We trust ourselves to the care of an experienced boatwoman, and are soon
in a fairy-like scene, a long sheet of limpid water surrounded by
verdant ridges, amid which peep chalets here and there, and velvety
pastures slope down to the water's edge; all is here tenderness,
loveliness, and peace. As we glide from the lake to the basins, the
scenery takes a severer character, and there is sublimity in these
gigantic walls of rock rising sheer from the silvery lakelike sheets of
water, each successive one seeming to us more beautiful and romantic
than the last. Perfect solitude reigns here, for so precipitous and
steep are these fortress-like rocks that there is no "coigne of
vantage," even for the mountain goat, not the tiniest path from summit
to base, no single break in the shelving masses, some of which take the
weirdest forms. Seen as we first saw them with a brilliant blue sky
overhead, no shadow on the gold green verdure, these exquisite little
lakes--twin pearls on a string--afford the daintiest, most delightful
spectacle; but a leaden sky and a driving wind turn this scene of
enchantment into gloom and monotony, as we find on our way back.
The serene beauty of the lake, and the imposing aspect of these
rock-shut basins give an ascending scale of beauty, and the climax is
reached when, having glided in and out from the first to the last, we
alight, climb a mountain path, and behold far below at our feet, amid a
deafening roar, the majestic Falls of the Doubs.
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