ed by the storms, and the torrent's roar more loud and furious. Near the top we left the char, and walked up to the glacier which closes the vale, and from which rushes forth the Lutschine, the wild stream which waters it.

The glacier itself is dirty, and has no castelated towers or pyramids of ice, like most glaciers ;---but a wilder, more striking scene, than that which now surrounded us, as we stood upon its sullen snows, can scarcely be imagined. The glacier is but the lowest footstep of that tremendous snowy mountain, the sublime Jungfrau, at whose base we stood, and to whose proud summit we could scarcely raise our eyes. Inacces

sible to the foot of man---untrodden from creation---its hoary sides, which never bore a blade of vegetation, are hung round with heavy glaciers and unfathomable depths of frozen snows. If---feeling our own littleness, thus placed beneath its awful grandeur, we turned our eyes down the vale---tremendous precipices of rock and mountain heights towering far above them, shut out our view---leaving us no prospect but of the circle of utter desolation in which we stood. On one side, high perched on the mountain's green shelving height, but directly above a terrific precipice, we descried a chalet, to which there appeared no path but the wild waterfall that fell in a long line from it, foaming down the face of the rock. On every side cascades pouring down the precipices, mingled with the roar of the torrent of the valley that burst forth from its icy prison at our feet. The lone and apparently inaccessible solitude in which we stood, as the shades of evening began to gather round us; the scream of the wild eagle, or perhaps the

still more terrific lammergeyer-the vulture of the Alps, that echoed from the cliffs abovethe mingled voices of the wild waterfalls, and the loud thunder of the avalanches that fell from the glaciers of the Jungfrau far above ushad an effect more sublime and terrible, than imagination can conceive. The horrible bird of prey, whose wild scream we heard, we were told once carried off an infant from a little village above the fall of the Saubbach, and alighted with it upon an inaccessible rock, on the side of the Jungfrau, where some tattered rags of its clothes are yet to be seen. What must have been the maddening agonies of its unfortunate mother!

At a Swiss cottage, by the torrent's side, we found the people carefully stripping off all the leaves from the forest trees, and laying them out to dry on cloths-to serve their cattle for food as well as fodder, in winter. The moon rose as we set out on our return, and by its silver light, the valley assumed a totally new and still more romantic character.

Colonel and Mrs. Cleveland had taken possession of the only bed-room vacant in the little inn. Lady Hunlocke and I, therefore, begged for quarters at the cottage of the village Pastor --who, like all the other Ministers in Protestant Switzerland, still preserves the simple patriarchal custom of extending his hospitality to strangers, for which, of course, those who can afford it, leave upon the table a gratuity fully equal to what they would have paid at an inn;

* Called Lammergeyer, from its prey being general-. ly lambs.

because the frugal stipend of these respectable Clergymen could ill afford the expense of entertaining the travellers to whom their house is a most welcome asylum. Indeed, in winter, the little inn of this valley is shut up, the innkeeper and his family gone; so that there is no other place of refuge for any stranger whom chance or necessity may bring here. I was not sorry for this opportunity of spending the evening with the family of a Swiss Pastor. We found them very amiable-and very musical. But for this last resource, poor Lady Hunlocke would have been, as she said, ennuyeé a la mort-for they spoke little or no French-she no German. I found the Pastor himself a most intelligent and agreeable person, and gained a great deal of interesting information from him respecting the condition and habits of the people.

CHAPTER XVII.

MOUNTAINS AND MISHAPS.

The chalet will be gained within an hour.

-Hark! the note,

The natural music of the mountain reed;
For here the patriarchal days are not
A pastoral fable--pipes in the liberal air,
Mix'd with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;
My soul would drink those echoes.

The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds
Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,
Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell.

-I am giddy!

LETTER XV.

LORD BYRON.

CAROLINE ST. CLAIR TO MRS. BALCARRIS.

Grindelwald, 8th September.

EARLY this morning, Colonel Cleveland and I breakfasted, and set off for Grindelwald, over the Wengern Alp, for the purpose of enjoying the sublime views that pass affords of the Jungfrau, which from thence alone can be seen in full perfection. Lady Hunlocke, who had already crossed the mountain twice, and Mrs. Cleveland, who was in no state to cross it at all, were to

proceed there to meet us by the valley, a drive of a few hours only.

We were mounted upon two great rough gaunt cart-horses,-for no mules are to be had in the Bernese Oberland, and what is far worse, no side saddles. A German pillion, with a handle to hold by, to which you must, if possible, contrive to stick fast-as the awkward animal, accustomed only to cart-harness, scrambles up and down the broken precipitous paths-forms a most uncomfortable, and indeed unsafe substitute, for our pleasant and secure English sidesaddles.

The first sight we saw, on leaving Lauterbrunn, was two women mowing in a meadow; and a little further on, we beheld a woman actually drawing a little cart herself. It is a very common sight to see cows employed in this way; for in this land of industry, even the milch cows are not exempted from labour, and they say that a little easy work does not injure them as milkers.

It was sweet, as we climbed the steep mountain's grassy side, to listen to the tinkling bells of the cattle, that browsed at large over the Alp, mingled with the pipe of the idle herdsman; and at intervals, the wild echoes of the shepherd's horn, sounding from afar over the mountains.

An ascent of some hours brought us to the grassy heights of Manlichta, where we dismounted, and sat down on the green turf, with the goats and cows, and our horses browsing around us-enjoying the most sublime scene that imagination can conceive. At our feet, we looked down into the long deep narrow ravine