"This is the school
house," he adds, as we pass a building larger than the rest.
Now the path turns and slopes down a steep bank, covered with
haycocks, to a little nook below, likewise covered with new hay. If my
horse is going to throw me any where, I wish it may be here: it is not
so bad a thing to roll down into that hay. But now we mount higher;
the breezy dells, enamelled with flowers and grass, become fewer; the
great black pines take their place. Right before us, in the purest
white, as a bride adorned for her husband, rises the beautiful
Jungfrau, wearing on her forehead the Silver Horn, and the Snow Horn.
The Silver Horn is a peak, dazzlingly bright, of snow; and its crest
is now seen in relief against a sky of the deepest blue. See, also,
how those dark pines of the foreground contrast with it, like the
stern, mournful realities of life seen against the dazzling hopes of
heaven.
There is something celestial in these mountains. You might think such
a vision as that to be a bright footstool of Heaven, from which the
next step would be into an unknown world. The pines here begin to show
that long white beard of moss which I admire so much in Maine. Now, we
go right up over their heads. There, the tall pines are under our
feet. A little more - and now above us rise the stern, naked rocks,
where only the chamois and the wild goat live. But still, fair as the
moon, clear as the sun, looks forth the Jungfrau.
We turn to look down. That Staubbach, which in the valley seemed to
fall from an immense precipice, higher than we could gaze, is now a
silver thread, far below our feet; and the valley of Lauterbrunn seems
as nothing. Only bleak, purplish crags, rising all around us, and
silent, silver mountains looking over them.
"That one directly before you is the Monk," says C., calling to me
from behind, and pointing to a great snow peak.
Our guide, with animation, introduced us by name to every one of these
snow-white genii - the Falhorn, the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn, the
great Eiger, and I cannot remember what besides. The guides seem to
consider them all as old friends.
Certainly nothing could be so singular, so peculiar as this ascension.
We have now passed the limit of all but grass and Alpine flowers,
which still, with their infinite variety, embroider the way; and now
the _auberge_ is gained. Good night, now, and farewell.
That is to say, there we stopped - on the summit, in fair view of the
Jungfrau, a wall of rock crowned with fields of eternal snow, whose
dazzling brightness almost put my eyes out. My head ached, too, with
the thin air of these mountains. I thought I should like to stay one
night just to hear avalanches fall; but I cannot breathe well here,
and there is a secret sense of horror about these sterile rocks and
eternal snows. So, after dinner, I gladly consent to go down to
Grindelwald.
Off we start - I walking - for, to tell the truth, I have no fondness
for riding down a path as steep in some places as a wall; I leave that
to C., who never fears any thing. So I walked all the way to
Grindelwald, nine miles of a very rough road. There was a lady with
her husband walking the same pass, who had come on foot the whole way
from Lauterbrunn, and did not seem in the least fatigued. My guide
exhausted all his eloquence to persuade me that it was better to ride;
at last I settled him by saying, "Why, here is a lady who has walked
the whole route." So he confined himself after that to helping me find
flowers, and carrying the handkerchief in which I stowed them. Alas!
what herbarium of hapless flowers, laid out stark, stiff, and
motionless, like beauty on its bier, and with horrible long names
written under them, can ever give an idea of the infinite variety and
beauty of the floral crown of these mountains!
The herbarium resembles the bright, living reality no more than the
_morgue_ at St. Bernard's is a specimen of mountain travellers.
Yet one thing an herbarium is good for: in looking at it you can
recall how they looked, and glowed, and waved in life, with all their
silver-crowned mountains around them.
After we arrived at Grindelwald, tired as I was, I made sketches of
nine varieties, which I intend to color as soon as we rest long
enough. So much I did for love of the dear little souls.
One noticeable feature is the predominance of _yellow_ flowers.
These, of various kinds, so abound as to make a distinct item of
coloring in a distant view. One of the most common is this - of a vivid
chrome yellow, sometimes brilliantly striped with orange.
[Illustration: _of a flowered bract._]
One thing more as to botanical names. What does possess botanists to
afflict the most fragile and delicate of earth's children with such
mountainous and unpronounceable names? Now there was a dear little
flower that I first met at St. Bernard - a little purple bell, with a
fringe; it is more particularly beautiful from its growing just on the
verge of avalanches, coming up and blossoming through the snow. I send
you one in this letter, which I dug out of a snow bank this morning.
And this fair creation - this hope upon a death bed - this image of love
unchilled and immortal - how I wanted to know it by name!
[Illustration: _of a tiny plant with a single flowering stem and two
simple circular leaves._]
Today, at the summit house of the mountain, I opened an herbarium, and
there were three inches of name as hopeless and unpronounceable as the
German of our guides, piled up on my little flower.
