Nature, thou earliest gospel of the wise, Though at the foot we dream upon the sod; "If he hath held thy worship undefiled Through all the sins and sorrows of his youth, Let the man echo what he heard as child From the far hill-tops of melodious Truth, Leaving in troubled hearts some lingering tone Sweet with the solace thou hast given his own. LORD LYTTON's King Arthur. The brain, That forages all climes to hue its cells, JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL HOURS OF EXERCISE IN THE ALPS. I. THE LAUWINEN-THOR. IN JUNE 1860 I completed 'The Glaciers of the Alps,' which constituted but a fraction of the work executed during the previous autumn and spring. These labours and other matters had wearied and weakened me beyond measure, and to gain a little strength I went to Killarney. The trip was beneficial, but not of permanent benefit. The air of those most lovely lakes was too moist and warm for my temperament, and I longed for that keener air which derives its tone from contact with the Alpine snows. In 1859 I had bidden the Alps farewell, purposing in future to steep my thoughts in the tranquillity of English valleys, and confine my mountain work to occasional excursions in the Scotch Highlands, or amid the Welsh and Cumbrian hills. But in my weariness the mere thought of the snow-peaks and glaciers was an exhilaration ; and to the Alps, therefore, I resolved once more to go. I wrote to my former guide, Christian Lauener, desiring him to meet me at Thun on Saturday the 4th of August; and on my way thither I fortunately fell in with Mr. Vaughan Hawkins. He told me of his plans and wishes, which embraced an attack upon the Matterhorn. Infected by his ardour, I gladly closed with the proposition that we should climb together for a time. Lauener was not to be found at Thun, but in driving from Neuhaus to Interlaken a chaise met us, and swiftly passed; within it I could discern the brown visage of my guide. We pulled up and shouted, the other vehicle stopped, Lauener leaped from it, and came bounding towards me with admirable energy, through the deep and splashing mud. Gott! wie der Kerl springt!' was the admiring exclamation of my coachman. Lauener is more than six feet high, and mainly a mass of bone; his legs are out of proportion, longer than his trunk; and he wears a short-tail coat, which augments the apparent discrepancy. Those massive levers were now plied with extraordinary vigour to project his body through space; and it was gratifying to be thus assured that the man was in first-rate condition, and fully up to the hardest work. On Sunday the 5th of August, for the sake of a little training, I ascended the Faulhorn alone. The morning was splendid, but as the day advanced heavy cloud-wreaths swathed the heights. They attained a maximum about two P.M., and afterwards the overladen air cleared itself by intermittent jerks -revealing at times the blue of heaven and the peaks of the mountains; then closing up again, and hiding in their dismal folds the very posts which stood at a distance of ten paces from the hotel door. The effects soon became exceedingly striking, the mutations were so quick and so forcibly antithetical. I lay down upon a seat, and watched the intermittent extinction and generation of the clouds, and the alternate appearance and disappearance of the mountains. More and more the sun swept off the sweltering haze, and the blue sky bent over me in domes of ampler span. At four P.M. no trace of cloud was visible, and a panorama of the Oberland, such I had no idea that the Faulhorn could command, unfolded itself. There was the grand barrier which separated us from the Valais; there were the Jungfrau, Monk and Eiger, the Finsteraarhorn, the Schreckhorn, and the Wetterhorn, lifting their snowy and cloudless crests to heaven, and all so sharp and wildly precipitous that the bare thought of standing on any one of them made me shudder. London was still in my brain, and the vice of Primrose Hill in my muscles. I disliked the ascent of the Faulhorn exceedingly, |