Zurich, September 1.—Cooling as was the change of air on the Rhigi, after such a warm ascent, I never felt brighter than after my nap in that high position, five thousand seven hundred feet above the tide. By-the-by, the announcement at nine, of 'La lune! la lune!' produced a rush from the supper table, but the keen, bracing atmosphere soon compelled the ladies to retreat to their rooms. At 'four-and-a-half,' we were roused from our slumbers by a 'trumpet's martial sound,' announcing the approach of the 'king of day.' It was beautiful to watch the changing tints of the sky, for an hour before the sun appeared. Not a cloud was to be seen in the horizon, for we were far above them; but when the sun's dazzling rays began to be reflected on the hill-tops, and on the sea of vapor beneath us, and the mists began to roll away from over the lakes, gradually disclosing their varied outline, or lifting the canopy from the quiet towns, the scene was truly exquisite to look upon.
I left the 'Kulm' alone, at six, and came down in an hour and a half, on the side toward Goldau. This is the village that was destroyed in 1806, by the fall of a part of Mount Rossberg, when nearly five hundred persons, and property to the amount of half a million, were suddenly buried under a mass of earth, which our Mr. Cooper ascertained to be equal in bulk to all the buildings in New-York put together![6] From thence I walked along the banks of the Zuder See, to the curious old town of Zug. This lake is nine miles long. The road on its banks is lined with fruit trees, and I filled my pockets with nice fresh prunes for the gathering. Blackberries in profusion are there also. It was another delicious day, and I experienced none of the miseries so elegantly described, à la Wordsworth, in the Album at Alpnach:
'I wandered 'midst the untrodden ways
Beside the banks of Zug;
And there I met with scores of fleas,
And there with many a bug,' etc.
There was ringing of bells, and firing of cannon, which made a tremendous echo across the lake, but for what cause I did not learn. At Zug I got dinner, and a direction to a by-path 'across lots' of potatoe-fields to Horgern, on the Zurich See, where I was to take the steam-boat to this place. I was alone, and not a soul on the way could speak any thing but vulgar German. I was stared at as if from the clouds; and albeit not conscious, like the third Richard, of any special deformity, yet,
'As I passed, the dogs did bark at me.'
At one village, a cur at the first house commenced the salute, which was continued to the last, by every
'Mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And cur of low degree.'
The folks did not know what I meant by Horgern, because I did not roll it out with their horrid nasal pronunciation. I stopped to fill my flask at a spring, and had the luck to learn of a farmer that I was going just the wrong way. At length, after achieving another mountain, a splendid landscape was spread out before me; the beautiful Lake of Zurich, bordered with vineyards, and neat villages, flanked by another range of snow-capped Alps. With staff in hand, and knapsack on back, as I approached
'The margin of fair Zurich's waters,'