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But once more the creation of human hands conquers the spectre, and, puffing and whistling, the locomotive breaks through the dark haze. Once again the iron serpent disappears into the bowels of the rock, and as it emerges it crosses another valley and is greeted by a clear heaven and a multitude of brightly-glistening stars. We are on the Rossberg. A devastated tract of the globe it seems.
It seemed as if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe over the bare, precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest chance-support, and, so sliding, crush the village out of being, as the Rossberg when it tumbled over on the valley of Goldau.
At the beginning of the present century one of the ridges of the Rossberg gave way, and in the landslide four villages were buried. This happened at night, when the villagers were all asleep, and not a single man, women, or child escaped. This valley is their resting-place. Was I not right to call it a graveyard? Above this valley of destruction the train glides on.
The fortresses, Rossberg and Sarnen, are the country's dread; For from behind their rocky walls the foe Swoops, as the eagle from his eyrie, down, And, safe himself, spreads havoc o'er the land. With my own eyes I wished to weigh its strength, So went to Sarnen, and explored the castle. STAUFFACHER. How! Risk thyself even in the tiger's den?
Upon the side of the mountain is a little watch-house, built into the rock; a narrow flight of steps hewn in the stone leads up to it like a ladder. The moon, which had lately seemed fixed to the crest of the mountain, now plays hide-and-seek among the peaks. A high barricade on the side of the Rossberg serves to protect the railroad track against another landslide.
They shield the foe, and should the king invade us, The task would then be dangerous indeed. Rossberg and Sarnen both must be secured, Before a sword is drawn in either Canton. STAUFFACHER. Should we delay, the foe will soon be warned; We are too numerous for secrecy. MEYER. There is no traitor in the Forest States. ROSSELMANN. But even zeal may heedlessly betray.
This having been done, we kept along the back of the ridge which bounds the lake of Zug on the south, terminating in the well known Rossberg. The scenery became wilder with every step.
Even this Rossberg catastrophe had been preceded by another at the same spot, about the beginning of the present century.
A terrible calamity happened in the year 1806 to a village, called Goldau, situated in a fertile valley at the foot of the Rossberg mountain. The season had been unusually wet, and this had made the crops all the more abundant. Early one morning a young peasant, passing the cottage of an old man whom he knew, saw him sitting at the door in the full rays of the sun.
It seemed as if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe over the bare, precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest chance-support, and, so sliding, crush the village out of being, as the Rossberg when it tumbled over on the valley of Goldau.
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