IN

ITALY AND GREECE






_THE LOVE OF THE ALPS_[1]


Of all the joys in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving on
the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a long dusty day's journey
from Paris. The true epicure in refined pleasures will never travel
to Basle by night. He courts the heat of the sun and the monotony
of French plains,--their sluggish streams and never-ending poplar
trees--for the sake of the evening coolness and the gradual approach
to the great Alps, which await him at the close of the day. It is
about Mulhausen that he begins to feel a change in the landscape.
The fields broaden into rolling downs, watered by clear and running
streams; the green Swiss thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines
begin to tuft the slopes of gently rising hills; and now the sun has
set, the stars come out, first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights;
and he feels--yes, indeed, there is now no mistake--the well-known,
well-loved magical fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy
mountains and meadows watered by perennial streams. The last hour is
one of exquisite enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle, he scarcely
sleeps all night for hearing the swift Rhine beneath the balconies,