Lac

“ The Lake itself is nearly 300 miles in circumference, with islands rising from its surface to an elevation of some thousand feet: its shores are covered in some places with the finest salt, and its water is as buoyant as the waves of the Dead Sea. Portions of the land are desert; but a vast expanse is wonderfully fertile, and abounds in all facilities for pasturage and cultivation. ”

“ The lake had not been fished. Probably somewhere in those black depths over one of the bubbling spring-holes that must feed so cold and clear a body of water, are big fellows lying, and probably the crafty minnow or spoon might lure them out. But we were satisfied with our game.
At other times we paddled here and there in exploration of coves, inlets, and a tiny little brook that flowed westward from a reed marsh to join another river running parallel to our own. ”

“ The lake is surrounded by lofty mountains, in places covered with snow, rising abruptly from the dark water. There is no sign of life, save now and then a fish leaping for a second out of the water, and a few birds cleaving the air; the eternal stillness is only broken by our voices and the resounding echoes sent back by the walls of rock. ”

“ In the course of ages it has assumed the character of a magnificent solitary lake, of nature’s own formation, though in several places mounds and ramparts are still discernible, and seem rather thrown up to prevent the overflowing of the lake, than as part of its original construction. The lake, as it now exists, is of considerable extent; the rich mould on its banks, of a muddy consistence, exuberant in reeds, and abundance of such aquatic and palustric plants as love such a soil. The water, in colour and transparency, resembles that of a common pond, and seems alive with fish. ”

“ Before me, between two high promontories overgrown by woods which ran in opposite directions, sparkled the surface of the lake. In proportion as it stretched into the distance, its [142] bank became more winding, lower, and mistier, until it disappeared at the outlet of a gorge. Owing to the distance, the tall, thin larches, the thick willows, bushes, and grass growing there looked quite small, but the rays of the sunset, falling on them from behind, produced a wonderful lace-work of dark branches and leaves against a pale-rose sky. ”

“ A peaceful lake lies at our feet, stretching far into the distance, blue, green, black—who can tell the colour? On the banks of the eastern side, the dark mountain forest, softly veiled in bright sunbeams, slopes upward from the grey, pebbly beach. ”

“ The female population appear to have but one sole absorbing occupation, the eternal washing of everything washable; children, clothes, plates, dishes, silk-worm cocoons, beds, and even chairs and tables, in the lake. Indeed, the lake is the soul of the place, and every transaction of life among the peasants appears to take place on its sloping shore. ”

“ The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water,—so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be. ”

“ Insects now enrich the air, frogs pipe cheerily in the shallows, soon followed by the ouzel, which is the first bird to visit a glacier lake, as the sedge is the first of plants. So the young lake grows in beauty, becoming more and more humanly lovable from century to century. Groves of aspen spring up, and hardy pines, and the hemlock spruce, until it is richly overshadowed and embowered. ”

“ The lake is the eye of the mountain, jade green, placid, unwinking, also unfathomable. Whatever goes on under the high and stony brows is guessed at. It is always a favorite local tradition that one or another of the blind lakes is bottomless. ”

“ The bold mountain scenery of the environs of the lake has disappeared, giving place to richly-wooded undulating hills, which are shown to great advantage by the intervals of villages and ploughed land. The rapid river flowing between steep banks, generally covered with trees or brushwood down to the water's edge, works its way circuitously through the hills, and gives a finish to as fine a bit of scenery as can anywhere be seen. ”

“ After the ice had disappeared, water collected in the cañon above the dam, and the narrow, deep lake was formed, enclosed within granite walls.
As the snows melted, forests spread over the mountains, the bear, deer, and mountain goats came back again, while the streams, bringing down earth and rocks, began their work of filling up the lake. This task they will succeed in accomplishing some day unless something unforeseen happens to prevent. A valley, composed partly of meadow and partly of boulder-covered slopes, will then have taken the place of the lake. ”

“ Indeed, the lake has no apparent hostility to life. An enterprising company could draw off the Jordan thirty miles above here and make all this valley a garden, producing fruits and sugar-cane and cotton, and this lake one of the most lovely watering-places in the world. ”

“ The view extends up the lake to its middle, where a slight change in its direction intercepts further view; beyond rise some low mountains; a little farther a higher range overtops these, and these are again overlooked by the Alps of Glarns, Schwyz, etc., with thin tall peaks and brilliant glaciers. The shores of the lake are highly cultivated and thickly covered with little manufacturing villages. ”

“ Most of these lakes are encircled by a rim of rock, from which you jump down into knee-deep black slime, and then, if you are a representative lady, you waddle, and squeal, and grunt, and skylark generally on your way to the water in the middle. If it is a large lake you are working, you and your companions drive in two rows of stakes, cutting each other more or less at right angles, more or less in the middle of the lake, so as to divide it up into convenient portions. ”

“ The land immediately adjacent to the lake is low and fertile, though in some places marshy and tenanted by large flocks of ducks, geese, herons, crowned cranes, and other birds. In the southern parts we have sometimes ten or a dozen miles of rich plains, bordered by what seem high ranges of well-wooded hills, running nearly parallel with the lake. Northwards the mountains become loftier and present some magnificent views, range towering beyond range, until the dim, lofty outlines projected against the sky bound the prospect. ”

“ Up in the brilliant blue ravens and hawks are hovering, crows and rooks are ever passing over the glen. From one wood to another the wild pigeon wings rapidly, the blackbirds in the hedges are busy at their nestage duties. Take note of the flowers, O man with seeing eyes. In the pastures are great purple spikes of loose-strife, amid the white waves of ox-eyes; round by the lake are belts of blue lobelia. The air is full of the scent of meadow-sweet, the honey-suckle here and there throws trailers, adorned with creamy bloom, along the hedges, and in great clusters blow the wild roses. ”

“ When the water, in flowing down in the brooks and streams, comes to a valley from which it can not run out, it continues to run in and fill up the valley, until it reaches the level of some place where it can run out. As soon as it reaches that level, the surplus water runs out at the opening as fast as it comes in from the springs and streams, and then the lake never rises any higher. ”

“ Our favourite amusement during that winter was tobogganing. In places the shore of the lake rises abruptly from the water's edge. Down these steep slopes we used to coast. We would get on our toboggan, a boy would give us a shove, and off we went! Plunging through drifts, leaping hollows, swooping down upon the lake, we would shoot across its gleaming surface to the opposite bank. What joy! What exhilarating madness! For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine! ”

“ For when you descend you find that the tape-wide trickle of water seen from above has become a river with profound darkling pools and placid stretches and swift dashing rapids; that the dark green sluggish flow in the cañon-bed has disintegrated into a noble forest with great pine-trees, and shaded aisles, and deep dank thickets, and brush openings where the sun is warm and the birds are cheerful, and groves of cottonwoods where all day long softly, like snow, the flakes of cotton float down through the air. ”

“ Deep silence fell about the little camp, planted there so audaciously in the jaws of the wilderness. The lake gleamed like a sheet of black glass beneath the stars. The cold air pricked. In the draughts of night that poured their silent tide from the depths of the forest, with messages from distant ridges and from lakes just beginning to freeze, there lay already the faint, bleak odors of coming winter. ”

“ When he reaches a point where the lake is sufficiently deep, he gets upon his feet and wades, still keeping his shoulders below the surface. He makes his advance very slowly and warily, scarce raising a ripple on the surface of the placid lake, and the nearer he gets to his intended victims he proceeds with the greater caution. ”

“ The upper portion of the lake, through which we are now passing, though surrounded by hills, has enough farming land and farm-houses on their slopes to give it that placid, tranquil beauty which is always associated with views on the English waters. ”

“ The finest of the glacier meadow gardens lie at an elevation of about nine thousand feet, imbedded in the upper pine forests like lakes of light. ”

“ “I have seen,” he said, “the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean; ”

“ The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a plowed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside; ”

“ In a few moments all the stars came out above the intense blackness of the earth and the great lagoon gleaming suddenly with reflected lights resembled an oval patch of night sky flung down into the hopeless and abysmal night of the wilderness. ”

“ Contemplating the lace-like fabric of streams outspread over the mountains, we are reminded that everything is flowing—going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; ”

“ Before the reader turns his back upon the Grand Basin once for all, I should like to put a name upon the glacier it contains—since it is the fashion to name glaciers. ”

“ When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place,—a sanctum sanctorum. ”

“ Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. ”

“ The very thought of this Alaska garden is a joyful exhilaration. Though the storm-beaten ground it is growing on is nearly half a mile high, the glacier centuries ago flowed over it as a river flows over a boulder; but out of all the cold darkness and glacial crushing and grinding comes this warm, abounding beauty and life to teach us that what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call destruction is creation finer and finer. ”

“ The bottom, which is from one to three miles over, is the height of rural beauty, extending to the verge of the Lake, and consisting of woods, fertile meadows, and gentlemen's seats. In this centre lies the charming Lake, whose surface was as smooth, pleasant, and clear, as a looking glass, with a smiling face before it. Not a breath of air to cause a wrinkle, but a bright sun illuminated the view. If an assemblage of mountains, romantic rocks, extensive prospects, fertile vallies, ornamental woods, elegant seats, with a grand expanse of water, can compleat a landscape, it may be found here. ”

“ DESERT POOLS I LOVE too much; I am a river
Surging with spring that seeks the sea,
I am too generous a giver,
Love will not stoop to drink of me.
His feet will turn to desert places
Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,
Where stars stare down with sharpened faces
From heavens pitilessly blue.
And there at midnight sick with faring,
He will stoop down in his desire
To slake the thirst grown past all bearing
In stagnant water keen as fire. ”

“ THE sun rose many hours before me, and when I got up was spangling the surface of the lake, which spreads itself between steeps of wood, crowned by lofty crags and pinnacles. We had an opportunity of contemplating this bold assemblage as we travelled on the banks of the lake, where it forms a bay sheltered by impending forests; the water, tinged by their reflection with a deep cerulean, calm and tranquil. Mountains of pine and beech rising above, close every outlet; and, no village or spire peeping out of the foliage, impress an idea of more than European solitude. ”