The first consisted of a mere fragment of
territory at the western, or lower horn of the crescent; the second
occupied nearly the whole of the southern side of the sheet, or the cavity
of the half-moon; while the latter was mistress of the whole of the convex
border, and of the eastern horn. The shores of Savoy are composed, with
immaterial exceptions, of advanced spurs of the high Alps, among which
towers Mont Blanc, like a sovereign seated in majesty in the midst of a
brilliant court, the rocks frequently rising from the water's edge in
perpendicular masses. None of the lakes of this remarkable region possess
a greater variety of scenery than that of Geneva, which changes from the
smiling aspect of fertility and cultivation, at its lower extremity, to
the sublimity of a savage and sublime nature at its upper. Vevey, the
haven for which the Winkelried was bound, lies at the distance of three
leagues from the head of the lake, or the point where it receives the
Rhone; and Geneva, the port from which the reader has just seen her take
her departure, is divided by that river as it glances out of the blue
basin of the Leman again, to traverse the fertile fields of France, on its
hurried course towards the distant Mediterranean.
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