d
boulders. A species of pink heather grows freely here, the scent of
which and the presence of bubbling fern-fringed brooks, and crisp
bracing air, recalled many a pleasant morning after grouse in Bonnie
Scotland. A raw-boned Aberdonian on the train remarks on the resemblance
of the landscape to that of his own country and is flatly contradicted
by an American sitting beside him, who, however, owns that he has never
been there! The usual argument follows as to the respective merits,
climatic and otherwise, of England and the United States, which entails
(also as usual) a good deal of forcible language. Shortly after this,
however, the train begins to ascend, and its erratic movements are less
conducive to discussion than reverie. For although the rails are smooth
and level enough, the engine proceeds in a manner suggestive of a toy
train being dragged across a nursery floor by a fractious child. At
midday Bennett station is reached, and half an hour is allowed here for
lunch in a cheerful little restaurant, where all fall to with appetites
sharpened by the keen mountain air, and where the Scot and his late
antagonist bury the hatchet in "Two of whisky-straight."

[Footnote 87: Lake Lindemann is about five miles, and Bennett
twenty-five miles in length.]

Bennett is buried in pine forests, but here the real ascent commences,
and we crawl slowly up an incline which grows steeper and steeper in
proportion as trees and vegetation slowly disappear, to give place to
barren rocks, moss, and lichens. Towards the summit (over two thousand
feet high) the scene is one of wild and lonely grandeur, recalling the
weirdest efforts of Gustave Dore. Nothing is now visible but a
wilderness of dark volcanic crags with here and there a pinnacle of
limestone, towering perilously near the line, and looking as though a
puff of wind would dislodge it with disastrous results. The only gleam
of colour in the sombre landscape are numerous lakes, or rather pools,
of emerald green, perhaps extinct craters, which, shining dimly out of
the dark shadows cast by the surrounding cliffs, enhance the gloom and
mystery of the scene. Nearing the summit, the road has been blasted out
of many yards of solid rock, a work entailing fabulous cost and many
months of perilous and patient labour. The Chamounix railway in
Switzerland was, at the time of its construction, considered the king of
mountain railways, but it becomes a very humble subject indeed when
co