CHAPTER XX.

Glacier of Rosenlaui and Falls of the Reichenbach.

On your way down, you have the excursion to the glacier of Rosenlaui, celebrated for the extreme beauty of its roseate and azure colors. It lies in a mighty mountain gorge on our right, far up between the great masses of the Wellhorn and the Angels' Peaks (Engelhorner), a most remarkable scene, both in itself and its accessories, the ice-born picture, its fir-clad base, and its gigantic craggy frame. A thundering torrent comes roaring down an almost fathomless split in the mountain, where the jagged sides threaten each other like the jaws of hell. Torrents from different directions meet fiercely at the foot of the glacier, which is thrown over them as a mountain of ice, with vast ice blocks roofing the subterranean fissure, with a mighty peak of rock towering above, and a mountain of granite on the other side. You enter the bosom of the glacier by steps cut for you by the guide, at the risk of tumbling into the conflict of waters below. The surrounding forests of fir, the cataracts, the ice-cliffs shining, and the grey bare crags, keeping watch like sentinels, together with the extreme picturesqueness and beauty of the Valley opening out beneath, make up a scene well worth the toil of climbing to it.

Now you take the way down from Rosenlaui to Meyringen; looking behind you, it is still inexpressibly beautiful, more beautiful than the vision of the vale. It is because of the combination between the snow, the sun, and the black fir forest, the firs against the snow, the snow against the sun, the air a flood of glory. Through a winding vale of firs the great white mountains flash upon you, now hidden and now revealed; and of all sights in Switzerland, that of the bright snow summits seen through and amidst such masses of deep overshadowing foliage,

by which you may be buried in twilight at noonday, is the most picturesque and wildly beautiful. Between four o'clock and sunset this Rosenlaui pass, in a bright day, is wonderful. The white perfect cones and pyramids of some of the summits alternate with the bare rocky needles and ridges of others, all distinctly defined against the sky, with the light falling on them in a wild magic azure-tinted clearness. Here is one section or quadrature of the picture as you look upwards to the heights down which you have been so long descending; far off, up in the heavens a vast curling ridge of snow cuts the azure upper deep; nearer, the enormous grey peak of the Wellhorn shoots above it; lower, towards this world, between two great mountains, down rushes the magnificent glacier of Rosenlaui, till its glittering masses, which seem ready to take one plunge out of heaven to earth, are lost to your eye behind the green depths of the forest.

But if we stay looking at this scene and still loitering and looking behind us, we shall not get to Meyringen till night-fall. So down we climb, beside the roaring torrent, which is impetuously plunging and foaming to take the leap of the Reichenbach fall, not at all knowing what awaits us, when suddenly comes another of those swift, vast contrasts, those mighty shiftings of scenery, so unexpected and unthought of, as in a dream. As if the world's walls had opened before you, and you had just lighted with wings on a shelving precipice to look forth, the Vale of Meyringen is disclosed far beneath, with its village and meadows, church steeples and clumps of trees, and the bright Alpbach cascade pouring over the crags on the other side. From the point where you stand, the descent into the Vale is near two thousand feet, rugged and precipitous, and from nearly your present level, the stream of the Reichenbach takes its grand leap down the gorge at your left, making the celebrated Reichenbach Falls, and afterwards, by a succession of leaps not quite so grand, it races, foaming and thundering, over precipice after precipice, through black jagged picturesque tortuous ravines down into the Valley to join the Aar.

One would think the two rivers would be glad to have a moment's peace, and pleasant, gurgling communion, after such a furious daring cataractical course of foam and thun

der. Each of them has come down out of ice-palaces as from the alabaster gates of heaven, and each has made, in its perilous course, one of the grandest cataracts in all Switzerland, Now they flow on as if nothing had happened, like generous minds after some great action. Methinks they are saying one to another, as their waters meet and mingle, How much pleasanter it is to be gliding on so quietly between green banks and rich meadows, than to be tumbling over the mountains, where we seem to be of no use whatever, but for great parties of English people to come and look at us through their eye-glasses. But you are mistaken, gentle streams. Perhaps you have done more good, by the grand thoughts your "unceasing thunder and eternal foam" have given rise to in your perilous career among the mountains, than you will do in your path of verdure all the way to the sea. It is not the sole use of streams like yours to make the grasses and the flowers to grow, or to enjoy yourselves among them. But we cannot wonder that you do not wish to be always playing the Cataract.

CHAPTER XXI.

Twilight, Evening, and Night in Switzerland. A Sabbath in Meyringen. THE stillness of evening in Switzerland is accompanied with a soft music from the thousand mountain torrents, which roar with such a shouting voice at noon day, loosened by the sun from the glaciers, and then subside into a more quiet, soul-like melody. It is like the wind, strong blowing on, an Eolian Harp with loud strains, and then sinking down into faint aerial murmurs. So at evening, the streams being partially pent up again in ice, the sound grows less in body, but more distinct in tone, and more in unison with the sacred stillness of the hour. It is like changing the stops in an organ. The effect has been noted both by plain prose travellers and imaginative poets, and nothing can be more beautiful. The lulled evening hum of the busy world, and the dim twilight of the air, and the gradual stealing forth of the modest stars after the heat and glare of day, are in harmony. As in Milton,

"At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound

Rose like a steam of rich-distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air."

For at such an hour the music of nature, passing into solemn voices of the night, seems rather like the hushing strains from invisible harps of celestial intelligences floating in the atmosphere, than like any music from material things. Some of the finest lines ever composed by the Poet Rogers were called forth by the perception of these stilly notes and almost imperceptible harmonies of evening. I say almost imperceptible, because a man busied with external things, or even engaged in social talk, will scarce notice them. The mind must be in somewhat of a pensive mood, and watching with the finer senses. A traveller must be alone, or must say to his friend, Hush! listen!

"Oft at the silent, shadowy close of day,

When the hushed grove has sung its parting lay,
When pensive twilight, in her dusky car,

Comes slowly on to meet the evening star,

Above, below, aerial murmurs swell

From hanging wood, brown heath, and bushy dell!
A thousand nameless rills, that shun the light,
Stealing soft music on the ear of night.

So oft the finer movements of the soul,
That shun the sphere of pleasure's gay control,
In the still shades of calm seclusion rise,

And breathe their sweet seraphic harmonies!"
PLEASURES OF MEMORY.

This is very beautiful. Do we not at such an hour, more than any other, feel as if we were sojourning, in the striking language of Foster, "on that frontier, where the material and the ideal worlds join and combine their elements ?" It is the hour, when Isaac-like, the solitary saint in the country, if not in the city,

"Walks forth to meditate at even-tide,"

and thinks upon a world that thinks not for herself. It is the hour, when among the mountains or in the villages, the soul seems sometimes to see far out beyond the verge of Time, seems to feel the horizon of existence expanding, seems to be upon the sea-side, and is impelled, as in the beautiful image of Young, to

"Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore

Of that vast Ocean, she must sail so soon!"

Delightful it is, when Saturday evening comes, with such calm and sacred voices and influences of nature, if the soul is in the right mood, to hear the prelude wherewith it seems as if nature herself would put man in harmony for the Sabbath.

"It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;

The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder--everlastingly !"-WORDSWORTH.