OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 467 



The "balde ruhest du auch" had but a sentimental value 

 for me at the time. The field of hope and action, which 

 in all likelihood lay between me and it, deprived the 

 idea of the definition which it sometimes possesses now. 



From Xassau, I passed through Ems to Xiederlahn- 

 stein, where the little Lahn which trickles from the 

 earth in the neighbourhood of Siegen (visited in 1850 

 by Hirst and myself) falls into the broader Rhine. 

 Thence along the river, and between the rocks of the 

 Lurlei, to Mayence ; afterwards to Frankfort and Heidel- 

 berg. I reached my proposed terminus on the night of 

 the 22d, and early next morning was among the castle 

 ruins. The azure overhead was perfect, and among the 

 twinkling shadows of the surrounding woods, the 

 thought of Switzerland revived. " How must the moun- 

 tains appear under such a sky ? " That night I slept at 

 Basel. In those days it was a pleasure to me to saunter 

 along the roads, enjoying such snatches of scenery as 

 were thus attainable. I knew not then the distant moun- 

 tains; the attraction which they afterward exercised 

 upon me had not yet begun to act. I moreover did not 

 like the diligence, and therefore walked all the way from 

 Basel to Zurich. I passed along the lake to Horgen, 

 thence over the hills to Zug, and afterwards along the 

 beautiful fringe of the Zugersee to Arth. Here, on 

 September 26, I bought my first alpenstock, and faced 

 with it the renowned Eigi. The sunset on the summit 

 was fine, but I retain no particular impression of the 

 Eigi's grandeur; and now, rightly or wrongly, I think 

 of it as a cloudy eminence, famous principally for its 

 guzzling and its noise. 



I descended the mountain through a dreamy opal- 

 escent atmosphere, but the dreaminess vanished at 

 Weggis as soon as the steamer from Lucerne arrived. 

 I took the boat to Fluellen. My journal expresses 



