The Bernese Oberland [pp. 193-207]

The Bernese Oberland.
seemed no means of egress. What
a cheerless incarceration it would be!
The Count, in the affecting little story of
Picciola, had a floweret with which he
beguiled the hours of his wearisome captivity, but here was no earth from which
even the hardiest plant would spring.
I thought of Baron Trenck, and conjectured if he could have scaled the surrounding peaks, and then I thought of
Napoleon. Had Allied Europe shut
him up forever in this lonely jail-yard,
and been able to keep him there, what
deeper agonies of spirit would he not
have suffered, before his great soul burst
the barriers of the flesh!
We stopped to have a horse shod at the
Hospice, and the delay was oppressive in
the extreme. I began to doubt the practicability of escape, until determined to
shake off the influence of the spot, I
pushed on alone, and, passing behind a
high rock, entered a sort of narrow cleft
between overhanging mountains, which
brought me, in the course of half a mile,
to a gorge, on one side of which the
path led perilously down. After awhile
my companions overtook me with the
horses, and we rode a short distance,
when the fearful nature of the ground
induced us to leave the saddle for the
greater security of our feet. Winding
abruptly around boulders jutting out from
the mountain-side, the path not unfrequently presented a space but two or
three yards wide, between the wall and
a precipice over which it caused a shudder to cast the eye. It was not long before we reached the Aar, rushing from
the Aar Glacier, and filling the wide
valley with mournful reverberations.
Passing soon thereafter over the bed
of an extinct glacier, with a sloping surface of granite as smooth as the steps of
the Merchants' Exchange in Wall-street,
we saw the autograph of Agassiz cut
into the stone. The plane was so much
inclined that it was difficult to retain
one's footing, and when the donkeys
reached the spot they were assisted in
descending by their attendants pulling at
their tails from behind in the drollest
way conceivable. This portion of the
path is called the Hollenplate, which,
At spe this plae there is a small inn,
where travellers going in either direction over the pass of the Grimsel stop
for refreshment. Our Philadelphia party
of the Rigi was here; and there was a
fine looking Scotchman, with pantaloons
of the McGregor plaid, and an eye-glass,
and otherevidences of civilization,who was
drinking, more majorum, out of a sideflask as we entered the single apartment
of the chalet. We had all arrived about
the same moment at Handek, and while
the Boniface was preparing dinner, we
walked in company to the little bridge,
a hundred yards off, which crosses the
It is a very pr etty sight-the Scotchman said it was a mogneeficent sight,
and asked wherein it was inferior to
Ni-a-ga-ra-for the waters of the noisy
torrent, here compressed into a compass
of fifteen or twenty feet, plunge over a
height of two hundred feet into a gloomy
gorge, and midway meet and mingle
with another stream, the Erlenbacb, here
pouring into the valley at right angles
with the course of the Aar. The effect
is fine from the bridge, which is thrown
across the very brink of the Falls, and
gives a view into the dark and boiling
vortex below.
From Handek down to the valley of
Hasli, the path continues to descend
more or less abruptly for several miles,
through the grandest scenery. We did
not again get into the saddle until we had
fairly accomplished the entire fall, and
left the long flights of rocky steps, tortuous and reeling, far behind. At last,
reaching a level road, we trotted about
sunset across some smiling fields into
Meyringen, and sat down at the Hotel
Sauvage.
It was a quiet and charming Sunday
202
[SEPTEM]EIER
according to Scherer and Fliigel, means
the, Hell-plain. Thence pursuing the
downward course of the stream, we
came at an early hour of the afternoon to
HANDEK.
-ik
FALLS OF THE AAR.