We were glad to get
away, and took the steamer on our return voyage, in excellent spirits.
Apparently it had been a cold night in the upper regions, for a great
deal more snow was visible on some of the mountains than we had before
observed; especially a mountain called "Diableries" presented a silver
summit, and broad sheets and fields of snow. Nothing ever can have been
more beautiful than those groups of mighty hills as we saw them then,
with the gray rocks, the green slopes, the white snow-patches and crests,
all to be seen at one glance, and the mists and fleecy clouds tumbling,
rolling, hovering about their summits, filling their lofty valleys, and
coming down far towards the lower world, making the skyey aspects so
intimate with the earthly ones, that we hardly knew whether we were
sojourning in the material or spiritual world. It was like sailing
through the sky, moreover, to be borne along on such water as that of
Lake Leman,--the bluest, brightest, and profoundest element, the most
radiant eye that the dull earth ever opened to see heaven withal.
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