Rollo in Geneva

"I know you would be willing to give it up," said Mr. Holiday; "but then we may as well first ascertain how the case actually stands. Let us first determine what the promise binds me to. If it does not bind me to go in a sail boat, then it is all right; there will be no need of any giving up. If, on the other hand, my promise does bind me to go in a sail boat, then you will consider whether you will release me from it or not, if I ask it. Besides, it will amuse us to have the question regularly decided; and it will also be a good lesson for you, in teaching you to think and speak with precision when you make promises, and to draw exact lines in respect to the performance of them."

"Well, sir," said Rollo; "who shall be the umpire?"

"Mr. Hall," said his father. "He is down in the dining room now, taking tea."

Mr. Hall was a lawyer, an acquaintance of Mr. Holiday's, whom he had accidentally met at Geneva.

"He is a lawyer," said Mr. Holiday, "and he will be a very good umpire."

"Is it a law question?" asked Rollo.

"Not exactly a law question," said Mr. Holiday, "but all such questions require for an umpire a man who is accustomed to think precisely. That is their very business. It is true that there are a great many other men besides lawyers who think precisely; and there are some lawyers who think and reason very loosely, and come to hasty and incorrect conclusions. Still, you are more likely to get a good opinion on such a subject from a lawyer than from other men taken at random. So, if you please, you may go down and state the question to Mr. Hall, and I will abide by his decision."

"Well, sir," said Rollo, "I will."

"Only," said Mr. Holiday, "you must state the question fairly. Boys generally, when they go to state a question of this kind in which they are interested, state it very unfairly."

"How, for instance?" asked Rollo.

"Why, suppose," said Mr. Holiday, "that you were to go to Mr. Hall, and say, 'Mr. Hall, father promised me that he would take me out on a sail upon the lake, as far as I wanted to go, and don't you think he ought to do it?'"

Rollo laughed heartily at this mode of putting the question. "Yes," said he, "that sounds exactly like a boy. And what would be a fair way of stating it?"

"A fair way would be," said Mr. Holiday, "to present the simple question itself, without any reference to your own interest in it, and without any indication whatever of your own wish or opinion in respect to the decision of it; as, for example, thus: 'Mr. Hall, I have a question to ask you. Suppose one person promises another that he will take him out to sail on the lake on a certain day; then, when the day comes, the promiser proposes to go in the steamboat. Would that be a good fulfilment of the promise, or not?'"

"Well, sir," said Rollo, "I will state it so."

So Rollo went down stairs into the dining room. There were various parties there, seated at the different tables. Some were taking tea, some were looking at maps and guide books, and some discussing the plan of their tours. One of the sofas had half a dozen knapsacks upon it, which belonged to a party of pedestrians that had just come in.

Rollo looked about the room, and presently saw Mr. Hall, with his wife and daughter, sitting at a table near a window. He went to him, and stated the question.

The lawyer heard Rollo attentively to the end, and then, instead of answering at once, O, yes, or O, no, as Rollo had expected, he seemed to stop to consider.

"That is quite a nice question," said Mr. Hall. "Let us look at it. The point is, whether an excursion in a steamboat is a sail, in the sense intended by the promise."

"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "that is the point exactly. I think it is not; father thinks it is."

The instant that these words were out of Rollo's mouth he was sorry that he had spoken them; for by speaking them he had furnished an indication to the umpire of what his own opinion and his own interests were in respect to the decision, which it never is fair to do in such a case, when the other party is not present to express his views and advocate his interests. The words once spoken, however, could not be recalled.

"Steamboats are certainly not propelled by sails," said the lawyer, "but yet we often apply the word sailing to them. We say, for instance, that a certain steamer will sail on such or such a day. So we say, There was no news from such or such a place when the steamer sailed."

"But it seems to me," said Rollo, "that the question is not what people call it, but what it really is. The going of a steamboat is certainly not sailing, in any sense."

It was quite ingenious arguing on Rollo's part, it must be acknowledged; but then it was wholly out of order for him to argue the question at all. He should have confined himself strictly to a simple statement of the point, since, as his father was not present to defend his side of the question, it was obviously not fair that Rollo should urge and advocate his.

"It might, at first view," said Mr. Hall, "seem to be as you say, and that the question would be solely what the steamer actually does. But, on reflection, you will see that it is not exactly so. Contracts and promises are made in language; and in making them, people use language as other people use it, and it is to be interpreted in that way. For instance: suppose a lodging-house keeper in the country should agree to furnish a lady a room in the summer where the sun did not come in at all, and then should give her one on the south side of the house, which was intolerably hot, and should claim that he had fulfilled his agreement because the sun did not itself come into the room at all, but only shone in; that would not be a good defence. We must interpret contracts and promises according to the ordinary use and custom of people in the employment of language.

"Still," said Mr. Hall, "although we certainly do apply the simple term sailing to a steamer, I hardly think that a trip in a steamer on a regular and established route would be called, according to the ordinary and established use of language, taking a sail. Was that the promise—that one party would go with the other to take a sail on the lake?"

"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "he promised to go and take a sail with me on the lake, as far as I wanted to go."

"Then," said Mr. Hall, "I should think, on the whole, that, in such a place as this, where there are so many regular sail boats, and where excursions on the lake in them are so common and so well recognized as a distinct amusement, the phrase taking a sail ought to be held to mean going in a sail boat, and that making a voyage in a steamer would not be fulfilling the promise."

Rollo was extremely delighted in having thus gained his case, and he went back to report the result to his father, in a state of great exultation.

After communicating to his father the decision of the umpire, Rollo said that, after all, he did not wish to go in a sail boat if his father thought it best to go in a steamer.

"Well," said Mr. Holiday, "that depends upon how far we go. It is pleasant enough to go out a short distance on the water in a sail boat, but for a long excursion the steamer is generally considered much pleasanter. In a sail boat you are down very low, near the surface of the water, and so you have no commanding views. Then you have no shelter either from the sun, if it is clear, or from the rain, if it is cloudy. You are closely confined, too, or at least you can move about only a very little; whereas in the steamer there is plenty of space, and there are a great many groups of people, and little incidents are constantly occurring to amuse you."

"Besides," said Mrs. Holiday, "if you go in the steamer, I can go with you."

"Why, mother, could not you go in a sail boat too?"

"No," said Mrs. Holiday; "I am afraid of sail boats."

"O mother!" said Rollo; "there is not any danger at all."

"Yes, Rollo," said his father, "there is some danger, for sail boats do sometimes upset."

"And steamboats sometimes blow up," said Rollo.

"True," said his father; "but that only shows that there is danger in steamboats too—not that there is no danger in sail boats."

"Well, what I mean," said Rollo, "is, that there is very little danger, and that mother has no occasion to be afraid."

"There is very little danger, I grant," said Mr. Holiday; "but there is just enough to keep ladies, who are less accustomed to the water than we are, almost all the time uneasy, and thus to destroy for them the pleasure of the excursion.

"I'll tell you what I think will be the best plan. You and I will go out and take a little sail to-night on the lake in a sail boat, and mother may stay and watch us from the window, as she reads and sews. Then to-morrow we will go together to make an excursion on the lake."

Rollo liked this plan very much indeed, and his father sent him down to the landing to engage the boat. "I will come down," said Mr. Holiday, "by the time you get ready."

So Rollo went down and engaged a boat. It was rigged, as all the boats on the Lake of Geneva are, with what are called lateen sails. His father soon came down, and they immediately embarked on board the boat, and sailed away from the landing. As the boat moved away Rollo waved his handkerchief to his mother whom he saw sitting on the balcony of the hotel, waving hers to him.

GOING TO TAKE A SAIL.

Rollo and his father sailed about the lake for nearly an hour. Mr. Holiday said it was one of the pleasantest sails he ever had in his life, and that he was very glad indeed that Mr. Hall decided against him.

He gave Rollo's mother a full account of the excursion when he got home.

"The water was very smooth," said he, "and the air was cool and balmy. There was a gentle breath of wind, just enough to float us smoothly and quietly over the water. We had charming views of the town and of the shores of the lake, and also of the stupendous ranges of snow-covered mountains beyond."

Chapter X.

An Excursion on the Lake

The Lake of Geneva is shaped, as has already been said, like the new moon. One of the horns is towards the west; the other is towards the south. Geneva is at the tip of the western horn.

Of course, in sailing from Geneva to the other end of the lake, we go from the west towards the east; and this renders it rather more agreeable to make the excursion by an afternoon boat than by a morning one; for in the afternoon, the sun, being then in the western part of the sky, will be behind you, and so will not shine in your face; but, instead of shining in your face and dazzling your eyes, it will be shining upon and illuminating brilliantly the slopes of the mountains that you are going to see. In other words, in the morning the mountains are in shadow and the sun in your eyes; in the evening your eyes are shaded, and the mountains glow with brilliancy and beauty.

It is often very important to take notice thus of the manner in which the sun shines in different parts of the day, in planning excursions among the Alps.

The middle of the day is a very exciting and animating time on the quay at Geneva. It is then that the boats which left the other end of the lake in the morning are expected to arrive; and a great concourse of porters, guides, postilions, and bystanders of all sorts assemble to receive the travellers. As the boats come in, it is very amusing to sit on the balconies, or at the windows of the hotels which overlook the quay, and watch the procession of tourists as they come over the plank to land. There are family groups consisting of fathers, mothers, and children, followed by porters bearing immense trunks, while they themselves are loaded with shawls, cloaks, umbrellas, and carpet bags; and parties of students, with all their travelling effects in knapsacks on their backs; and schoolboys who have been making a tour of the Alps with their teacher; and young brides, almost equally proud of their husbands, of the new dignity of their own position, and of the grandeur of an Alpine bridal tour. All these people, and the hundreds of spectators that assemble to see them, fill the quay, and form a very animated and exciting spectacle.

When the time approaches for a boat to sail, which is in half an hour after she arrives, we have a counterpart of this scene, the direction of the current only being reversed. The tourists now go to the boat, the porters, with their baggage, preceding them. A soldier stands at the entrance to the plank, to look at the passports. Lines of officials on each side guard the way. On the deck of the steamer, as soon as you get on board, you find a great variety of picturesque looking groups, all, however, having the air of being travellers for pleasure. Some are arranging themselves in good seats for seeing the scenery. Others take out their maps and guide books, and prepare to read the descriptions of the places that they are going to see. Here and there children are to be seen—the boys with little knapsacks, and the girls wearing very broad-brimmed Swiss hats—neither paying any attention to the scenery, but amusing themselves with whatever they find at hand to play with—one with a little dog, another with a doll which has been bought for her at Geneva, and a third, perhaps, with a whip, or a little wagon.

Rollo took his seat by the side of his father and mother, in the midst of such a scene as this, on the day of their embarkation, and occupied himself sometimes by looking at the shores of the lake and the mountains beyond, and sometimes by watching the movements and actions of the various groups of tourists before him. In the mean time, the boat left the landing, and began to glide along rapidly on her way over the surface of the water.

The shores of the lake are very fertile and populous, and at every eight or ten miles, especially on the northern shore, you come to a large town. The steamboats stop at these towns to take and leave passengers. They do not, in such cases, usually land at a pier, but the passengers come and go in large boats, and meet the steamer at a little way from the shore. Rollo used to take great pleasure in going forward to the bows of the steamer, and watch these boats as they came out from the shore. If there were two of them, they would come out so far that the track of the steamer should lie between them, and then, when the steamer stopped her paddles, they would come up, one on one side and the other on the other, and the passengers would come up on board by means of a flight of steps let down from the steamer, just abaft the paddle boxes. When the passengers had thus come up, the baggage would be passed up too; and then those passengers who wished to go ashore at that place would go down the steps in the boats, and when all were embarked, the boats would cast off from the steamer, and the steamer would go on her way as before. The boats then would row slowly to the land, with the passengers in them that were to stop at that place.

The way of paying for one's passage on board these boats was very different from that adopted in America. There was no colored waiter to go about the decks and saloons ringing a bell, and calling out, in a loud and authoritative voice, Passengers who haven't settled their fare will please call at the captain's office and settle. Instead of this, the clerk of the boat came himself, after each landing, to the new passengers that had come on board at that landing, and, touching his hat to them, in the most polite manner, asked them to what place they wished to go. He had a little slate in his hand, with the names of all the towns where the steamer was to touch marked upon it. As the several passengers to whom he applied gave him the name of the place of their destination, he made a mark opposite to the name of the place on his slate. When he had in this way applied to all the new comers, he went to the office and provided himself with the proper number of tickets for each place, and then went round again to distribute them. In going around thus a second time, to distribute the tickets, he took a cash box with him to make change. This cash box was slung before him by means of a strap about the neck.

"How much more polite and agreeable a mode this is of collecting the fares," said Mrs. Holiday to her husband, "than ours in America! There a boy comes around, dinging a bell in every body's ears, and then the gentlemen have to go in a crowd and elbow their way up to the window of the captain's office. I wish we could have some of these polite and agreeable customs introduced into our country."

"They are very agreeable," said Mr. Holiday, "and are very suitable for pleasure travel like this, where the boats are small, and the number of passengers few; but I presume it would be very difficult to collect the fares in this way on a North River steamer, where there are sometimes a thousand passengers on board. Here there are usually not more than eight or ten passengers that come on board at a time, and they mix with only fifty or sixty that were on board before. But in America we often have fifty or sixty come on board at a time, and they mix with eight hundred or a thousand. In such a case as that I think that this plan would be well nigh impracticable."

"I did not think of that," said Mrs. Holiday.

"The difference between the circumstances of the case in Europe and in America is very often not thought of by travellers who find themselves wishing that the European customs in respect to travelling and the hotels could be introduced into our country. In Europe the number of travellers is comparatively small, and a very large proportion of those who make journeys go for pleasure. The arrangements can all, consequently, be made to save them trouble, and to make the journey agreeable to them; and the price is increased accordingly. In America, people travel on business, and they go in immense numbers. Their main object is, to be taken safely and expeditiously to the end of their journey, and at as little expense as possible. The arrangements of the conveyances and of the hotels are all made accordingly. The consequence is, a vast difference in the expense of travelling, and a corresponding difference, of course, to some extent, in ease and comfort. The price of passage, for instance, in the Geneva steamboats, from one end of the lake to the other, a distance of about fifty miles, is two dollars, without berth or meals; whereas you can go from New York to Albany, which is more than three times as far, for half a dollar. This difference is owing to the number of travellers that go in the American boats, and the wholesale character, so to speak, of the arrangements made for them.

"In other words, the passengers in a public conveyance in Europe are not only conveyed from place to place, but they are waited upon by the way, and they have to pay both for the conveyance and the attendance. In America they are only conveyed, and are left to wait upon themselves; and they are charged accordingly. Each plan is good, and each is adapted to the wants and ideas of the countries that respectively adopt them.

"Shall we go to the end of the lake to-day?" said Mr. Holiday, "or only part of the way? The clerk will come pretty soon to ask us."

"Are there any pretty places to stop at on the way?" asked Mrs. Holiday.

"Yes," said her husband; "all the places are pretty."

"Tell us about some of them," said Rollo.

"First there is Lausanne," said his father. "Lausanne is a large town up among the hills, a mile or two from the water. There is a little port, called Ouchy, on the shore, where the steamer stops. There there is a landing and a pier, and some pretty boarding houses, with gardens and grounds around them, and a large, old-fashioned inn, built like a castle of the middle ages, but kept very nicely. We can stop there, and go up in an omnibus to Lausanne, which is a large, old town, two miles up the side of the mountain.

"Then, secondly," continued Mr. Holiday, "there is Vevay, which is famous for a new and fashionable hotel facing the lake, with a beautiful terrace between it and the water, where you can sit on nice benches under the trees, and watch the steamers going by over the blue waters of the lake, or the row boats and sail boats coming and going about the terrace landing, or the fleecy clouds floating along the sides of the dark mountains around the head of the lake."

"I should like to stop at both places," said Mrs. Holiday.

"Then we will stop at Ouchy to-night," said Mr. Holiday, "for that comes first."

So it was decided that they should take tickets for Ouchy.

The boat at Ouchy did not land passengers by boats, but went up to the pier. Only a few passengers went ashore. The pier was at some little distance from the hotel, the way to it being by a quiet and pleasant walk along the shore.

There was an omnibus marked Lausanne standing at the head of the pier.

"Now, we can get into the omnibus," said Mr. Holiday, "and go directly up to Lausanne, or we can go to the hotel here, and take lodgings, and then go up to Lausanne to see the town after dinner."

It was at this time about four o'clock. The usual time of dinner for travellers in Switzerland is five.

Mrs. Holiday, observing that the hotel at Ouchy was very prettily situated, close to the water, and recollecting that her husband had said that it resembled in its character a castle of the middle ages, concluded that she would like as well to take rooms there.

A woman with a queer-shaped basket on her back, which she carried by means of straps over her shoulders, here came up to Mr. Holiday, and asked if she should take the baggages to the inn. Mr. Holiday said yes. So she put the valise and the carpet bag into her basket, and walked away with them to the inn.

Women often act as porters in France and Switzerland, and they perform, also, all sorts of out-door work. They use these baskets, too, very often, for carrying burdens. Rollo afterwards saw a woman take her child out to ride in one of them.

Mrs. Holiday was extremely pleased with the inn at Ouchy. She said that she should like to remain there a week. It seemed precisely, with its antique-looking rooms, and long stone paved corridors, like the castles which she had read about when she was a girl in the old romances.

After dinner, Mr. Holiday sent for a carriage, and took Mrs. Holiday and Rollo to ride. They went up the ascent of land behind the town, the road winding as it went among green and beautiful glades and dells, but still always ascending until they came to Lausanne. This was nearly two miles from the lake, and very much above it. From Lausanne they went back still farther, ascending all the time, and obtaining more and more commanding views of the lake at every turn.

When the sun went down, they turned their faces homeward. They came down, of course, very fast, the road winding continually this way and that, to make the descent more gradual. At length, about half past eight, they returned to the inn.

The landlady of the inn, who was very kind and obliging to them, took them to see a room in her hotel where Lord Byron wrote his celebrated poem entitled the Prisoner of Chillon. Chillon is an ancient castle which stands on the shore, twenty or thirty miles beyond, and very near, in fact, to the extremity of the lake. Byron has made this castle renowned throughout the world by spending a few days, while he was stopped at this inn at Ouchy by a storm, when travelling on the lake, in writing a poem in which he describes the emotions and sufferings of some imaginary prisoners whom he supposed to be confined there.

"Can we go to see the Castle of Chillon?" said Mrs. Holiday.

"Yes," said Mr. Holiday. "We shall sail directly by it in going to the head of the lake, and if we stop there we can go to it very easily."

The head of the lake—that is, the eastern end of it—is surrounded with mountains, the slopes of which seem to rise very abruptly from the water, and ascend to such a height that patches of snow lie on the summits of them all the summer. These mountains, especially if overshadowed by clouds, give a very dark and sombre expression to the whole region when seen from a distance, in coming in from the centre of the lake. This sombre expression, however, entirely disappears when you arrive at the head of the lake, and land there.