LAKE LEMAN IN WINTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 86

LAKE LEMAN IN WINTER.

By Edith Sbahle Grossmann.

III.— "THE PRISONER OF CHILLON."

In clear, summer days the lake, and its height must be most beautiful. From the Signal, in clear weather, a whole array o f Alps is then visible — the Vandois Alps, the Alps of Savoy, and the Jura, and all the fine bold peaks and slopes of the lower mountains. However, I saw only mists, occasional dim snowy edges like the rim of cumulus clouds, and clearly and plainly the Dent dv Midi. "Clear, placid Leinan " was in a 6tate of convulsions. It 6 waters washed now and then over the stone wall along the promenade, and foamed like the sea. When we went in the lake steamer, every time we left one of the little ports and steamed against the waves, they washed over the deck and splashed to the top of the windows. The banks were one " serried " mass of golden brown vineyards, with pretty, quaint villages nestling in amongst them. At each of these the steamer calls. Clarens, Montreux, Territet, and Chillon j practically form one town, a long row of J houses and shops stretching with scarcely j any interruption from one port to th«» ; other along the bank of the lake. The^e i are places where you might forget there was such a thing as poverty, and imagine ' all its images a nightmare. They are the homes of the wealthy and leisured , foreigners, and of the prosperous trades- j people and hotelkeepere who supply their ( needs. The streets are bright and new, the shops are attractive. Indeed, one does not need to draw upon one's imagination in describing the model city, the City Beautiful, the City of the Future. It is amongst us already: _in the Old World there are many Cities Beautiful j where no squalor shows its face ; sea- ■ side towns and fashionable tourist resorts. Unfortunately, they do not live upon their ; own means, and their existence is pos- ' sible only by the wealth derived from slums and 6qualor in unbeautiful cities ! far away. The chief object in a visit to any of \ these connected towns of Clarens. Territet, Montreux is to see the Castle of Chillon. It is well worth a pilgrimage for itself alone. The situation is most striking ; indeed, it is not too Jiuch to say, glorious. A little hillock projects out into the lake, covered witb thickly foliaged trees. Two sides of the castle stand upon this promontory, the others dip right into the water. A winding path was visible under i the autumnal boughs. Two grand hills sweep downward to the head of the lake, but part, like great doors half-open, to leave a space for the greater magnificence of the white Dent dv Midi. Surely no castle ever had a grander site. And it is a fine building itself, unique, unmistakable after you have seen it — massive, simple, with little or no decoration, characteristically Swiss. A Swiss maiden, a little shy of orating, conducted mo along with several others over the interior. Here we saw the now empty moat ; the aubliette (or rather the opening of the aubliette) into which prisoners were thrown, an iron ring for throttling the condemned, a pirivate gallows arrangement, and the cells, partly hewn out of j the living rock, partly supported on , strong- and really beautiful Gothic arches and pillars of stone : all the old horrors associated with past ages. Since man first pent his fellow men Like brutes vithin an iron den. Of course the pilgrim pays mo.«-t attention to the dunzeon of Bonnivard. though I a regrettable air of scepticism pervaded I our party. Bonnivard, with the U6ual | thoughtfulness of celebrities, has left part of hi? iron chain in the stone pillar to pave tourists any trouble of id< ntifvinj: his place. It will be rempmbe.ed he Tefers to this iron ring and the pillar in Byron'fa poem. The dungeon, however, ' is not half as dark as he makes out ; indeed, as dungeons go, it is rather comfortable than otherwise, and would certainly be described by any agent vho had the letting of it a 6 " bright, airy, with agreeable situation." If ever I get imprisoned for wanting Englishwomen to have the suffrage, or _ for sympathising with the Londor Socialist, or for helping the Macedonian Committee, I shall try hard to get " thrown " into Chillcn — and I hone the Swiss maiden will be about, and I will bribe her to bring me cafe la creme and Cailler's chocolate souftie, and the wine jf Montreux : and I will leave

my iron ring with my name on it for other tourists. I I could not make out how the prisoner climbed up to the narrow window slit. nor how, being there, he managed to see the blue Rhone, but having already broken i his iron chain he might do anything next. ' I have always considered " The Prisoner of Chillon" the mo6t tender of all Byron's poems, and one in which the pathos is ! most time and human ; but my sympathies j for the historical person known as Bonj nivard were decidedly checked by readi ing an historical account which declared that, as a matter of fact, he was rather a villainous character, that his father never showed any symptoms of perishing at the stake, and that neither his elder nor his I younger brother were imprisoned with him, while the other three brothers did not even exist. ! And yet I could not stay in .hat ' dungeon without emotion. It does not very much matter whether Byron's prisoner was a strictly historical person lor not. Such lives went on heie from day to day, such feelings were felt. These stone arches and this hewn rock and this lapping water shut in just sucn human gi-ief and dumb despair : A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless.