and heard coming up the valley from the north such a roar as I never
heard before or since; as if a hundred railway trains were rolling
underground; and just as it passed under my bed there was a tremendous
thump, and I jumped out of bed quicker than I ever did in my life, and
heard the roaring sound die away as it rolled up the valley towards the
peaks of snow. Still I had in my head this notion of the Englishmen
fighting in the room below. But then I recollected that no Englishmen
had come in the night before, and that I had been in the room below, and
that there was no bed in it. Then I opened my window--a woman screamed,
a dog barked, some cocks and hens cackled in a very disturbed humour, and
then I could hear nothing but the roaring of the torrent a hundred feet
below. And then it flashed across me what all the noise was about; and I
burst out laughing and said "It is only an earthquake," and went to bed

Next morning I inquired whether any one had heard a noise. No, nobody
had heard anything. And the driver who had brought me up the valley only
winked, but did not choose to speak. At last at breakfast I asked the
pretty little maid who waited what was the meaning of the noise I heard
in the night, and she answered, to my intense amusement, "Ah! bah! ce
n'etait qu'un tremblement de terre; il y en a ici toutes les six
semaines." Now the secret was out. The little maid, I found, came from
the lowland far away, and did not mind telling the truth: but the good
people of the place were afraid to let out that they had earthquakes
every six weeks, for fear of frightening visitors away: and because they
were really very good people, and very kind to me, I shall not tell you
what the name of the place is.

Of course after that I could do no less than ask Madam How, very civilly,
how she made earthquakes in that particular place, hundreds of miles away
from any burning mountain? And this was the answer I _thought_ she gave,
though I am not so conceited as to say I am sure.

As I had come up the valley I had seen that the cliffs were all beautiful
gray limestone marble; but just at this place they were replaced by
granite, such as you may see in London Bridge or at Aberdeen. I do not
mean that the limestone changed to granite, but that the granite had
risen up out of the bottom of the valley, and had carried the limestone
(I suppose) up on its back hundreds of feet into the air. Those caves
with the waterfalls p