ribboned,
hfgh-pointed hats, to play the
organs. Did you never hear the touch
ing tale the Savoy and his monkey?"
There was no response
Leaving Turin at eight in the morn
ing, we reached Geneva about nine at
night. Geneva is as celebrated and
uninteresting a place as there is in
Europe. and the chief object in life of
its citizens is to plumber people who
come here to visit the mountain scene
ny of Switzerland. Many eminent men
have been identified with the city, but
the people have not thought it worth
while to perpetuate them IN bronze or
marble. or on canvas. They have erect
ed a bronze statue of Jean Jacques
Rousseau, in the centre of an island
connected by a wire suspension bridge
with the city. What a comment on
the morals and taste of the SWISS No
public janitor cares for the houses once
occupied here by Calvin and by Dau-
bigne; the historian of the reformation
lived here, but no record of that fact
in any public place, so far as
could see. Here once dwelt Necker
and Madame de Stael, LIE Sage. the
philosopher and Sausure, the natural
ist. and host of others, and among
them all they picked out for perpetu-
alton in bronze the weak-mouthed
Rousseau. whose chief title to imrnor-
tally is that he was simDleton enough
to pirate of his own wickedness.
This must have been the spot the
hymn writer had in mind when he PEN
ned the lines
Where every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile
The beautiful lake of Geneva stretch
es its clear waters to the northern ho-
rizon, ringed with white-capped noun