But to appreciate the beauty of this sheet of water, one should behold it when its surface is unruffled by a breeze. Enamoured of their own beauty, the mountains then look down into the lake as into an incomparable mirror. It is an inverted world. The water is as transparent as the sky. The very breezes hold their breath, lest they should mar the exquisite reflection. The neighboring peaks display their rugged features in this limpid flood, as if unconscious of the wrinkles which betray their age. The pine trees stand so motionless upon the shore that they appear like slender ferns. Instinctively we call to mind those graceful lines, supposed to be addressed by such a lake to an adjoining mountain:
"I lie forever at thy feet, Dear hill with lofty crown; My waters smile thy crags to greet, As they look proudly down.
The odor of thy wind-tossed pines Is message sweet to me; It makes me dimple with delight, Because it comes from thee.
Thou, lofty, grand, above the world; Its lowly servant, I; Yet see, within my sunny depths Is smiling thy blue sky.
Thou art so far, and yet how near! For though we are apart, I make myself a mirror clear, And hold thee in my heart."
[Illustration: FLUELEN, ON LAKE LUCERNE.]
Above this lake itself extends for miles the famous Axenstrasse,—a splendid specimen of engineering skill, cut in the solid rock, hundreds of feet above the waves. Yet this is no exceptional thing in Switzerland, and nothing stamps itself more forcibly upon the tourist's mind within this region of the Alps than man's triumphant victory over obstacles, in the formation of its roads. Despite their great cost of construction these prove profitable investments; for the better the roads, the more people will travel over them. Referring to them, some one has prettily said, that by such means the Swiss transform the silver of their mountain peaks into five franc pieces, and change the golden glow of their sunrises and sunsets into napoleons.
How great the difference between the Switzerland of to-day and that of fifty years ago! Where formerly the solitary peasant and his mule picked their precarious way through mud or snow, luxurious landaus now roll easily along, on thoroughfares of rock, without a stone or obstruction of any kind to mar their surfaces. Nor is there danger of disaster. Walled in by massive parapets, an accident is here impossible; and in these mighty galleries, hewn from the mountain side itself, the traveler is perfectly secure, although an avalanche may fall or cyclones rage above him.
