STEEP TRAILS 



their feet in the clear blue brine, with fine 

 curving insteps, leaving no space for muddy 

 levels. The crystal brightness of the water, the 

 wild flowers, and the lovely mountain scenery 

 make this a favorite summer resort for pleas- 

 ure and health seekers. 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 flow- 

 ery hillsides together. 



But at the tune of my first visit hi 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 



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