ve the grandeur
of the scene around them.

At the second of these bridges, called the Pontlatzer

Bruecke, the ravine grows wider, and open, a distant prospect of the
"Kaunser-Thal," backed by the tremendous glacier of Gebatsch. A glorious
valley is it, with its grouped cottages and village spires studded along
the plain, through which the Inn winds its rapid stream, its surface
still ruffled and eddying from the deep descent of the Fuenstermuenze.

Above the Pontlatzer Bruecke, high upon a little table-land of the
mountain, stands a small village--if even that humble name be not too
dignified for the little group of peasant-houses here assembled. This,
called the "Kletscher," derives its title from a mountain torrent which,
leaping from cliff to cliff, actually divides the village into two
portions, over each of which, with pretty fair equality, it distributes
its spray and foam, and then plunges madly down, till, by a succession
of bounds and springs, it reaches the river Inn beneath. The Kletscher,
it must be owned, deserves its name: it is at once the most boisterous
and foam-covered torrent of the whole region, and, as frequently in
its course it pierces the soft rock of the mountain, the roaring stream
echoes more loudly still beneath these natural bridges. These, however,
are not the only sounds which greet the ear on nearing the spot:
the whole air is tremulous with the thumping and crashing noise
of saw-mills, every second cottage having one of these ingenious
contrivances at work; and thus, between the roaring torrent itself
and its forced labour, such a tremendous uproar is created, that the
uninitiated are completely stunned.

It is, indeed, a curious transition from the deathlike stillness of the
pine forest, the unbroken silence of the steep path by which you wend
your way upward, to emerge at once into this land of active life and
turmoil, to see here, high amidst the Alps, where the roe and chamois
are wild and free--to see here a little colony busied in all the arts
of life, and carrying their industry into the regions of cataract and
glacier.

What animation and movement on every side does that bright flowing
torrent carry with it! The axe of the wood-cutter--the rustling branches
sweeping, as twenty or thirty peasants tug some mighty pine-tree
along--the hacking clink of the bark adzes--the voices of the children
gathering and peeling the bark, and, above and through all, the heavy
throbbing of