[From _The Swiss Republic_ (Philadelphia, 1891)]
The Lake of Geneva is the largest of Western Europe, being fifty-seven
miles long, and its greatest width nine miles; it has its storms, its
waves, and its surge; now placid as a mirror, now furious as the
Atlantic; at times a deep-blue sea curling before the gentle waves,
then a turbid ocean dark with the mud and sand from its lowest depths;
the peasants on its banks still laugh at the idea of there being
sufficient cordage in the world to reach the bottom of the
_Genfer-See_. It is eleven hundred and fifty-four feet above the sea,
and having the same depth, its bottom coincides with the sea-level;
the water is of such exceeding purity that when analyzed only 0.157 in
1000 contain foreign elements. The lake lies nearly in the form of a
crescent stretching from the southwest towards the northeast.
Mountains rise on every side, groups of the Alps of Savoy, Valais, and
Jura. The northern or the Swiss shore is chiefly what is known as a
_cote_, or a declivity that admits of cultivation, with spots of
verdant pasture scattered at its feet and sometimes on its breast,
with a cheery range of garden, chalet, wood, and spire; villas,
hamlets, and villages seem to touch each other down by the banks, and
to form but one town, whilst higher up, they peep out from among the
vineyards or nestle under the shade of walnut-trees. At the foot of
the lake is the white city of Geneva, of which Bancroft wrote, "Had
their cause been lost, Alexander Hamilton would have retired with his
bride to Geneva, where nature and society were in their greatest
perfection." The city is divided into two parts by the Rhone as it
glides out of the basin of the lake on its course towards the
Mediterranean. The Arve pours its turbid stream into the Rhone soon
after that river issues from the lake. The contrast between the two
rivers is very striking, the one being as pure and limpid as the other
is foul and muddy. The Rhone seems to scorn the alliance and keeps as
long as possible unmingled with his dirty spouse; two miles below the
place of their junction a difference and opposition between this
ill-assorted couple is still observable; these, however, gradually
abate by long habit, till at last, yielding to necessity, and to the
unrelenting law which joined them together, they mix imperfect union
and flow in a common stream to the end of their course. At the head of
the lake begins the valley of the Rhone, where George Eliot said,
"that the very sunshine seemed dreary mid the desolation of ruin and
of waste in this long, marshy, squalid valley; and yet, on either side
of the weary valley are noble ranges of granite mountains, and hill
resorts of charm and health...." Standing at almost any point on the
Lake of Geneva, to the one side towers Dent-du-Midi, calm, proud, and
dazzling, like a queen of brightness; on the other side is seen the
Jura through her misty shroud extending in mellow lines, and a
cloudless sky vying in depths of color with the azure waters. So
graceful the outlines, so varied the details, so imposing the
framework in which this lake is set, well might Voltaire exclaim, "Mon
lac est le premier," (my lake is the first). For richness combined
with grandeur, for softness around and impressiveness above, for a
correspondence of contours on which the eye reposes with unwearied
admiration, from the smiling aspect of fertility and cultivation at
its lower extremity to the sublimity of a savage nature at its upper,
no lake is superior to that of Geneva. Numberless almost are the
distinguished men and women who have lived, labored, and died upon the
shores of this fair lake; every spot has a tale to tell of genius, or
records some history. In the calm retirement of Lausanne, Gibbon
contemplated the decay of empires; Rousseau and Byron found
inspiration on these shores; there is
"Clarens, sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep love!
Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought;
Thy trees take root in love."
Here is Chillon, with its great white wall sinking into the deep calm
of the water, while its very stones echo memorable events, from the
era of barbarism in 830, when Count Wala, who had held command of
Charlemagne's forces, was incarcerated within the tower of this
desolate rock during the reign of Louis le Debonnaire, to the
imprisonment of the Salvation Army captain.
"Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls;
A thousand feet in depth below,
Its massy waters meet and flow;
Below the surface of the lake
The dark vault lies"
where Bonnivard, the prior of St. Victor and the great asserter of the
independence of Geneva, was found when the castle was wrested from the
Duke of Savoy by the Bernese.