Picturesque Tour through the Oberland; index
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LAKE OF THUN, AS SEEN FROM AN ISLAND NEAR THE TOWN.
Inexhaustible in variety and beauty, observes a Swiss writer, is the scenery
of Switzerland, especially about the lakes. The lake of Thun, in particular,
combines all the beauties of the north of Switzerland. Its banks are full
of grace and magnificence; numerous valleys there meet, and allow the eye
to penetrate into the recesses of the Alps; and this superb amphitheatre is
tinged morning and evening with the crimson or silver hue of the snow-clad
mountains. 
The
upper part, as far as Merligen, is still in the style of an Alpine lake; on
the right is the gray, fractured, rocky cliff, partly naked, and partly clothed
with dark firs: on the left, a steep mountain descends into the lake; from
its top avalanches thunder down every quarter of an hour in spring, in the
form of falling clouds. Between these mountains opens the spacious valley
of Interlacken, which appears as if lighted from the vale of Brienz in the
rear: there, between ice and rocks, nature flourishes in the greatest luxuriance.
Towards the lower end of the lake, the sublime features of the Alps are softened
down more and more at every step. The vines, on either side, bespeak a more
genial climate: the shores wind picturesquely in undulating lines, or embay
themselves, as at Spiez, in rich uplands. All the banks and hills are covered
with trees and shrubs and blossoms; they sweep along in every variety of graceful
curve, or are crowned with villages and neat habitations and gardens, or sometimes
sweetly shaded by groves or diversified by vineyards, till near Schadau, where
the azure lake, flowing with gentle current, seems to embrace the shore in
the form of beautiful islands. The imposing pyramid of the Niesen, situated
at the entrance of three elevated Alpine valleys, which lose themselves in
the clouds beside the glistening glaciers, majestically overlooks the whole
of this magnificent picture.
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The fertility of the shores of the lake of Thun seems to be chiefly owing to the shelter they enjoy from the north winds, and the directions of the declivities, which, on the one hand, slope to the meridian sun, and on the other, catch its reflections from the vast watery mirror. Less liable to frosts than the environs of Berne, the lower parts of the shore, even near Leissigen, where the sun is intercepted for many weeks from the sight of the inhabitants by the hills, produce abundance of fruit and plants of every kind. Whole ship-loads of the gifts of Pomona are hence conveyed in autumn to Thun, and up the Aar to the capital of the canton. The Spanish chesnut is cultivated, but not to the extent it might be; and the vine and walnut-tree thrive to admiration. The land is chiefly pasture and meadow the decrease in the cultivation of corn is here manifest from the shingled roofs of the houses; for there is plenty of wood, though straw is scarce. To save nails, and as a protection from violent gusts of wind, the thick shingles are covered with boards, and the latter held down by heavy stones. A stranger would almost imagine that a shower of these stones had fallen and bestrewed the whole country, as well as the roofs of the houses, so numerous are the fragments of rock detached from the mountains, with which the land is every where studded.
A singularity presented by the lake of Thun is the variety of appearance exhibited by its surface, which in some places is polished and brilliant; in others, immediately contiguous, dull, faint, or as a jeweller would term it, mat. It is only by continued observation, that we can expect to discover the cause of this phenomenon, which has not yet been satisfactorily accounted for.
The annexed view is taken from the upper island near Thun.
