We left Zurich the same afternoon, to walk to Stafa, where we were told the poet Freiligrath resided.  The road led along the bank of the lake, whose shores sloped gently up from the water, covered with gardens and farm-houses, which, with the bolder mountains that rose behind them, made a combination of the lovely and grand, on which the eye rested with rapture and delight.  The sweetest cottages were embowered among the orchards, and the whole country bloomed like a garden.  The waters of the lake are of a pale, transparent green, and so clear that we could see its bottom of white pebbles, for some distance.  Here and there floated a quiet boat on its surface.  The opposite hills were covered with a soft blue haze, and white villages sat along the shore, “like swans among the reeds.”  Behind, we saw the woody range of the Brunig Alp.  The people bade us a pleasant good evening; there was a universal air of cheerfulness and content on their countenances.

Towards evening, the clouds which hung in the south the whole day, dispersed a little and we could see the Dodiberg and the Alps of Glarus.  As sunset drew on, the broad summits of snow and the clouds which were rolled around them, assumed a soft rosy hue, which increased in brilliancy as the light of day faded.  The rough, icy crags and snowy steeps were fused in the warm light and half blended with the bright clouds.  This blaze, as it were, of the mountains at sunset, is called the Alp-glow, and exceeds all one’s highest conceptions of Alpine grandeur.  We watched the fading glory till it quite died away, and the summits wore a livid, ashy hue, like the mountains of a world wherein there was no life.  In a few minutes more the dusk of twilight spread over the scene, the boatmen glided home over the still lake and the herdsmen drove their cattle back from pasture on the slopes and meadows.

On inquiring for Freiligrath at Stafa, we found he had removed to Rapperschwyl, some distance further.  As it was already late, we waited for the steamboat which leaves Zurich every evening.  It came along about eight o’clock, and a little boat carried us out through rain and darkness to meet it, as it came like a fiery-eyed monster over the water.  We stepped on board the “Republican,” and in half an hour were brought to the wharf at Rapperschwyl.

There are two small islands in the lake, one of which, with a little chapel rising from among its green trees, is Ufnau, the grave of Ulrich von Hutten, one of the fathers of the German Reformation.  His fiery poems have been the source from which many a German bard has derived his inspiration, and Freiligrath who now lives in sight of his tomb, has published an indignant poem, because an inn with gaming tables has been established in the ruins of the castle near Creuznach, where Hutten found refuge from his enemies with Franz von Sickingen, brother-in-law of “Goetz with the iron Hand.”  The monks of Einsiedeln, to whom Ufnau belongs, have carefully obliterated all traces of his grave, so that the exact spot is not known, in order that even a tombstone might be denied him who once strove to overturn their order.  It matters little to that bold spirit whose motto was:  “The die is cast—­I have dared it!”—­the whole island is his monument, if he need one.