Chapter 9 - Page 2

frequently contain villages and towns, or form vast fields,
vineyards, and pasturages, according to their elevation or their exposure
towards the sun. It may be questioned, in strict geology, whether the
variegated acclivity that surrounds Vévey, rich in villages and vines,
hamlets and castles, has been thus formed, or whether the natural
convulsions which expelled the upper rocks from the crust of the earth
left their bases in the present broken and beautiful forms; but the fact
is not important to the effect, which is that just named, and which gives
to these vast ranges of rock secondary and fertile bases, that, in other
regions, would be termed mountains of themselves.

The castle and family of Blonay, for both still exist, are among the
oldest of Vaud. A square, rude tower, based upon a foundation of rock, one
of those ragged masses that thrust their naked heads occasionally through
the soil of the declivity, was the commencement of the hold. Other
edifices have been reared around this nucleus in different ages, until the
whole presents one of those peculiar and picturesque piles, that ornament
so many both of the savage and of the softer sites of Switzerland.

The terrace towards which Adelheid and her father advanced was an
irregular walk, shaded by venerable trees that had been raised near the
principal or the carriage gate of the castle, on a ledge of those rocks
that form the foundation of the buildings themselves. It had its parapet
walls, its seats, its artificial soil, and its gravelled _allées_, as is
usual with these antiquated ornaments; but it also had, what is better
than these, one of the most sublime and lovely views that ever greeted
human eyes. Beneath it lay the undulating and teeming declivity, rich in
vines, and carpeted with sward, here dotted by hamlets, there park-like
and rural with forest trees, while there was no quarter that did not show
the roof of a château or the tower of some rural church. There is little
of magnificence in Swiss architecture, which never much surpasses, and is,
perhaps, generally inferior to our own; but the beauty and quaintness of
the sites, the great variety of the surfaces, the hill-sides, and the
purity of the atmosphere, supply charms that are peculiar to the country.
Vévey lay at the water-side, many hundred feet lower, and seemingly on a
narrow strand, though in truth enjoying ample space; while the houses of
St. Saphorin, Corsier, Montreux, and of a dozen more villages, were
clustered together, like so many of the compact habitations of wasps stuck
against the mountains. But the principal charm was in the Leman. One who
had never witnessed the lake in its fury, could not conceive the
possibility of danger in the tranquil shining sheet