Grindelwald opened to us, dotted over with cottages, cut up into small enclosures of two or three acres, and cultivated like a garden. The glaciers here disappointed me much. There is no splendour about them. An immense mass of ice, filling a deep gorge, and—instead of presenting a splendid and shining mirror of polished ice—rough, ragged, and dirty, over the whole surface-that is a glacier at least in September-it may be, and probably is, a very different thing in the spring. The bottom of the glacier, however, where a small river makes its embouchure-makes it directly from under the ice, whose blue arches rise two hundred feet above-is worth clambering over many obstacles, at the end of a weary day, as I did, to see it. The river that issues from the glacier is almost as white as milk. It takes this appearance, doubtless, from the peculiar clayey soil of its bed.

Thus ended the fifteenth of September, 1833, in which I have walked over the Wengernalp, and to the glacier of Grindelwald.

We intended to continue our excursion another day among the Alps; but when we rose in the morning, the mountains had veiled their awful heads in the clouds of an autumnal storm-forbidding all further scrutiny and intrusion from us

pigmy mortals. We could not complain that our career was checked; for three days-including one at Thun—" three glorious days" among the Alps, is enough to reflect upon, with pleasure and gratitude, all our lives. The storm looked too likely to continue, and it was too near the equinox to permit us to doubt; so we took a char-a-banc to Neuhaus, and came up by the lake to Thun, in six and a half hours.

On this excursion, there has been much in the apparent condition of the inhabitants to interest us. There appears to be great simplicity and innocence, and there must be great equality among them. For the cottages are all of about the same size and appearance, and each one is surrounded by a small tract of land, which, I should presume, and am told, indeed, belongs to the occupant. Meet it seems that human distinctions should shrink to nothing at the foot of these stupendous mountains; that man should build no towers of pride beneath their mighty shadow. Indeed, it is poverty and humility that climb high here; for some of these cottages are perched upon rocks and among recesses, high and secluded enough to be the eyry of the eagle. But if the people are poor-and we were told that potatoes, milk, cheese, and butter, constituted the principal food of many

-they are apparently not indigent. We met with very little begging-unless it were in the picturesque form of presenting fruit and flowers-ay, and a song, too, at times. A little girl would offer you a pretty bouquet; or a boy his dish of nuts from the mountains; and receiving a batz or two, would run away seemingly very much delighted. As we were going up the Wengernalp, a mother stood at the gate before her cottage with an infant (six months old apparently) in her arms, holding in each little hand a bouquet; and the batz, of course, could not be refused. The singing deserves a more elaborate description. Two or three, and sometimes four girls, of from twelve to sixteen years of age, would every now and then waylay us, so to call it, in the valley or upon the mountain side, and as we approached them would commence singing one of their national airs. This they would do with very tolerable effect, executing several parts with very good keeping of the harmony, and with a very modest aspect all the while, casting their eyes upon the ground, and scarcely raising them but to courtesy thanks for the expected gift. I observed that all their songs had the peculiar chorus or close of the Swiss national air. The rapid transitions and piercing shrillness of voice enable one to distinguish it farther than any mu

sical note I ever heard. I have heard it from the bosom of a Swiss lake, when I was on the mountain four thousand feet above.

By-the-by, the music of the Swiss cow bells must not be forgotten. It is sharp and piercing, resembling so much the clink of the hammer upon the anvil, that I thought at first there must be a blacksmith's shop among the mountains, though nothing seemed more unlikely. The cows feed on the heights of the mountains; and upon almost the highest point of the Wengernalp, we found many log cabins, called chalets, which are built chiefly for the purposes of the dairy. Large flocks of goats, too, are fed here.

What are called valleys in the Oberland-as those of Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald-are still very elevated spots; the latter three thousand one hundred and fifty feet above the Lake of Thun.*

Upon the whole, if I were asked, on our return to Thun, what I had got, I should say that there remained upon my mind an impression of mighty things-seen briefly, seen as if they had appeared in a dream-yet of mighty things which will for

* This will account for my saying, when at an elevation of four thousand four hundred feet on the Wengernalp, that Jungfrau rose six thousand feet above us; the absolute height of Jungfrau being thirteen thousand seven hundred and twenty feet.

ever remain in my mind, images of grandeur. I have seen some of the heights of the creation. Its lowly places, too, are lovely, and derive an increased beauty from the stupendous objects around them. Altogether it is a combination full of wonders.

BERNE, SEPTEMBER 18. The ride from Thun to Berne is one of the finest in the world. I cannot make the effort to describe-having acquired a Bernese dulness, or some other dulness, whose vis inertia is not to be overcome. Yet, after all, the scene has not exactly those points of interest that stamp themselves upon the memory; and if I shall

be asked a year hence, what it is in the ride from Thun to Berne that everybody admires so much, I suppose I shall answer, with a sort of rising inflection tone," Oh! the distant hills, I suppose they mean-very beautiful; and the slopes, the swells, the plains-all very graceful; fine wood, too; and queer, strange, strong, grand old houses-ay, old and new, in the Swiss fashion, you understandbut monstrous big houses; looking as if they were crammed with abundance, as if their very sides. groaned with a surfeit—with roofs big enough for Noah's ark; for Noah's ark held scarcely a more complete museum and menagerie of the whole creation, than some of these substantial, strong