full view. Here we investigated the mysteries of a certain basket which our provident hostess had brought with her. After due refreshment and repose we continued our route, ascending the Jura, towards the Dôle, which is the highest mountain of that range. A macadamized road coiled up the mountain side, affording us at every turning a new and more splendid view of the other shore of the lake. At length we reached St. Cergue, and leaving the carriage, H. and I, guided by a peasant girl, went through the woods to the highest point, where were the ruins of the ancient chateau. Far be it from me to describe what we saw. I feel that I have already been too presumptuous. We sat down, and each made a hasty sketch of Mont Blanc. We took tea at the hotel, which reminded us, by the neatness of its scoured chambers with their white bedspreads, of the apartments of some out-of-the-way New England farm house. The people of the neighborhood having discovered who H. was, were very kind, and full of delight at seeing her. It was Scotland over again. We have had to be unflinching to prevent her being overwhelmed, both in Paris and Geneva, by the same demonstrations of regard. To this we were driven, as a matter of life and death. It was touching to listen to the talk of these secluded mountaineers. The good hostess, even the servant maids, hung about H., expressing such tender interest for the slave. All had read Uncle Tom. And it had apparently been an era in their life's monotony, for they said, "O, madam, do write another! Remember, our winter nights here are very long!" The proprietor of the inn (not the landlord) was a gentle man of education and polished demeanor. He had lost an Eva, he said. And he spoke with deep emotion. He thanked II. for what she had written, and at parting said, "Have courage; the sacred cause of Liberty will yet prevail through the world." Ah, they breathe a pure air, these generous Swiss, among these mountain tops! May their simple words be a prophecy divine.. At about six we returned, and as we slowly wound down the mountain side we had a full view of all the phenomena of color attending the sun's departure. The mountain, — the city rather, for so high had it risen, that I could imagine a New Jerusalem of pearly white, with Mont Blanc for the central citadel, or temple, the city was all a-glow. The air behind, the sky, became of a delicate apple green; the snow, before so incandescent in whiteness, assumed a rosy tint. We paused- we sat in silence to witness these miraculous transformations. "Charley," said II., "sing that hymn of yours, the New Jerusalem." And in the hush of the mountain solitudes we sang together, "We are on our journey home, We will meet around his throne, We can see that distant home, Faith views the radiant dome, And a lustre flashes keen From the New Jerusalem. O, glory shining far From the never-setting sun! Our hearts are breaking now O Lord, thy heavens bow, And raise us up with thee To the New Jerusalem." The echoes of our voices died along the mountain sides, as slowly we wended our downward way. to fade. A rich creamy or orange hue The rosy flush began seemed to imbue the scene, and finally, as the shadows from the Jura crept higher, and covered it with a pall, it assumed a startling, deathlike pallor of chalky white. Mont Blanc was dead. Mont Blanc was walking as a ghost upon the granite ranges. But as darkness came on, and as the sky over the Jura, where the sun had set, obtained a deep, rosy tinge, Mont Blanc revived a little, and a flush of delicate, transparent pink tinged his cone, and Mont Blanc was asleep. Good night to Mont Blanc. Wednesday morning, June 29. The day is intensely hot; the weather is exceedingly fair, but Mont Blanc is not visible. Not a vestige - not a trace. All vanished. It does not seem possible. There do not seem to exist the conditions for such celestial pageant to have stood there. What! there where my eyes now look steadily and piercingly into the blue, into the seemingly fathomless azure - there, will they tell me, I saw that enraptured vision, as it were, the city descending from God out of heaven, as a bride adorned for her husband? Incredible! It must be a dream, a vision of the night. Evening. After the heat of the day our whole household, old and young, set forth for a boating excursion on the lake. Dividing our party in two boats, we pulled about a mile up the left shore. Lake Leman was before us in all its loveliness; and we were dipping our oar where Byron had floated past scenes which scarce need to become classic to possess a superior charm. The sun was just gone behind the Jura, leaving a glorious sky. Mont Blanc stood afar behind a hazy veil, like a spirit half revealed. We saw it pass before our eyes as we moved. "It stood still, but we could not discern the form thereof." As we glided on past boats uncounted, winged or many-footed, motionless or still, we softly sung, "Think of me oft at twilight hour, Dear is that hour, for day then sleeps His wearied eyes from rest." The surface of the lake was unruffled. The air was still. An occasional burst from the band in the garden of Rousseau came softened in the distance. Enveloped in her thick shawl H. reclined in the stern, and gave herself to the influences of the hour. Darkness came down upon the deep. And in the gloom we turned our prows towards the many-twinkling quays, far in the distance. We bent to the oar in emulous contest, and our barks foamed and hissed through the water. In a few moments we were passing through the noisy crowd on the quay towards our quiet home. LETTER XXXII. DEAR CHILDREN: I promised to write from Chamouni, so to commence at the commencement. Fancy me, on a broiling day in July, panting with the heat, gazing from my window in Geneva upon Lake Leman, which reflects the sun like a burning glass, and thinking whether in America, or any where else, it was ever so hot before. This was quite a new view of the subject to me, who had been warned in Paris only of the necessity of blanket shawls, and had come to Switzerland with my head full of glaciers, and my trunk full of furs. While arranging my travelling preparations, Madame F. enters. "Have you considered how cold it is up there?" she inquires. "I am glad if it is cold any where," said I. "Ah, you will find it dreadful; you will need to be thoroughly guarded." I suggested tippets, flannels, and furs, of which I already possessed a moderate supply. But no; these were altogether insufficient. It was necessary that I should buy two immense fur coats; one for C., and one for myself. I assure you that such preparations, made with the thermometer between eighty and ninety, impress one with a kind of awe. "What regions must they be," thought I to myself, "thus sealed up in eternal snows, while the country at their |