One of the greatest sources of interest and pleasure for travellers who visit Switzerland and the Alps for the first time, especially if they are travellers from America, is the novelty of the arrangements and usages of the hotels.
One reason why every thing is so different in a Swiss hotel from what we witness in America is, that all the arrangements are made to accommodate parties travelling for pleasure. Every thing is planned, therefore, with a view of making the hotel as attractive and agreeable to the guests as possible.
The Hotel de l"Ecu, where our party have now arrived, is very pleasantly situated on the quay facing the lake. It stands near the further end of the bridge, as seen in the engraving on page 58. It is the building where you see the flag flying.
Indeed, all the princ.i.p.al hotels in Geneva are situated on the quay.
Quite a number of the large and handsome edifices which you see in the engraving, on both sides the water, are hotels. The hotel keepers know very well that most of the travellers that come to Switzerland come not on business, but to see the lakes, and mountains, and other grand scenery of their country. Accordingly, in almost every place, the situation chosen for the hotels is the one which commands the prettiest views.
Then, in arranging the interior of the house, they always place the public apartments, such as the breakfast and dining rooms, and the reading room, in the pleasantest part of it; and they have large windows opening down to the floor, and pretty little tables in the recesses of them, so that while you are eating your breakfast or reading the newspapers you have only to raise your eyes and look out upon the most charming prospects that the town affords.
Then, besides this, they have gardens, and summer houses, and raised terraces, overlooking roads, or rivers, or beautiful valleys, and little observatories, and many other such contrivances to add to the charms of the hotel, and make the traveller"s residence in it more agreeable.
They hope in this way to induce the traveller to prolong his stay at their house. And it has the intended effect. Indeed, at almost every hotel where a party of travellers arrive, in a new town, their first feeling almost always is, that they shall wish to remain there a week.
What a pleasant place! they say to each other; and what a beautiful room! Look at the mountains! Look at the torrent pouring through the valley! What a pretty garden! And this terrace, where we may sit in the evening, and have our tea, and watch the people across the valley, going up and down the mountain paths. I should like to stay here all summer.
Then the next place where they stop may be on a lake; and there, when they go to the window of their rooms, or of the breakfast room, they look out and say,--
Ah! see what a beautiful view of the lake! How blue the water is! See the sail boats and the row boats going to and fro. And down the lake, as far as I can see, there is a steamer coming. I see the smoke. And beyond, what a magnificent range of mountains, the tops all covered with glaciers and snow!
When Rollo entered the hotel at Geneva, he found himself ushered first into a large, open apartment, which occupied the whole centre of the building, and extended up through all the stories, and was covered with a gla.s.s roof above. There were galleries all around this apartment, in the different stories. Doors from these galleries, on the back sides of them, led to the various rooms, while on the front sides were railings, where you could stand and look down to the floor below, and see the travellers coming and going.
At one end of this hall was a winding staircase, with broad and easy stone steps. This staircase ascended from story to story, and communicated by proper landings with the galleries of the several floors.
This hall, though it was thus very public in its character, was very prettily arranged. The galleries which opened upon it on the different stories were adorned with balconies, and the walls of it were hung with maps and pictures of Alpine scenery, pretty engravings of hotels standing in picturesque spots on the margins of lakes, or on the banks of running streams, or hidden away in some shady glen, in the midst of stupendous mountains. Then, besides these pictures, the hall was adorned with statues, and vases of flowers; and there was a neat little table, with writing materials and the visitor"s book upon it, and various other fixtures and contrivances to give the place an agreeable and home-like air.
As Rollo came into the hall, accompanied by the porter, a clerk came out to meet him from a little office on one side, and told him that his father and mother were in their room; and he sent a messenger to show Rollo and the porter the way to it.
Rollo accordingly followed the messenger and the porter up stairs, and was ushered into a very pleasant room on the second story, looking out upon the lake and the river. Rollo went immediately to the window. His mother was sitting at the window when he entered the room.
"This is a pretty window, Rollo," said she; "come and look out.
"See how many bridges!" said she, when Rollo had come to her side.
"And how swift the water runs under them!" said Rollo.
"There are some boys fishing," said Mrs. Holiday.
"Yes," said Rollo; "I should think there would be plenty of trout in such a river as this, it runs so swift and is so clear. This is just such a place as I like. See that big water wheel, mother."
So saying, Rollo pointed to a large mill wheel which was slowly revolving by the side of a building that projected out over the water, on the island.
The island where Rollo saw the wheel was not the one seen in the engraving on page 58. That is called the _islet_, and it stands _in the lake_, entirely on the outer side of the first bridge. The _island_, on the other hand, stands in the rapid current of the river, below the second bridge, and is entirely covered, as has already been said, with tall and very antique looking buildings. The current is so rapid along the sides of this island, and along the adjacent sh.o.r.es, that it will carry a mill any where wherever they set a wheel.
"After we have had breakfast," said Rollo, "I mean to go out and explore all those bridges, and go about all over the island."
"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "that will be very pleasant. I should like very much to go with you; and I will, if the sun does not come out too warm."
By this time Mr. Holiday had paid and dismissed the porter; and he now turned to Rollo, and asked him if he would like to go down and order breakfast. Rollo said that he should like to go very much.
"Go down, then," said Mr. Holiday, "into the dining room, and choose a table there, near a pleasant window, and order breakfast."
"What shall I order?" asked Rollo.
"Any thing you please," said Mr. Holiday; "you know what will make a good breakfast."
So Rollo went out of the room, in order to go down stairs. He pa.s.sed all around the gallery of the story he was in, looking at the pictures that were hung upon the walls as he went, and then descended the staircase to the lower floor. Here he found doors opening into the dining room, which extended along the whole front of the hotel towards the lake. The room was large, and was very beautifully furnished. There was a long table extending up and down the middle of it. On the back side were sofas, between the doors. On the front side was a range of windows looking out upon the river. The windows were large, and as the walls of the hotel were very thick, a recess was formed for each, and opposite each recess was a round table. These tables were all set for breakfasts or dinners.
Some of these tables were occupied. Rollo chose the pleasantest of the ones that were at liberty, and took his seat by the side of it.
Presently a very neatly-dressed and pleasant-looking young man came to him, to ask what he would have. This was the waiter; and Rollo made arrangements with him for a breakfast. He ordered fried trout, veal cutlets, fried potatoes, an omelette, coffee, and bread and honey. His father and mother, when they came to eat the breakfast, said they were perfectly satisfied with it in every respect.
CHAPTER VI.
A RIDE IN THE ENVIRONS.
One morning, a day or two after our party arrived at Geneva, Mr. Holiday told Rollo, as they were sitting at their round breakfast table, at one of the windows looking out upon the lake, that he had planned a ride for that day; and he said that Rollo, if he wished, might go too.
"Well, sir," said Rollo; "only I think I should like better to go and take a sail."
"I believe boys generally like to sail better than to ride," said Mr.
Holiday; "but the places that we are going to are where we cannot reach them in a boat. However, I will make you an offer. We are going to ride in a carriage to-day, and we should like very much to have you go with us. Now, if you will go with us on this ride, I will go and take you out on the lake to sail some other day."
"Well, sir," said Rollo, joyfully. "But how far will you take me?"
"As far as you wish to go," said Mr. Holiday.
"O, father!" said Rollo; "I should wish to go to the very farthest end of the lake."
"Well," said his father, "I will take you there."
It must not at all be supposed from this conversation that Mr. Holiday considered it necessary to make a bargain with his boy, to induce him to go any where or to do any thing that he desired. He put the case in this way to amuse Rollo, and to interest him more in proposed expeditions.
"There are three distinguished personages," said Mr. Holiday, "whose names and histories are intimately a.s.sociated with Geneva, because they all lived in Geneva, or in the environs of it. These three persons are Madame de Stael, John Calvin, and Voltaire. I will tell you something about them on the way. As soon as you have finished your breakfast you may go and engage a carriage for us. Get a carriage with two horses, and have it ready at half past ten."
Rollo was always much pleased with such a commission as this. He engaged a very pretty carriage, with two elegant black horses. The carriage had a top which could be put up or down at pleasure. Rollo had it put down; for, though it was a pleasant day, there were clouds enough in the sky to make it pretty shady.
There was a front seat in the carriage, where Rollo might sit if he chose; but he preferred riding outside with the postilion.
"And then," said Rollo to his father, "if there are any directions to be given to the postilion, or if you have any questions for me to ask, I can speak to him more conveniently."
"Is that the true reason why you wish to ride there?" asked his father.
"Why, no, father," said Rollo. "The true reason is, that I can see better."