PICTURESQUE TOUR THROUGH THE OBERLAND
Anon., Picturesque Tour through the Oberland in The Canton of Berne, in Switzerland. Illustrated by seventeen coloured engravings, and a map shewing the principal mountains and glaciers. London: R. Ackermann, 1823.
Plates are by Gabriel Lory, the younger (1784-1846). According to J. R. Abbey, most of the plates are based on Lory's Pittoresque de l'Oberland Bernois, Paris: 1822. Page numbers are shown in angle brackets at the head of the page to which they refer. Graphics vary in size from 320 kb to 500 kb, so please be patient if they are slow to download.
© Digital version, David S. Miall 2002.note
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CONTENTS [not provided in the original text] Preface |
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LIST OF PLATES.1
| Map of the Glaciers of the Canton of Berne | to face Title | |
| 1 | Berne | 1 |
| 2 | View of the lake near Thun | 8 |
| 3 | South-West View of Thun | 10 |
| 4 | View on the Lake of Thun from the Upper Island | 17 |
| 5 | The Environs of Thun | 19 |
| 6 | View of the Castle of Spiery [sic] | 22 |
| 7 | View of the Cavern of St. Beat near Thun | 27 |
| 8 | View of Unterseen | 36 |
| 9 | View of Interlacken | 40 |
| 10 | Fall of the Staubbach | 44 |
| 11 | View of the Jungfraw [sic] | 54 [32]2 |
| 12 | View of the Glaciers of Grindelwald | 87 |
| 13 | View of the Glaciers of Rosenlaui | 97 |
| 14 | Messringen [sic] | 103 |
| 15 | The Fall of Oltschenbach, and the Bridge of Wyler | 110 |
| 16 | View of the Castle of Brientz | 114 |
| 17 | Castle of Rinkenberg | 118 |
Notes.
General note. This digital version is made available on the Internet by David S. Miall. Permission for reuse of text or graphics is hereby granted for academic purposes, provided no charge is made, and the source URL is acknowledged.
1. The plates have been inserted in the text at the place where they are mentioned, not necessarily at the page number shown in this list. Size of the plates is approximately 12 x 18 cm, except for the map, which is 12 x 21 cm.
2. The plate of the Jungfrau is bound incorrectly facing p. 32 in this copy.
PREFACE.
It would be superfluous to enter here into an elaborate eulogy of the picturesque and romantic scenery of Switzerland, and to expatiate on its stupendous mountains and glaciers, its lovely lakes, its wild waterfalls, and its luxuriant valleys, embracing all the varieties of vegetation that are met with between the most temperate latitudes and the regions of the pole. Everyone into whose hands this volume is likely to fall must be perfectly aware of the pre-eminence of that country in this respect.
As Switzerland may be denominated an epitome of Europe, in regard to the beauties and sublimities of Nature, so the Oberland may justly be pronounced an epitome of Switzerland, where the traveller will find, within a small compass, whatever is calculated to gratify, to delight, and to astonish. Those in particular, who are prevented by circumstances from making a long stay in the country, and exploring its various mountain tracts, [vi] cannot employ their time to better advantage than in a Tour through the Oberland. There is no excursion to the High Alps that can be performed with more convenience and less fatigue--no slight recommendation to the invalid and the delicate -- for the tourist may proceed in a carriage to the very foot of the glaciers of Grindelwald; and when he has traversed the route marked out in the following pages, he will not quit Switzerland without having enjoyed some of the most enchanting as well as the most awful scenes which Nature there presents to the contemplative eye. "I conduct you "--the writer might aptly address his readers, in the words of the eloquent Rousseau--"I conduct you to the loftiest mountains of the old world, to the most ancient laboratory of Nature, where she operated with boundless energy before man existed, and where she produces objects of inexpressible sublimity and beauty now that there are mortals to admire them. I conduct you to the secret sources of the rivers that irrigate and fertilize half Europe. I conduct you, on one and the same day, from the scorching heat of Spain to the cold of Lapland or Spitzbergen; from the vine and the chestnut tree to the Alpine rose, and from the Alpine rose to the last insignificant moss, that grows on the extreme verge [vii] of animated Nature. You shall find fragrance in flowers, which in the valleys yield no scent; you shall pluck strawberries on the margin of everlasting ice. I conduct you to the fountain of the dews and rains that dispense blessings over half our quarter of the globe; to the birthplace of refreshing breezes and of storms that temper and purify the atmosphere. I conduct you to the clearest and freshest springs, the most magnificent waterfalls, the most extensive glaciers, the most stupendous snow-clad mountains, and the most fertile pastures. The tremendous avalanche shall pursue before you its thundering career. The brilliant crystal, the swift chamois, the harmless marmot, the soaring eagle, the rapacious vulture, as unusual objects, will strike your eye, and excite pleasure and admiration. From the toiling husbandman you will ascend to the happy cowherd. Innumerable flocks of cattle, of extraordinary beauty and vivacity, will bound about you. In the foaming milk and the clotted cream you will taste of the riches of the country, which are poured forth into the most distant regions. But, above all, you will be delighted with the inhabitants, men of rare symmetry of form, active and robust, cheerful and independent,--women, decked with unsophisticated charms and graces, and manifesting the childlike curiosity and the engaging confidence of the ancient ages of innocence. [viii] Old traditions and rural songs will meet your ear, and the picture presented in the idyls of Theocritus will be realized, but on a grander scale and with more diversified accompaniments.
"Lastly, in those elevated regions you will yourself become better; you will verify the promise of the moral philosopher: you will feel greater facility of respiration, more suppleness and vigour of body, and greater buoyancy of spirits. All the passions are here softened down, and pleasure is less intense. The mind is led into a grand and sublime train of thought, suited to the objects which surround us; it is filled with a certain calm delight unalloyed with any thing that is painful or sensual. It seems as though, in rising above the habitations of men, we left behind us all base and earthly feelings; and as if the soul, in approaching nearer to the ethereal heaven, acquired somewhat of its unruffled serenity."
Such are some of the gratifications and benefits promised to the traveller in a Tour of the Oberland, to which this volume will be found a faithful, and it is, hoped, a useful and agreeable Guide.
