wanderer sees in summer-time foaming torrents of whitish blue water rush forth from dark, dismal caves under the fields of snow. These are the inexhaustible sources of the rivers and streams that come from the Alps, and, as the Rhine or Rhone, form the mighty high-roads for the commerce of Europe. So it is with all snow-covered mountains; and vast, unmeasured regions would never be more than arid deserts, if their great rivers were not incessantly fed by the everlasting snow that crowns the silent pinnacles, and ever melts slowly but surely, and ever grows again upon the lofty summit. In hotter climes, where, for months and months, no blessed shower falls from the clouds, where the dry soil cracks, and all vegetation perishes, life would be impossible, were it not for such periodic supplies, furnished by long mountain ranges.

The solemn solitude and the threatening aspect of the loftiest peaks often make the masses of people regard them as objects of fear and terror. shrink from

They

"that sublimity which reigns enthroned, Holding joint rule with solitude divine Among yon rocky fells that bid defiance To steps the most adventurously bold. There silence dwells profound, or if the cry Of high-poised eagles breaks at times the calm, The haunted echoes no response return."

The traveler, who passes near them, hastens his steps to avoid the avalanche, and to save his eyesight. A few only, impelled by a noble ardor for the study of nature, have ventured to ascend to the loftiest regions, like Saussure, Humboldt, Agassiz, and Hooker. Nor are the terrors of these enchanted regions merely imaginary. Soon after the line of eternal snow is passed, a general and painful uneasiness seizes the wanderer. The most remarkable sensation, however, is that of utter exhaustion. When Lieutenant Wood was on the "Terraced Roof of the World" in Pamir, he wished to explore the depth of the famous lake Sir-i-kol, that spreads its placid waters at a height of more than 15,000 feet above the sea. He tried to cut a hole in the ice; but a few blows consumed all his strength. A few moments, it is true, sufficed for his recovery; but he found any muscular exertion almost impossible. Running a distance of less than fifty yards, he lost his breath, and felt an intense pain in his lungs that did not leave him for

hours. He could not speak aloud without great effort, and his pulse immediately rose in an alarming manner. Saussure and his companions suffered like inconveniences; they became irresistibly drowsy, lost their appetite, and could not quench their violent, painful thirst. When Humboldt was ascending the Chimborazo, and already quite near the summit, he had to abandon the enterprise, because large drops of blood oozed out from under his nails and his eyelids.

But there is a beauty in mountains that has always been found amply to repay such fatigue and such dangers. Even in the terrific passes of the Himalaya, where man and beast are alike distressed, where thousands of birds perish from the mere violence of the wind, and furious thunder-storms add to the terror, even there the beauty of the scenery is such as to compensate the weary traveler for all he endures. "During the day," says Mary Somerville, "the stupendous size of the mountains, their interminable extent, the variety and sharpness of their forms, and, above all, the tender clearness of their distant outline, melting into the pale blue sky, contrasted with the deep azure above, is a scene of wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when myriads of stars sparkle in the black sky, and the pure blue of the mountains looks deeper still below the pale white gleam of earth and snowlight, the effect is of unparalleled solemnity, and no language can describe the splendor of the sunbeams at daybreak, streaming between the high peaks and throwing their gigantic shadows on the mountains below!"

Even ice and snow assume, at times, forms of wondrous beauty. Glaciers spread their resplendent mirrors over vast regions, and cover them closely with their transparent masses. Famous and

well known in the European Alps, they are found wherever mountains arise, that are throughout the year covered with snow. The most imposing are found high in the north: in Norway they reach down to the water's edge. On the eastern coast of Iceland, a huge glacier is slowly approaching the coast, and already leaves barely room for a road; it will, it is feared, ere long form an impassable barrier between two parts of the island. Spitzbergen boasts probably of the largest of glaciers; for Captain Scoresby tells us that the "Hornsound " is nearly

eleven miles wide at its lower edge, and has a thickness of over four hundred feet. Both the Andes and the Himalaya have, of course, their gigantic glaciers also, and Darwyn met them even reaching down into the waters of the Pacific, on the coast of Patagonia.

Their charm to the eye consists as much in their peculiar form and color as in the contrast they present with the immediately surrounding landscape. The huge masses are cut and torn in all directions by a host of wide-gaping clefts and crevices, that the eye cannot fathom; around them rise towers and lofty walls and ridges of ice in the oddest shapes, with a background of black rocks ascending to the very heavens from the midst of the brilliant sea of white. The mind of man would tremble and shudder at the incomprehensible grandeur of the delicate blue that colors the whole up to the line of eternal snow, if the countless hues and tinges, which darken in the clefts and brighten up again on high and prominent peaks, did not gently greet his astonished eye and change his awe into wonder and admiration. As he turns to one side, he sees the masses of ice over which he wanders surrounded with forests and fields. with meadows and blooming gardens. At his left, a soft, velvety pasture of richest green stretches far into the ice-field itself, the tiny blade and the lonely flower struggling triumphantly with the dead matter. Here cattle are grazing peacefully, and the herdsmen play on their simple flute, or wake the ever-ready echo with merry songs. At his right, a sunny slope is covered with ripening barley, whilst at his feet tidy cottages, with bright shining windows and embowered in thick, shady orchards, speak of comfort and content. Far away he sees ancient forests, whose dark evergreen foliage casts broad shadows over the landscape, and adds to the brighter scenes a sober, welcome seriousness. In many places a new charm is added: snugly ensconced amidst the lofty heights, a tiny lake, set in emerald meadows, smiles, as with a child's innocent eye, up to the blue heaven, and reflects in its clear waters the surrounding snow fields and rocky peaks. In the next valley, a waterfall pours its silvery flood over dark, beetling rocks, and the slender stream sways playfully to and fro, as the breeze comes to play with it, or scatters its airy, fairy

jet into a thousand drops, long ere it reaches the meadow at its feet.

Grander still than the permanent beauties of mountains are the tragedies, the great revolutions enacted there from time to time. Now huge avalanches are hurled in mighty leaps, and full thundering into the valley, carrying death and destruction in their wake. Or, in the silent hours of night, portentous bodies of snow leave their lofty home and glide noiselessly down upon the illfated lowlands. The careless victims awake only to eternal night, and find themselves buried alive under overwhelming masses. Such was the fate of Bueras in the canton of Grisons. No warning voice had been heard; no thunder announced the fearful catastrophe; sweet sleep bound the whole village; but when the morning dawned, the town remained enveloped in night--a huge mountain of snow covered the unfortunate place, and only a few men could be rescued alive, by almost incredible efforts. As the waters of the deep have risen and with their silent floods covered fertile and populous districts, to be seen no more by the eye of man, so even now Norwegian valleys, the happy home of peaceful peasants and of a thousand cattle upon the hills, are not unfrequently buried in the dark hours of a single night by treacherous avalanches. Ages afterwards, when the suns of many years have melted the huge masses of snow and ice, the bodies of the dead are found as if resting in sweet slumber, with arms interlocked and eyes uplifted to their Father above, who had called them so suddenly to their eternal home.

At other times, the mountains themselves loosen the bands that have held them together for ages, and, leaving their ancient resting-places, roll down into the plain, changing fertile fields into arid deserts, and burying villages and towns deep under their crumbling ruins. Who does not know the heartrending fate that befell the village of Goldau near Righi? Who has forgotten the fate of the Willey family at the Notch of the White Hills? Who marvels not at the changes that a night produced on Mount Ida, in the state of New York? The great Creator spoke, and lofty mountains arose above the surface of the dark waters that covered the earth. He crowned them with unchanging ice and snow. He covered their hoary heads with dark clouds.

From the deep bosom of the earth, He called the high ranges with their horns of glassy rock, and their dark, furrowed sides; layer upon layer covered the naked skeletons, and His bounty spread over all a rich carpet of grass, or the warm mantle of dense forests. As man beheld them, he saw in them an attribute of the Most High, and called them the everlasting hills, the eternal mountains. But at a breath of the Lord,

they are seen no more. There is no rest in nature, not even in the rigid, solid matter of which these towering rocks were formed. They pass away and melt from before the Lord" in restless destruction; and that time, which is not measured by the brief years of man, may yet see the Andes razed to the ground, and the Himalayas covering the vast plains of Asia with their gigantic ruins, whenever it please Him, "which removeth the mountains and they know not, which overturneth them in his anger."

But valleys also are parts of the mountains, and often lie among them at a higher elevation than the loftiest ranges of our Union. Their characteristic feature is seclusion and peaceful repose. The mountains lift us up from the world and place it in panoramic view before the astonished eye; they enliven the solitude of the regions around us with a hundred attractive objects, and raise our feelings into enthusiastic emotion. The valley, on the contrary, leads us to think but of our utter seclusion from the world; perfect solitude and solemn melancholy or cheerful peace fill our soul. Above is the brilliant throne of omnipotent nature; down in the valley her blessings are spread out, as she scatters them with liberal hand; there she is gorgeous and majestic, a mighty queen here she is a friend, a mother, full of kindness and tender affection.

Valleys differ as much in their natural beauty as the mountains by which they are surrounded. From the narrow ravine which only at noon is greeted by a few straggling rays of the sun, to the wide hospitable valley that unites the lofty peaks above to the fertile plain below what a distance! Here they are little more than terrific fissures-as in the Balkan-so deep and narrow that below the sweet light of day is never seen. Sometimes bare and barren, filled with rubbish and gravel, and water

ed by black, slimy swamps, they are at other times shut in by lofty, bold walls of living rock and covered with luxuriant vegetation. Who has not read the classic description of the favored valley of Tempe? Far in the east, in the firecountry of Zoroaster, and in the midst of volcanic cones, beautiful valleys with pure streams and peaceful glades lie among the mountains, and the vale of Kosran Shah, a perfect picture of sylvan beauty, is celebrated as one of the five paradises of Persian poetry. Such valleys abound also in other countries, though they are rare in our own. They are sheltered by high ramparts, rising on all sides in beautifully varied forins; colossal rocks lie or hang scattered about, and verdure, rich in fragrant flowers, spreads its velvety carpet around gigantic trees of by-gone ages; a foaming cascade, falling through the cloven ravine in cataract after cataract, or a deep, dark river between walls of shadowy granite, adds freshness to the grateful shade, and its charms are completed, when to the mind also is suggested some historical association, as in the Tempe of Greece or in Petrarch's Vaucluse.

Here in the valley, and among mountains, where "nature's heart beats strong," live men who show in feature and character the undeniable influence of the giants in whose neighborhood they dwell. Their eyes are ever drawn upward, and as the pointed arch, the ogive window, the vaulted ceiling and the lofty steeple of Gothic churches lead the eye, step by step, from the low marble that covers the dead, to the pure heaven, that is IIis throne, so the high mountains also make the son of dust, that lives among them, look up freely into the bright blue ether and from thence to his great Father on high. His glance is no longer riveted to the harvest on the vast plain with thoughts of gain and profit; he is not oppressed by the dense forests that hide from him the beauty of the sky; he follows not with vain, indefinite longing the slow, steady stream as it rolls its waves to the ocean.

Here his eye is ever lifted upwards— from the moment when the morning sun first kindles her beacons of joy on the highest Alp, and proclaims aloud that another day has been added by God's mercy to our life, to the last hour of twilight, when the shadows of night steal gently

upward and cover valley and hill-side with their dark mantle, until silence covers the earth. Neither the monotony of the steppe nor the despair of the desert ever weighs on the buoyant heart: images of joy unutterable alternate with sweet, longing melancholy; impressions, ever changing, ever stirring, fill his soul from hour to hour, and feed it with sweet pain or happy peace, until it can live no longer without the unseen food, and sickens and sorrows when torn from its home. Dangers and difficulties of every kind steel his arm, and sharpen his senses; the purest air in all the earth, and ever new sources of joy and gratitude amid God's bountiful nature, enliven his fancy and quicken his heart's noblest feelings. The same wild, solemn and solitary scenery adds, morover, a blessing surpassing all others: a cheerful confidence, a quiet peace, a child's implicit reliance on Him, who has ever chosen to commune nearest with man, not in the lowly valley, but on the lofty moun

tain.

Hence it is that such heights, in proportion as they approach the character of true triumphant mountains, have ever been looked upon as the dwelling-places of greatest strength, of sweetest simplicity, nay, as the very homes of earliest poesy. Not without good reason have nearly all nations placed their highest and holiest conceptions upon lofty mountain tops, and ever claimed historical descent even, in the literal sense of the word, from the heights that tower around their earliest home. Hence, also, the well-known characteristic features of mountaineers, who show more markedly than all other classes of men the powerful influence of physical geography on the development of the race. They are found to abound in strength and in spirit. In body and mind the son of the mountains surpass es the children of the plain, because from earliest youth he has to rely on himself, must conquer difficulties after difficulties, breathes ever the purest air, and is, for more than one reason, less accessible to luxury and effeminacy. Strong and well-formed in body, active and vigilant in mind, the dweller on Alpine heights enjoys besides, in most instances, a more cheerful temper and more joyous manners than others-a blessing bestowed upon all of them alike, on the Alps of Switzerland and on Tartaric mountains, among Basques

and Abyssinians, on the Nilgerry and on the Himalaya.

It is true that local peculiarities occasionally produce striking contrasts, and shock our eye by the sight of piteous creatures in the very midst of a healthy, blooming population; but these are rare and isolated exceptions, confined to narrow limits and easily yielding to welldirected benevolence. The strengthening power of the mountains, on the other hand, seldom fails to reinvigorate the body, and to restore to the mind its buoyant elasticity, especially where, as in the tropics, they become the natural resort of suffering natives and debilitated strangers. Such great natural blessings, combined with the active spirit and the self-conscious strength of mountaineers, could not fail to produce both courage and independence. They all love freedom. We need no examples; for, from the sons of Scotland and icy Norway, in the north, to the free Swiss and the unsubdued Basques, in the south, they all bear witness to the fact.

Nor must we forget, that mountains isolate men more than anything else on firm land. Rivers have become highroads, and the ocean has been bridged over; but mountains, though covered with railway-tracks, and pierced by marvelous tunnels, will ever remain the great lines of division between kingdom and kingdom.

"Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else, Like kindred drops, been mingled into one."

With equal jealousy, they shelter their own children against all influences from without. Among them ancient customs and strongly-marked individualities survive, long after repeated revolutions have cut down all that grows on the plain to a dead level. The mountaineer's house is his castle in a better sense and to a much fuller extent than even the proud Englishman's home. There he dwells in simplicity, but in content. His soil is poor, his resources are few, but his wants, also, are modest. Hence poverty and hospitality are the strange twin-sisters that are ever found under his rock-covered roof. So it is all over the globe, wherever men dwell in peace. The scantier life appears among them, the less comfort and luxury are known-the more they are given to value aid and to afford ready shelter to the weary wanderer or the sufferer among themselves.

Ritter, in his travels through Abyssinia, was long since led to the conclusion, that hospitality was at home in every Alpine region, in spite of their equally universal poverty.

What is, perhaps, least carefully noticed by the general observer in this kind of High Life is, the nomadic character of almost all dwellers on mountains. The sterility of the soil, in connection with the general activity of the race, drives them constantly away from their native land and leads them to emigrate, at least for a time, to distant countries, partly to sell there the products of their own industry and partly to seek there an ampler income and a provision for their declining years. Thus we find the brave Swiss serving foreign masters with a touching fidelity that makes ample amends for his mercenary service, whilst the humbler son of Savoy is content to clean chimneys and to play his hurdy-gurdy. The poor, frugal Gallego is found all over Spain, as cold Dalarm sends out her sons in winter, and her daughters in summer, to earn a living in Stockholm. The Fulah and the Zemindar of Kamaum but repeat in Africa and Asia the example of the Galician Pole on the northern Carpathian mountains. But from east and west, from north and south, they all gather again around their early home, ere the silver cord be loosed and the golden bowl broken.

Even on their own mountains, these hardy children of men often lead a life that somewhat resembles the wandering life of the nomad. Thousands earn a scanty living by traveling, without rest and repose, over high, steep passes, and through dangerous valleys, followed by long lines of heavily-laden beasts of burden; others, who live by their cattle, change from the lofty senn-huts in summer to the well-sheltered valleys in winter, whilst in the Himalaya they have special villages built for each season.

In their migrations they depend, like the nomads of the steppes, on the catthe that feed and clothe them. High up to the line of perpetual snow they drive their herds of gigantic oxen. Where horned cattle and even sheep no longer find green pastures, there the goat still knows how to support itself by frugal diet. But when even the most indest of our domestic cattle would starve, bountiful nature still furnishes two beings, so rarely endowed, so mar

velously fitted for their exclusive abode, that they have ever been noted as striking evidences of the wisdom and bounty of the Creator. The one is the reindeer, the all-useful friend of man in high northern regions. The other is the Yak, or grunting ox, which nature has fitted to live in the snow-covered mountains of inner Asia, on the very highest table-land of our globe, which the children of the soil call, in their expressive language, the "dwelling of snow," or the roof of the world." A small buffalo in appearance, his long, shaggy hair, with which he is covered all over, sweeps the ground, and ends at the tail in a large and magnificent tuft. Independent of wind and weather, he lives wherever the mean temperature does not rise above the freezing point. If the snows become too deep above, he rolls himself down a sloping mountainside and feeds while slowly ascending; when he reaches the summit, he rolls down again and eats a second deep furrow into the snow. When summer approaches he ascends to the regions of eternal snow, and the inhabitants leave their sheltered valleys and follow their numerous herds. They live on their milk, they eat their flesh, and dress them skins. Their long hair makes ropes stronger than hemp, and the bushy tail is eagerly purchased for fans and fly brushes. What is strangest, perhaps, is their use for the saddle. Wherever a man can walk, there the ox may be ridden. His intelligence is marvelous, often surpassing the far-famed cunning of elephants. When travelers have lost their way, one of these animals is driven ahead, and avoids with almost miraculous instinct all hidden clefts and crevices. When the passes are filled with snow, and neither man nor horse can cross the mountains, a herd of grunting oxen is sent on and soon tramples the snow sufficiently down to open a passage.

Need we wonder that the mountaineer loves his home, even to homesickness? Have not cows, exported from Switzerland, become maddened when suddenly hearing the Ranz des vaches? The French government, it is well known, had to prohibit the playing of certain Swiss airs in the presence of the Swiss regiments, because it was never done without causing more than one of that noble band to die of a broken heart! Among no class of men is the love of