But we are really not mountain-climbing; we are circling the lake and, except where some river or torrent forms what is technically called a cone, projecting out into the water, we are able to skirt close to the _beine_, often under tremendous, beetling cliffs. They become higher and higher, more and more romantic and magnificent. Only occasionally is there room for a village to cuddle in between the lake and the mountains, as, for instance, Meillerie, back of which one can see the great quarries gashing the mountain, and the tunnel through which the railway runs.
Samuel Rogers, in 1822, winging south on his Italian journey, so beautifully illustrated by Turner, was moved by the beauty of Meillerie to break out into song:--
"These gray majestic cliffs that tower to heaven, These glimmering glades and open chestnut groves, That echo to the heifer's wandering bell, Or woodman's ax, or steersman's song beneath, As on he urges his fir-laden bark, Or shout of goat-herd boy above them all, Who loves not? And who blesses not the light, When through some loop-hole he surveys the lake Blue as a sapphire-stone, and richly set With châteaux, villages and village-spires, Orchards and vineyards, alps and alpine snows? Here would I dwell; nor visit, but in thought, Ferney far South, silent and empty now, As now thy once-luxurious bowers, Ripaille; Vevey, so long an exiled Patriot's home; Or Chillon's dungeon-floors beneath the wave, Channeled and worn by pacing to and fro; Lausanne, where Gibbon in his sheltered walk Nightly called up the Shade of ancient Rome; Or Coppet and that dark untrodden grove Sacred to Virtue and a daughter's tears!
"Here would I dwell, forgetting and forgot, And oft methinks (of such strange potency The spells that Genius scatters where he will) Oft should I wander forth like one in search, And say, half-dreaming:--'Here St. Preux has stood.' Then turn and gaze on Clarens."
The picture now is not so different from what it was almost a hundred years ago.
"Day glimmered and I went, a gentle breeze Ruffling the Leman Lake. Wave after wave, If such they might be called, dashed as in sport Not anger, with the pebbles on the beach Making wild music, and far westward caught The sun-beam--where alone and as entranced, Counting the hours, the fisher in his skiff Lay with his circular and dotted line On the bright waters. When the heart of man Is light with hope, all things are sure to please; And soon a passage-boat swept gayly by, Laden with peasant-girls and fruits and flowers And many a chanticleer and partlet caged For Vevey's market-place--a motley group Seen through the silvery haze. But soon 'twas gone. The shifting sail flapped idly to and fro, Then bore them off.