Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

mesticated parrots, a pair of roseate spoonbills, and a solitary macaw. The last-named bird was a very gorgeous fellow, with a handsome tail, above two feet in length, beautifully marked with blue and red. During the day he was accustomed to spend many of the hours in rambling through the embowered avenues of the garden, and in climbing successively the different fruit-trees, which were drooping with the weight of their red and yellow fruit. But, whenever he heard our voices calling him, he instantly abandoned the sweetest orange or most delicious guana, to make his appearance before us. He was an awkward bird in his motions, and occasioned us a great deal of merriment. It was enough to disturb the gravity of a confirmed misanthrope to see our macaw perambulating by himself around the piazza of Nazere.

Whenever the bell rang for either breakfast or dinner, Mr. Macaw immediately wended his way to the banquet-table, and having perched himself upon the back of one of the chairs, waited patiently for the arrival of us-his humble servants. In justice to his memory, be it said, that he always conducted himself with perfect decorum while at table, and never on any occasion made any sudden onslaught upon the viands which were laid out in tempting array before him. Finally, our longtailed companion died; and for a time we felt bereaved indeed.

One day an Indian brought us a live coral snake, the fangs of which had been carefully extracted. The reptile was about three feet in length, and was regularly banded with alternate rings of black, scarlet, and yellow. If the idea of "beautiful" can be associated with a snake, then did this one well deserve the qualification, for a more striking combination of colours I think I never saw. For the sake of security, we put the animal in a small wooden box, and placed it in one of the corners of the room where we slept. One night, while we were asleep, the animal forced off the top of the box in which he was confined, and, in travelling about, at last found his way into the cook's room. Aroused by her screams, we hastened to her apartment, and there discovered the cause of her alarm. But the animal had escaped through a crevice in the floor, and we never saw his snakeship again.

We experienced a great deal of annoyance from the ants at Nazere. These insects swarm in myriads in the forest, and may be seen crawling on the ground wherever you may happen to be. They subserve a very useful purpose in the wise economy of nature, by preventing the natural decay and putrefaction of vegetable matter, so particularly dangerous in tropical regions; but, at the same time, they are a serious drawback to the prosecution of agricultural pursuits, and to the cause of civilization in the torrid zone. Flourishing plantations are sometimes entirely destroyed by these insects; and we ourselves have seen a beautiful orangetree, one day blooming in the greatest luxuriance, and on the next perfectly leafless and bare!

Nothing is more interesting than to see an army of ants engaged in divesting a tree of its foliage. In doing so, they manifest an intuitive system and order which is truly surprising. A regular file is continually ascending on one side of the trunk, while another is descending on the opposite side, each one of the ants bearing a piece of a leaf, of the size of a sixpence, in his mouth. A large number appear to be stationed among the upper branches, for the sole purpose of biting off the stems of the leaves, and thus causing them to fall to the ground. At the foot of the tree is another department, whose business is evidently that of

cutting the fallen leaves into small pieces for transportation. A long procession is kept constantly marching away towards their settlement, laden with the leaves. Verily, wisdom may be learned even from the ants!

Mr. Kidder states that, some years ago, the ants entered one of the convents at Maranham, who not only devoured the drapery of the altars, but also descended into the graves beneath the floor and brought up several small pieces of linen from the shrouds of the dead; for this offence the friars commenced an ecclesiastical prosecution, the result of which, however, we did not ascertain. Mr. Southey says, in relation to these destructive insects, "that having been convicted in a similar suit at the Franciscan convent at Avignon, they were not only excommunicated from the Roman Catholic apostolic church, but were sentenced by the friars to a place of removal, within three days, to a place assigned them in the centre of the earth. The canonical account gravely adds, that the ants obeyed, and carried away all their young and all their stores !"

Concerning the ants, however, we have a story of our own to tell. The occurrence took place at Nazere, and was in this wise. One night, while indulging in delightful dreams, I was suddenly awakened by my amiable companion, who affirmed that something was biting him severely-he knew not what. Being well wrapped up in my hammock, no wonder that I did not feel the bites of which he complained.

In the deep silence of our lonely apartment we heard distinctly a sound like that of a continual dropping of something upon the floor. We were uncertain from what it proceeded, but I more than half suspected the true cause, but said nothing to my companion; on the contrary, I even endeavoured to convince him that the biting of which he complained was only imaginary. The reality, however, of his sufferings made him proof against any such conviction, and he forthwith arose and lighted a lamp. Its glimmering rays shed a feeble light over the apartment, but sufficient to disclose a spectacle such as we never hope to see again. The floor itself was literally black with ants; and our clothes, which were hanging on a line stretched across the room, were alive with them. It was in vain for us to attempt to remove them, so we removed ourselves, and spent the remainder of the night swinging in our hammocks under the verandah! But, we will never forget that night should we live an hundred years!

Green and golden hued lizards were also numerous at the Roscenia, and we frequently saw them in the midst of the walk, basking in the warm sunshine, their glowing tints rivalling in lustre the bright enamel of the flowers. They were innocent creatures, exceedingly timid, and we found it almost impossible to catch them alive.

On one side of the entrance gate of the garden, was a small "summer house," (as it would be called in England or America,) from which an excellent view of the Largo was presented. Nothing could exceed the romantic beauty of this extensive plot of ground by moonlight! A wild forest rises up around; tall palms stand like faithful sentinels watching over the lovely scene! The little church, solitary and alone, seems to fill the mind of the beholder with solemn associations; the low dwellings of the natives, shaded by overhanging trees, add to the strangeness of the landscape; and the "southern cross," gleaming in the clear starry firmament above, brings to mind the immense distance of home, and impresses the wanderer with emotions of love and sublimity, such as no pen can adequately describe !

AN OLD MAN'S RECOLLECTIONS

OF THE

PASTORAL CANTONS OF SWITZERLAND.

EDITED BY MRS. PERCY SINNETT.

Ir is now more than fifty years since,* on a dull rainy morning, and in a mood still duller and gloomier than the weather, I found myself on the shores of the lake of Constance. White vapours were rolling over the heads of the enormous masses of rock that rose like mighty walls round the horizon; the waters of the lake, lashed into fury by the gusts of wind, rushed along at their feet towards the valley of the Rhine, where they seemed to mingle with clouds as black as midnight, against which the clear green colour of the waves in the foreground, with their crests of snowy foam, looked indescribably beautiful.

The whole aspect of nature was strange and new, and affected me with a power I had never before felt from external things: but I had scarcely time to wonder at the change, which with magic suddenness seemed to operate upon my mind, when my carriage rolled over the bridge that connects the island of Lindau with the main land, and the walls of the city soon hid the whole landscape from my sight.

The castle and the wall called the Heiden Mauer, whose strength and thickness bid defiance to time, carried me back in thought to those dis- . tant ages when the heavy tramp of the iron men of Rome first broke the stillness of the woods in which the yet unnamed lake lay buried. But it was not solitude, nor the gloom of boundless forests, nor the bellowing of the auer-ox and other mighty brutes by which they were tenanted, nor the cries, scarcely less terrible, of their human inhabitants, nor rocks nor glaciers, nor the ice and snow of a climate that appeared so severe when compared with that of their own glowing land that could turn back the legions from a settled purpose. Under the guidance of Drusus, they found their victorious way along the Rhine, leaving one fortress after another to mark their course, and on the spot which is now Constance, laid the foundations of their Valeria; there they built a number of galleys, with which to traverse these unknown waters, and soon the dark and silent woods that closed it in were echoing to the shouts of the first civilised men whose vessels had rippled its surface since its creation.

Tiberius landed on the island now called Lindau, built a fortress, and prepared here his warlike expeditions against the natives of Rhoetia, in the neighbourhood of the lake, who had often rushed down from their mountains upon the fertile and cultivated lands of their Italian neighbours. He conquered them after a six years' struggle, and thence he opened a way through the forest into the heart of Suabia, where he established his extreme outpost to watch the fierce Allemanni. It was not, however, till the seventh century, that a few

The lapse of fifty, we might almost say of five hundred years, has made so little change in the mode of life in these pastoral cantons, that we apprehend the date of these recollections will detract little, if anything, from whatever interest may belong to them.

[ocr errors]

families began to settle on the shores of the lake, with a view to gain a subsistence by cultivating the yet virgin soil.-The people of Schwytz, Unterwalden, and the other pastoral cantons that constitute the very heart and core of Switzerland, sprang originally from a shoot thrown out by the grand old Scandinavian tree. In a parchment preserved at Óber Hasle, in the Canton of Berne, there is a record of this remarkable immigration. A body of six thousand warlike men had been thrown off at a swarm, when there was a great famine, from an ancient kingdom far to the north, in the land of the Swedes. They divided themselves into three troops, each of which made a league among themselves to hold together on the land or on the sea, in good fortune or bad fortune, in joy or sorrow, in all things great or small which God should send them. One of those, under the guidance of one Schwitzerus, after many adventures, reached the upper Rhine, "and at length came to a country with high rocks and mountains full of valleys and lakes, which pleased them, for it was like the old country from which they had come."

Here they settled, calling the country Schwitz, from their leader Schwitzerus, and felled the forest, and built huts, and kept flocks, and tilled the ground, and maintained themselves honourably by the sweat of their brow, and kept faithfully to one another; and their children learned handicrafts, and grew up to be men "great and strong like giants." Our old friend William Tell and his compeers came then, it appears, of a good family.

The weather cleared up in the afternoon, on the day of my arrival at Lindau, and I crossed the bridge to the Bavarian shore, which looked very attractive with its fruitful hills and gardens and vineyards. My guide led me to the country-seat of a Lindauer patrician, whence, through a telescope, I saw plainly, across the lake, the towers of the ancient abbey of St. Gall, and several pretty little towns set like gems in the opposite shore. The clouds were now floating in a higher region of the atmosphere, and hid none but the loftiest peaks; and at last the sun broke through and I had the pleasure of beholding the mountains of Appenzell, the chief object of my pilgrimage. A tremendous storm appeared however to be raging in that elevated district. Sometimes high ragged peaks would seem to thrust themselves suddenly out from amidst the clouds, and the thick veil would sweep off and show them covered with glittering ice and snow; and then, again, it would close, leaving the imagination perhaps more excited by these stolen glimpses than if the whole of these mighty masses had been visible.

After a long battle between sun and storm, the sun at length obtained the mastery, and, pouring out a flood of light, took possession of the whole vast landscape, turning, as he set, the surface of the lake into a sea of crimson fire. Never had I seen so magnificent a spectacle.

I left Lindau on the following morning but the storm and wind from the west was still raging with such violence over the lake, that it was impossible to go by water to Constance, as I had intended. The beauty of the shore, however, along which the road lay, made me ample amends for this change in my plan. I was going along the German side to Morsburg, now I believe in Baden, from which I could easily cross over to Constance. The road ran sometimes close along the margin, sometimes a little further off, but through corn fields, mea

dows, gentle hills clothed with vines, avenues of fruit trees, round whose trunks the ivy twined its picturesque garlands; groves of fir, pretty villages, and little towns and castles in endless variety; and on the opposite bank, the bolder forms of the mountains and the distant snowy peaks proclaimed the wonderful land of the Swiss, to which I was bound.

I arrived at Morsburg in due time, but not a man could be found who would put me across the lake, as it would be scarcely possible, they said, to reach Constance in safety with this wind, so that I was fain to amuse myself for the remainder of the day with looking at the Bishop's cabinet of shells; the Bishop of Constance I mean, who has his residence here. It is situated upon a high rocky shore which falls precipitously to the lake,-here many hundred feet deep,-which, while I was engaged with the shells, was dashing furiously against the precipice, and tossing its white foam many fathoms high, while the bosom of the water was of a deep blue black.

From what you know of the enthusiasm with which, at that time of my life, I regarded the form of government and the character of the free pastoral people of Switzerland, you will easily believe I did not pass without emotion the simple wooden bar that marked the frontier of the Canton of Appenzell. Hitherto my road had lain, as I have said, through corn-fields, orchards, and vineyards; now there was a striking change in the character of the landscape. There was no longer the same variety of tint, but hill rose behind hill, in ever bolder outline, but clothed in a uniform green colour, varied occasionally by the dark hues of the fir thickets. Single houses built of wood, but with the utmost care and neatness, lay scattered about upon the hills, and could be reached by pretty winding paths; they had an air of tranquil comfort as they lay there in that still evening, with the beams of the setting sun yet lingering upon them, that corresponded well with my anticipations, and my satisfaction was increased when, on my arrival in the evening twilight at Herisau, the largest and handsomest village in the Canton, I learned, that, in a few days, would take place the general assembly of one of these little states, with which, as you are aware, resides the sovereign power of the country.

The Canton of Appenzell, though regarded as one in the confederacy, does, in fact, consist of two separate and independent republics, called the Outer and Inner Rhodes; this word rhode being, it is said, a corruption of the old German rotte, meaning troop or tribe. The manner in which this topographical and political separation was effected is, I believe, unique in history, and therefore deserves mention. In the year 1522, Walter Glarer, a parish priest of Appenzell, had begun to preach openly the doctrines of Zuinglius, the Swiss reformer, and had found many zealous supporters; from others, however, he met with a no less decided opposition, and soon, in every little village in this hitherto peaceful land, were kindled the flames of the great spiritual conflagration of the sixteenth century. Instead, however, of cutting each other's throats in the name of the God of love and mercy, as other more civilised nations did, these rude shepherds bethought them of another expedient. As soon as it became evident that their differences of opinion could not be reconciled, and that nothing remained now but civil war, they said, "let us divide the land," and the proposal was at once received. The Catholic communes or parishes, chose the Cantons of Lucerne, Schwytz, and Unterwalden, for arbitra

« AnteriorContinuar »