the hilly pastures, through pine woods and
beside a rushing stream, into the valley, and so back to Zweisimmen.

Another excursion was to go up to the same inn, and thence to a little
lake at the foot of the Seeberg, where edelweiss is again to be found.
At Iffigen Lake it may also be had in abundance; and the fourth and last
occasion on which we picked it was on the Rawyl Pass. From Zweisimmen
one drives to Lenk, whence the fine glaciers of the Wildstrubel are in
full view, then through the village and up a steep ascent, but a good
carriage-road still, to the beautiful Iffigen Fall. The water descends
almost perpendicularly over picturesque rocks from a great height,
falling in long arrows that seem to hesitate and linger in mid-air, and
then take a fresh swoop down: a rainbow spans it at the foot, where the
mist rises. Here the carriage is left, and those who intend to ride take
to the saddle. The way goes up steeply to the broad Iffigen Alp, shut in
on either hand by Nature's towering gray battlements. Having reached the
chalets at the farther end of the pasture, we find ourselves facing the
solid rock and wondering what next. Over the brow of the lofty parapet
falls a little stream, looking like a white ribbon as it foams on its
dizzy way. "The path certainly cannot be there," we say; but, as it
happens, it is just there. It zigzags up, cut with infinite labor in the
face of the mountain, like the famous Gemmi road from Loeche-les-Bains,
only that it is not so smooth and more picturesque. The Rawyl, like the
Gemmi, is sometimes given the reputation of a dangerous pass, but in our
party a lady rode the whole way without feeling the least uneasiness.
The path goes up and up until it crosses the waterfall, where one is
showered with cooling spray: soon after we are over the top of the rock
and on plainer ground, but still mounting. A hut is passed where the
guide says travellers can spend the night should it overtake them. There
is indeed nothing to prevent their spending the night there, but also
nothing to aid them in so doing: the place is uninhabited and
unfurnished, the only sign that it is a shelter for human beings and not
for cattle being a tiny stove in one corner, with a pile of wood. Now a
small green lake lies beside the way, and then the chalet on the summit
is in sight, and a cross that marks the boundary between the cantons of
Berne and Valais. There the highest point of our journey is reached in
two and