ter, we
were well aware; and took, in consequence, the burgomaster's cautions
at little more than they proved, in effect, to be worth. Some
obstacles, with a good deal of fatigue, we made up our minds to
encounter; but, as the Duke of Wellington said in his speech to the
cadets at Addiscombe,--a speech which I had the good fortune to hear,
and am not likely soon to forget,--nothing great was ever accomplished
without labour; and labour we were content to bestow, and fatigue to
endure, even in the ascent of Schnee-Koppee. Accordingly at six in the
morning, and carrying the heir of the hotel along with us, to point out
the direct path through a forest, which it was necessary to thread, we
sallied forth; and by seven were once more left to our own guidance,
with the steep but grassy side of one of the ramifications of the
mountain under our feet.

I shall never forget, to my dying day, the effect produced upon me by
the first half of this ascent. The day was as bright and beautiful as
ever shone out of heaven. Hot it was, but not intensely so, for the
sun's power was yet trivial; and as the winds were hushed, except when
from time to time a light breeze rustled among the foliage of the
pine-woods, the stillness that prevailed around struck me as something
quite sublime. In proportion as we rose, likewise, above the level of
the valley, every sight and sound appeared to acquire a new charm.
Beneath were wreaths of mist, rolling themselves slowly up the sides of
the opposite mountains. Under their canopy villages and hamlets were
reposing, from the chimneys of which long thin streaks of smoke curled
upwards as if to join the cloud; while here and there a solitary
cottage, a chapel, and even a gilt crucifix, gleamed to peculiar
advantage from its own quiet nook. I have spoken of the silence as
being quite sublime. Not that it was unbroken; for up the mountain's
side came, by fits and starts, the tinkling of the bells, which in this
country are suspended to the necks of the cattle when they are feeding;
intermixed with an occasional whoop, or snatch of a song, or merry
whistle from the cow-herd; while the branches over-head,--for we sat
down in the skirts of a low pine wood,--were crowded with little birds,
whose sweet but not loud notes completed one of the most exquisite
concerts to which, in any part of the world, I have ever listened. And
then the landscape,--what a picture was there. Bold conical hills,
swelling one over