A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 71 



curling ranges of cloud go soaring in shades of coral, ochre, 

 amber. Here and there in front of their denser volumes, 

 the pinnacles of the mountains are violet, scarred on this 

 side and that with the rich white of distant snow, while 

 the peaks round the St. Gothard reverse the process and 

 are all of warm, rosy ivory, set with irregular jewelled 

 ridges of amethyst, against the faint pink and purple of 

 the thunderous cloud-masses behind them, a score of miles 

 away. And the whole prospect, beautiful beyond our 

 poor mortal comprehension, is on so vast a scale of 

 grandeur, so inhumanly immense, so contemptuous of 

 such dear human details as roads, towns, railways, that 

 every time one meets it at a turn in the loop one gasps 

 anew with the shock, as under a sudden deluge of icy 

 water. 



But at last the shoulder of the hill is turned, and we 

 say farewell to the valley of the Rhone. Now the road 

 continues directly up the Val d'Hermance — for we are 

 here, by kindly fate, still in French-speaking Switzerland. 



To describe the vein-system of the Swiss waters one 

 must adopt the most severely scientific terms. In fact 

 the venation of the Swiss rivers is perfectly pinnatifid — 

 at least, I trust, I am right, as well as impressive, in so 

 explaining it. In milder words, the arrangement of 

 valleys is as follows : there is, first of all (to put the cart 

 before the horse, for the sake of clearness), a great and 

 first-class river, such as the Reuss, the Aar, the Inn, the 

 Rhone, flowing down a deep and broad valley that it has 

 carved through the mountains. This valley lies quite 

 low as regards sea-level, and is fed by contributory 

 streams that come in at right angles from secondary 

 valleys high up in the hills on either side. In their 

 upper reaches it is the habit of these to flow along a 

 fairly level course, and then to achieve their final descent 

 into the main body by a series of crashing leaps that 



