It is almost impossible to describe the scenery of the Alps to one who had
never yet ascended mountains above the region of the clouds, without so
bewildering his imagination that his fancy will call forth and accept more
fictitious notions than true ones. The best description that I had ever
heard of the Alps, was the occasion of my most incorrect conceptions about
them. I think the speaker did not misstate or exaggerate anything in a
single word, but as he could in an hour's talk tell only one tenth of what
one ought to know, in order to form a correct notion of what the Alps look
like, my fanciful imagination promptly supplied the coloring of the other
nine tenths of the picture which he left untouched; and consequently when
I came to see the Alps, I found them entirely different from what I had
anticipated.

The ordinary school maps represent the Alps as extending along the borders
of Switzerland, as if they consisted of a single range, or possibly of
several parallel ranges, and Mount Blanc as its towering peak. With what
surprise a scholar who only saw these maps, will look about him, when he
reaches the summit of any high peak in Switzerland! On the Rigi, for
example, one sees an extent of territory almost 300 miles in circuit,
every part of which is studded with ice-capped peaks. These range not in
any one particular direction, nor do they number only several dozen, but
many hundreds of them stand around the beholder toward every point of the
compass and at variable distances, from the Pilatus near by to the most
distant part of the horizon--more than 50 miles away. The snow-clad crowns
of many of these rise high above the clouds, so that

"Through the parting clouds only
The earth can be seen,
Far down 'neath the vapour
The meadows of green."