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We left the fair margin of the beauteous lake of Geneva, and entered the Alpine ravines; tracing to its source the brawling Arve, through the rock-bound valley of Servox, beside the mighty waterfalls, and under the shadow of the inaccessible mountains, we travelled on; while the luxuriant walnut-tree gave place to the dark pine, whose musical branches swung in the wind, and whose upright forms had braved a thousand storms till the verdant sod, the flowery dell, and shrubbery hill were exchanged for the sky-piercing, untrodden, seedless rock, "the bones of the world, waiting to be clothed with every thing necessary to give life and beauty."
Two or three little black peaks' in it are the sleeping-place for travellers ascending the zigzag line shows their path. On the left of the mountain lies Mer de Glace, with the Arveiron falling from it. The Arve crosses the valley below us; the fall is not indicated in this view. The undulations, which, on near view, are fifty feet high, seem mere ripples.
At length we crossed a romantic looking bridge and entered the little town of Cluse, enclosed on both sides by rocky ramparts, and sheltered equally from sunbeams and from storms. Following the various windings of the valley, the Arve seemed to spread itself into a series of lakes, each presenting its own peculiar loveliness and majesty.
It was all I could do to keep from flying at his throat, when he came within reach of my arms. He murmured some hypocritical words as he stepped into my place. He was a good dissembler. "My heye, but poor 'Oly Joe caught it," says he. "They bloomin' near skinned 'im alive. They 'arve Newman in the lazaret. Blimme, Shreve, we got to do somethink abaht it!" The answer he got was a grunt.
There it appears to hang, miraculously suspended in mid- air, while in fact it descends in imperceptible vapors to the slope, where it re-forms and becomes a furious little torrent that dashes across the road under a bridge and empties itself into the Arve. The carriage-road skirts the base of the mountain and offers numberless fine views of the cascade as you approach or leave it.
MY DEAR FELLOW AND FRIEND, At the hour of midnight, with the moon shining in at my open window, the sound of the rushing Arve in my ears, around me, a fine table of land a hundred feet above the stream that washes its base, and covered with a hundred noble chestnuts, and laid out with beautiful walks, thus "being and situate," I take in hand this abominable steel pen to write you.
The wonderful gradations of coloring in this Alpine landscape are not among the least of its charms. How can I describe it? Imagine yourself standing with me on this projecting rock, overlooking a deep, piny gorge, through which flow the brawling waters of the Arve.
I never dreamed of a fairer scene; it was too beautiful for sleep; the murmurings of the Arve were the only sounds that broke upon the ear, while all around tremendous precipices rose to heaven, shutting out from us the cares and tumults of the busy world. To pay for my enthusiasm I arose with a headache and a feeling of weariness that sensibly diminished the enjoyment of the morning.
The waters of the Arve come through a clayey soil and are muddy, gray, and dull. And for a long distance the two waters are wholly distinct. Two rivers of water are in one river-bed, on one side the sparkling blue Rhone water, on the other the dull gray Arve water, and the line between the two sharply defined. And so it continues for a long distance.
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