Letters from Switzerland

It was dark before we were willing to quit this fearful place. The strength of the present bridge is so obvious, and the parapet so high, that the scene may be contemplated without fear; but the clouds had now gathered, hoarse thunder muttered among the mountains, spiteful squalls of rain, cold, gloomy, and piercing, were driving into our faces, and we were anxious to find shelter for the night. We left the Bridge, but in another moment plunged into utter darkness as we entered a tunnel called the Hole of Uri, where the road is bored one hundred and eighty feet through the solid rock, a hard but the only passage, as the stream usurps the rest of the way, and the precipice admits no possible path over its lofty head. This was made a hundred and fifty years ago, and before that time the passage was made on a shelf supported by chains let down from above. It was called the Gallery of Uri, and along it a single traveller could creep, if he had the nerve, in the midst of the roar and the spray of the torrent, and with an hungry gulph yawning wide below him.—Emerging from this den, we entered a valley five thousand feet above the sea; once doubtless a lake, whence the waters of the Reuss have burst the barriers of these giant fortresses, and found their way into more hospitable climes. No corn grows here, but the land flows with milk and honey—by no means an indication of fertility, for the cows and the goats find pasture at the foot of the glaciers, and the bees their nests in the stunted trees and the holes of the rocks. We drove through it till we came to Andermatt, where the numerous lights in the windows guided us to a rustic tavern.

By this time it had commenced raining hard, and I began to be anxious for my young friend Rankin, and a German student, Heinrich. But I could do no more for them than to send a man to watch in the highway till they should come up, and lead them into the house where I was resolved to spend the night, whether we could find beds or not. These rural inns in Switzerland are rude and often far from comfortable. But travellers here must not stand upon trifles. The house was designed to lodge twenty travellers, and thirty at least were here before us. A large supper table was spread, and around it a company of gentlemen and ladies, mostly German, were enjoying themselves right heartily, after the day’s fatigue was over. The London lawyer and myself had a separate table laid for us—we soon gathered on it some of the good things of this life, which by the way you can find almost every where, and had made some progress in the discussion of the various subjects before us, when Rankin and Heinrich arrived nearly exhausted with their toilsome walk. They had a dreadful tale to tell of the storm they had met—which we just escaped, and barely that. The lightning filled the gloomy gorge, lighting up for an instant the mighty cliffs and hanging precipices, while the thunder roared above the sound of the torrent, and the rain drove into their faces, disputing with them the upward pass. But they were young men, and strong. They told me that I never could have borne the labor and the exposure of the walk. Two travellers and a guide had given out, and taken lodgings in a hamlet we had passed, and the man whom we had employed to bring on our light bags, had also halted for the night, and would come up early in the morning.

After supper I led them to our chamber. Upon my arrival, the landlady assured me that every bed in the house was full, but I insisted so strenuously on having three, that the girls exchanged looks of agreement, and one of them offered to show me a chamber, if it would be acceptable. She led me up three pair of stairs, into a low garret bed-room, with one window of boards which could be opened, and one small one of glass that could not, and here were three beds kindly given up by the young women. Into this chamber I now conducted my young friends.

Worn out with their hard day’s work, but free from all anxious care, they were asleep in five minutes, while I coaxed the candle to burn as long as it would, fastened it up with a pin on the top of the candlestick, and tried to write the records of the few past hours. It was amusing to hear my companions, one on each side of me, talk in their sleep; Heinrich in his native German, and Rankin in his English, showing the restlessness of over-fatigue, while I sat wondering at myself, so lately a poor invalid, now in this wild region, exposed to such nights of discomfort, and days of toil. Yet was I grateful even there, not only for a safe shelter and a much better bed than my Master had, but for the strength to attempt such things, and for the luxury of health that lives and flows in a genial current through every part of a renovated frame.

In the morning I met an American gentleman returning from the summit of St. Gothard pass, and he advised me strenuously not to go further up, unless I was going now into Italy. The most wonderful of the engineering in the construction of the road, had already been seen, and there was nothing else of interest above. The same savage scenery, in the midst of which the Reuss leaps down 2,000 feet in the course of a two hours’ walk, is continued, and the dreariness of desolation reigns alone. A house for the accommodation of travellers has been maintained for hundreds of years, destroyed at times and then restored, and a few monks have been supported here to extend what aid they may to those who require their assistance. We resolved to pursue a route through the Furca pass, one of the most romantic and interesting of all the passes in Switzerland. A long day’s walk it would be over frozen mountains and by the side of never melting glaciers, and no carriage way! Nothing but a bridle and a foot path, and a rough one too, was now before us, and if we left the present road, and struck off over the Furca, it would be four or five days before we should reach the routes which are traversed by wheels. Our baggage, though but a bag apiece and blankets, was too heavy for us to carry if we walked, and I proposed to take a horse, put on him our three bundles, and ride by turns. Heinrich had never heard of the mode of travelling called “ride and tie,” and he was greatly amused when it was described to him. Accordingly we ordered a horse for the day. The price is regulated by law, under the pretence of protecting the traveller, but really for the purpose of extorting from him a sum twice as large as he would have to pay if the business were open to competition. The horse was brought to the door, and when we ordered the bags of three to be strapped on, the landlord flew into a great rage, and declared he would not be imposed upon. I smiled in his red face, and asked, “If he knew how much baggage the law allowed each man to carry on his horse.” He said he did, and I then told him to weigh those, and he might have for his own all over and above the legal allowance. He was still dissatisfied, but when we bade him to take his old nag to the stable, he suddenly cooled. Without further delay he made fast “the traps,” gave me a good stout fellow to conduct the party and bring back the beast. An idle group of guides and tavern hangers, and quite a party of Germans and English were looking on when I bestrode the animal, and took my seat in the midst of the bundles rising before and behind, like the humps of a camel. We are yet in the vale of the Urseren, not more than a mile wide, and lofty mountains flanking its sides. The mountain of St. Anne is clad with a glacier, from which the “thunderbolts of snow” come down with terrific power in the spring, and yet there stands a forest in the form of a triangle, pointing upward, and so placed that the slides of snow as they come down are broken in pieces and guided away from the village below. The great business of the people in this vale is to keep cattle and to fleece the strangers who travel in throngs over the pass of St. Gothard. Hundreds of horses are kept for hire, and nothing is to be had by a “foreigner” unless he pays an exorbitant price. Even the specimens of minerals are held so high, that no reasonable man can afford to buy them. But we are now leaving Andermatt, and on the side of the road not long after leaving the village we saw two stone pillars, which need but a beam to be laid across them, and they make a gallows, on which criminals were formerly hung, when this little valley, like Gersau on the lake, was an independent state. The pillars are still preserved with care, as a memorial of the former sovereignty of the community.

We reached Hospenthal in a few moments; a cluster of houses about a church, and with a tower above the hamlet which is attributed to the Lombards. I was struck with the exceeding loneliness and forsakenness of this spot. It seemed that men had once been here, but had retired from so wild and barren a land, to some more genial clime. Hospenthal has a hotel or two, and it is a great halting place for travellers who are about to take our route over the Furca to the Hospice of the Grimsel. Here we quit the St. Gothard road, and winding off by a narrow path in which we can go only in single file, we are soon out of the vale, and slowly making our way up the mountain. The hill sides are dotted with the huts of the poor peasants, who have hard work to hold fast to the slopes with one hand, while they work for a miserable living with the other. The morning sun was playing on the blue glacier of St. Anne, and a beautiful waterfall wandered and tumbled down the mountain; yet this was but one of many of the same kind that we are constantly meeting as we go through these defiles of the high Alps. The vast masses of snow and ice on the summits are sending down streams through the Summer, and these sometimes leap from rock to rock, and again they clear hundreds of feet at a single bound; slender, like a long white scarf on the green hill, but very picturesque and beautiful. At the foot of this mountain are the remains of an awful avalanche, which buried a little hamlet here in a sudden grave, and a sad story of a maiden and a babe who perished, was told me with much feeling by the guide as we passed over the spot. The peasant men and women were bringing down bundles of hay on their heads and shoulders from the scanty meadows which here and there in a warm bosom of the hills may be found, and as they descended I recalled the story of Orpheus, at whose music the trees are said to have followed him, and I could readily understand that such a procession might be taken or mistaken for the marching of a young forest. We are still following up the river Reuss towards its source, and though it is narrower, it is often fiercer and makes longer strides at a step than it did last evening. We cross it now and then on occasional stones, or on rude logs, and come to a spot where the bridge was swept away last night by an avalanche of earth and ice, and well for us that it came in the night before we were here to be caught. An old man with a pickaxe in his hand had been working to repair the crossing, and had managed to get a few stones arranged so that foot passengers could leap over, and the horses after slight hesitation and careful sounding of the bottom, took to the torrent and waded safely over. I held my feet high enough to escape a wetting, but I heard a lady of another party complaining bitterly that the water was so deep or her foot so far down, I could not tell which, but it was evident that very much against her will she had been drawn through the river.

At Realp, a little handful of houses, we found a small house of refreshment, where two Capuchin friars reside to minister to travellers, and this was the last sign of a human habitation we saw for some weary hours. We are now so far up in the world, that the snow lay in banks by the side of the path, while flowers, bright beautiful flowers were blooming in the sun. It is difficult to reconcile this apparent contradiction in nature. The fact is not surprising here, where we see such vast accumulations of snow and remember that a short summer does not suffice to melt it, but it is strange to read of flowery banks all gay and smiling, within a few feet only of these heaps of snow. I counted flowers of seven distinct colors, and gathered those that would press well in my books, souvenirs of this remarkable region. On the right the Galenstock Glacier now appears, and out of it vast rocks like the battlements of some old castle shoot 1,000 feet into the air. I am now among the ice palaces of the earth. The cold winds are sweeping down upon me, and I hug my coat closer as the ice blast strikes a chill to my heart.

We were just making the last sharp ascent before reaching the summit of the Furca when I overtook a lady sitting disconsolately by the wayside. She cried out as soon as I came up, “O Sir, my guide is such a brute—the saddle turns under me and I cannot get him to fix it—my husband has gone on before me—I cannot speak a word of German and the dumb fool cannot speak a word of English. What shall I do?”

“Madam,” said I, “my servant shall arrange your saddle, and I will conduct you to the summit where the rest of your party will doubtless wait.” She overpowered me with her expressions of gratitude, and while my servant was putting her saddle girths to rights, I gave her guide the needful cautions, and we crossed a vast snow bank together, climbed the steep pitch, and in ten minutes reached the inn at the top of the Furca. Distant glaciers, snow clad summits, ridges, and ranges stood around me, a world without inhabitants, desolate, cold and grand in its icy canopy and hoary robes of snow.

The descent was too rapid and severe for riding, and giving the horse into the charge of the servant we walked down, discoursing by the way of things rarely talked of in the Alps. My young German friend had all the enthusiasm of the French character joined to the mysticism of his own nation. He is well read in English literature, and familiar with ancient and modern authors, so that we had sources unfailing, to entertain us as we wandered on; now sitting down to rest and now bracing ourselves for a smart walk over a rugged pass. I became intensely interested in him, though I had constant occasion to challenge his opinions, and especially to contrast his philosophy with the revealed wisdom of God. We had spoken of these things for an hour or more when I asked him if he had ever read “the Pilgrim’s Progress,” and when I found he had not, I told him the design of the allegory, and said “we are pilgrims over these mountains, and have been cheering one another with pleasing discourse as the travellers did on their way to the celestial city. They came at last in sight of its gates of pearl.”

“But what is that?”

We had suddenly turned the shoulder of a hill, and a glacier of such splendor and extent burst upon our view as to fix us to the spot in silent but excited admiration. It was the first we had seen near us. Others had been lying away in the far heights, their surface smoothed by the distance, and their color a dull blue; but now we were at the foot of a mountain of ice! We could stand upon it, walk on its face, gaze on its form and features, wonder, admire, look above it and adore! This is the glacier of the Rhone! That great river springs from its bosom, first with a strong bound as if suddenly summoned into being, works its way through a mighty cavern of ice, and then winds along the base till it emerges in a roaring, milky white stream and rushes down the valley toward the sea. This glacier has been called a “magnificent sea of ice.” It is not so. That description conveys no idea of the stupendous scene. You have stood in front of the American fall of Niagara. Extend that fall far up the rapids, receding as it rises a thousand feet or more from where you stand to the crest: at each side of it let a tall mountain rise as a giant frame work on which the tableau is to rest; then suddenly congeal this cataract, with its curling waves, its clouds of spray, its falling showers of jewelry, point its brow with pinnacles of ice, and then, then let the bright sun pour on it his beams, giving the brilliancy not of snow but of polished ice to the vast hill-side now before you, and you will then have but a faint conception of the grandeur of this glacier.

“It answers,” said Heinrich, “to Burke’s definition of the sublime—it is vast, mysterious, terrible!”

I replied that “it was impossible for me to have the sensation of fear, and scarcely of awe in looking upon the scene before us—it rather had to me the image of the outer walls of heaven, as if there must be infinite glory within and beyond when such majesty and beauty were without. And then these flowers skirting the borders of this frozen pile, and smiling as lovely as beneath the sunniest slope in Italy, forbade the idea that this crystal mountain was of ice.”

“But will it not vanish if we look away?” said Heinrich, as he gazed on the frozen cataracts, and gave utterance to his admiration in the most expressive words that German, French, English, Latin or Greek would supply, for our discourse was in a mixture of them all.

Soon after passing the Glacier of the Rhone we met a peasant who assured us that he had fallen into one of its crevices, seventy feet, and had cut his way up with a hatchet, thus delivering himself from an icy grave.

A little wayside inn gave us a brief respite from our toilsome journey. We climbed the Grimsel, and reached the Dead Sea on its summit. It is called the Lake of the Dead, because the bodies of those who perished in making this journey were formerly cast into it for burial. Heinrich and I left the path and climbed to a cliff where we looked down on the pilgrim parties on horses and on foot, winding their way along its borders. We sent our servant onward to engage beds for us at the hospice of the Grimsel, and resolved to spend the rest of the day (the sun was yet three hours high) in this wilderness of mountain scenery.

We could now look down into the valley, a little valley, but like an immense cauldron, the sides of which are sterile naked rocks, eight hundred feet high! On the west they stand like the walls and towers of a fortified city, and in the bottom of the vale is a single house and a small lake; but a flock of a hundred goats and a score of cows, with tinkling bells, are picking a scanty subsistence among the stones. The scene was wild, savage, grand indeed, and had there been no sun to light it up with the lustre of heaven, it would have been dreary and dismal. Heinrich had been very thoughtful for an hour. He had discovered that my thoughts turned constantly to the God who made all these mountains, while he was ever studying the mountains themselves.

“Here I will commune with nature.”

I replied, “And I will go on a little further, and commune with God!”

“Stay,” he cried, “I would go with you.”

“But you cannot see Him,” I said—“I see Him in the mountain and the glacier and the flower: I hear Him in the torrent and the still small voice of the rills and little waterfalls that are warbling ever in our ears. I feel his presence and something of his power. I beg you to stay and commune with nature, while I go and commune with God.”

I left him and wandered off alone, and in an hour went down the mountain, and to my chamber in the hospice. I was sitting on the bedside, arranging the flowers I had gathered during the day, when Heinrich entered, and giving me his hand said to me, “I wish you would speak more to me of God!”

He sat down by my side, and I asked him if he believed the Bible to be the Word of God.

He said he did, but he would examine it by the light of history and reason, and reject what he did not find to be true.

“And do you believe that the soul of man will live hereafter?”

“I doubt,” was his desponding answer.

I then addressed him tenderly, “My dear young friend, I have loved you since the hour I met you at Altorf. And now tell me, with all your studies have you yet learned how to die? You doubt, but are you so well satisfied with your philosophy that you are able to look upon death among the mountains, or by the lightning, without fear? My faith tells me that when I die my life and joy will just begin, and go on in glory forever. This is the source of all my hopes, and it gives me comfort now when I think that I may never see my native land and those I love on earth again. I know that in another land we shall meet?”

“How do you know that you shall meet?”

“My faith, my heart, my Bible tells me so. I shall meet all the good in heaven. I am sure of one child, an angel now.”

“And where are your children?”

“Four in America, and one in heaven. I had a boy four years ago; earth never had a fairer. His locks were of gold and hung in rich curls on a neck and shoulders whiter than the snow: his brow was high and broad like an infant cherub’s; and his eye was blue as the evening sky. And he was lovelier than he was fair. But in the budding of his beauty, he fell sick and died.”

“O no, not died!”

“Yes, he died here by my heart. And that child is the only one of mine that I am sure of ever seeing again.”

“I do not understand you.”

“If my other children grow up to doubt as you doubt, they may wander away on the mountains of error or the glaciers of vice, and fall into some awful gulph and be lost forever. And if I do not live to see my living children, I am as sure of meeting that one now in heaven, as if I saw him here in the light of the setting sun.—Heinrich, have you a mother, my dear friend?”

“Yes, yes,” he cried, “and her faith is the same as yours.”

I had seen his eyes filling, and had felt my own lips quivering as I spoke, but now he burst into tears and fell on my breast. He kissed my lips, and my cheeks, and my forehead, and the hot tears rained on my face, and mingled with my own. “O teach me the way to feel and believe,” he said at last, as he clung to me like a frightened child, and clasped me convulsively to his heart. I held him long and tenderly, and felt for him somewhat, I hope, as Jesus did for the young man who came to him with a similar inquiry. I loved him, and longed to lead him to the light of day.

My new Friend—a Wonderful Youth—Hospice of the Grimsel—the Valley—a comfortable Day—Glaciers of the Aar—a Gloomy Vale—Climbing a Hill—View of the Glacier—Theory of its Formation—Caverns in the Ice—Incidents of Men falling in—My Leap and Fall—an Artist Lost—Return.

Heinrich proved to be a wonderful youth. He had a warm heart, and his intellect was cultivated to a degree not parallelled in my acquaintance among young men. He was just one and twenty years of age, and had not completed the usual course of collegiate education. But there was no author in the Latin or Greek languages, poet, philosopher or historian, whose works I have ever heard of, which were not familiar to him, as the English Classics are to well read men in England or America. He discoursed readily of the style, the dialect, the shade of sentiment on any disputed point; he cited passages and drew illustrations from the pages of ancient literature which seemed to him like household words: and one of our amusements when crossing the Alps was to discuss the difference in Greek or Latin words which are usually regarded as synonymes. But classical learning was the least and lowest attainment of this accomplished youth. The whole range of Natural Sciences had been pursued with a zeal that might be called a passion. Botany and Mineralogy were child’s play to him: and Chemistry had been a favorite study evidently, for its principles often came up in our rambling discourse, and he was master of it as if he had been a teacher of the science for years. Geology was a hobby of his, and he thrust it upon me often when I wished he would let me alone, or discourse of something else. And yet when I have said all this I have not mentioned the department in which he was most at home, where his soul revelled in profound enjoyment, and in which he was resolved to spend his life. Metaphysics was his favorite pursuit. His analytical mind was always on the track of investigation, challenging a reason for everything, questioning the truth of every proposition, and never resting till his reason had subjected it to the most exhausting process. Yet in the midst of these studies including many departments to which I have not referred, as the exact sciences, he had polished this fine intellect by the widest course of polite literature, perusing in the German translations, all the old masters of the English tongue, admiring Shakespeare and Milton, quoting from them as a scholar would from Sophocles or Homer, and surprising me by reference to English authors, whose works I had not supposed were translated into the German language. Of course the poets and philosophers of his father-land were his pride and love. Often he would speak of them in terms of endearment, as if they were his personal friends; though of all beings, present or past, in heaven or out of it, I think he loved Plato most. This boy was just out of his teens, a student still, and modest as he was learned; burning to learn more; asking questions till it was tiresome to hear them; and never dreaming that he knew more than others. He was the most learned young man I ever saw. And few old men know half as much. He now joined my party, leaving his own altogether, and resolved to follow me to the ends of the earth.

We are now in the Vale of the Grimsel. In the bottom of the Valley, by the side of a lake forever dark with the shadows of overhanging hills, is the Hospice, a name that here combines the idea of hospital and hotel—its design being to furnish lodging and entertainment to travellers, whether they are able to pay for the hospitality or not. Last winter the landlord of the Grimsel having insured his house, set fire to it, to get the money, and now is in prison for twenty years as the penalty of his crime. In years past there have been terrible avalanches here, and once the house was crushed by the “thunderbolts of snow.” Often it is surrounded by snow drifts twenty or thirty feet high, yet some one lodges here all winter to keep up a fire and furnish shelter to the benighted traveller. It is strange that these lonely paths should be traversed at all in the depth of winter. But there is no other mode of communication between the valleys, than along these defiles, and the traffic among the people of one canton with another is carried on, and the intercourse of families is kept up at the risk of life here as in other countries. If one has a good home, it were better to stay in it than to cross the Grimsel in the winter.

A mixed multitude were under the roof of the Hospice. The building is yet unfinished; and it must have required prodigious exertions to get it so far under way, since the fire, as to make it habitable for travellers this season. Every stick of timber must be brought up by hand from the plain some miles below. The walls are of stone, about three feet thick, and rough enough. No attempt to smooth a wall, or paint a board appears on the edifice, and the rude bedsteads, benches and chairs suggest to the luxurious traveller how few of the good things he has at home are actually essential to his comfort. The house has about forty beds, but these were far from being sufficient to give each weary pilgrim one. Many were obliged to choose the softest boards in the dining room floor, and sleep on them. Yet in that company of sixty who crowded around the supper table were many of the learned, and titled, and beautiful, and wealthy of many lands; meeting socially in a dreary valley, on a journey of pleasure, and refreshing each other with the “feast of reason and the flow of soul.” Reserve was banished, and the hour freely given to good cheer, in which all strove to forget the toils of the day, in the pleasures of the evening, and the repose of a peaceful night.

Within an hour’s walk from the door of the Hospice is the Glacier of the Aar, the most interesting and instructive of all the Glaciers of Switzerland. It has been more studied by men of science than any other. Agassiz and Forbes had their huts on its bosom, and spent many long and weary months in prying into the mysteries of these stupendous seas of solid water. Not one of the whole company who staid at the Hospice last night, turned aside for a day to study with us this wonderful scene. A party of English people read the guide book on the route to Meyringen, and congratulated themselves on having a “comfortable” day, as there was very little to see! They were doing Switzerland, and were evidently pleased to find a day before them when they had nothing to do but to go on, without being worried with fine views and climbing hills. One party after another came down and took a wretched cup of coffee, and were off on their pilgrimage, some on foot, some on mules, and one or two were carried on chairs by porters.

We were left alone at the Hospice, and after breakfast set off to spend the day on the Glaciers. There are two of them, the Obi and Unter, or Upper and Lower; the latter being the most easily reached, and happily the most interesting. It is eighteen miles long, and about three miles wide. To circumnavigate it therefore, is not the journey of a day, but it may be explored on foot, and Hugi, the naturalist, is said to have rode over it on a horse. The morning was not promising. Heavy mists had lodged in the vale of the Grimsel. But far above them in gloomy grandeur rose the sterile ridges of rocks, towering aloft, and looking like the battlements of giants’ castles, inaccessible save to the chamois and his pursuer, who often risked, and sometimes threw away his life in his daring adventures to secure his prey. Even the chamois has now almost entirety disappeared, and the eagles alone have their dwelling places in these desolate abodes. Yet from the lofty heights some beautiful cascades are pouring all the way down into the vale, foaming as they fall; and sometimes caught by the intervening rocks, and sent out from the side of the precipice they melt into spray, and again on a lower ledge are gathered to pursue their downward course. Along the bottom of this gloomy vale we walked for an hour, till we came in sight of a mighty pile of earth, rocks, ice and snow. At first we thought we had come to a vast heap of sand, or to the debris brought down by an avalanche of soil with stones intermingled, but from the base of it a torrent was rushing, not of clear blue water, but of a dirty milky hue, as are all the streams when they issue from the beds of these Glaciers. The front of the mass was perhaps one hundred and fifty feet high, and nearly perpendicular, and here it was half a mile in width. On nearer approach, we could see the rocks of blue ice projecting through the coating of earth, showing plainly that the body of the great pile before us was the cold icebergs hid beneath a covering of earth that had been washed down upon it, from the mountains above. Now and then large masses of earth, or a huge boulder would be dislodged from the brow of the pile, and thunder along down, as we sat watching for these miniature avalanches. The sense of the terrible was strong upon us now. It was not beautiful: it was grand and awful, as we changed our position lest the falling rocks should overtake us in their course. But a few little birds were flying about from stone to stone unconscious of danger, the solitary inhabitants of this frozen world.

We now determined to ascend and look on its face. With incredible toil we climbed the hill by the side of it. If there ever was a path, we could not find it, but from rock to rock, often pulling ourselves up by the stunted bushes, we worked our way. Onward and upward we mounted, and at last were rewarded for the struggle by standing abreast of the glacier, where we could walk around and upon it and contemplate its stupendous proportions. From the bosom of it rises the Finster-Aarhorn, a lone pyramid that seems now to touch the blue sky: so cold and stern it stands there, its head forever covered with snow and its foot in this everlasting ocean of ice. The Schreckhorn is the other peak that stands yet farther off, but the clouds are now so dense around its summit, that I cannot see its hoary head.

Here we are six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and for three-quarters of the year the snow is falling on these mountains: not an April snow that melts as it falls, but a dry powder, into which a man without snow-shoes would sink out of sight, as in the water. On the loftiest of these mountains, the surface of the snow melts a little every day, and the deeper you descend into the snow, the melting is going on also. But at night it freezes, as by day for a little while it thaws, and this process is continued until the snow is gradually converted into ice. The high valleys are filled with these ever increasing deposits of snow, which are thus constantly undergoing this change, and as the fresh deposit far exceeds what is carried off by melting, the enormous mass is rather increased than diminished by the lapse of time. It becomes a fixed fact; yet not fixed, for the most remarkable, and to my mind, the sublimest fact in this relation, is that these glaciers are actually moving steadily, year by year. The projecting mass in the lowest valley, as where we were standing a few hours ago, is melting away, and sending out the river that leaves its bosom on its mission into a world far below. Underneath the glacier, where it presses on the earth, which has a heart of fire, the work of dissolution is rapidly going on, while the sun on the upper surface melts the ice, and streams flow along and cut deep crevices into which the uncautious traveller may fall never to rise again till the last day. Some of these glaciers may be traversed underneath, by following the streams. Hugi wandered a mile in this way underneath magnificent domes, through which the sun-light was streaming, and among crystal columns which had been left standing as if to support the superincumbent mass. The water, as in rocky caverns, trickles through and freezes in beautiful stalactytes, to adorn these palaces, unseen except by the eye to which darkness and light are both alike. As this decay of the glacier takes place, and it is always more rapid near the lower border of it than above, the pressure of the upper masses brings the whole mountain slowly along: with a steadiness of march that cannot be perceived by the eye, but which is marked with precision, and chronicled from year to year. The place where great rocks are reposing on the surface near the edge of the mountain against which the glacier presses has been carefully noted, and the next year and for many subsequent years, the onward progress of the boulder has been noted. Blocks of granite have been inserted in the bosom of the glacier, and their position defined by their relation to the points of land in sight; and years afterwards they are away on their journey, and by and by, they have disappeared altogether as the glacier moves on and heaves and breaks and closes again. More wonderful still, it is recorded that a “mass of granite of twenty six thousand cubic feet, originally buried under the snow, was raised to the surface and even elevated above it upon two pillars of ice, so that a small army might have found shelter under it.” The men of science who have pursued investigations here under circumstances quite as fearful and forbidding as the navigators around the north Pole, have a rude hut in which they make themselves as comfortable as the nature of the case will admit; but this house though founded on a rock is not stationary. It moves on with the mighty field of ice, about three hundred feet in a year, or nearly one foot every day: not so rapidly in winter as in summer, for the rate of progress depends on the melting, which is arrested for a brief period during the terrible winters of this Alpine region. Other glaciers move with greater rapidity than this. The Mere de Glace is believed to move at the rate of four or five hundred feet every year, and it is said that the glacier is gradually wasting out.

The surface of this frozen sea is exceedingly irregular, depending on the nature of the ground below, and the progress of the ice. When a stream has cut away a great seam, where the descent of the moving mass will be swift when it does move, the shock will throw up the ice in ridges, in pyramids, in various fantastic shapes, piling rocks on rocks of ice, as if some great explosion underneath had upheaved the surface and the fragments had come down in wild confusion, like the ruins of a crystal city. Then the sun gradually melts those towers, and they assume strange shapes of wild and dazzling beauty, unreal palaces, glittering minarets, silvered domes and shining battlements; freaks of nature we call them, but they are too beautiful for chance work, and we do not know to what eyes these forms of glory may give pleasure, nor why it is that God displays so much of his selectest skill and most stupendous power, where few behold it of the race to which we belong. Doubtless our own great Cataract leaped and thundered in the wilderness thousands of years, with no human ear or eye to receive its majesty and beauty, but it did not roar in vain. God has other and nobler worshippers than man, and while we are groping like moles beneath the surface, and striving in our blindness to discover the mysteries of God’s works, there are minds to which these wonders are revelations of their Maker’s glory and goodness, and they understand, admire and adore.

Here was a world of solid water, gradually enlarging and then melting away, to send down rivers into the plains below, and this with the other glaciers of the Alps, is thus supplying all the rivers in Europe which might otherwise be dry. Yet as other rivers in other lands are constantly supplied without this provision, we must suppose that some other design in Providence is laid, which science may or may not discover, but whether it does or not, we are certain that they are not without a purpose corresponding with the magnitude of their proportions, and the wisdom of Him who, though omnipotent, never wastes His strength in works without design.

We confined our walks to the edges of this solid but still treacherous sea. We had yesterday conversed with a man who had fallen into the crevices of one of these glaciers, and we had a greater horror of repeating the experiment. The case is on record of a shepherd who was crossing this very glacier with his flock, when he fell into one of the clefts, into which a torrent was pouring. This stream was his guide to life and liberty again; for he followed its course under the archway it had made, until it led him to the foot of the glacier into the open air. But a Swiss clergyman, a spiritual shepherd, M. Mouron, was leaning on the edge of a fissure to explore a remarkable formation over the brink, when the staff on which he rested gave way, and he fell, only to be drawn out again a mangled corpse. A man was let down by a rope, and after two or three unsuccessful expeditions, found him at last, and was drawn up with the body in his arms.

Coming down from the hill, we had hard work in crossing some dangerous clefts in the rocks, and once I planted my Alpen-stock firmly, as I thought, in the thin soil, and leaped; the spike failed; the foot of the staff slipped on and left the steel in the ground, and I was sprawling generally along down the hill: fortunately I recovered my foothold, and came down standing! And this is a good place in which to say that shoes with iron nails in the soles are not the best for walking over these mountains: a good pair of boots with double soles have served me many times, sticking fast in the face of a slippery rock, while travellers shod with iron have been sliding down with no strength of sole to resist the gravitation. But I met with no such misfortune in all my travels over the most dangerous passes, and under circumstances of trial not often exceeded by those who wander in these parts.

We had several sorts of weather in this expedition to the source of the Aar. The misty morning was succeeded by a glowing sun at noon, followed by clouds and rain. When this was coming, we thought it time to be going, and gathering a few flowers, as usual, on the verge of the cold beds of ice, we turned our weary steps towards the Hospice. It was our good fortune just then to meet an Italian artist who had lost his way, and we had the pleasure of guiding him to the Hospice. Wandering with his knapsack and port folio, in search of the beautiful in nature, which he sketched by the way, it was of no great consequence to him, in which direction he travelled, but a storm was now at hand, it was rapidly growing cold, and he was going every moment farther from any place of shelter.

We were soon housed safely in the Hospice; and glad enough to stretch ourselves on a bed after the walk of the morning. It was hard to keep warm anywhere else but in bed. The house was yet so unfinished and open, and the storm increasing every moment; a wretched old stove in one corner of the eating-room, scarcely giving any heat with the few sticks of fuel we were able to find. We wrapped blankets around us, and tried to write, and when that proved to be more than we could accomplish under the difficulties, I took my Bible and read to my German friend some of the sublimest passages in the Psalms, where the Lord is revealed among the mountains, and his majesty portrayed by the loftiest of his works. He listened with interest, and when I laid aside the book, he asked for it, and read it long and earnestly.

As the evening drew on, a few travellers began to drop in, and at seven o’clock a company, much like the one of last night, but all with new faces, sat down to supper.

Pedestrianism—Mountain Torrents—Fall of the Handek—The Guide and his Little Ones—Falls of the Reichenbach—Perilous Point of View.

Not in the best of spirits, nor in as good condition as a pedestrian could wish, I set off the next morning, with my young friends. We would have felt better but for a foolish resolution to carry our own knapsacks and overcoats and to make one day’s journey without guide or mule. Success is apt to make one proud; and we had improved so much in our walking with each day’s experience, that we actually began to think we could do anything in that line. The storm of the night before had gone by, and a clear cool day encouraged us. Alas, we knew not how soon, in the midst of glaciers, and in sight of dazzling snow-drifts, the hot sun would thaw our resolution, and compel us to call lustily for help, when no Hercules would be at hand to lend us aid.

Not a wilder or more romantic path had we found than the one which led us out of the vale of the Grimsel. The river Aar is by our side, leaping from ledge to ledge in its rapid descent; dashing now against rocks and foaming around them and onward, as if maddened by every obstacle and brooking no delay. Water in motion is always beautiful. Here on our right hand a streamlet is falling from the giddy height of a thousand feet above us. At first it slips along on the edge of the rocks, as if afraid to fall, and then with a graceful bound it clears the side of the mountain, and comes down to a lower level, where it reposes for a moment in a basin made without hands, and again it flows along down like a long white robe suspended on the hill side, tastefully winding itself, as in folds.

In full view, but far above us the snow lies fresh and white, for much of it fell there yesterday: and among the clouds as they roll open and let us see their beds, the blue glacier lies. Some of the views along here are exceedingly grand, and in the midst of barrenness that can hardly be excelled, the soul feels that enough is here to make a world, though there is little vegetation, and not a human habitation. We frequently cross the torrent by narrow bridges, and pause on each of them to watch the angry waters whirling underneath. I was arrested on one of them by the sight of a reservoir hollowed out of the solid rock by the water; it would hold twenty barrels, and was full. The torrent was now raving a few inches below, while the water within was as placid in the sunshine as if it had never moved. The contrast was beautiful. Let the mad world rush by, noisy, turbulent and thoughtless: it is better to be calm and trusting: certainly it is better if our rest is on a rock which cannot be moved.

The mountains rise suddenly from the edge of the torrent, and there is barely room in some places for the path and the stream. There is great danger too in travelling here in the winter when the avalanches come rushing down the precipitous sides of these mountains. Their work of destruction is lying all around us. They sweep across the path and for a long distance have laid the rock perfectly bare, and polished it so smoothly, that there is constant danger of sliding off into the gulf by the side of the way. Grooves have been cut in the rock, that the feet of the mules may have some support, but a prudent traveller will trust to his own feet and his staff, and tread cautiously. We become so accustomed to these dangerous places, that we pass them without emotion; but there is never a season without its fatal accidents to travellers, and none but fool-hardy persons will needlessly expose their lives. An American family returned home a few days ago, having left the mangled corpse of their son, a lad of twelve years, in some frightful gorge into which he had fallen while riding on a mule in the midst of the Alps. We frequently hear of painful facts like these, yet there is not a pass in Switzerland which may not be safely made with prudence and coolness.

One of the finest cascades we had yet seen was on our right, after we had made about five miles from the hospice. Its width of stream, volume of water, and great height, entitle it to a name and a record which it has not; and this has frequently appeared to me strange in this journey; that falls in Switzerland, of comparatively little beauty, have been painted and praised the world over, while others of more romantic and impressive features have no place in the hand-books, but are strictly anonymous. The one we are now speaking of, attracted our attention as decidedly more interesting than any we had seen among the mountains, and in this opinion I presume others will agree. Its misfortune is that it is within a mile of the Handek, which we are now approaching. A huge log-hut received us, and we found refreshments such as might be expected in a wilderness like this. Sour bread and sour wine, with strong cheese, and a strange-looking pie, composed of materials into which it was not prudent to inquire, gave us a lunch that might have been worse. We were glad to get it, but even more pleased to find a place where we could lay down our burdens, under which we had been groaning for an hour. This pedestrianism in the Alps is very well to talk about, but it is not the most agreeable mode of travelling to one who is accustomed only to a sedentary life. We could find no mules here, however, but meeting a sturdy fellow who was going up the pass, and who was a guide but not just now engaged, we made a bargain with him to turn about and carry our traps to Meyringen. He was on his way over the Grimsel into Canton Vallais to buy eggs and butter, which he and his son, who was with him, would bring back to sell in the lower valleys. This is the way in which the traffic among the cantons is chiefly carried on. We are constantly meeting the traders, men and women, with long baskets or wooden cans on their backs, trudging over these mountains, exchanging the produce of one part of the country for that of another. And this business is driven in winter as well as summer, and many lose their lives in the snow, or are overwhelmed by the avalanches. Our man now sent his boy on alone; gave him a few directions as to what articles he should buy, and where to wait his return, and then set off with us. I was astonished that a father would trust a lad of such tender years (he was not more than twelve), to go off on such an expedition alone, in such a region as this; and after they had parted, I slipped some money into the little fellow’s hand, and said a cheering word or two, for I felt as if it were cruel thus to leave him.

The river Aar has been rushing along by us, and now it has reached the verge of a precipice more than a hundred feet high. At this point another stream of only less volume forces its way across the path, and dashes boldly into the Aar on the brink of the fall. Like two frantic lovers they take the mad leap together into the fearful gulf. Standing above the brow of the fall, and looking into the dark abyss, where the vast column of water stands, silvered at the summit, spread and broken into foam as it reaches the base, with clouds of spray rising from the boiling depths below, we see a cataract that combines more of the sublime with the very beautiful than any other in Switzerland. After we had gazed upon it from the bridge at the brow, we went around and down through the forest, and reached the ledge from which we could look up and out upon the column of waters now pouring before us in exceeding strength. A faint rainbow trembled midway, but the pine trees were too thick to admit the sun’s rays in full blaze upon the face of the fall. But the surrounding scenery adds so much to the gloomy grandeur of the scene, that I am quite willing to write this down as a real cataract, a wonderful leap and rush of waters, in the midst of a ravine of terrific construction; filling the mind with the strongest sense of wildness, horror, desolation and destruction, while the image of beauty in the water and the bow, plays constantly over the face of all. We left it with strong emotions of pleasurable excitement, and shall retain the recollections of the falls of the Aar for many days.

The path by and by led under an extraordinary projection of rock, shelving over, and making a pavilion. The descent became more rapid, until we took to a long flight of stone steps in the path: and then on a lower grade, we came upon meadow land, through which the grass had been cut away for foot passengers to make a shorter course than that by which the horses must find their way down. We entered a little cottage and refreshed ourselves again, with coffee and milk, and had some pleasant talk with the old lady and one or two of the neighbors who had dropped down from some mountain home; for it is even pleasant, if no useful knowledge is gathered, to learn the thoughts and feelings of these secluded people, and to find that enjoyment, and contentment can exist as truly and beautifully in the dreary heights of these Alpine pasturages, as in the courts of kings: and a little more so.

For we were not very far above a lovely valley, one of the sweetest spots that I carry in my memory. It is surprising how suddenly the line of barrenness is passed, and the region of fruits and abundant vegetation bursts upon you in this country. We had not been two hours from dreary and inhospitable Guttanen, when we emerged from the narrow defile into a vale, a plain, a basin of rare loveliness for situation and embellishment. Level as a threshing floor, with a hundred Swiss cottages scattered over it, and each of them surrounded with a garden stored with fruits, apples, pears, and the like, while a stream flowing through the midst of it divided the vale into two settlements, in one of which a neat church sent up its graceful spire. We had been loitering along down, and it was now drawing toward evening: the bell of the old church was ringing for evening prayers, and the people, a few of them, were gathering in their sanctuary as we passed. Four mountains, each of them a distinct pyramid, rise on as many sides of this valley, and seem at once to shut it from the world, and to stand around it as towers of defence, as the mountains are round about Jerusalem. This is the Vale of Upper Hasli; the river Aar flows through it; on the right as we are going, is the village of Im-Hof, and on the left the settlement is called Im-Grund. We passed a low house, like all the rest, and three little children in a row, broke out with a song, a sweet Psalm tune, such as our Sabbath school children would sing. We stopped to listen, and the guide stood with us in front of the group, while they sang one after another of their native melodies as birds of the forest would warble an evening song. The youngest was not more than two years old; and when we had given them some money for their music, I took the little thing by the hand, and said, “Come away with me.” The guide took it by the other, and it trotted along between us with so much readiness, that it occurred to me instantly that these might be the children of the man who was with me. I said to him, “Are these yours?” “Yes Sir,” said he, and catching up the little thing in his arms, he kissed it fondly, and carried it on with all the burdens already on his back. When he had put it down and the children had returned, I asked him why it was that no sign of recognition passed between him and his children when we first came up to them as they stood by the side of the house. He told me that he had taught them to receive him in this way when he came by with strangers, whom he was guiding, and as they sang to receive what money might be given them it was better that it should not be known there was any relation between him and them. I had detected the connection by the willingness of the babe to follow us, and the father was delighted to be able to discover himself to his child, and to take it for a moment in his arms. This incident reminded me of a striking scene in the well known history of William Tell, where the tyrant Gessler confronts the son with the father, and they both, without preconcert, but by a common instinct of caution, deny one another, and persist in the denial till the father is about to die.

Leaving the valley, we have a sharp hill to climb. A zig-zag path for carriages has been made over it at great expense of money and labor; so that this vale may be reached from the other side. The hill must at some distant period in the past have resisted the progress of the Aar, and this romantic valley was probably a beautiful lake in the midst of these noble mountains. But the hill by some convulsion has been rent from the top to the bottom, and the river finds its way through a fearful cavern; one of the most awful gorges that can be found in Switzerland. After crossing the hill we left the road, and following our guide for twenty minutes came to the mouth of the cave, that leads down to the bed of the river, where it is rushing through with frightful force in darkness but not silence; for the roar of the waters is repeated among the rocks, adding greatly to the terror of the scene. It is only half an hour’s walk from the Cave to Meyringen; but we made it more than an hour, enjoying the fine views that opened upon us as we stood above the village. It is but three miles across the plain, and as I look upon the splendid cataract of the Reichenbach falling into it on one side, and the Alpbach coming down on the other, and streaming cascades in great numbers pouring into it down the precipitous sides of the mountains, the first thought that strikes the mind is of the danger that the valley would be filled with water one of these days and the people driven out. Such a calamity has indeed occurred, and to guard against its return, a stone dyke one thousand feet long and eight feet wide has been built, that the swollen river may be conducted with safety out of the vale. Long years ago the mountain torrent brought down a mass of earth with it, so suddenly and so fearfully that in one brief hour, a large part of the village was buried twenty feet deep, and the desolation thus wrought still appears over the whole face of the plain. The Church has a black line painted on it to mark the height to which it was filled with the mud and water in this deluge of 1762. There is something very fearful in the idea of dwelling in a region subject to such visitations. But there is a fine race of men and women here. The men are spoken of as models for strength and agility, and the matches and games in which they annually contend with the champions of other cantons decide their claims to the distinction. The women are good looking, and that is more than I can say for most of the women I have met among the Alps; where the hardy, exposed, and toilsome life they lead, in poverty and disease, gives them such a look as I cannot bear to see in a female face. In fact I could not tell a man from a woman but by their dress in many parts of the mountains. Now we are down in the region of improved civilization, and some taste in dress begins to appear among the women, who rig themselves out in a holiday or Sunday suit of black velvet bodice, white muslin sleeves, a yellow petticoat, and a black hat set jauntingly on one side of the head, with their braided hair hanging down their backs. An old woman on the hill at whose house I stopped for a drink, told me I ought to stay there till next Sunday and see them all come out of church; “a prettier sight I would never see in all my life.”

Coming down from the Hospice of the Grimsel, I was filled with admiration when I entered the valley in which the villages of Im-Hof and Im-Grund lie, with their single church and hundred cottages. Naigle, my guide, was one of the dwellers in this vale, and the meeting with his children as he passed through had deeply interested me in the place and the people. I wished to know more of their habits and especially I would know the spirit and the power of the religion which these people professed. They are so secluded from all the world, so girt with great mountains and compelled to look upwards whenever they would see far, that it seemed to me they must be a thoughtful religious people, even if their way of religion was not the same as mine. It was a Protestant Canton, and so far their faith was mine, but there is a wide difference between the faith and practice of many churches that profess Protestantism, as there is also in the churches under the dominion of the Pope of Rome.

Naigle was a character. I was sure of it in five minutes after he was in my service. Six feet high on a perpendicular, he was at least six feet four, on a curve, for long service in carrying heavy burdens over the mountains had made a bend in his back like a bow that is never unstrung. I had asked him how many of those children he had, and he had told me eight: and he did not improve in my good opinion when he offered as the only objection to selling me the youngest, that he would be sent to prison if he did. Yet Naigle loved his children I am sure, and would not part with one of them unless for the sake of improving its prospects for the future. His own were dark enough. One franc a day, less than twenty cents of our money, is the price of a day’s labor in the hardest work of the year, though the very men who are glad to get this of their neighbors, will not guide a stranger through their country, or carry his bag, for less than five francs for eight or ten hours. The women will work out doors all day for less than a man’s wages, and perform the same kind of labor. This Naigle was a hard-working man, it was very plain, and there was a decided streak of good sense in him that assured me, he could give me much valuable information, in spite of that miserable mixture of German and French which was the only language he could speak. Fortunately I had my young German friend with me, and we managed among us to extract from Naigle all we desired. We had good rooms at Meyringen, and Naigle was to stay over night there and return to his family in the morning. I asked him where he would sleep; and he said “in the stable,” a lodgment I afterwards found to be common in this and other European countries: not in rooms fitted up over the stalls, as in America, but in bunks by the side of the horses: in the midst of foul atmosphere which would be enough, I should suppose, to stifle any man in the course of the night. Yet I have heard a German gentleman say that there is no smell so pleasant to him as that of a stable, and I record it as another evidence of the truth of the adage “there is no disputing about tastes.” Naigle came up to my room in the evening, sat down on a trunk, and answered questions for an hour or two, but I can put all I learned of him into a moderate compass, though it will want the freshness and often the peculiar turn of thought with which he imparted it.

Naigle told me first of his family which he had great difficulty in supporting on the low wages he received, and the small profits he could make on his trade with the neighboring valleys. At least half of the year, he said, they do not have a particle of meat in the house: they live chiefly on potatoes and beans, with bread and milk: few vegetables, and these not the most nutritious. The snow comes on so early in autumn and lies so late in the spring that the season for cultivation is very short, though they try to make the most of it while it lasts, as they do of the little land in their valley, and on the mountain sides. Yet poverty often stares them in the face with a melancholy threat of famine. No people on earth dwell in such glorious scenery and in such destitution of the real comforts of life.

But what are the morals of such a people? Are the virtues of social life held in honor among them, and are the children of these mountain homes trained up in the way they should go? One of the severest replies I have had was given to me by a Swiss guide, who had followed his business of showing strangers through the country for thirty years: and when he told me he had three sons grown up to manhood I asked him if they were guides also? He said, “No, he never allowed them to travel about with foreigners: the boys learned too many bad words and ways in that business.” Very likely intercourse with travellers is not happy on the morals of any people, but it is little that the dwellers in these valleys see of foreigners, who push through them without pausing even to spend a night. Naigle gave me however to understand that the standard of social morals was very low among them, and this was confirmed by all that I learned from the various classes of men with whom I came in contact during my journey in this country. It is true everywhere, that virtue does not flourish in the extremes of poverty or wealth.

He was greatly interested in the little church, and was pleased to answer all my inquiries. The pastor, he said, was a good man who was kind to them in sickness, visiting them to give the consolations of the gospel, and especially at such times did they prize his instructions and prayers. This service was rendered freely to the poorest among them, on whom the pastor calls as soon as he hears that they are in distress, and he is always engaged in looking among his flock to find those who have need of his peculiar care. The same good shepherd has charge of the parish school, to which all the children are sent; and if the parents are able to pay anything toward their children’s education, they are expected to do so, but if not they are not deprived of the privileges of the school. Here they are taught to read, to write, and to keep accounts; but more than all this, they are instructed in the catechism of the church, and are examined often on it, and encouraged to become acquainted with the doctrines and duties of religion. It was hard for me to convey my idea to Naigle when I sought to learn of him, if the good pastor required of the young people any proof of regeneration, or a change of heart, before giving them the second sacrament. He said their children are all baptized in infancy, and admitted to the Lord’s Supper when they are old enough, and good enough, and understand the doctrines taught in the school.

“But what if one of those who has come to the holy sacrament falls into some sin, as stealing, or profane swearing?”

“O, in that case he is not allowed to come to the sacrament, till he has repented and reformed. The minister is very strict about that, and the people who belong to the church, that is, those who wish to be considered as good Christian people, never indulge in any of those things which are forbidden by the Bible. There are many loose people in the valley who have no care for God or man, but have no connection with the church.”

On the whole, I was led to infer from what Naigle said that the church of the Upper Hasli valley is about in the same condition with hundreds of others in this and other lands. There is in the midst of this mountain scenery far removed from the intercourse of the world, where a newspaper is rarely seen, and few books are ever read, a little people among whom God has some friends, who in their way are striving to serve him, and whose service it will be pleasure to accept. Many of them have only a form of religion. The Romish religion that surrounds these lands, and which is so admirably framed for an ignorant and sensual people, pervades the minds of many who are Protestants in name, and who cannot be taught, or rather will not learn, that salvation is only by faith in the Saviour. That other gospel which gives heaven to him who does penance for his great sins, and bows often to the picture of a handsome woman, is the religion for a people who cannot read, or who have no books if they can. Ignorance and Romanism go hand in hand.

My estimate of the Swiss character has wofully depreciated since I have travelled among these mountains. With a history such as Greece might be proud of, and a race of heroes that Rome never excelled in the days when women would be mothers only to have sons for warriors; the Swiss people now are at a point of national and social depression painful to contemplate. They are indebted largely to the defences of nature for the comparative liberty they enjoy, and perhaps to the same seclusion is to be referred their want of a thousand comforts of life, which an improved state of society brings. All the romance of a Swiss cottage is taken out of a traveller’s mind, the moment he enters one of these cabins and seeks refreshment or rest. The saddest marks of poverty meet him in the door. The same roof is the shelter of the man, woman and beast. The same room is often the bed chamber of all. Scanty food, and that miserably prepared, is consumed without regard to those domestic arrangements which make life at home a luxury. There is no future to the mind of a Swiss youth. He lives to live as his father lived—and that is the end of life with him. Perhaps he may have a gun, and in that case, to be the best shot in the valley may fill his ambition: or if he is strong in the arms and legs he may aim at distinction in the games which once a year are held at some hamlet in the Canton, where the wrestlers and runners contend for victory, and others throw weights and leap bars as of old in Greece, when kings were not ashamed to enter the lists. Many of the youth of Switzerland are willing to sell themselves into the service of foreign powers, as soldiers—Swiss soldiers—hired to be shot at, and shoot any body a foreign despot may send them to slay: a service so degrading, and at the same time so decidedly hazardous to life and limb, with so poor a chance for pay, that none but a people far gone in social degradation would be willing thus to make merchandise of their blood. Yet they have fought battles bravely with none of the stimulus of patriotism, and their blood has been as freely poured out for tyrants who hired them, as if they were bleeding for their own and the land of William Tell.

Falls of the Reichenbach.

I had enjoyed all the pleasures of pedestrianism that I wished, and told Naigle to get me a horse for to-morrow. He was willing to go on with us for a day or two more, but I gave him a trifle for his wife, and to pay him for his evening while I kept him talking when he would have been sleeping; and after he had brought me a man who would go with his horse, and carry me on over the Wengern Alp, I dismissed him. There is nothing in Swiss travelling more annoying than the impositions practised upon you by those who have horses or mules for hire. The price for a horse is at the rate usually of about ten francs or two dollars a day; but if you are not to return the next day to the place from which you started, (and you rarely or never do,) you must pay the same price for the horse to come back. The driver manages to find a traveller to come back with, and so gets double pay both ways in nine trips out of ten. If the business were left open to competition without the help of government, the price would be reduced. Naigle brought me a man who would go with his horse as far as I liked for ten francs a day, and nothing for return money, but he desired me to set off in the morning on foot, and he would be a few minutes off, out of the village, for if the landlords who keep horses to let, knew that he was at the business on his own hook, they would molest him. He served me well, and I paid him to his entire satisfaction.

Leaving Meyringen on a lovely morning, the last of August, crossing the Aar by a bridge, I came at once to the Baths of Reichenbach, where there is a good hotel, said to be better than those at Meyringen. The grounds about are tastefully arranged, and an establishment fitted up for invalids, with every convenience for warm and cold baths on a moderate scale. If plenty of mountain water and mountain air will make sick people well, here is a fine place for them to come and be cured. I climbed the mountain in haste, to get the finer view of the Reichenbach Fall, whose roar I had heard, and the spray of which was rising continually before me. I could see the torrent as it took its first leap out of the forest, but it plunged instantly out of sight into a deep abyss, and I must ascend to its brow, and see the rush of waters as they descend into the gorge. The path to those coming down is very difficult, so steep, indeed, that it is safer and pleasanter to leave the horse and come on foot. But we went up slowly till we reached a meadow of table land, which we were permitted to cross on paying a small toll, to a house which has been built at the point where the best view of the fall from below can be had. It is almost a shame to board up such scenes as these, and compel a man to look through a window at a scene where he would have nothing around him but the mountain, flood and sky. The young woman was very civil, and offered us woodwork for sale, and a view through colored glass, and a subscription-book to record our donations for the construction of the foot-path, and we finally had the privilege of taking a look in silence. A narrow, but no mean stream, plunging TWO THOUSAND feet makes a cataract before which the spectator stands with awe. The leap is not made at once, yet the river rests but twice in all that distance, and only for a moment then. The point of view where we are now beholding it, is midway of the upper and grandest of these successive falls. The fury of the descending torrent is terrible. The spray rises in perpetual clouds from the dread abyss into which the river leaps. It might be a bottomless abyss, so far as human penetration can discover, for no arm can fathom it, no eye can pierce the dark cavern where the waters boil and roar, and whence they issue only to make another leap into the vale below. The bow of God is on the brow of the cataract. I do so love to find it there, not more for its exceeding beauty than the feeling of hope and safety it always inspires. We counted all the colors as it waved and smiled so fondly in the spray, as if it loved its birth-place.—Having had the finest opportunity of seeing the fall from this point, we did not return across the field to the horses, but took the foot-path straight up the mountain, over a rough and toilsome way, led on by a little lad who seemed anxious to do us the favor. He guided us by a walk of twenty minutes to the brink of the precipice. The path was just wide enough for one person to pass around the headland, holding by the bushes as we walked, and thus by taking turns in the perilous excursion, we went to the brow of the cataract, and looked down the front of the terrific fall. A single misstep or the slipping of a foot, might plunge the curious gazer into the gulph; yet so seductive and so flattering is such danger, we rarely have the least sense of it till it is over. Not the water only, but the whole prospect from this overhanging cliff, is in a high degree sublime. The plains of Meyringen, the mountains beyond, from which cascades are hanging like white lace veils on the green hill-sides, villages and scattered cottages, the river Aar shooting swiftly across the valley, are now in full view, and we turn away reluctantly from the sight to resume the ascent.