From The Door Of The Hotel De La Concorde, At Weggis,
The Guide _Chef_ Fitted Us Out With Two _Chaises A Porteur_,
Six _Carriers_, Two Mules With Grooms, Making A Party Of Fourteen
In All.
After ascending a while the scenery became singularly wild and
beautiful.
Vast walls and cliffs of conglomerate rose above us, up
which our path wound in zigzags. Below us were pines, vales, fields,
and hills, themselves large enough for mountains. There, at our feet,
with its beautiful islands, bays, capes, and headlands, gleams the
broad lake of the four cantons, consecrated by the muse of Schiller
and the heroism of Tell. New plains are unrolling, new mountain tops
sinking below our range of vision. We plunged into a sea of mist. It
rolled and eddied, boiling beneath us. Through its mysterious pall we
saw now a skeleton pine stretch out its dark pointing hand - now a
rock, shapeless and uncouth, far below, like a behemoth petrified in
mid ocean. Then an eddy would sweep a space for the sun to pour a
flood of gold on this field far down at our feet, on that village, on
this mountain side with its rosy vapor-wreaths, upon yon distant lake,
making it a crater of blinding brightness. On we went wrapped in
mantles, mist, and mystery, trembling with chilliness and enthusiasm.
We reached the summit just as the sunset-gazing crowd were dispersing.
And this is Righi Kulm!
Wednesday, 27. At half past three in the morning we were aroused by
the Alpine horn.
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