From Baden-Baden we took the railroad, following the course of the Rhine to Strasbourg, spending only a night here, in order to visit the beautiful cathedral; then on to Lucerne, waiting an hour or two to break the long day's ride, at Basle. Here the mountains began to grow before our eyes. We shot through tunnel after tunnel, cut in the solid rock, and suddenly sweeping around a curve, the everlasting hills wrapped in perpetual snows, greeted our astonished sight. We had reached the Mecca of our hopes at last. CHAPTER XIII. DAYS IN SWITZERLAND. The Lake of Lucerne.--Days of rest in the city.--An excursion up the Righi.--The crowd at the summit.--Dinner at midnight.--Rising before "the early worm."--The "sun-rise" according to Murray.--Animated scarecrows.--Off for a tour through Switzerland.--The lake for the last time.--Grütlii.--William Tell's chapel.--Fluellen.--Altorf.--Swiss haymakers.--An hour at Amsteg.--The rocks close in.--The Devil's Bridge.--The dangerous road.--"A carriage has gone over the precipice!"--Andermatt.--Desolate rocks.--Exquisite wild flowers.--The summit of the Furka.--A descent to the Rhone glacier.--Into the ice.--Swiss villages.--Brieg.--The convent inn.--The bare little chapel on the hill.--To Martigny. WHEN we forget the scene before our dazzled eyes as we stepped out upon the balcony of the hotel Bellevue at Lucerne, earth will have passed away. There lay the fair lake, the emerald hills rising from its blue depths on every side, save where the queer old town sweeps around its curve, or beyond Pilatus, where the chain is broken, and a strip of level land lies along the water's edge, sprinkled with red-roofed farm-houses set in the midst of grain-fields, and with rows of tall, straight poplars extending to the water. This sight of peaceful homes among the heavenly hills is like a vision of earth in mid-heaven. Beyond, above, overlapping each other, rise these delectable hills. No earthly air envelops them. No earthly feet tread their fair summits. Upon the highest, among the eternal snows, rest the clouds. Truly, the heavens declare the glory of God; but Switzerland showeth his handiwork!