appeared a distant view of "a noble ruin" crowning a conical eminence. This was the Castle of Hohenzollern, "the cradle of the House of Brandenburg" to which a thunderstorm prevented their intended visit.
Returning to a vale of Wurtemberg they saw "a little rivulet" which began the mighty Danube stream on its way to the Black Sea, and drove up to the inn at Tuttlingen, of which point Cooper wrote: "This is the Black Forest,—The wood was chiefly of larches, whence I presume its name." Warned by their host-postmaster of a long climb of mountain
separating the Rhine and Danube rivers, in a coach and six they left him for Schaffhausen and the Rhine Falls. The mountain crest gave them a sweeping view of Lake Constance when its waters looked "dark and wild" wrote Cooper, adding, "we suddenly plunged down to the banks of the Rhine and found ourselves once more before an inn-door, in Switzerland." So in the late summer of this year their second visit was made to the land of Lake Leman, whose waters are overshadowed by noble mountains; and its surface broad, tranquil, and blue. Enchanting distance made a fairy air-castle of a tiny château on a little grassy knoll washed by the lake, but a near view decided the family "to take refuge in a furnished house, Mon Repose," in a retired
corner quite near the shore at Vevay.
A boat, with honest John Descloux and his two crooked oars, was soon secured, and many an hour was spent listening to his lore of Leman, as they floated their several hours a day over its waters, under fair skies and foul.