Lake of Gennesaret

“ Double Pond, low sunk in the green forest slope, a perfect circle bisected by a wooded ridge; Geneva Lake, dotted with islands and beautiful with shining orange-groves;—always among the lawns and glades, the forest-slopes and aisles of pines, with sough of wind and song of bird, and fragrant wild perfumes. Always with bright "bits" of life between the long, grand silences—a group of men faring on foot across the pine level ”

“ The least comprehensible in bulk, because there is actually no point on its surface, or on its immediate margin, or perhaps indeed anywhere, whence it is possible to grasp its basin as a whole, as it is possible, for example, in a rough kind of way, to grasp the shape and dimension of such a much larger lake as Geneva from the vineyards in the neighbourhood of Aubonne. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The reason why the Lake of Geneva is of a crescent form is, that that is the shape of the space in the bottom of the valley which it fills. There are two ranges of mountains running in a curved direction almost parallel to each other, and the space between them, for a certain distance, is filled with water, owing to the spreading out of the waters of the Rhone in flowing through. Thus the lake is produced by the valley, and takes its form from it. ”

“ There is a great plenty of water stored away in these mountains, and it has been pouring through this rent in the bosom of the earth, wearing away a few feet here and a few feet there, augmenting in volume as the space for it increased, until it has become a wild, resistless torrent, which doesn’t dance, but rushes through the rocks, till after its brief attack of delirium tremens it loses itself in the Rhone and finally in Lake Geneva, and becomes as quiet and well-behaved as you could wish. ”

“ No waters are so blue as those of the Lake of Geneva. As you sail down it on a beautiful summer day, it shines like blue satin shot with gold. It is a fairyland, a dreamland, where mighty mountains cast their blue-black shadows down into the azure waters and a brilliant sun saturates the air with colour. Sail a little farther up the lake to Montreux, where the rock fortress of Chillon, the prison in which mediæval cruelty collected all its instruments of torture, projects into the water. This witness to wild and terrible passions lies in the midst of scenery which may well be called enchanted. ”

“ In mountain and trail climbing Glenbrook has a field all its own. The ride or drive to Marlette Lake is a beautiful one, and the climb to Marlette Peak not arduous. The chief mountain peaks easily reached from Glenbrook are Dubliss, Edith, and Genoa Peaks, which not only afford the same wonderful and entrancing views of Lake Tahoe that one gains from Freel's, Mt. Tallac, Ellis and Watson's Peaks, but in addition lay before the entranced vision the wonderful Carson Valley, with Mt. ”

“ The water of the English lakes, on the contrary, being of a crystalline clearness, the reflections of the surrounding hills are frequently so lively, that it is scarcely possible to distinguish the point where the real object terminates, and its unsubstantial duplicate begins. The lower part of the Lake of Geneva, from its narrowness, must be much less subject to agitation than the higher divisions, and, as the water is clearer than that of the other Swiss Lakes, it will frequently exhibit this appearance, though it is scarcely possible in an equal degree. ”

“ Boats are now astir on our Ullswater: hardly can there live a man, or woman, so dead to the beauties of Nature as to willingly stay indoors on such an eventide. So time passes: we drift beneath the bulk of Place fell, then the oars are put out and in the shade we steal along. Grey-blue are the heights behind Glencoin, all the glory has gone from the western sky. The clouds have crept out of the north, and streaks of pulsing night-glow come up in their stead. Brown the woods on the hillside above us, and a silence of sleep reigns supreme. A rill falling into the lake rattles pleasantly ”

“ At all events, it is evident that at some time posterior to this universal glacial period, when the ice began to retreat, Glen Roy became the basin of a glacial lake such as we now find in the Alps of Switzerland, where occasionally a closed valley becomes a trough, as it were, into which the water from the surrounding hills is drained. In such a lake no animals are found, such as exist in any other sheet of fresh water, and this would account for the absence of any organic remains on the terraces of Glen Roy. ”

“ Surely civilization has made some progress since those ages of cruelty and blood.
Leaving these gloomy dungeons, we come up into air and sunshine, and skim along the Lake of Geneva by the railway, which, lying "between sea and shore," presents a succession of charming views. On one side all the slopes are covered with vines, which are placed on this southern exposure to ripen in the sun; on the other is the lake, with the mountains beyond. ”

“ We can take you to a trout stream where you can fish today, come back next week, and find your footprints still in the sand, utterly unmolested.
It is a land of beauty and plenty, but nature is not soft. Sometimes a Northeaster will blow for five days at a time. Then you can stand at the window and watch the lake turn into something of monumental ferocity, driving all human endeavor from the scene. Trees are uprooted, windows are smashed, telephone wires and power lines are downed. Lightning slashes, the rumbling of thunder is cataclysmic, and the rain comes. ”

“ On the north-east shore of the sea was a single tree, and this is the only tree of any size visible from the water of the lake, except a few lonely palms in the city of Tiberias, and by its solitary position attracts more attention than would a forest. The whole appearance of the scene is precisely what we would expect and desire the scenery of Genessaret to be, grand beauty, but quiet calm. The very mountains are calm. ”

“ The shore, composed of rocks and pebbles, is that of a little sea, not that of a pond, like the shores of Lake Huleh. It is clean, neat, free from mud, and always beaten in the same place by the light movement of the waves. Small promontories, covered with rose laurels, tamarisks, and thorny caper bushes, are seen there; at two places, especially at the mouth of the Jordan, near Tarichea, and at the boundary of the plain of Gennesareth, there are enchanting parterres, where the waves ebb and flow over masses of turf and flowers. ”

“ In other places the rock is sandstone, mixed with decomposing conglomerates—a [Pg 162] formation worse to scale than any except the miocene trap rocks of the Antrim coast.
There is one interesting and difficult climb. A lake—Glencullin ('Glen of Hollies') Lake—lies immediately north of Doo Lough. A stream runs into the south-west corner of this lake out of Glencullin, starting from a series of black, sunless precipices, seamed with gorges and well-nigh 2,000 ft. high. These can be climbed by two gorges at least from base to summit. ”

“ Upon a noble and finely-elevated bluff of land which forms the shore and northwestern corner of this beautiful lake, the village of Geneva, with its colleges and churches, and stores and elegant residences, surrounded with gardens and embowered in shade, lies spread out in one noble panoramic view. We had reached the point where all this scene of beauty opened upon us. We thought we never saw the lake more placid—nor [Pg 203] all nature more quiet. Every thing seemed to be oppressed with the weight of the sultry and heated atmosphere. ”

“ In these particular regions will be found the sources of the Rhone, the Rhine, and the Tessin, with a multitude of other rivers; and some idea of the enormous quantity of water that they produce may be formed from the known fact, that the magnificent lake of Geneva (measuring above twenty-six square leagues) is raised ten feet and a half, by the mere melting of the snows during the summer. Strawberries of the finest flavour may be gathered almost at the very edge of the ice, and the adjoining woods are full of wild flowers. ”

“ If one asks where to go, a bewildering group of trips and pleasures appears. But there come forth speedily from out the number a few of unsurpassed allurement. These are a ski trip from Tallac to Fallen Leaf Lake to see the breakers and the spray driven by a rising gale against the rock-bound shore, and, when the lake has grown quieter, a boat ride to Fallen Leaf Lodge beneath the frowning parapets of Mount Tallac. Next a ski trip up the Glen to the buried hostelry at Glen Alpine, where one enters by way of a dormer window but is received to a cheerful fire and with royal hospitality. ”

“ Its battlements receded and we soon had a fly’s view of the [159] mountain, the view which the fly has when it is walking on the barren surface of the rock.
We clawed our way along the steep entangled shore of Lake Grinnell to a waste of willow saplings, and a litter of postal packets of great rocks delivered by the mail chute of the Grinnell Cataract. Here a great mass of water meets momentarily with calamity and falls over a precipice like houses falling. At two miles’ distance it is like a picture of a waterfall seen in a shop window, pretty and attractive. ”

“ For it seemed lke passing from death into life to drop from the terrors of the silent heights and come abruptly upon the blue waters of Lake Geneva, rippling for miles in sunshine, plashing along the shores as with a sound of children playing, and carrying to and fro the white lateen sails in foretaste already of the summer. ”

“ And under such conditions the three miles of verdant vale from Hartsop to Ullswater, by way of the hamlet and church of Patterdale (named from St. Patrick) to Glenridding on the lake shore, is as characteristic and charming a pastoral valley as there is in all the Lake country. Cottages and homesteads, with their sheltering tufts of foliage, have still even this much-visited country almost to themselves, as they had it a century ago. The Goldrill, now a lusty stream, curves and sparkles from farm to farm. ”

“ Gentola—Extending eastward and a little northward I see a small lake divided into two sections by—and also surrounded by—a massive stone wall the top of which serves as a promenade on which many persons are passing to and fro. What appears to be heavy metal netting divides the lake into numerous compartments and there are lightly constructed bridges from which attendants are casting food to creatures in the water. A portion of the lake is roofed over by a substantial wire netting, and in many of the compartments are luxurious growths of aquatic plants. ”

“ It is next necessary to consider in what respect the large terraces of Glen Roy can be connected with the supposed existence of a former lake occupying that valley.
Wherever a river is found entering an existing lake, it is skirted by a shore wider than the general shores of that lake. This accumulation of matter by degrees forms a plain or a delta at its mouth, with a level surface ”

“ There is not, to my knowledge, a single habitation on either of the lakes, and the only smoke ever seen to ascend from their lonely recesses, comes from the watch-fire of the hunter, or the encampment of surveyors and tourists.—The water of these lakes is cold and deep, and moderately supplied with salmon trout. Lake Henderson is admirably situated for the exciting sport of deer hunting, and though it contains two or three canoes, cannot be entered from the West Branch of the Hudson without making a portage. ”

“ Returning to Interlaken by way of Grindelwald, one may study the foot of a radiating glacier, the Untergrindelwald glacier, with its tunnel and its milky and braided stream.
Crossing now the Alpine foreland to Villeneuve at the upper end of Lake Geneva and upon a well-developed strath (426, 428) , we may look out upon the turbid waters extending far from the shore of the lake. Journeying to Geneva by steamer we note the gradual clearing of the water until at the outlet of the lake it is as clear as crystal. ”

“ Gjendin is liable like all mountain lakes to be suddenly visited by squalls, so that we generally like to paddle pretty near the side, but on this voyage it was not safe to do so; for under the influence of the rain, which was coming down as if it had never done so before, stones and boulders were rattling and crashing down the sides of the lake, and plunging into it, in a most alarming manner ”

“ After 2 miles turn to the left again. In due course Glencar is reached. Keeping along the north shore of the lake an extraordinary waterfall will be seen on the left. A thin sheet of water falls from the top of the cliff, and when the wind is from a particular quarter it catches the falling water every few minutes, and scattering it in minute particles makes it have the appearance of being suddenly cut off. ”