I sauntered along the shore until I came to a sequestered cove, where
buttercups and wild peas were blooming close down to the limit reached
by the waves. Here, I thought, is just the place for a bath; but the
breakers seemed terribly boisterous and forbidding as they came rolling
up the beach, or dashed white against the rocks that bounded the cove
on the east. The outer ranks, ever broken, ever builded, formed a
magnificent rampart, sculptured and corniced like the hanging wall of a
bergschrund, and appeared hopelessly insurmountable, however easily one
might ride the swelling waves beyond. I feasted awhile on their beauty,
watching their coming in from afar like faithful messengers, to tell
their stories one by one; then I turned reluctantly away, to botanize
and wait a calm. But the calm did not come that day, nor did I wait
long. In an hour or two I was back again to the same little cove. The
waves still sang the old storm song, and rose in high crystal walls,
seemingly hard enough to be cut in sections, like ice.

Without any definite determination I found myself undressed, as if some
one else had taken me in hand; and while one of the largest waves was
ringing out its message and spending itself on the beach, I ran out with
open arms to the next, ducked beneath its breaking top, and got myself
into right lusty relationship with the brave old lake. Away I sped in
free, glad motion, as if, like a fish, I had been afloat all my life,
now low out of sight in the smooth, glassy valleys, now bounding aloft
on firm combing crests, while the crystal foam beat against my breast
with keen, crisp clashing, as if composed of pure salt. I bowed to every
wave, and each lifted me right royally to its shoulders, almost setting
me erect on my feet, while they all went speeding by like living
creatures, blooming and rejoicing in the brightness of the day, and
chanting the history of their grand mountain home.

A good deal of nonsense has been written concerning the difficulty of
swimming in this heavy water. "One's head would go down, and heels come
up, and the acrid brine would burn like fire." I was conscious only of
a joyous exhilaration, my limbs seemingly heeding their own business,
without any discomfort or confusion; so much so, that without previous
knowledge my experience on this occasion would not have led me to detect
anything peculiar. In calm weather, however, the sustaining power of the
water might probably be mo