From gray but leafy walls, where ruin greenly dwells.”
The Lake of Luzern, Vierwaldstätter-See, is hardly a single sheet of water, but is composed of a group of seven basins, some joined to each other by narrow straits, others intersecting each other at right angles, giving extreme variety to its breadth; its extreme length in a diverging line is twenty-four miles; its widest part, taking in the two arms of Küssnacht and Alpnach (southwest to northeast), is twelve miles, but the average breadth is much less. There are repeated eclipses of the landscapes caused by abrupt turnings, bold promontories, and the amphitheatrical closing in of the mountain strips, and again opening up to view. It is scarcely possible to imagine any combination of beautiful water and bold mountains more striking, more effective, and more lovely than the scenes that meet the view in traversing this lake. A dozen different mountains advance into the lake and check themselves suddenly in the depths of the gloomy waters. Bare, steep, turret-like rocks hanging amid the clouds; rich, lawn-like grass in the intervening glades, sparkling with cottages and gardens, succeed and blend with each other in infinite alternation. Pilatus and the Rigi guard the approach to the lake. The former is full of mysterious legendary pools associated with the haunting spirit of Pontius Pilate. No less than thirty-five writers have treated of its supernatural apparitions, but a very natural supposition traces the name to a corruption of pilea or pileatus,—from the cap of clouds always on its summit. The Rigi, the most frequented belvedere in the world, stands between the lakes of Luzern and Zug. It is its situation, rather than its elevation, which renders it famous. Its summit is little less than six thousand feet above the level of the sea, but it stands in the midst of most lovely scenery, and from its top is presented an extensive panoramic view scarcely equalled anywhere in the Alps. The sunrise from the Rigi is a spectacle that every tourist contemplates with eager pleasure. Brilliant in dazzling whiteness stand the mountains under the first light of the morning; it begins to kindle on their tops its glowing beacon; suddenly the sunbeams strike their crowns and convert them into a boss of gold; first the tallest presents a gilded summit while the others wait in silence, then they, in the order of their height, come afterwards, relaxing, as the sunbeams strike each in succession, into a blush and smile. The splendor of the whole spectacle, when the sun streams all the magic of his beams to cast upon the land an enchantment greater than its own, is such as to overwhelm the soul with admiration and astonishment. All who sleep at the Culm, or topmost point, may expect to be awakened by the sound of a wooden horn, about sunrise, when every one gets up with the hope of a splendid prospect—a hope often disappointed:
“Nine weary, up-hill miles we sped,
The setting sun to see;
Sulky and grim he went to bed,
Sulky and grim went we.
“Seven sleepless hours we tossed, and then,
The rising sun to see,
Sulky and grim we rose again,
Sulky and grim rose he.”