und him, as if the
dead beneath were struggling in their sleep. Scattered blocks of black
stone, four-square remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon
another, lie upon them to keep them down. A dull purple poisonous haze
stretches level along the desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy
ruins, on whose rents the red light rests, like dying fire on defiled
altars; the blue ridge of the Alban Mount lifts itself against a
solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds
stand steadfastly along the promontories of the Apennines. From the
plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier,
melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral
mourners, passing from a nation's grave.

89. I was coming down one evening from the Rochers de Naye, above
Montreux, having been at work among the limestone rocks, where I could
get no water, and both weary and thirsty. Coming to a spring at the
turn of the path, conducted, as usual, by the herdsmen, into a
hollowed pine trunk, I stooped to it, and drank deeply. As I raised my
head, drawing breath heavily, some one behind me said, "Celui qui
boira de cette eau-ci, aura encore soif." I turned, not understanding
for a moment what was meant, and saw one of the hill peasants,
probably returning to his chalet from the market place at Vevay or
Villeneuve. As I looked at him with an uncomprehending expression, he
went on with the verse: "Mais celui qui boira de l'eau que je lui
donnerai, n'aura jamais soif."

90. It may perhaps be permitted me[35] to mark the significance of the
earliest mention of mountains in the Mosaic books; at least of those
in which some Divine appointment or command is stated respecting them.
They are first brought before us as refuges for God's people from the
two judgments of water and fire. The Ark rests upon the mountains of
Ararat; and man, having passed through the great Baptism unto death,
kneels upon the earth first where it is nearest heaven, and mingles
with the mountain clouds the smoke of his sacrifice of thanksgiving.
Again; from the midst of the first judgment by fire, the command of
the Deity to His servant is, "Escape to the mountain;" and the morbid
fear of the hills, which fills any human mind after long stay in
places of luxury and sin, is strangely marked in Lot's complaining
reply, "I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me." The
third mention, in way of ordinance, is a