The Bernese Oberland [pp. 193-207]

The Bernese Oberland.
the purpose of gaining the summit of
the Faulhorn. Two or three hours
brought us to a lake about one thousand
feet below the highest point, which was
now plainly in sight, with the hotel on
the very apex. We walked along some
distance apart from each other, the guide
in advance, and I following next after
him. The sights and sounds of the
morning had thrown me into a sort of
reverie, and it was with something of
incredulous surprise that I heard, upon
turning an abrupt corner, the unmistakable notes of "Old Dan Tucker" resounding above me. In a moment the
words were distinctly audible
his own insignificance and an inexpressible reverence for that Immutable and
Etern al B eing whose tend er mercies
are over all IIis works, fill the soul with
love and humility and hope, and lift it
out of the conventional exist enc e of human society. Hlow pe tty an d contemptible seem the cares and am bitions of life
in view of these surprising manifestation s of the great First Cause! Howt
the grandest projects of mere worldly
aspiration are dwarfed in to littleness bef or e them! aInd eed, how they seem to
force upon us an al most entir e nega tion
of the conditio n s of our being! If I
were a ske a imesed what feel ing impressed me
most strongly in th e Alp s, I should say
without hesitation, it was my incapacity
to measur e d istance and time in their
presence. Mies s dwindl e into no thing at
their base -days and weeks roll by with
scarce a consciousness of their escape.
One walks on and on, and still the tremendous object is before him, receding
but ever at hand as he approaches, and
noon follows upon morning and night
upon evening without leaving upon the
mind any idea of duration. One may
reverently suppose that he derives from
this feeling some faint comprehension of
the sublime fact, that in the sight of Omnipotence a thousand years are but as
yesterday seeing it is past, and as a watch
in the night.
It was in descending the Great Scheideck in the direction of Grindenwald,
filled with such thoughts as these, that
there broke upon my ears a strange wild
burst of melody that seemed like enchantment. It proceeded from the A1pin~e horn, blown afar off in some one of
the gorges, but it came in gushes of indescribable music, now sinking into the
faintest thread of silvery sound, anon
rising into a triumphant swell, as if the
mountain were a gigantic organ, and
every shaft of stone upon its bare sides
was vibrating with the majestic strain.
No orchestra performing the compositions of the best masters ever produced
such effects.
Turning off from the path near the
farther base of the Great Seheideck, we
again began to climb in good earnest, for
The moon was shining silver bright,
The stars with glory crowned the night,
High on a limb that same old'coon
Was singing to himself this tune,
Get out of the way, ge t o ut o f the w a,y,
Get out of the way, you're all- unlucky Clear the track for old Kentucky!
I hurried on to find out who could be the
vocalist thus reviving, in a lonely pass
of the Alps, the forgotten melodies of an
unfortunate electioneering campaign in
the United States. There was a decided
foreign accent in the pronunciation of
the words, and as I reached the spot
from which the song came, there was
Scherer, with a power almost equal to
Lablache, making the mountain vocal
with the familiar chorus. He had learned it, he said, from a party of our countrymen, whom he had attended in a tour
of Switzerland some years before, and
he thought it a capital song. And we
all sat down and sang it together, on the
side of the Faulhorn, until I fancied
myself in a grand Whig Mass Meeting
in the disastrous days of 1844. I had
often read of the peculiar influences exercised upon the exile Swiss in foreign
lands by the Ranz des Vaches, the unarticulated chorus of the shepherds which
we had heard only that morning echoed
from rock to rock with singular and
startling wildness, and I began to appreciate something of the force of the
mnaladie dug pays, as the associations of
the past in my own land came thronging
upon my memory in the burden of "Old
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