CHAPTER XXV.

ASCENTS OF THE RIGHI-THE LAKE AND TOWN OF ZUG-THE CANTON OF SCHWITZ.

THE Righi, or Rigi, is a mountain, or rather a group of mountains, rising between the lakes of Lucerne and Zug. It is composed, like the fallen rocks of the Rossberg, of rounded fragments of all kinds and ages, granitic and calcareous, slate and basalt, crystals and organic remains. All the mountains, indeed, extending from the south end of the lake of Constance to the east end of the lake of Geneva, are composed of such rounded fragments, agglomerated by a common cement, and so hard that they break rather than come loose. The form of these fragments suggested the name of nagelflue, nail-head, while the agglomerated mass bears also the no less descriptive appellation of puddingstone. This formation is not found here in irregular heaps, but in distinct strata of various thickness, parallel to each other, and generally separated by thin earthy strata ; they all dip more or less to the south-east, presenting to the north-west their transverse sections.

The most considerable of the villages, overwhelmed in the vale of Arth, was Goldau, and with it is connected a melancholy circumstance which must now be told. A party of eleven travellers from Berne, belonging to the most distinguished families, arrived at Arth, and set off on foot for the Righi a few minutes before the catastrophe. Seven of them had gone about 200 yards ahead, the other four saw them entering the village of Goldau, and one of the latter pointed out to the rest the summit of the Rossberg-full four miles off in a straight line-where some strange commotion seemed to be taking place. The others were, at the same time, observing it with a telescope, and had entered into conversation on the subject with some strangers who had just come up; when, all at once, a flight of stones, like cannon balls, traversed the air above their heads, a cloud of dust obscured the valley, a frightful noise was heard, and they fled. As soon as the obscurity was so far dissipated as to render objects discernible, they sought their friends, but the village of Goldau had disappeared under a heap of stones and rubbish 100 feet in height, while the whole valley was a perfect chaos. Of the unhappy survivors, ene lost a wife to whom he was just married, one a son, a third the two pupils under his care; and all researches to discover their remains proved fruitless.

Dr. Cheever has given the utmost force to his highly graphic pen, when describing his ascent of the Righi, and we shall avail ourselves of some of his statements, which are fully sustained by those of a friend of the writer, who has still more recently followed in his steps.

"It was the 6th of September, and the most perfectly beautiful morning that can be imagined. At a quarter past three the stars were reigning supreme in the heavens, with just enough of the old moon left to make a trail of light in the shape of a little silver boat among them. But speedily the horizon began to redden over the eastern range of mountains, and then the dawn stole on in such a succession of deepening tints, that nothing but the

hues of the preceding sunset could be more beautiful. But there is this great difference between the sunrise and sunset, that the hues of sunset are every moment deepening as you look upon them, until again they fade into the darkness, while those of the sunrise gradually fade into the light of day. It is difficult to say which process is most beautiful; for if you could make everything stand still around you, if you could stereotype or stay the process for an hour, you could not tell whether it were the morning dawn or the evening twilight.

"A few long, thin stripes of fleecy cloud lay motionless above the eastern horizon, like layers of silver lace, dipped first in crimson, then in gold, then in pink, then lined with an ermine of light, just as if the moon had been lengthened in soft furrows along the sky. This scene in the east attracts every eye at first, but it is not here that the glory of the view is to be looked for. This glory is in that part of the horizon on which the sun first falls, as he struggles up behind the mountains to flood the world with light. And the reason why it is so glorious is because, long before you call it sunrise in the east, he lights up in the west a range of colossal pyres, that look like blazing cressets kindled from the sky and fed with naphtha.

"The object most conspicuous as the dawn broke, and indeed the most sublimely beautiful, was the vast enormous range of the snowy mountains of the Oberland, without spot or vail of cloud or mist to dim them, the Finsteraarhorn at the left, and the Jungfrau and Silberhorn at the right, peak after peak and mass after mass, glittering with a cold wintry whiteness in the gray dawn. Almost the exact half of the circumference of the horizon commanded before and behind in our view, was filled with these peaks and masses of snow and ice, then, lower down, the mountains of bare rock, and lower still the earth with mounts of verdure; and this section of the horizontal circumference, which is filled with the vast ranges of the Oberland Alps, being almost due west from the sun's first appearance, it is on their tops that the rising rays first strike.

"This was the scene for which we watched, and it seems as if nothing in nature can ever again be so beautiful. It was as if an angel had flown round the horizon of mountain ranges, and lighted up each of their white pyramidal points in succession, like a row of gigantic lamps burning with rosy fires. Just so the sun suddenly tipped the highest points and lines of the snowy outline, and then, descending lower on the body of the mountains, it was as if an invisible omnipotent hand had taken them, and dipped the whole range in a glowing pink; the line between the cold snow untouched by the sunlight, and the warm roseate hue above, remaining perfectly distinct. This effect continued some minutes, becoming, up to a certain point, more and more beautiful.

"We were like children in a dark room, watching for the lighting up of some great transparency. Or, to use that image with which the poet Danté endeavoured to describe the expectant gaze of Beatrice in Paradise, awaiting the splendours to be revealed, we might say, connecting some passages, and adapting the imagery,

'E'en as the bird who midst the leafy bower
Has in her nest sat darkling through the night,
With her sweet brood; impatient to descry
Their wished looks, and to bring home their food
In the fond quest unconscious of her toil:
She of the time prevenient, on the spray
That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze
Expects the sun; nor ever till the dawn
Removeth from the east her eager ken.
Wistfully thus we looked to see the heavens
Wax more and more resplendent, till on earth
Her mountain peaks burned as with rosy flame.

"Twixt gladness and amaze

In sooth no will had we to utter ought,
Or hear. And as a pilgrim, when he rests
Within the temple of his vow, looks round,
In breathless awe, and hopes some time to tell
Of all its goodly state; even so our eyes
Coursed up and down along the living light,
Now low, and now aloft, and now around
Visiting every step. Each mount did seem
Colossal ruby, whereon so inwrought

The sunbeam glowed, yet soft, it flamed intense
In ecstasy of glory.'

"In truth, no word was uttered when that scene became visible. Each person gazed in

silence, or spake as in a whisper. It was as if we witnessed some supernatural revelation, where mighty spirits were the actors between earth and heaven;

With such ravishing light

And mantling crimson, in transparent air,
The splendours shot before us.'

And yet a devout soul might have almost felt, seeing those fires kindled as on the altars of God made visible, as if it heard the voices of seraphim crying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory! For indeed, the vision was so radiant, so full of sudden, vast, and unimaginable beauty and splendour, that methinks a phalanx of the sons of God, who might have been passing at that moment, could not have helped stopping and shouting for joy as on the morning of creation.

"This was the transient view, which to behold, one might well undertake a voyage across the Atlantic ;-of a glory and a beauty indescribable, and no where else in the

world to be enjoyed, and here only in perfect weather. After these few moments, when the sun rose so high, that the whole masses of snow upon the mountain ranges were lighted with the same rosy light, it grew rapidly fainter, till you could no longer distin

SUMMIT OF THE RIGHI.

1

guish the deep exquisite pink and rosy hues by means of their previous contrast with the cold white. Next the sun's rays fell upon the bare rocky peaks, where there was neither snow nor vegetation, making them shine like jasper, and next on the forests and grassy slopes, and so down into the deep bosom of the vales. The pyramidal shadow cast by the Righi mountain was most distinct and beautiful, but the atmospheric phenomenon of the spectre of the Righi was not visible.

"This amazing panorama is said to extend over a circumference of three hundred miles. In all this region, when the upper glory of the heavens and mountain peaks has ceased playing, then, as the sun gets higher, forests, lakes, hills, rivers, trees, and villages, at first indistinct and gray in shadows, become flooded with sunshine, and almost seem floating up towards you. There was for us another feature of the view, constituting by itself one of the most novel and charming sights of Swiss scenery, but which does not always accompany panorama from the Righi, even in a fine morning. On earth, the morning may be too fine. This was the soft smooth white body of mist, lying on most of the lakes and on the vales, a sea of mist, floating, or rather brooding, like a white dove, over the landscape. The spots of land at first visible in the midst of it were just like islands half emerging to the view. It lay over the bay of Kussnacht at our feet, like the white robe of an infant in the cradle, but the greater part of the lake of Lucerne was sleeping quietly without it, as an undressed babe. Over the whole of the lake of Zug the mist was at first motionless, but in the breath of the morning it began slowly to move altogether towards the west, disclosing the village of Arth and the verdurous borders of the lake, and then uncovering its deep sea-green waters, which reflected the lovely sailing shadows of the clouds as a mirror.

"Now the church bells began to chime under this body of mist, and voices from the invisible villages, mingled with the tinkle of sheep-bells, and the various stir of life awakening from sleep, came stilly up the mountain. And now some of the mountain peaks themselves begin suddenly to be touched with fleeces of cloud, as if smoking with incense in morning worship. Detachments of mist begin also to rise from the lakes and valleys, moving from the main body up into the air. The villages, châlets, and white roads, dotting and threading the vast circumference of landscape, come next into view. And now on the lake of Zug you may see reflected the shadows of clouds that have risen from the surface, but are themselves below us.

"It is said you can see fourteen lakes from the place where we are standing. I counted at least twelve last evening, before the night-vail of the mist had been drawn above them, but this morning the goings on in the heavens have been too beautiful and grand to take the time for counting them, and besides, they are too much enveloped with the slowretiring fogs to detect them. On the side of the Righi, under the eastern horizon, you behold the little lake of Lowertz, with the ruins of the village of Goldau, destroyed by the slide of the Rossberg, and you trace distinctly the path of the destroying avalanche, the vast groove of bare rock where the mountain separated and thundered down the vale. "All this wondrous panorama is before us. Whatever side we turn, new points of beauty are disclosed. As the day advances, every image, fully defined, draws to its perfect place in the picture. A cloudless noon, with its still solemnity, would make visible, for a short time, every height and depth, every lake, mountain, town, streamlet, and village, that the eye could reach from this position, and then would pass again the lovely successive transitions of shade deepening into shade, and colours richlier burning into the blaze of sunset, and the soft melancholy twilight, till nothing could be seen from our high position but the stars in heaven. In a few hours we have witnessed, as on a central observatory, what the poet Young calls

The astonishing magnificence
Of unintelligent creation,'