The day I set out was so misty that I took an umbrella, for the fog gathered and fell like rain, and I more than doubted whether I should see the sun at all. In the midst of this mist I climbed the rocky zigzag half hewn out of the face of the mountain, and half natural, and passing the village that is perched among the high rocks, which might be a refuge for the conies, began toiling up the last ascent of the mountain, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, but the thick mist, the vail of which had closed below and behind me over village, path, and precipice, and still continued heavy and dark above me, so that I thought I never should get out of it. Suddenly my head rose above the level of the fog into the clear air, and the heavens were shining, and Mont Blanc, with the whole illimitable range of snowy mountain tops around him, was throwing back the sun! An ocean of mist, as smooth as a chalcedony, as soft and white as the down of the eider-duck's breast, lay over the whole lower world; and as I rose above it, and ascended the mountain to its overhanging verge, it seemed an infinite abyss of vapour, where only the mountain tops were visible, on the Jura range like verdant wooded islands, on the Mont Blanc range as glittering surges and pyramids of ice and snow. No language can describe the extraordinary sublimity and beauty of the view. A level sea of white mist in every direction, as far as the eye could extend, with a continent of mighty icebergs on the one side floating in it, and on the other a forest promontory, with a slight undulating swell in the bosom of the sea, like the long smooth undulations of the ocean in a calm.

Standing on the overhanging crags, I could hear the chime of bells, the hum of busy labour, and the lowing of cattle buried in the mist, and faintly coming up to you from the fields and villages. Now and then a bird darted up out of the mist intò the clear sun and air, and sailed in playful circles, and then dived and disappeared again below the surface. By and by the wind began to agitate the cloudy sea, and more and more of the mountains became visible. Sometimes you have a bright sunset athwart this sea of cloud, which then rolls in waves burnished and tipped with fire. When you go down into the mist again, and leave behind you the beautiful sky, a clear bracing

atmosphere, the bright sun and the snow-shining mountains, it is like passing from heaven to earth, from the brightness and serenity of the one to the darkness and cares of the other. The whole scene is a leaf in nature's book, which but few turn over, but how rich it is in beauty and glory, and in food for meditation, none can tell but those who have witnessed it. This is a scene in Cloud-land, which hath its mysteries of beauty that defy the skill of the painter and engraver.

66

The bird darting from the mist into the sunlight, was a very beautiful incident. That," said Dr. Malan to me, as I recounted to him the experience of the day, "is Faith, an emblem of Faith;" for so as that soaring bird from the earth, when it was dark and raining, flew up and up, and onward, undiscouraged, till heaven was shining on her wings, and the clouds were all below her, and then returned, not to forget that sight, but to sing to her companions about it, and to dwell upon it till clear weather; so does our Faith, when all looks dark and discouraging here, when within and around there is nothing but mist and rain, rise and still rise, and soar onwards and upwards, till heaven is visible, and God is shining in the face of Jesus Christ, and then, as it were, comes back with glad tidings, to tell the soul to be of good cheer, for that heaven, is not far off, and to sing, even like the nightingale, in the darkness and the rain, for that soon again there shall be day-break and fair weather. And the memory of one such view of the gates of heaven, with the bright Alps of truth glittering around you, is enough to sustain the soul through many a weary day of her pilgrimage. When you see the face of Christ, all the darkness is forgotten, and you wonder what it was you were doubting about, and what it was that could have made you so perplexed and desponding. Because it is mist and rain here. below, you are not therefore to suppose that it is raining on the mountains: it is all clear there. And besides, you know that the mist, the rain, the showers are necessary, and we cannot have them and the sunshine at the same time, though the showers that water the earth are as requisite to make it luxuriant as the sun's clear shining after rain. Any time Faith may get upon the mountains and see the Alps, though it is not

to be done without labour. There must be much prayer and spiritual discipline, before you find that your head is above the mist and heaven is shining around you.

The poet Wordsworth has given two very vivid descriptions of these mist phenomena, under different aspects from that in which I witnessed them. The first is contained in his descriptive sketches of a pedestrian tour among the Alps.

"'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows,
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.

Far stretched beneath the many-tinted hills

A mighty waste of mist the valleys fills,

A solemn sea! whose vales and mountains round
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound.

A gulf of gloomy blue, that opens wide
And bottomless, divides the midway tide.

Like leaning masts of stranded ships appear

The pines, that near the coast their summits rear.
Of cabins, woods, and lawns a pleasant shore
Bounds calm and clear the chaos still and hoar.
Loud through that midway gulf ascending, sound,
Unnumbered streams with hollow roar profound.
Mount through the nearer mist the chant of birds,
And talking voices and the low of herds,,

The bark of dogs, the drowsy tinkling bell,

And wild-wood mountain lutes of saddest swell."

But this extract is not to be compared for power to the fol lowing from the same poem, describing an Alpine sunset after a day of mist and storm upon the mountains:

"'Tis storm, and hid in mist from hour to hour
All day the floods a deepening murmur pour.
The sky is vailed, and every cheerful sight
Dark is the region as with coming night,
But what a sudden burst of overpowering light!
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm
Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form.
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine
The wood-crowned cliffs, that o'er the lake recline.
Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold,
At once to pillars turned, that flame with gold.
Behind his sail the peasant tries to shun
The west, that burns like one dilated sun,
Where in a mighty crucible expire

The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire!"

Mr. Coleridge used to adduce this extract, from a poem written

in the earliest period of Wordsworth's career, as a rich prophecy of the fruits that would come from his maturer genius. And indeed superior to both these preceding passages is the other sketch of cloud scenery among the mountains, which is to be found in the second book of the Excursion. The scene, however, is not in Switzerland, but in Scotland.

"A step,

A single step, that freed me from the skirts
Of the blind vapour, opened to my view
Glory beyond all glory ever seen

By waking sense, or by the dreaming soul.
The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,
Was of a mighty city,-boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far,
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
Far sinking into splendour without end!
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace high
Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright,
In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt
With battlements, that on their restless fronts
Bore stars,-illumination of all gems!

O! 'twas an unimaginable sight!

Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf,
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,

Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,

Molten together, and composing thus,

Each lost in each, that marvellous array
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge
Fantastic pomp of structure without name,
In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapped.

Right in the midst, where interspace appeared

Of open court, an object like a throne
Beneath a shining canopy of state

Stood fixed; and fixed resemblances were seen
To implements of ordinary use,

But vast in size, in substance glorified;
Such as by Hebrew prophets were beheld
In vision-forms uncouth of mightiest power,
For admiration and mysterious awe.
Below me was the earth; this little vale
Lay low beneath my feet; 'twas visible—
I saw not, but I felt that it was there,
That which I saw was the revealed abode
Of spirits in beatitude."

CHAPTER IV.

JUNCTION OF THE ARVE AND THE RHONE.

THE junction of these two rivers, the Arve and the Rhone, is one of the pleasantest excursions in the neighbourhood of Geneva. You go out of the gates of the city towards France, and you follow the course of the Rhone from country seat to country seat along its borders. The banks increase in height until they become craggy and precipitous, and from the overhanging cliffs you gaze down into the deep blue swift water at your feet, and you can at one view almost trace the river's course from where it issues from the city and the lake to the point immediately beneath you, where the brawling, furious, muddy Arve rushes into it. The Rhone is the biggest river, but the Arve is very pertinacious. The Rhone is majestic in its depth and volume, and as swift and graceful as an arrow in its flight; but the Arve is shallow and noisy, and makes a great sand-bank in the effort to come into the Rhone with as great space and pretension as possible. The Rhone is as clear and delicious an azure as the lake itself, almost as deep and bright and transparent a colour as that of the heavens reflect ed in its bosom; but the Arve is as muddy as Acheron, and as cold as death. The Rhone comes from the crystal sleeping lake, the Arve from the restless grinding glaciers.

The Arve endeavours to rush into the Rhone almost at right angles, and to mingle its muddy, turbulent current with the crystal depths of the lake-river; but the Rhone refuses the mixture, and flies on by itself so that the Arve is also compelled, though much mortified, to keep on its own side, being able to unite with the Rhone only in little eddies or ringlets, like the tresses of a fair-haired girl beside the curls of an Ethiopian. One hardly knows how the Rhone is able to conquer, but the two rivers flow on without mingling, so that you have the cold mud on the one side, and the clear crystal on the other. From the commanding height, where you stand above the banks of the Rhone, you see with the utmost clearness the