But we are really not mountain-climbing; we are circling the lake and, except where some river or torrent forms what is technically called a cone, projecting out into the water, we are able to skirt close to the beine, often under tremendous, beetling cliffs. They become higher and higher, more and more romantic and magnificent. Only occasionally is there room for a village to cuddle in between the lake and the mountains, as, for instance, Meillerie, back of which one can see the great quarries gashing the mountain, and the tunnel through which the railway runs.
Samuel Rogers, in 1822, winging south on his Italian journey, so beautifully illustrated by Turner, was moved by the beauty of Meillerie to break out into song:—
“These gray majestic cliffs that tower to heaven,
These glimmering glades and open chestnut groves,
That echo to the heifer’s wandering bell,
Or woodman’s ax, or steersman’s song beneath,
As on he urges his fir-laden bark,
Or shout of goat-herd boy above them all,