RURAL SWITZERLAND.
SWISS TIMBER VILLAGE.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
FROM GENEVA OVER THE ALPS.
A SHORT drive over one of those wonderfully hard, smooth roads that make carriage traveling in Switzerland so delightful, and we are at the hotel at the Gorge du Trient, whence, early in the morning, we are to begin the ascent of the mountains. The time before dinner is occupied in an exploration of the wildly picturesque gorge, with its winding foot-bridge built alongside the cliffs, over yawning chasms, around jutting bowlders that rise to such a height that the sky seems like a strip of blue ribbon suspended high above our heads. At the bottom of the gorge a mountain torrent, springing from some unknown nook way up in the mountain, comes rushing and tumbling down over the jagged rocks, foaming and whirling, and dashing its spray high in the air, as it hurries along to join the Rhone.