rom the valley. The fall of the Staubbach, about _eight
hundred feet in height_, wholly detached from the rock, is reduced into
vapour long before it reaches the ground; the water and the vapour
undulating through the air with more grace and elegance than sublimity.
While amusing ourselves with watching the singular appearance of rockets
of water shooting down into the dense cloud of vapour below, we were
joined by some country girls, who gave us a concert of three voices,
pitched excessively high, and more like the vibrations of metal or glass
than the human voice, but in perfect harmony, and although painful in
some degree, yet very fine. In winter an immense accumulation of ice
takes place at the foot of the Fall, sometimes as much as three hundred
feet broad, with two enormous icy stalactites hanging down over it. When
heat returns, the falling waters hollow out cavernous channels through
the mass, the effect of which is said to be very fine; this, no doubt,
is the proper season to see the Staubbach to most advantage." Six or
eight miles further, the valley ends in glaciers scarcely practicable
for chamois hunters. About forty years since some miners who belonged to
the Valais, and were at work at Lauterbrun, undertook to cross over to
their own country, simply to hear mass on a Sunday. They traversed the
level top of the glacier in three hours; then descended, amidst the
greatest dangers, its broken slope into the Valais, and returned the day
after by the same way; but no one else has since ventured on the
dangerous enterprise.

Apart from the romantic attraction of the Fall, the broad-eaved chalet
and its accessaries form a truly interesting picture of village
simplicity and repose. Here you are deemed rich with a capital of three
hundred pounds. All that is not made in the country, or of its growth,
is deemed luxury: a silver chain here as at Berne, is transmitted from
mother to daughter. Dwellings and barns covered with tiles, and windows
with large panes of glass, give to the owner a reputation of wealth; and
if the outside walls are adorned with paintings, and passages of
Scripture are inscribed on the front of the house, the owner ranks at
once among the aristocracy of the country. What an association of
primitive happiness do these humble attributes and characteristics of
Swiss scenery convey to the unambitious mind. Think of this, ye who
regard palaces as symbols of true enjoyment! and ye who imprison
yours