1837. 



LIFE IN THE ALPS} 



LEAVING England in July, and returning in October, 

 I spend three months of every year among the 

 Swiss mountains. Various and striking are the aspects 

 of nature witnessed during these long visits : Sunshine 

 from unclouded skies, dense fog, mountain mist, furious 

 rain and hail, snow so deep that, were not my wife and 

 I thorough children of the hills, and well acquainted 

 with their ways, we should sometimes fear imprisonment 

 in our highland home. We have also our due share of 

 thunder-storms — the peals sometimes rolling at safe 

 distances, but sometimes breaking so close to us that 

 we can hear the hiss of the rocks which precedes the 

 deafening crash. A long roll of echoes follows, undulat- 

 ing in loudness, and finally dying away amid the rocky 

 halls of the mountains. This is the state of things so 

 vividly described by Lord Byron : — 



From peak to peak the rattling crags among 

 Leaps the live thunder. 



As regards thunder-storms, however, we are far 

 better off than our neighbours in Northern Italy, whose 

 hills, acting as lightning-conductors, partially drain the 

 clouds of their electricity before we receive the shots of 

 their ' red artillery.' We can see from our perch the 



1 Written for The Youth's Companion, Boston, Mass. With 

 additions. 



