safe enough, even on
mule-back, ascending; but one would be foolhardy to ride down. We met a
lady on the summit who was about to be carried down on a chair; and
she seemed quite to like the mode of conveyance: she had harnessed her
husband in temporarily for one of the bearers, which made it still more
jolly for her. When we started, a cloud of mist hung over the edge of
the rocks. As we rose, it descended to meet us, and sunk below, hiding
the valley and its houses, which had looked like Swiss toys from our
height. When we reached the summit, the mist came boiling up after us,
rising like a thick wall to the sky, and hiding all that great mountain
range, the Vallais Alps, from which we had come, and which we hoped
to see from this point. Fortunately, there were no clouds on the other
side, and we looked down into a magnificent rocky basin, encircled by
broken and overtopping crags and snow-fields, at the bottom of which was
a green lake. It is one of the wildest of scenes.

An hour from the summit, we came to a green Alp, where a herd of cows
were feeding; and in the midst of it were three or four dirty chalets,
where pigs, chickens, cattle, and animals constructed very much like
human beings, lived; yet I have nothing to say against these chalets,
for we had excellent cream there. We had, on the way down, fine views
of the snowy Altels, the Rinderhorn, the Finster-Aarhorn, a deep valley
which enormous precipices guard, but which avalanches nevertheless
invade, and, farther on, of the Blumlisalp, with its summit of
crystalline whiteness. The descent to Kandersteg is very rapid, and in
a rain slippery. This village is a resort for artists for its splendid
views of the range we had crossed: it stands at the gate of the
mountains. From there to the Lake of Thun is a delightful drive,--a rich
country, with handsome cottages and a charming landscape, even if the
pyramidal Niesen did not lift up its seven thousand feet on the edge
of the lake. So, through a smiling land, and in the sunshine after the
rain, we come to Spiez, and find ourselves at a little hotel on the
slope, overlooking town and lake and mountains.

Spiez is not large: indeed, its few houses are nearly all picturesquely
grouped upon a narrow rib of land which is thrust into the lake on
purpose to make the loveliest picture in the world. There is the old
castle, with its many slim spires and its square-peaked roofed tower;
the slender-steepled church; a frin