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MARIA to MISS WALLER.
COPPET, Sept. 1, 1820.
I am sure that you have heard of us, and of all we have done and seenfrom Edgeworthstown as far as Berne: from thence we went to Thun: therewe took char-à-bancs, little low carriages, like half an Irishjaunting car, with four wheels, and a square tarpaulin awning over ourheads. Jolting along on these vehicles, which would go over a house, Iam sure, without being overturned or without being surprised, wewent—the Swiss postillion jolting along at the same round rate up anddown, without ever looking back to see whether the carriages andpassengers follow, yet now and then turning to point to mountains,glaciers, and cascades. The valley of Lauterbrunn is beautiful; a clear,rushing cascady stream rushes through it: fine chestnuts, walnuts, andsycamores scattered about, the verdure on the mountains between thewoods fresh and bright. Pointed mountains covered with snow in the midstof every sign of flowery summer strike us with a sense of the sublimewhich never grows familiar. The height of the Staubach waterfall, whichwe saw early in the morning, astonished my mind, I think, more than myeyes, looking more like thin vapour than water—more like strings ofwater; and I own I was disappointed, after all I had heard of it.
We went on to the valley of Grindelwald, where we saw, as we thought twofields off, a glacier to which we wished to go; and accordingly we leftthe char-à-bancs, and walked down the sloping field, expecting toreach it in a few minutes, but we found it a long walk—about two miles.To this sort of deception about distances we are continually subject,from the clearness of the air, and from the unusual size of the objects,for which we have no points of comparison, and no previous habits ofestimating. We were repaid for our walk, however, when we came to thesource of the Lutzen, which springs under an arch of ice in the glacier.The river runs clear and sparkling through the valley, while over thearch rests a mountain of ice, and beside it a valley of ice; not smoothor uniform, but in pyramids, and arches, and blocks of immense size, andbetween them clefts and ravines. The sight and the sound of the watersrushing, and the solemn immovability of the ice, formed a sublimecontrast.
On the grass at the very foot of this glacier were some of the mostdelicious wood-strawberries I ever tasted.
At Interlaken we met Sneyd [Footnote: Her half-brother, son of the thirdMrs. Edgeworth, and his wife Henrica Broadhurst.] and Henrica in a verypleasant situation in that most beautiful country. We parted on thebanks of the lake of Brienz. On this lake we had an hour's delightfulsailing, and put into a little bay and climbed up a mountain to seethe cascade of the Giesbach, by far the most beautiful I ever beheld,and beyond all of which painting or poetry had ever given me any idea.Indeed it is particularly difficult, if not absolutely impossible, togive a representation of cascades which depend for effect upon theheight from which they fall, the rush of motion, the sparkling and foamof the water in motion, and the magnitude of the surrounding objects.
After passing the lake of Brienz, we came to the far-famed valley ofMeyringen, which h