But
at last the list of these was exhausted, and Rowland proposed the walk
to Engelberg as a novelty. The place is half bleak and half pastoral; a
huge white monastery rises abruptly from the green floor of the valley
and complicates its picturesqueness with an element rare in Swiss
scenery. Hard by is a group of chalets and inns, with the usual
appurtenances of a prosperous Swiss resort--lean brown guides in baggy
homespun, lounging under carved wooden galleries, stacks of alpenstocks
in every doorway, sun-scorched Englishmen without shirt-collars. Our two
friends sat a while at the door of an inn, discussing a pint of wine,
and then Roderick, who was indefatigable, announced his intention of
climbing to a certain rocky pinnacle which overhung the valley, and,
according to the testimony of one of the guides, commanded a view of the
Lake of Lucerne. To go and come back was only a matter of an hour, but
Rowland, with the prospect of his homeward trudge before him, confessed
to a preference for lounging on his bench, or at most strolling a trifle
farther and taking a look at the monastery.
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