led by remembering that if
I could draw infinitely well, then it would become sacrilege to
attempt to draw that sight. Moreover, I am not going to waste any more
time discussing why I put in this little drawing. If it disturbs your
conception of what it was I saw, paste over it a little bit of paper.
I have made it small for the purpose; but remember that the paper
should be thin and opaque, for thick paper will interfere with the
shape of this book, and transparent paper will disturb you with a
memory of the picture.

It was all full of this, as a man is full of music just after hearing
it, that I plunged down into the steep forest that led towards the
great plain; then, having found a path, I worked zig-zag down it by a
kind of gully that led through to a place where the limestone cliffs
were broken, and (so my map told me) to the town of Soleure, which
stands at the edge of the plain upon the river Aar.

I was an hour or more going down the enormous face of the Jura, which
is here an escarpment, a cliff of great height, and contains but few
such breaks by which men can pick their way. It was when I was about
half-way down the mountain side that its vastness most impressed me.
And yet it had been but a platform as it were, from which to view the
Alps and their much greater sublimity.

This vastness, even of these limestone mountains, took me especially
at a place where the path bordered a steep, or rather precipitous,
lift of white rock to which only here and there a tree could cling.

I was still very high up, but looking somewhat more eastward than
before, and the plain went on inimitably towards some low vague hills;
nor in that direction could any snow be seen in the sky. Then at last
I came to the slopes which make a little bank under the mountains, and
there, finding a highroad, and oppressed somewhat suddenly by the
afternoon heat of those low places, I went on more slowly towards
Soleure.

Beside me, on the road, were many houses, shaded by great trees, built
of wood, and standing apart. To each of them almost was a little
water-wheel, run by the spring which came down out of the ravine. The
water-wheel in most cases worked a simple little machine for sawing
planks, but in other cases it seemed used for some purpose inside the
house, which I could not divine; perhaps for spinning.

All this place was full of working, and the men sang and spoke at
their work in German, which I could not understand. I did