From my window here in Bellaggio I have a view of the other side of the lake now, which is as beautiful as a picture. A scarred and wrinkled precipice rises to a height of eighteen hundred feet; on a tiny bench halfway up its vast wall sits a little snowflake of a church, no bigger than a martin box apparently; skirting the base of the cliff are a hundred orange groves and gardens, flecked with glimpses of the white dwellings that are buried in them; in front, three or four gondolas lie idle upon the water--and in the burnished mirror of the lake, mountain, chapel, houses, groves, and boats are counterfeited so brightly and so clearly that one scarce knows where the reality leaves off and the reflection begins!
The surroundings of this picture are fine. A mile away a grove-plumed promontory juts far into the lake and glasses its palace in the blue depths;in midstream a boat is cutting the shining surface and leaving a long track behind like a ray of light; the mountains beyond are veiled in a dreamy purple haze; far in the opposite direction a tumbled mass of domes and verdant slopes and valleys bars the lake, and here indeed does distance lend enchantment to the view--for on this broad canvas, sun and clouds and the richest of atmospheres have blended a thousand tints together, and over its surface the filmy lights and shadows drift, hour after hour, and glorify it with a beauty that seems reflected out of heaven itself.
Beyond all question, this is the most voluptuous scene we have yet looked upon.
Last night the scenery was striking and picturesque. On the other side crags and trees and snowy houses were reflected in the lake with a wonderful distinctness, and streams of light from many a distant window shot far abroad over the still waters. On this side, near at hand, great mansions, white with moonlight, glared out from the midst of masses of foliage that lay black and shapeless in the shadows that fell from the cliff above--and down in the margin of the lake every feature of the weird vision was faithfully repeated.
Today we have idled through a wonder of a garden attached to a ducal estate--but enough of description is enough, I judge. I suspect that this was the same place the gardener's son deceived the Lady of Lyons with, but I do not know. You may have heard of the passage somewhere: A deep vale, Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world, Near a clear lake margined by fruits of gold And whispering myrtles:
Glassing softest skies, cloudless, Save with rare and roseate shadows;A palace, lifting to eternal heaven its marbled walls, From out a glossy bower of coolest foliage musical with birds. That is all very well, except the "clear" part of the lake. It certainly is clearer than a great many lakes, but how dull its waters are compared with the wonderful transparence of Lake Tahoe! I speak of the north shore of Tahoe, where one can count the scales on a trout at a depth of a hundred and eighty feet. I have tried to get this statement off at par here, but with no success; so I have been obliged to negotiate it at fifty percent discount. At this rate I find some takers; perhaps the reader will receive it on the same terms--ninety feet instead of one hundred and eighty. But let it be remembered that those are forced terms--sheriffs sale prices.
As far as I am privately concerned, I abate not a jot of the original assertion that in those strangely magnifying waters one may count the scales on a trout (a trout of the large kind) at a depth of a hundred and eighty feet--may see every pebble on the bottom--might even count a paper of dray pins.
