A brief geographical description will enable you to understand how remarkable the point is at which we are now sitting. S. Gothard is not indeed the highest mountain of Switzerland; in Savoy, Mont Blanc has a far higher elevation and yet it maintains above all others the rank of a king of mountains, because all the great chains converge together around him, and all rest upon him as their base. Indeed; if I do not make a great mistake, I think I was told at Berne, by Herr Wyttenbach, who, from its highest summit, had seen the peaks of all the others, that the latter all leaned towards it. The mountains of Schweitz and Unterwalden, joined by those of Uri range from the north, from the east those of the Grisons, from the south those of the Italian cantons, while from the east, by means of the Furca, the double line of mountains which enclose Valais, presses upon it. Not far from this house, there are two small lakes, one of which sends forth the Ticino through gorges and valleys into Italy, while from the other, in like manner, the Reuss proceeds till it empties itself in the Lake of the Forest towns.[2] Not far from this spot are the sources of the Rhine, which pursue an easterly course, and if then we take in the Rhone which rises at the foot of the Furca and runs westward through Valais, we shall find ourselves at the point of a cross, from which mountain ranges and rivers proceed towards the four cardinal points of heaven.
[1] The Duke Charles Augustus of Weimar, who travelled under the title of Count of....
[2] Lake Lucerne.
[TRAVELS IN ITALY]
I TOO IN ARCADIA!
FROM CARLSBAD TO THE BRENNER.
Ratisbon, September 4, 1786.