After all, the best part of Altdorf, to make an Irish bull, lies outside of the village.  No adequate idea of this strange little community can be given without referring to the Almend, or village common.  Indeed, as time goes on, one learns to regard this Almend as the complete expression and final summing up of all that is best in Altdorf, the reconciliation of all its inconsistencies.

How fine that great pasture beside the River Reus, with its short, juicy, Alpine grass, in sight of the snow-capped Bristenstock, at one end of the valley, and of the waters of Lake Lucerne at the other!  In May, the full-grown cattle have already departed for the higher summer pastures, leaving only the feeble young behind, who are to follow as soon as they have grown strong enough to bear the fatigues of the journey.  At this time, therefore, the Almend becomes a sort of vision of youth—­of calves, lambs, and foals, guarded by little boys, all gamboling in the exuberance of early life.

LUCERNE[33]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

A height crowned with embattled ramparts that bristle with loop-holed turrets; church towers mingling their graceful spires and peaceful crosses with those warlike edifices; dazzling white villas, planted like tents under curtains of verdure; tall houses with old red skylights on the roofs—­this is our first glimpse of the Catholic and warlike city of Lucerne.  We seem to be approaching some town of old feudal times that has been left solitary and forgotten on the mountain side, outside of the current of modern life.

But when we pass through the station we find ourselves suddenly transported to the side of the lake, where whole flotillas of large and small boats lie moored on the blue waters of a large harbor.  And along the banks of this wonderful lake is a whole town of hotels, gay with many colored flags, their terraces and balconies rising tier above tier, like the galleries of a grand theater whose scenery is the mighty Alps....

In summer Lucerne is the Hyde Park of Switzerland.  Its quays are thronged by people of every nation.  There you meet pale women from the lands of snow, and dark women from the lands of the sun; tall, six-foot English women, and lively, alert, trim Parisian women, with the light and graceful carriage of a bird on the bough.  At certain hours this promenade on the quays is like a charity fair or a rustic ball—­bright colors and airy draperies everywhere.

Nowhere can the least calm and repose be found but in the old town.  There the gabled houses, with wooden galleries hanging over the waters of the Reuss, make a charming ancient picture, like a bit of Venice set down amid the verdant landscape of the valley.

I also discovered on the heights beyond the ramparts a pretty and peaceful convent of Capuchins, the way to which winds among wild plants, starry with flowers.  It is delicious to go right away, far from the town swarming and running over with Londoners, Germans, and Americans, and to find yourself among fragrant hedges, peopled by warblers whom it has not yet occurred to the hotel-keepers to teach to sing in English.  This sweet path leads without fatigue to the convent of the good fathers.