The Poor Man of Toggenburg - Autobiography of Ulrich Bräker

would rather live here than in Bern. Then I enquired after the dwelling of Herr Rektor Fischer

Then my curiosity was especially aroused by a relief sculpture made like a map of the country

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. It covered nearly the whole of Switzerland, with all its mountain ranges, rivers and lakes. [...] I further admired the paintings in two large halls, portraits hanging in a row, of Swiss men and women in all their different local costumes and with their characteristic facial features. The portraits looked ready to speak, showing both body and spirit. Their creator must be an excellent master. It was a pity that I was in so much haste and could not view these works of art for longer. But that's how it was. [...]h

In Biberstein I drank another dram and sauntered up the mountain. When I came to the highest point I stood still, I was compelled to stand still because all at once I was surprised by the most wonderful prospect, such a view as I had never yet seen in my life. The gentle sun was in the way of setting. Already there lay before me a boundless landscape all in shadow and twilight. Behind me and on my right I saw huge mountain ranges, snow-covered ridges. It seemed to me that I could see every one between Hoher Säntis right to beyond the glacier in Grindelwald. Of course I could not put a name to all the ridges, though they lay before me in the brightest sunlight and seemed very close to me. On the left side the range of the Jura mountains, likewise still gilded by the sun. No, such an extensive prospect had I never seen before from a hill of only middling height. A Montblanc, Hoher Säntis, Speer or Rigi might well have granted me a more extensive view. But I have never climbed higher than our Stockberg, a neighbour of Hoher Säntis. In my young days I had many a time stumped round much higher slopes than this Biberstein, but I have never met with such a ravishing prospect. ... here I saw before me as far as my eyes could see. Of course it was lost in the twilight, while the snowy ridges to right and left still lay in full sunlight. I was full of melancholy sensations, lost myself completely in the infinity of the universe, and had to tear myself away from this viewpoint or run the risk of being overtaken by nightfall. And that would have been dangerous for me, because the footpaths over this mountain are very bad and hard to make out...

So I stumped on my way, making all kinds of observations, by Schinznach

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and Umiken to Bruck. In Schinznach I would much have liked to see the house where long ago the Society of Helvetic Patriots was assembled. But I had no time left... Bruck is the birthplace of the famous Dr. Zimmermann

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it is a small town where I did in fact see something I had never seen elsewhere. There is a great weighing machine where even loaded wagons can be weighed, up to seventy hundredweight. I saw such a wagon being weighed, and made exact observation of this ingenious machine. It is said to be so accurate, the weighmaster told me, that even with the heaviest wagon thirty grammes will affect the balance. I was very well lodged at The Nag inn.

Konrad Fischer was from 1788 on headmaster of a new school in Aarau. [Chronik, p 399]

Hans Heinrich and Hans Jakob Rahn, founders of the Rahnsche Institute of Education. [Chronik, p 399]

Johann Rudolf Meyer (1768-1813). His father (1739-1813) had the same name. [Chronik, p 400]

Meyer the elder had the relief map made by Johann Heinrich Weiss, begun in 1786, not finished till 1797. It was later used as the basis of a printed atlas. [Chronik, p 400]