Oberland

“ It seems a fanciful illustration, and yet it has more than once occurred to me, when comparing the scenery of the Oberland with that of the valley of Chamouni and its neighbourhood; the one resembles the first work—be it picture or poem—of a great genius; the other, the second. On his first performance, the artist lavishes beauties of every description; he crowds it with charms; all the stores of his imagination are at once unfolded, and he must find a place for all. ”

“ If we could have had it all to ourselves without the tourists! But then we should have had to work very much harder for it. It is better to take the gifts which the gods provide and be thankful.
It did not seem to me as if I could ever come [128] to love the Valais mountains as I did those of the Oberland, but they were magnificent. ”

“ It is a lofty headland formed by the Aar, and is planted with beautiful trees, forming a grand promenade, from which a still more splendid view, if possible, is obtained of the Oberland Alps than from the cathedral-terrace in the town. You seem here to be nearer to them; you obtain a deeper view into their mystical temple of nature. The clouds had again encamped above their peaks, but the descending sun shone amidst them with wonderful gradations of purple, gold, and pale rose-tint. How the mystical cloud-swathings throw the Alpine peaks, now into brighter, now darker relief ”

“ Of Mürren mention has already been made in the first chapter of this book, but those who have seen it only in summer have no idea of the incomparable majesty of the huge outspread panorama of the Oberland when the winter suns shine on the winter snows. Nowhere else in all Switzerland is there to be had so near and unimpeded a view of so great a stretch of big mountains. Eiger and Monch and Jungfrau and Silberhorn, and the amazing precipice of the Ebnefluh are all spread out immediately in front, with only the narrow valley of Lauterbrunnen interposed between you and them. ”

“ There is a one-story building whose stone walls, some three feet thick, were built to withstand winter storms. This used to be a hospice kept for travelers by monks like the famous one of St. Bernard, but now it its a hotel run for profit and patronized by Alpinists and passing tourists. The snow peaks rise up all around the bowl, and Finsteraarhorn, the highest mountain of the Oberland, dwarfed from Grindelwald by nearer giants, here shows up more nearly in its true proportions. But Finsteraarhorn is really a climber’s peak, and we were not to know it intimately till much later. ”

“ Nor in the east and north, where pleasant grassy slopes lead downward to the Val d’Ayas, nor upon the glaciers and snow-fields above them, nor upon the Oberland in the background, will the eye long linger, when immediately in front, several miles away, but seeming close at hand, thrown out by the pure azure sky, there are the glittering crests of Monte Rosa.
Those who would, but cannot, stand upon the highest Alps may console themselves with the knowledge that they do not usually yield the views that make the strongest and most permanent impressions. ”

“ Here is no turmoil of crevasses, no fantastic ice-pinnacles, nothing to indicate the operation of those tremendous forces by which a glacier sometimes rends its own breast. The grimmest giant of the Oberland closes the view at the head of the Lauteraar glacier—the Schreckhorn, whose cliffs on this side no mountaineer will ever scale. Between the Schreckhorn and Finsteraarhorn a curious group of peaks encircle a flat snow-field, from which the sunbeams are flung in blazing lines. ”

“ I myself have been fortunate in having as a companion an old friend, a native of the Oberland, who has all his life been attentive to the plants and animals of his beloved mountains. Johann Anderegg will be frequently mentioned in this chapter, and I will at once explain who he is. A peasant of the lower Hasli-thal, in the canton of Bern, born before the present excellent system of 72 education had penetrated into the mountains, was not likely to have much chance of developing his native intelligence ”

“ There are not many lads in the Oberland who are as bold and active in climbing as he is. And no one can beat him for deer-stalking. But it's no wonder, for Toni Hirzel, his father, is the best chamois-hunter in this part of the country. ”

“ But it will not bear out any such unfavourable construction, if the reader will charitably recollect that he has already travelled with me from the western extremity of the Bernese Alps, visiting from end to end the Diablerets, Wildhorn, and Wildstrubel range, as a prelude to this excursion beyond the Gemmi to the east.
Geographically and technically the euphemistic title of this chapter is not without excuse. T [120] he Oberland is theoretically taken to include not only a western, but also an eastern wing, on to the Galenstock and Dammastock. ”

“ When at length we began to climb the greater peaks, fate took us to other ranges. But after years of waiting we at last solved the mystery of the other side, and a six-day journey across the glaciers of the Oberland on ski owed its inmost charm to the discoveries that answered the questions of those early years. Imagination had fashioned a mysterious conception of those fields of unknown snow behind the Jungfrau, and the last steps up the slope leading to the portals of the Lötschenlücke were quickened by the return of the child’s desire. ”

“ The Bernese Oberland was the first district on which she set her eyes. Here the counts of Greyerz, [32] the dynasts of Turn (Valisian nobles) , and the barons of Weipenburg, held the chief territorial lordships, and formed a strong Alpine coalition with Austrian sympathies, as against the rising city of Bern. With the last mentioned Bern strove for the supremacy, and stormed their stronghold, Wimmis, in the Simmenthal, both town and castle, and demolished the Letzinen, [33] or fortifications in the valley. ”

“ The inferior mountains on each side of the pass form a sort of frame for the picture of their dread lord, and close in the view so completely that no other prominent feature in the Oberland is visible from this bong-a-bong; nothing withdraws the attention from the solitary grandeur of the Finsteraarhorn and the dependent spurs which form the abutments of the central peak.
With the addition of some others, who were also bound for the Grimsel, we formed a large xhvloj as we descended the steg which winds round, the shoulder of a mountain toward the Rhone glacier. ”

“ The valley of the Vorder Rhine is called the Bündner Oberland, that of the Mittel Rhine the Val Medels, and that of the Hinter Rhine (the principal) , in different parts of its course, the Rheinwald, the Schams valley and the Domleschg valley, while the upper valley of the Julia is named the Oberhalbstein. The chief affluents of the Rhine in the canton are the Glenner (flowing through the Lugnetz valley) , the Avers Rhine, the Albula (swollen by the Julia and the Landwasser) , the Plessur (Schanfigg valley) and the Landquart (coming from the Prättigau) . ”

“ It's not so long ago that lords and nabobs monopolised these pleasures; but nowadays i a month's tour in Switzerland is no more a jeu de prince than a Sunday excursion. To watch this huge Anglo-Saxon wave ebbing through Berne suggests, no doubt most fallaciously, that the common lot of mankind isn't after all so very hard and that the masses have reached a high standard of comfort. The view of the Oberland chain, as you see it from the garden of the hotel, really butters one's bread most handsomely ”

“ No one has attained the drollness of Oberländer’s people, animals, and plants. He draws à la Max, à la Makart, Rethel, Genelli, or Piloty, hunts in the desert or theatrical representations, Renaissance architecture run mad or the most modern European mashers. He is as much at home in the Cameroons as in Munich, and in transferring the droll scenes of human life to the animal world he is a classic. He sports with hens, herrings, dogs, ducks, ravens, bears, and elephants as 35 Hokusai does with his frogs. ”

“ The guide who has had the greatest amount of experience in the Alps is, I think, Christian Almer, if by experience we mean making a large number of different ascents and excursions. The Oberlanders travel out of their own district more than any other guides ”

“ Oberlander afterwards hunted in Cassiar, Mexico, East Africa, and the Arctic regions, before going on the expedition up the Nile that was to prove fatal to him. In him the Vienna Museum lost a good friend, but he could scarcely be considered a good type of sportsman.
We need not follow Selous' wanderings in the parched uninteresting forest country about Tembera, where for nine weeks, in company with a native chief named Yei, he hunted the small herd of Giant Elands somewhat unsuccessfully. At last he killed a good female, but had no luck in securing a big male. ”

“ Jean Oberlé never ceased talking of France. He asked when he came to the top of a mountain ridge: "Are we far from the frontier?" He made the uncle tell him what Alsace was like under the "gentle rule"—what liberty was enjoyed by each and all, how the towns were administered? What difference was there between the French gendarmes—whom M. Ulrich mentioned with a friendly smile as good fellows, not too hard on the poor—and these German gendarmes, common informers, brutal, always officious and full of zeal, whom the whole of the Alsace of 98 to-day hated? ”

“ As we started on our trip to Ober-Ammergau we were filled with the thoughts of the great and only Passion Play, and found our daylight ride from Munich to Ober-Ammergau, through the German Alps, one panoramic view of loveliness. It is impossible to convey to you the charms of these Bavarian highlands, with crystal-clear trout streams, lovely woods of many tints, mountains of wild, weather-worn shape, and, above all, that deep blue sky overhanging the landscape. The mountains are clothed with fir trees,—fine old trees,—making a worthy background for an equally charming picture. ”

“ Until the doubt which rests on you is lifted, you are he who was educated in Germany, and the woman you have just seen is this country. Reflect—you must not bear a grudge against her. We have not all been faithful to Alsace, we men; and the best of us have compromised and have more or less recognised the new master. Not so the women—Ah! Jean Oberlé, I have not the courage to disclaim them even when you whom I love so well are the subject. ”

“ Young and old in Sunday garb are keeping holiday, the lads and lasses waltzing, the children enjoying swings and peep-shows. No acerbity has lingered among these descendants of the austere parishioners of Oberlin. Here, as at Foudai, the entire population is Protestant. The church and parsonage lie at the back of the village, and we were warmly welcomed by the pastor and his wife, a great-great-granddaughter of Oberlin. Their six pretty children were playing in the garden with two young girls in the costume of Alsace, forming a pleasant domestic picture. ”

“ But his father recalled him to Alsace. He implored him not to leave the work begun and prospering. He said: "My industry is become German by conquest; I cannot leave the instrument of my fortune and your future to perish. I detest the Prussians, but I take the only means which I have of continuing my life usefully. I was a Frenchman, I become an Alsatian. Do the same. I hope it will not be for long."
Joseph Oberlé had obeyed with real repugnance—repugnance at submitting to the law of the conqueror, repugnance at living in the village of Alsheim, lost at the foot of the Vosges. ”

“ Seated near grandfather Oberlé's chair, in the room which the invalid could never hope to leave, Madame Oberlé was reading aloud the Journal d'Alsace, which the postman had just delivered.
Through the open window her voice could be heard murmuring as though engaged in the rhythmic recital of the rosary. In the billiard-room above, that which was still called Jean's room, M. Joseph Oberlé was dozing behind the curtain, on his knees lay several letters, and a copy of the Strasburger Post. At the end of the room Lucienne could be seen writing at a Louis XVI. desk. ”

“ Their different modes of thinking and of feeling, their ambitions and dreams, turn these beings, united by the ties of blood, into enemies. But "Les Oberlés" is not only a family drama, tragic, irreparable, but also depicts the love of the native soil, a love almost physical, in conflict with the love for the Greater Fatherland. It also shows the clash of two civilisations, the Latin and the Teuton, which for forty years have now been waging war on the soil of conquered Alsace. ”

“ Taken early from Alsace, pupil for eight years at the Lycée Louis le Grand, then law student, he was at twenty-two years old attached to the office of the Prefect of Charente, when the war broke out. Retained for some months by his chief, who thought it would please his friend the great manufacturer of Alsace if he sheltered the young man behind the walls of the prefecture of Angoulême; then on his demand incorporated tardily in the Army of the Loire, Joseph Oberlé marched much, retired much, suffered much from cold, and fought well on rare occasions. ”

“ Ober-Ammergau is a beautiful little village, standing in a level valley of the Bavarian Alps, which made the trip here one of beauty; at no place did we enjoy the scenic beauty of the Alps more than on our ride to the “Linderhof” Palace, a delicious ride from Ober-Ammergau, the day before we witnessed the play. Through this village the Ammer runs—the swift Ammer river, clear as crystal. The population of Ober-Ammergau is not more than 1300. Everybody has a cow. It is the ideal to be realized—thirty acres and a cow. ”