The storm of the evening gave no kind augury of sunshine on the morrow,
and with rather anxious thoughts we listened as it roared among the
mountains which overhung our hostelry. But it seemed that we had
suffered enough, and when we woke we found that, though the clouds had
not yet cleared off from the sides of the mountains, there was
nevertheless every prospect of a fine day.
We were obliged to leave by an inexorably early steamer at half-past
five for Wallenstadt, and so lost all but the suggestion only of the
magnificence of the mountains which tower up so grandly over the north
shore of the lake. Like Goethe on his way into Italy, we might exclaim,
“What do we not pass over, both on the right hand and on the left, in
order to carry out the one thought which has become almost too old for
the soul!” But our time was limited, and our chief anxiety to spend as
much of our short holiday as we could in Italy; and so, sad though we
were to miss what was doubtless so well worthy of being seen, on we were
bound to go without delay.
Before we started I had secured a voiturier whose carriage was at
Wallenstadt to take us on to Chur, so that on this score I had no
trouble before me. Our voyage was only too soon made. Unlike the Lake of
Zurich, where the traveller rather hopes that each place at which he
stops may be the last, on this lake, as the tiny steamer ploughs its way
rapidly over its surface, with its goal always in view, and with not a
place to stop at on its road, he ceases not to long that his pleasure
may be prolonged!
By seven o’clock we were in our carriage, and _en route_. The sun began
to shine, and every minute the clouds rose higher and higher; so that,
before we finally lost--by turning into the valley of the Rhine--the
last view of the valley of the lake, we could see the peaks of the
mountains which we so wished to have seen before, the Sieben-Churfürsten,
which tower so grandly over the lake.
Wallenstadt is but a poor place, its situation being unwholesome, and
its inns not much to be commended. It has a church of modern character,
with an old-looking tower in the position of a transept, with a
saddle-back roof, gabled north and south. On the lower part of the south
side of this tower are paintings of the Crucifixion and some other
subjects, apparently of some antiquity. Just above the town, on the
right, we passed the ruins of an old castle; and at a slight rise in the
road had a beautiful view of the calm waters of the lake, looking blue,
but very much smaller than it really is. This, no doubt, is owing to the
great height of the precipitous rocks on its north side, which we now
saw for the first time, the clouds having at last risen and disclosed
some of the beauties which they had been concealing from us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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