a distance of five or six miles. There were
three of us, with an elder for guide. I wish you could have spent that
afternoon with us--with me, strolling along that wonderful road, cut out
of the mountain side bordering the lake. The post cards I am enclosing
will give you an idea of the scenery, and I assure you the blueness of
the lake is not overdone in the picture.

The road leads along gently sloping hill-sides, covered with farms, then
it pierces the sheer rock, then again borders the cliff, fifty or one
hundred feet from the lake below. The trees are in full leaf and some
are in bloom. The grass is high where we walked, but up towards the tops
of the mountains, the snow still lies. One of the strange sights is to
see large, splendid hotels perched in some cranny away up near the
summit of the peaks. Cog railways now take the tourists up some of the
mountains.

The region around Lake Lucerne is historic, I am told. Here began the
Swiss struggle for liberty which we read about. The scene of William
Tell's exploits are laid here, and we are shown on the shore of the
lake, Tell's Capelle, said to mark the spot where the apple-shooting
patriot leaped ashore and escaped from the tyrant Gessler. I do not
wonder at men, born and reared amid these mountains not submitting to
the yoke of oppression.

In reading up on Lucerne, I came upon this, taken from "Romance and
Teutonic Switzerland."

"The Swiss nation was born on the banks of Lake Luzern, and craddled
upon its waters. First, the chattering waves told the news to the
overhanging beaches; and they whispered it to the forests, to the lonely
cedars on the uplands. The blank precipices smiled, the Alpine roses
blushed their brightest, the summer pastures glowed, the glaciers and
avalanches roared approval; and, finally, the topmost peaks promised to
lend their white mantles for the baptism." That's rather nicely put,
don't you think?

About half way along Axenstrasse, we discovered that we were hungry, so
we proposed to try one of the farm houses for something to eat. Our
guide, tried one that looked typical of what we wanted, and the rest of
us waited by the road, for fully thirty minutes.

At last the elder returned, explaining that he had had no easy task. He
had to plead with every member of the household, from grandmother to
daughter, to get them to take us in; but at last he was successful. We
went into a most interesting room. The finish and furnishings wer