252 FIRST JOURNEY IN EUROPE. [1839, 



should be scarcely able to move tlie next day, and that 

 traveling on foot would be impossible. But I awoke 

 perfectly restored, my limbs supple and my feet much 

 better than I had anticipated ; my guide made his ap- 

 pearance while I was at breakfast ; said that it would 

 take three days to make the excursion over the Great 

 Scheideck to Grindelwald, then over the Lesser to the 

 Wengern Alp, to Lauterbrunnen, and back to Mey- 

 ringen by Interlaken and the Lake of Brienz. I insisted 

 that it should be done in two, with the aid of a char 

 from Brienz, at the end of the second day. Leaving 

 my knapsack here, and taking a few things in our 

 pockets, we set out at half past nine ; stopped on our 

 way to see the falls of the Reichenbach, where the 

 stream of the valley we were climbing makes the de- 

 scent of 2,000 feet in a succession of leaps ; the longest 

 forms the celebrated falls, — very fine. Farther above 

 numerous waterfalls are seen dangling from the per- 

 pendicular sides of the narrow valley ; one, remarkably 

 high and slender, is called the Seilbaeh (rope-fall). 

 Ascended through beautiful mountain pastures, dotted 

 with chalets \ the peak of the Wetterhorn in full view 

 directly before us, a sharp j)yramid, one side dark 

 rock, the other pure white snow. The body of the 

 mountain was still hidden by the Wellborn, the first of 

 the chain of high Bernese Alps we were approaching 

 (9,500 feet) ; then the Engelhbrner (angel' s-j)eaks) 

 and high up between these, we had a fine distant view 

 of the most beautiful glacier in Switzerland, the Ro- 

 senlaui, celebrated above all others for the purity of 

 its untarnished white surface, and the clear azure of 

 its depths and caverns. Stopped at a little inn, which 

 is occupied only through the siinuner ; got an excel- 

 lent little dinner at half past eleven, charges moder- 



