MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 
63 
stone walls, forming a quadrangle, with strong square 
bastions at each angle ; and there is a plain gateway 
in the centre of the front wall of the area which en- 
closes the mausoleum. This monument stands upon 
the border of the lake, which when swelled by the 
rains, almost washes the lateral wall on the southern 
side, giving an agreeable relief to the wildness of the 
surrounding scene. 
The view of the distant mountains from the plain 
on which this mausoleum stands, is grand in the ex- 
treme. The snowy range is distinctly visible and its 
white peaks lifting their spotless crests above the 
clouds and appearing to shoot up into the very skies as 
if they had set at defiance the elementary law of limi- 
tation, produce a truly sublime effect. Their gelid 
spires, capped with eternal snow, are strikingly im- 
posing in the midst of their cold and repulsive solitude ; 
for the eye as well as the mind can never be directed, 
without an impressive emotion, towards those regions 
of unvarying sterility and silence where human foot 
has never penetrated and no living creature has ever 
found a permanent abode. Such a scene baffles the 
force of words, nor can those impressions which are 
excited by the contemplation of nature in her most 
inspiring solemnities, be communicated by any written 
description. 
The country at the base of the hills in this neigh- 
bourhood, is well cultivated and very fertile. The 
labours of the husbandman, which are light and 
quickly accomplished, are soon repaid by an abun- 
dant harvest. The eminences skirting the plain and 
forming the lower range of that chain of mountains 
