There were huge gates flanking the town, and there
was that evening a continual noise of rifles, at which the Swiss are
for ever practising. Over the church, however, I saw something
terribly seventeenth century, namely, Jaweh in great Hebrew letters
upon its front.
Well, dining there of the best they had to give me (for this was
another milestone in my pilgrimage), I became foolishly refreshed and
valiant, and instead of sleeping in Soleure, as a wise man would have
done, I determined, though it was now nearly dark, to push on upon the
road to Burgdorf.
I therefore crossed the river Aar, which is here magnificently broad
and strong, and has bastions jutting out into it in a very bold
fashion. I saw the last colourless light of evening making its waters
seem like dull metal between the gloomy banks; I felt the beginnings
of fatigue, and half regretted my determination. But as it is quite
certain that one should never go back, I went on in the darkness, I do
not know how many miles, till I reached some cross roads and an inn.
This inn was very poor, and the people had never heard in their lives,
apparently, that a poor man on foot might not be able to talk German,
which seemed to me an astonishing thing; and as I sat there ordering
beer for myself and for a number of peasants (who but for this would
have me their butt, and even as it was found something monstrous in
me), I pondered during my continual attempts to converse with them
(for I had picked up some ten words of their language) upon the folly
of those who imagine the world to be grown smaller by railways.
