broad, level country.

B. Kiechel[3] (1585) was enthusiastic about 'the beautiful level
scenery' of Lichfeld, and found it difficult to breathe among the
Alps. Schickhart wrote: 'We were delighted to get away from the
horrible tedious mountains,' and has nothing to say of the Brenner
Pass except this poor joke: 'It did not burn us much, for what with
the ice and very deep snow and horribly cold wind, we found no heat.'
The most enthusiastic description is of the Lake of Como, by Paulus
Jovius (1552), praising Bellagio,'[4] In the seventeenth century
there was some admiration for the colossal proportions of the Alps,
but only as a foil to the much admired valleys.

J.J. Grasser wrote of Rhoetia[5]: 'There are marble masses
projecting, looking like walls and towers in imitation of all sorts
of wonderful architecture. The villages lie scattered in the valleys,
here and there the ground is most fruitful. There is luxuriance close
to barrenness, gracefulness close to dreadfulness, life close to
loneliness. The delight of the painter's eye is here, yet Nature
excels all the skill of art. The very ravines, tortuous foot-paths,
torrents, alternately raging and meagre, the arched bridges, waves on
the lakes, varied dress of the fields, the mighty trees, in short,
whatever heaven and earth grant to the sight, is an astonishment and
a pastime to the enraptured eye of the wanderer.'

But this pastime depended upon the contrast between the charming
valleys and the dreadful mountains.

Joseph Furttenbach (1591) writing about the same district of Thusis,
described 'the little bridges, under which one hears the Rhine
flowing with a great roar, and sees what a horrible cruel wilderness
the place is.' In Conrad Gessner's _De admiratione Montium_ (1541)[6]
a passage occurs which shews that even in Switzerland itself in the
sixteenth century one voice was found to praise Alpine scenery in a
very different way, anticipating Rousseau. 'I have resolved that so
long as God grants me life I will climb some mountains every year, or
at least one mountain, partly to learn the mountain flora, partly to
strengthen my body and refresh my soul. What a pleasure it is to see
the monstrous mountain masses, and lift one's head among the clouds.
How it stimulates worship, to be surrounded by the snowy domes, which
the Great Architect of the world built up in one long day of
creation! How empty is the life, how mean the striving of those who
only craw