h or a hold-back must have sent the whole
concern over a precipice where all that reached the bottom would hardly
be worth picking up. Who has a right to risk his life in this fool-hardy
manner?

The next time I cross the Alps, I will take my seat for the
stopping-place at the nearer foot, and thence walk leisurely over, with
a long staff and a water-proof coat, sending on my baggage by the coach
to the hotel on the other side. If I can get an hour's start, I can (by
straightening the zig-zags) nearly double it going up; if not, I will
wait on the other side for the next stage. If it were not for the
cowardly fear of being thought timid, there would be more care used in
such matters. Hitherto, I have not given the subject much consideration,
but I turn over a new leaf from the date of this adventure.

We came down the rest of the mountain more carefully, though still a
great deal too fast. A girl of twelve or thirteen breaking stone by the
road-side in a lonely place was among the note-worthy features of the
wilder upper region. Trees, Potato-patches, Grain-fields were welcome
sights as we neared them successively, though the Vine and the Chestnut
did not and Indian Corn barely did reaeppear on this side, which is much
colder than the other and grows little but Grass. At the foot of the
pass, the valley widened a little, though still with steep, snow-capped
cliffs crowding it on either side. Five hours from the summit and less
than two from the base, we reached the pretty town of Altorf, having
perhaps five thousand inhabitants, with a mile width of valley and
grassy slopes on the surrounding mountains. A few minutes more brought
us to the petty port of Fluellen on Lake Lucerne, where a little
steamboat was waiting to bring us to this city. I would not just then
have traded off that steamboat for several square miles of snow-capped
sublimity.

Lake Lucerne is a mere cleft in the mountains, narrow and most irregular
in form, with square cliffs like our Palisades, only many times higher,
rising sheer out of its depths and hardly a stone's throw apart. Mount
Pilatte and The Rhigi are the most celebrated of those seen from its
breast. After making two or three short turns among the hights, it
finally opens to a width of some miles on a softer scene, with green
pastures and pleasant woods sweeping down the hills nearly or quite to
its verge. Lucerne City lies at or near its outlet, and seems a pleasant
place, though I hav