e had no time to spend upon it, as I arrived at 8 1/2 P.
M. too weary even to write if I had been able to sleep. I leave for
Basle by Diligence at eight this morning.

XXXII.

LUCERNE TO BASLE.

BASLE, July 13, 1851.

Very striking is the contrast between all of Switzerland I had
traversed, before reaching Lucerne, and the route thence to this place.
From Como to the middle of Lake Lucerne is something over a hundred
miles, and in all that distance there was never so much as one-tenth of
the land in sight that could, by any possibility, be cultivated. The
narrow valleys, when not _too_ narrow, were arable and generally
fertile; but they were shut in on every side by dizzy precipices, by
lofty mountains, often snow-crowned, and either wholly barren or with
only a few shrubs and stunted trees clinging to their clefts and
inequalities, because nothing else could cling there. A fortieth part of
these mountain sides may have been so moderately steep that soil could
gather and lie on them, in which case they yielded fair pasturage for
cattle, or at least for goats: but nine-tenths of their superficies were
utterly unproductive and inhospitable. On the mountain-tops, indeed,
there is sometimes a level space, but the snow generally monopolizes
that. Such is Switzerland from the Italian frontier, where I crossed it,
to the immediate vicinity of Lucerne.

Here all is changed. A small but beautiful river debouches from the lake
at its west end, and the town is grouped around this outlet. But
mountains here there are none--nothing but rich glades and gently
swelling hills, covered with the most bounteous harvest, through which
the high road runs north-easterly some sixty miles to Basle on the
Rhine in the north-east corner of Switzerland, with Germany (Baden) on
the east and France on the north. A single ridge, indeed, on this route
presents a ragged cliff or two and some heights dignified with the title
of mountains, which seem a joke to one who has just spent two days among
the Alps.

Grass is the chief staple of this fertile region, but Wheat is
abundantly grown and is just beginning to ripen, promising a noble
yield. Potatoes also are extensively planted, and I never saw a more
vigorous growth. Rye, Oats and Barley do well, but are little
cultivated. Of Indian Corn there is none, and the Vine, which had given
out on the Italian side some twenty miles below the foot of St. Gothard,
does not come in again til