ON LAKE THUN.
I have said that Interlaken was an admirable place from which to make excursions. Shall we not put this to the proof by entering now the charming and romantic vale of Lauterbrunnen, dainty and lovely as a dimple in the cheek of Nature? It is only half a mile in width, and is bounded on both sides by lofty mountains, over which the winter's sun can hardly climb till midday. And yet luxuriant vegetation covers it, as with an emerald carpet. The bases of these mountains seem to rest on flowers. The awful scenery which surrounds it makes it seem doubly sweet and fair; and one can hardly imagine a more striking picture than that of this peaceful valley, looking smilingly up into the stern and savage faces of the monsters which environ it, as if unconscious of its helplessness, or trusting confidently in their mercy.
THE STAUBBACH.
A little distance up the valley, we note its most remarkable feature, the Fall of the Staubbach, or "Dust-brook," which here leaps boldly over the brow of the mountain, nine hundred and eighty feet above us. Long before it reaches the ground, it is converted into a vast, diaphanous cloud of spray, which the breeze scatters into thousands of fantastic wreaths. Whenever the sunlight streams directly through this, the effect is marvelous. It then resembles a transparent veil of silvery lace, woven with all the colors of the rainbow, fluttering from the fir-clad rocks. Byron compared it to the tail of a white horse, streaming in the wind; but Goethe's description is best, when he exclaims:
"In clouds of spray,
Like silver dust,
It veils the rock
In rainbow hues;