38 RAMBLES IN WESTERN SWITZERLAND 



with lofty perpendicular walls of naked limestone on each side, and 

 picking our way over this singular and rather uneven pavement, we 

 went on for some distance ; and I do not remember to have seen a 

 more wild, desolate, and irreclaimable spot, or one so utterly destitute 

 of all appearance of life or animation. In a moment, however, and 

 from the midst of all this desolation, on coming to a particular point, 

 there was a small opening, and a scene presented itself, with almost 

 magical eflfect, of a small but placid lake embosomed among the 

 mountains, a few little villages sprinkled here and there on its green 

 banks, and with occasionally a few forest trees clothing the steep as- 

 cent of the mountain sides, but all calm and peaceful, and contrasting 

 most delightfully with the wild savage desert from which we had just 

 emerged. In descending to the head of the lake this view was lost 

 sight of for a time, but again appeared glittering in the silver light of 

 the moon, and with a few solitary lamps in the cottage windows pret- 

 tily reflected from the calm waters, I had arrived at the " Lac de 

 Joux." I was not long in finding a pleasant comfortable inn at the 

 village of " Le Pont" at the head of the lake, and there I took up 

 my abode for the night, much regretting that I could not spend days 

 in exploring the beauties of this neighbourhood. 



The position of the Lac de Joux, enclosed on all sides by conside- 

 rable mountains, and itself nearly three thousand five hundred feet 

 above the level of the sea, is as romantic and singular as it is beauti- 

 ful. Its shape is oblong, being about five miles in length by one in 

 breadth ; and there is a continuation to the north, by means of a kind 

 of marsh, with another and a much smaller piece of water, called the 

 Lac de Brenet. Besides these two, there is a third much smaller 

 one, situated to the west, which, however, is scarcely more than a 

 pool, and is not connected with either lake. The little village called 

 Le Pont (probably from the bridge which crosses the junction of the 

 two lakes) is placed exactly between them, and at the foot of a moun- 

 tain of about five thousand feet in height, which is separated, by a very 

 narrow and extremely wild gorge, from another mountain to the west. 

 The Mont Tendre, the highest of the Jura range, shuts in the sce- 

 nery to the east ; and thus one seems to be completely lost, and quite 

 excluded from all intercourse with the world. But, as I have already 

 observed, the scenery is not less beautiful than it is romantic. 

 Standing between the lakes, and looking towards the south, we see on 

 the left a frowning and barren mountain rising almost precipitately, 

 and only occasionally showing a vestige of life in the stunted grass 

 which here and there has planted itself. At a greater height, how- 



