A HOTEL AT MÜRREN.
The surrounding summits reveal to the astonished sight heights, lengths, and depths which overwhelm one with sublimity. What seemed an hour ago mere glistening mounds are now transformed by the grandeur of this Olympian elevation into vast snowfields, miles in length, or into seas of ice, which pour down through the valleys in slow-moving floods. In early summer, too, one hears at frequent intervals the roar of some tremendous avalanche on the great mountains opposite, from which the tourist is separated only by a yawning gulf.
Never shall I forget the morning when I stood here waiting for the sunrise view. There was none of that crowd of jabbering tourists who often profane the summit of the Rigi, and seem to measure the extent of their pleasure by the noise they make. I was well-nigh alone. When I emerged from the hotel, a purple line was visible in the east, but clouds and mists half veiled the mountains from my sight. At length, however, noiselessly but steadily, a hidden hand seemed to draw back the misty curtain of the night. Slowly the giant forms molded themselves from darkness into light, until their foreheads first, and then each fold and outline of their dazzling shapes, stood forth in bold relief against the sky. The glaciers sparkled with the first bright beams like jeweled highways of the gods,—till, finally, as the sun's disk came fairly into view, the whole vast range glowed like a wall of tinted porcelain. It seemed as if a thousand sacred fires had been kindled on these mountain altars, in glad response to the triumphant greeting of the god of day.
On descending from Mürren, the tourist is attracted to another famous object, only a few miles from Interlaken,—the glacier of Grindelwald.
A VIEW FROM MÜRREN.
