Lake Thun

“ However, when we came down to breakfast at 8 A.M., it looked so much like rain that I hired a two-horse top-buggy for the first third of the journey. For two or three hours we jogged along the level road which skirts the beautiful lake of Thun, with a dim and dreamlike picture of watery expanses and spectral Alpine forms always before us, veiled in a mellowing mist. Then a steady downpour set in, and hid everything but the nearest objects. We kept the rain out of our faces with umbrellas, and away from our bodies with the leather apron of the buggy ”

“ When the valley is wholly wrapped in gloom, and the lights from Thun are seen reflected upon the lake, the mountain peaks are still resplendent with the most beautiful rosy light, which when the darkness encreases changes into as beautiful a blue. It is a spectacle from which it is difficult to tear one’s self away! ”

“ There were tourists coming and going all the time, a place for tobogganing, a vender of postal cards, and all that sort of thing. But it is a fine glacier notwithstanding its pollutions.
After luncheon we boarded an ascending train and went through a long tunnel to what was then the terminus, the Eigerwand station (9405 feet high) . One finds oneself in an artificial cavern hewn out of the rock, and an opening in the side gives a fine bird’s-eye view (if one cares for that sort of thing) of the Grindelwald valley, Interlaken and Lake Thun. ”

“ The Rothhorn of the Canton Berne lies inland from the Lake of Thun, and sends down towards the lake a ridge sufficiently lofty, terminating in the Ralligstöcke, or Ralligflue, the needle-like point, so prettily ridged with firs, which advances its precipitous sides to the water. These precipices were formed in historic times, and the sheer face from which half a mountain has been torn stands now as clear and fresh as ever, while a chaos of vast blocks at its foot gives a point to the local legends of devastation and ruin caused by the various berg-falls. ”

“ All the other rivers which we call great, though some of them are insignificant as compared with the Amazons,—the Mississippi, the Nile, the Ganges, and the Danube,—deposit extensive deltas, and the smaller rivers also, with few exceptions, are constantly building up the land at their mouths by the materials they bring along with them. Even the little river Kander, emptying into the Lake of Thun, is not without its delta. ”

“ Charley Sanderson, emboldened by the sudden departure of Wellman, became the constant attendant of Bessie, and everything appeared to be in his favour until the evening he left. That evening the two strolled along the walk that borders the north side of the river, leading to the lake. They said they were going to see the Alpine glow on the snow mountains, but nobody believed that, for the glow can be seen quite as well from the terrace in front of the hotel. ”

“ It was as dead blue as indigo there, because of the immense depth. By official measurement the lake in its centre is one thousand five hundred and twenty-five feet deep!
Sometimes, on lazy afternoons, we lolled on the sand in camp, and smoked pipes and read some old well-worn novels. At night, by the camp-fire, we played euchre and seven-up to strengthen the mind—and played them with cards so greasy and defaced that only a whole summer's acquaintance with them could enable the student to tell the ace of clubs from the jack of diamonds. ”

“ Artificial sheets of water, constructed at great expense in elevated positions are almost invariably incongruous. True we have the lonely tarns perched far up on the mountain side, but these have no semblance to the garden lake, either in form or surroundings. Unless there is a natural inlet and outfall for our proposed lake, the probability is that it will ere long become foul and stagnant, and in the absence of a feeding stream, may run dry in the summer. ”

“ At the end of a week we adjourned to the Sierras on a fishing excursion, and spent several days in camp under snowy Castle Peak, and fished successfully for trout in a bright, miniature lake whose surface was between ten and eleven thousand feet above the level of the sea; cooling ourselves during the hot August noons by sitting on snow banks ten feet deep, under whose sheltering edges fine grass and dainty flowers flourished luxuriously; and at night entertaining ourselves by almost freezing to death. ”

“ Many other peaks and domes with eternal snow rise over this sea of tumbled waves, but, after all, the finest sight is the lake itself, which charms and fascinates the spectator by its intense ultramarine hue, a couple of shades deeper and stronger than turquoise. When one first comes to the saddle of the pass and this wealth of colouring strikes the retina, one can scarcely restrain an exclamation of astonishment and admiration. We look down straight on the lake, and its southern shore is just below us. ”

“ The Lake is surrounded by a broad marsh, grown with reeds. Between the marsh and the mountains which wall the valley is a respectable strip of fertile land; at the end of the valley, toward Dan, as much as half the land is solid and fertile, and watered by Jordan's sources. There is enough of it to make a farm. It almost warrants the enthusiasm of the spies of that rabble of adventurers who captured Dan. They said: "We have seen the land, and behold it is very good. * * * A place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth." ”

“ We set off down narrow waters with a snoring breeze from out of the N.N.W. The red house and the well-derrick and the farm-buildings of Ischinlisvuoni quickly dipped from sight behind a bluff; the axe-marks left the trees on shore; and the black forests grew up untouched out of the carpet of ivory-yellow moss. But we were not in the open lake yet. A run of some dozen miles brought us to shallows where a portage was necessary. ”

“ In the troughs between them the salt-dust driven by the wind collects, and lends to the ice-field a curious appearance like watered silk. All the eastern half of the lake is concealed by the rocky promontories near which our camp, No. 99, is pitched. We penetrate more deeply into the southern bay. Yaks graze on the slopes, and towards evening are driven down by a man. To the south also we catch sight of tents, yaks, and groups of kiangs. From our low point of view they seem to be moving in the midst of the lake; the acuteness of the angle of elevation deceives us. ”

“ The features, great green expanses of rolling pasture-land, bisected by eye-contenting hedges of commingled new-gold and old-gold gorse—and a lovely lake. One must put in the pause, there, to fetch the reader up with a slight jolt, and keep him from gliding by without noticing the lake. One must notice it; for a lovely lake is not as common a thing along the railways of Australia as are the dry places. Ninety-two in the shade again, but balmy and comfortable, fresh and bracing. A perfect climate. ”

“ And as the sea-waves find a weak point in the cliffs against which they dash, and gradually eat their way so as to form caverns with high vertical sides, as at the Land’s End, a joint or fault or some other accidental weakness determining their line of action; so also a mountain torrent rushing for ages over the same dam would be sure to cut itself a channel. The lake after its drainage left the basis of green meadows as sediment behind; and through these meadows now flows the stream of the Aar. Imagination is [68] essential to the natural philosopher, but its matter must be facts ”

“ Not a wisp of cloud, not the slightest breeze—weather all the more enjoyable after the storms of the past days. The lake shone against the light turquoise-blue vault of heaven, when we looked southwards, with as bright a green as the tender foliage of birches in the spring.
For a few minutes we heard the bells of the mules as they tramped off, but the black line of the caravan soon vanished in the hilly lands along the shore. Rehim Ali rowed like a practised boatman. At the second sounding-station the depth was 115 feet, and at the third 161. ”

“ THE Rigi-Kulm is an imposing Alpine mass, 6,000 feet high, which stands by itself, and commands a mighty prospect of blue lakes, green valleys, and snowy mountains—a compact and magnificent picture three hundred miles in circumference. The ascent is made by rail, or horseback, or on foot, as one may prefer. I and my agent panoplied ourselves in walking costume, one bright morning, and started down the lake on the steamboat; we got ashore at the village of Wäggis, three quarters of an hour distant from Lucerne. This village is at the foot of the mountain. ”

“ We swept through the prettiest little curving arms of the lake, among these colossal green walls, enjoying new delights, always, as the stately panorama unfolded itself before us and rerolled and hid itself behind us; and now and then we had the thrilling surprise of bursting suddenly upon a tremendous white mass like the distant and dominating Jungfrau, or some kindred giant, looming head and shoulders above a tumbled waste of lesser Alps. ”

“ In contrast to most other lakes of Tibet, the Dangra-yum-tso runs north and south, and it narrows in the middle, just as Nain Sing has drawn it on his map; but he has made the lake a little too large, and has especially exaggerated the dimensions of the southern basin. A horseman can travel round the lake in five ordinary or seven short days’ journey; the pilgrim road closely follows the lake shore. The pilgrims always make the circuit of the lake in the direction of the hands of a watch, if they are orthodox ”

“ From the sharp ridge of the dune the driftsand is blown like a dense plume to the lake, and the water is tinged with yellow for quite 200 yards in the direction of the wind by myriads of grains of sand, which fall to the bottom and build up a foundation under water on which the promontory can extend out into the lake. The wind has been strong, and now we have a storm. ”

“ Toward Fond du Lac, on the south, the horizon is the lake. South-southwestward, Black Wolf Point runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of the tall trees upon it peep up into view, like shadowy pile-work. Westward are the well-kept hospital grounds, fringed with stately elms overhanging the firm, gravelly beach, studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which extends northward to Neenah. The view to the north and northeast is delightfully hazy, being now dark with delicate fringes of forest which cap the occasional limestone promontories, and again losing itself in a watery sky-line. ”

“ Our plan was to sail in an east-north-easterly direction for the northern shore, and thence southwards again to the signal fire. Rehim Ali was on this occasion assisted by Robert, who subsequently developed into an excellent boatman. The lake was nearly quite calm; its water, owing to its small depth, is greener, but quite as clear as that of its western neighbour. It is so salt that everything that touches it, hands, boat, oars, etc., glitters with crystals of salt. ”

“ Between the curving line of hotels and the lake is a broad avenue with lamps and a double rank of low shade trees. The lake front is walled with masonry like a pier, and has a railing, to keep people from walking overboard. All day long the vehicles dash along the avenue, and nurses, children and tourists sit in the shade of the trees, or lean on the railing and watch the schools of fishes darting about in the clear water or gaze out over the lake at the stately border of snow-hooded mountain peaks. Little pleasure-steamers, black with people, are coming and going all the time ”

“ Thunder Cape is the eastern boundary of Thunder Bay on the northwest shore of Superior, and it is only its highest part that is visible far across the lake, the lower land sinking entirely out of view and leaving the Giant lying solitary on the water.
“Etienne says it is a sign,” Jean remarked in a low voice. “Does he think the omen good or bad, I wonder?”
Ronald shook his head. “I doubt if he knows what he thinks, but what is that to us? If we ever find the gold, we will secure it in spite of all the Indian devils in the lake.” ”

“ The Lakes of China are chiefly found in the central and eastern provinces,—along the majestic course of the Yang-tsze-keang, or spread over the level country of Keangsoo. The largest of these lakes are the Tung-ting-hoo, the Po-yang-hoo, the Tae-hoo, and the Hung-tsih-hoo. The Tung-ting-hoo, in Hoonan, is said to be 220 miles in circumference. It receives the waters of several southern rivers, which, rising in Kwangse and Kweichow, find their way through this lake to the Yang-tsze-keang. ”

“ This was the Lagoon, or Etang, of Thau, a salt-water lake about a dozen of miles long, and opening up by a narrow channel—on both banks of which rises the flourishing town of Cette—into the Mediterranean. For the greater part of its length, only a strip of sand and shingle interposes between the lake and the sea, and as the steamer to which we were transferred, at the end of the canal, paddled its way to Cette, we could see every moment the surf of the open ocean rising beyond the barrier. ”

“ Sometimes they rose straight up out of the lake, and towered aloft and overshadowed our pygmy steamer with their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow-clad mountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meet the clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren and repulsive, but clothed in green, and restful and pleasant to the eye. And they were so almost straight-up-and-down, sometimes, that one could not imagine a man being able to keep his footing upon such a surface, yet there are paths, and the Swiss people go up and down them every day. ”