Numerous Excursion Trains Are Run From The City, And
Parties, Some Of Them Numbering Upwards Of A Thousand, Come To Bathe,
And Dance, And Roam The Flowery Hillsides Together.
But at the time of my first visit in May, I fortunately found myself
alone.
The hotel and bathhouse, which form the chief improvements of
the place, were sleeping in winter silence, notwithstanding the year
was in full bloom. It was one of those genial sun-days when flowers
and flies come thronging to the light, and birds sing their best. The
mountain ranges, stretching majestically north and south, were piled
with pearly cumuli, the sky overhead was pure azure, and the wind-swept lake was all aroll and aroar with whitecaps.
I sauntered along the shore until I came to a sequestered cove, where
buttercups and wild peas were blooming close down to the limit reached
by the waves. Here, I thought, is just the place for a bath; but the
breakers seemed terribly boisterous and forbidding as they came
rolling up the beach, or dashed white against the rocks that bounded
the cove on the east. The outer ranks, ever broken, ever builded,
formed a magnificent rampart, sculptured and corniced like the hanging
wall of a bergschrund, and appeared hopelessly insurmountable, however
easily one might ride the swelling waves beyond. I feasted awhile on
their beauty, watching their coming in from afar like faithful
messengers, to tell their stories one by one; then I turned
reluctantly away, to botanize and wait a calm. But the calm did not
come that day, nor did I wait long. In an hour or two I was back
again to the same little cove. The waves still sang the old storm
song, and rose in high crystal walls, seemingly hard enough to be cut
in sections, like ice.
Without any definite determination I found myself undressed, as if
some one else had taken me in hand; and while one of the largest waves
was ringing out its message and spending itself on the beach, I ran
out with open arms to the next, ducked beneath its breaking top, and
got myself into right lusty relationship with the brave old lake.
Away I sped in free, glad motion, as if, like a fish, I had been
afloat all my life, now low out of sight in the smooth, glassy
valleys, now bounding aloft on firm combing crests, while the crystal
foam beat against my breast with keen, crisp clashing, as if composed
of pure salt. I bowed to every wave, and each lifted me right royally
to its shoulders, almost setting me erect on my feet, while they all
went speeding by like living creatures, blooming and rejoicing in the
brightness of the day, and chanting the history of their grand
mountain home.
A good deal of nonsense has been written concerning the difficulty of
swimming in this heavy water. "One's head would go down, and heels
come up, and the acrid brine would burn like fire." I was conscious
only of a joyous exhilaration, my limbs seemingly heeding their own
business, without any discomfort or confusion; so much so, that
without previous knowledge my experience on this occasion would not
have led me to detect anything peculiar.
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