Only half of the town of Lucerne remains, the rest having been destroyed, and a mass of hotels built on its ruins. The huge barracks beside the Reuss stand on the site of one of its most picturesque groups of gate and wall. But by a strong effort of fancy the traveller may still imagine the old town running round the extremity of the lake, with narrow quays before its old-fashioned houses, connected, by the long covered bridge which yet remains, with the large suburb on the other side of the Reuss, and by another, now destroyed, with the eastern shore near the cathedral; the whole group defended from an attack on the land side by the chain of walls and towers, of which a portion yet remains on the grassy hill behind the town (the walks about this and the immediately succeeding hills between it and the Rothsee used to be among the most exquisite in Switzerland). The eminence which carries the towers is caused by a sharp elevation of the beds of the molasse sandstone, as may be clearly seen in the quarry on the other side of the Reuss, on the old Berne road. That road, about a mile and a half from Lucerne, crosses a picturesque dingle in this same sandstone, by which the torrent from the northernmost spurs of Pilate joins the Emme. There is a road through the ravine, and the opening view of Mount Pilate from the top of the hill is of singular loveliness.