112 TEE JOURNEYMAN. 



looking cottages, a little larger than ant-hills, though not 

 quite so regularly formed, showed us that this part of 

 the country had its inhabitants. 



' We found out and bargained with the boatman, left 

 the carter and his horse to make the best of their way 

 by land, and were soon sweeping over the surface of 

 the lake. I have already fatigued you with description, 

 but I must attempt one picture more. Imagine a 

 smooth expanse of water stretching out before us for at 

 least eighteen miles, and bordered on both sides by lofty 

 mountains, abrupt, precipitous, and pressing on one 

 another, like men in a crowd. On the eastern shore 

 they rise so suddenly from the water that the eye passes 

 over them mile after mile without resting on a single 

 spot where a boat might land ; on the west their bases 

 are fringed by a broken irregular plain, partially covered 

 with a fir wood. At the higher end of the lake two 

 mountains, loftier and more inaccessible than any of the 

 others, shoot up on either hand as if to the middle sky, 

 and we see large patches of snow still resting on their 

 summits, gleaming like the banners of a fortress to tell 

 us that they are strongholds held by the spirits of winter, 

 and from whence they are to descend, a few months 

 hence, to ravage the country below. From one of these 

 mountains there descended two small streams, which, 

 falling from rock to rock, leaped into the lake over the 

 lower precipice, and, whitened into foam by the steep- 

 ness of their course, reminded me, as they hurried 

 through the long heath then in blossom, of strips of 

 ermine on a cloak of purple. Towards the north the 

 islands seem crowded together like a flock of water-fowl. 

 They vary in character, some barren and heathy, others 

 fertile and tufted with wood. On the largest, which is 

 of the better and more pleasing description, and bears, 



