The meadows produce the celebrated Ursern cheese, and the youthful travellers, high in spirits, pronounced very tolerable wine not to be surpassed in order to heighten their enjoyment, and to give a more fantastic impulse to their projects.
On the 22nd, at half-past three, we left our quarters, that from the smooth Ursern valley we might enter upon the stony valley of Liviner. Here, too, we at once missed all vegetation; nothing was to be seen or heard but naked or mossy rocks covered with snow, fitful gusts blowing the clouds backwards and forwards, the rustling of waterfalls, the tinkling of sumpter-horses in the depth of solitude, where we saw none coming and none departing. It did not cost the imagination much to see dragons' nests in the clefts. But, nevertheless, we felt inspired and elevated by one of the most beautiful and picturesque waterfalls, sublimely various in all its rocky steps, which, being at this time of the year enriched by melted snows, and now half hidden by the clouds, now half revealed, chained us for some time to the spot.
The Hospice.
Finally, we came to little mist-lakes, as I might call them, since they were scarcely to be distinguished from the atmospheric streaks. Before long, a building loomed towards us out of the vapour: it was the Hospice, and we felt great satisfaction at the thoughts of sheltering ourselves under its hospitable roof.
[1] Hanswurst is the old German buffoon, whose name answers to the English "Jack Pudding."—Trans.
[NINETEENTH BOOK.]
Lavater—"Egmont"