verwhelmed
by the idea of a stability that can not be shaken and an assured
eternity. There is the boundary of two countries and two races; this
it is that Roland wanted to break, when with a sword-stroke he opened
a breach in the summit. But the immense wound disappeared in the
immensity of the unconquered wall. Three sheets of snow are spread out
over the three tiers of layers.

The sun falls with all its force upon this virginal robe without being
able to make it shine. It preserves its dead whiteness. All this
grandeur is austere; the air is chilled beneath the noonday rays;
great, damp shadows creep along the foot of the walls. It is the
everlasting winter and the nakedness of the desert. The sole
inhabitants are the cascades assembled to form the Gave. The
streamlets of water come by thousands from the highest layer, leap
from step to step, cross their stripes of foam, unite and fall by a
dozen brooks that slide from the last layer in flaky streaks to lose
themselves in the glaciers of the bottom.

The thirteenth cascade on the left is twelve hundred and sixty-six
feet high. It falls slowly, like a dropping cloud, or the unfolding of
a muslin veil; the air softens its fall; the eye follows complacently
the graceful undulation of the beautiful airy veil. It glides the
length of the rock, and seems to float rather than to fall. The sun
shines, through its plume, with the softest and loveliest splendor.
It reaches the bottom like a bouquet of slender waving feathers, and
springs backward in a silver dust; the fresh and transparent mist
swings about the rock it bathes, and its rebounding train mounts
lightly along the courses. No stir in the air; no noise, no living
creature in the solitude. You hear only the monotonous murmur of the
cascades, resembling the rustle of the leaves that the wind stirs in
the forest.

On our return, we seated ourselves at the door of the hut. It is a
poor, squat little house, heavily supported upon thick walls; the
knotty joists of the ceiling retain their bark. It is indeed necessary
that it should be able to stand out alone against the snows of winter.
You find everywhere the imprint of the terrible months it has gone
through. Two dead fir-trees stand erect at the door. The garden, three
feet square, is defended by enormous walls of piled-up slates. The low
and black stable leaves neither foot-hold nor entry for the winds. A
lean colt was seeking a little grass among the stones. A s