in--a
death worthy of the hero! We bestowed a blessing on his memory in
passing, and then followed the banks of the rapid Reuss. Twilight was
gathering in the deep Alpine glen, and the mountains on each side,
half-seen through the mist, looked like vast, awful phantoms. Soon they
darkened to black, indistinct masses; all was silent except the
deepened roar of the falling floods; dark clouds brooded above us like
the outspread wings of night, and we were glad, when the little village
of Amstegg was reached, and the parlor of the inn opened to us a more
cheerful, if not so romantic scene.

CHAPTER XXX.

PASSAGE OF THE ST. GOTHARD AND DESCENT INTO ITALY.

Leaving Amstegg, I passed the whole day among snowy, sky-piercing Alps,
torrents, chasms and clouds! The clouds appeared to be breaking up as we
set out, and the white top of the Reassberg was now and then visible in
the sky. Just above the village are the remains of Zwing Uri, the castle
begun by the tyrant Gessler, for the complete subjugation of the canton.
Following the Reuss up through a narrow valley, we passed the
Bristenstock, which lifts its jagged crags nine thousand feet in the
air, while on the other side stand the snowy summits which lean towards
the Rhone Glacier and St. Gothard. From the deep glen where the Reuss
foamed down towards the Lake of the Forest Cantons, the mountains rose
with a majestic sweep so far into the sky that the brain grew almost
dizzy in following their outlines. Woods, chalets and slopes of herbage
covered their bases, where the mountain cattle and goats were browsing,
while the herd-boys sang their native melodies or woke the ringing
echoes with the loud, sweet sounds of their wooden horns; higher up, the
sides were broken into crags and covered with stunted pines; then
succeeded a belt of bare rock with a little snow lying in the crevices,
and the summits of dazzling white looked out from the clouds nearly
three-fourths the height of the zenith. Sometimes when the vale was
filled with clouds, it was startling to see them parting around a
solitary summit, apparently isolated in the air at an immense height,
for the mountain to which it belonged was hidden to the very base!

The road passed from one side of the valley to the other, crossing the
Reuss on bridges sometimes ninety feet high. After three or four hours
walking, we reached a frightful pass called the Schollenen. So narrow is
the defile that before reaching it,