Our guide, with animation, introduced us by name to every one of these snow-white genii—the Falhorn, the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn, the great Eiger, and I cannot remember what besides. The guides seem to consider them all as old friends.
Certainly nothing could be so singular, so peculiar as this ascension. We have now passed the limit of all but grass and Alpine flowers, which still, with their infinite variety, embroider the way; and now the auberge is gained. Good night, now, and farewell.
That is to say, there we stopped—on the summit, in fair view of the Jungfrau, a wall of rock crowned with fields of eternal snow, whose dazzling brightness almost put my eyes out. My head ached, too, with the thin air of these mountains. I thought I should like to stay one night just to hear avalanches fall; but I cannot breathe well here, and there is a secret sense of horror about these sterile rocks and eternal snows. So, after dinner, I gladly consent to go down to Grindelwald.
Off we start—I walking—for, to tell the truth, I have no fondness for riding down a path as steep in some places as a wall; I leave that to C., who never fears any thing. So I walked all the way to Grindelwald, nine miles of a very rough road. There was a lady with her husband walking the same pass, who had come on foot the whole way from Lauterbrunn, and did not seem in the least fatigued. My guide exhausted all his eloquence to persuade me that it was better to ride; at last I settled him by saying, "Why, here is a lady who has walked the whole route." So he confined himself after that to helping me find flowers, and carrying the handkerchief in which I stowed them. Alas! what herbarium of hapless flowers, laid out stark, stiff, and motionless, like beauty on its bier, and with horrible long names written under them, can ever give an idea of the infinite variety and beauty of the floral crown of these mountains!
The herbarium resembles the bright, living reality no more than the morgue at St. Bernard's is a specimen of mountain travellers. Yet one thing an herbarium is good for: in looking at it you can recall how they looked, and glowed, and waved in life, with all their silver-crowned mountains around them.
After we arrived at Grindelwald, tired as I was, I made sketches of nine varieties, which I intend to color as soon as we rest long enough. So much I did for love of the dear little souls.
One noticeable feature is the predominance of yellow flowers. These, of various kinds, so abound as to make a distinct item of coloring in a distant view. One of the most common is this—of a vivid chrome yellow, sometimes brilliantly striped with orange.
[Illustration: of a flowered bract.]
One thing more as to botanical names. What does possess botanists to afflict the most fragile and delicate of earth's children with such mountainous and unpronounceable names? Now there was a dear little flower that I first met at St. Bernard—a little purple bell, with a fringe; it is more particularly beautiful from its growing just on the verge of avalanches, coming up and blossoming through the snow. I send you one in this letter, which I dug out of a snow bank this morning. And this fair creation—this hope upon a death bed—this image of love unchilled and immortal—how I wanted to know it by name!
[Illustration: of a tiny plant with a single flowering stem and two simple circular leaves.]