How delightful were the sensations attendant upon a first repose in this changed climate, enhanced as these were by the remembrance of the broiling we had so recently endured! I never remember to have risen with feelings more elastic, or in higher spirits, than I did after my first night's rest upon this mountain: the rooms were small but very clean, and the house with but few inmates; a circumstance I rejoiced in exceedingly, although it was perfectly incomprehensible to me, considering the state of the atmosphere below.
I found next day that here even there was a lion, in the shape of a waterfall, to be visited before one could be permitted to take absolute rest; so away I went to visit it,—a sort of waggon-omnibus being in preparation to take the inmates through the wood to the fall.
A ride of some three miles brought us as close as might be to the spot, and a walk of as many hundred yards presented to view a scene as well suited for a witches' festival as any spot in the old Hartz.
In the season of melting snow this must doubtless be a grand affair, for the fall is full three hundred feet deep; at present a mere rill crept over the centre of the rocky amphitheatre, and, long before it reached the basin beneath, it was changed into a silvery shower of light spray. We found a mill-dam had appropriated all the surplus of the weakened torrent, close by the head of the fall: as here was a day and night to recruit in, a trifling bribe induced the sawyers to raise their floodgates for our especial benefit.
The bargain being completed, we descended into the bed of the river near the basin, and, giving the appointed signal, were indulged with a momentary glimpse of the scene under better form; but still, I am certain, received no idea of the effect produced here when the machinery is complete.
After wandering a little way down the rugged bed of this misused river,—for surely Nature never designed that its waters should be arrested in their course to turn a saw-mill,—the party collected to return: with two others, I decided upon walking back, and pleasant it is to walk through these quiet wild wood-paths, where the chirp of the birds and the rustle of the leaves alone break in upon the repose.
These mountains are everywhere thickly clothed with wood, saving only the platform whereon the house is built; deer abound on the lower ridges, and the bear yet finds ample cover here. A number of these animals are killed every season by an indefatigable old Nimrod who lives in the valley beneath, and who breeds some very fine dogs to this sport.
I did promise unto myself that during the coming November I would return up here, and sojourn with the stout bear-hunter for a few days, for the purpose of seeing Bruin baited in his proper lair; but regret to say my plan was frustrated. It must be an exciting chase to rouse the lord of this wild mountain forest on a sunny morning, with the first hoar frost yet crisping the feathery pines; and to hear the deep-mouthed hounds giving tongue where a hundred echoes wait to bay the fierce challenge back, and to hear the sharp crack of the rifle rattle through the thin air.
Or, whilst resting upon some crag under the blue sunny sky, to watch the sea of cold clouds tumbling about far below, and think that they o'er-canopy a region lower still, about which one's fellows are at the moment creeping with red noses and watery eyes, or rubbing their frozen fingers over anthracite stoves, utterly unconscious, poor devils! that