320 LIFE IN THE ALPS. 



nearly one thousand feet below us. This morning, how- 

 ever, I opened the glass door of our little sitting-room, 

 which faces south, and stepped out upon our terrace. 

 The scene was unspeakably grand. To the right rose 

 the peak of the Weisshorn, the most perfect embodi- 

 ment of Alpine majesty, purity, and grace. Next 

 came the grim Matterhorn, then the noble Mischabel- 

 horner, surmounted by the ' Dom.' Eight opposite rose 

 the Fletschhorn, a rugged, honest-looking mass, of true 

 mountain mould ; while to the left of Napoleon's road 

 over the Simplon Pass stretched the snow-ridge of the 

 Monte Leone — which, no doubt, derives its name from 

 its resemblance to a couchant lion. Soft gleaming 

 clouds wrapped themselves at times grandly round the 

 mountains, revealing and concealing, as they shifted, 

 melted, or were re-created, the snow-capped peaks. 



About one thousand five hundred feet below us the 

 white covering came to an end, while, beyond this, 

 sunny green pastures descended to the valley of the 

 Rhone. From the chimneys of our cottage, a light 

 wind carried the smoke in a south-westerly direction ; 

 the clouds, just referred to, being, therefore, to leeward, 

 and not in ' the wind's eye,' did not portend bad 

 weather. To the north, the peaks grouped themselves 

 round the massive Aletschhorn, the second in height 

 among these Oberland Mountains. Over the Aletschhorn 

 the sky was clear, which is one of the surest signs of 

 fine weather. Once, on a morning as fair and exhila- 

 rating as the present one, but earlier in the year, Mrs. 

 Tyndall and myself, from the top of the Aletschhorn — 

 a height of fourteen thousand feet — looked down upon 

 the summit of the Jungfrau. 



The general aspects of the Alpine atmosphere, and, 

 more especially, the forms and distribution of the 



