nd
a pulpit on the other, beyond which lies the chancel of a church. Above
our heads, meanwhile, on the very summits of detached peaks, stand the
Burgomaster, in his full-bottomed wig, the Emperor Leopold,--an exact
resemblance,--and John the Baptist preaching in the desert. This last
is really a very curious specimen of what Dame Nature can sometimes
accomplish, when she takes it into her head to become sculptor. On a
lofty cone, yet little elevated above the surrounding masses, the very
emblems of desolation, stands the image of a man, with a shaggy mantle
thrown across his shoulders, and one arm raised as if in the act of
speaking,--no inappropriate monument to him who, though the greatest of
the prophets that lived under the Law, was in his day of mortality less
than the least of those to whom the Gospel dispensation has been
communicated.

After pausing awhile to examine these, as well as the form of a dog in
a recumbent position, not far removed from them, we passed on; first,
into the Giant's Mouth,--an enormous arch, armed, as it seems, with
teeth,--and then into the Frauen Zimmer, or Giantess's Apartment. It
must have been but a sorry lodging for a lady of so much personal
weight in the world, and supposing her proportions to have resembled
those of her husband, would not fail to cramp her exceedingly; for it
is nothing more than a hole in the rock, measuring perhaps twenty feet
in length, by six or eight in width. But giants and giantesses lived,
it is presumed, chiefly in the open air, and this which is called her
chamber, may have been, after all, nothing more than her couch. If such
were the case, she must have had no taste for down mattresses and
feather-bed coverings.

We were advanced by this time, many hundred yards into the bowels of
the mountain, and stood at length on a fair open platform, surrounded
as heretofore, by enormous cliffs, yet having room enough, and to
spare. Here a small rustic arbour has been formed with rough-hewn pine
logs, and close by is a sort of pantry, composed of similar materials,
while facing them a little rivulet pours its water from a ledge of
rock, causing the air around to reverberate with its ceaseless and most
refreshing music. Our guide described the spot merely as the lesser
waterfall, while he invited us to drink from a fountain which bubbled
up close to the stream. I do not think that I ever tasted water more
deliciously cool and limpid.

The phrase "Lesser Wate