See the huge rock ramparts shooting their wild peaks and jagged pinnacles upwards, piercing the very sky above us! their frowning and gashed sides trickling and discoloured with the corroding minerals in their bowels; the stunted pines and evergreens clinging like dwarf shrubs in their crevices. Take heed! beware you fall not. See the huge slides—they have swept whole torrents of rocks, of earth, in promiscuous destruction, from their summits, upon the valley below—the rivers filled, and turned from their courses, in their path,—the very forest itself—the loftiest trees torn up, their branches, their trunks, their upturned roots ground and intermixed with rock and earth, and splintered timber, swept on in wild, inextricable confusion—and here! where starting from their slumbers, the devoted family rushed naked and horror-stricken to meet it in mid career. Ay! hold on by the sides of the steep precipice—cling to the ledge as the wild wind rushes by in furious gust—a slip were your passport to eternity. Look down! How awful the precipice, thousands of feet below you—how the blood curdles and rushes back upon the heart, as you imagine the fatal plunge. Well might the Puritans of old, deem these ghastly deserts the abode and haunts of the evil one. But, on—on—how toilsome the ascent.—That was a fearful blast; hold tightly the wild roots in thy grasp as it passes. Long since have we passed the region of vegetation: the dry and arid moss clinging to rock and stone, is alone around us. Ay! drink of that spring—but beware its icy coldness—nor winter, nor summer, alters its temperature. Behold, in the clefts and gorges below, the never-melting snow-wreaths. The flaming suns of summer pass over, and leave them undiminished. Courage! we climb, we climb. The witches of the Brocken ne’er had such wild chaos for their orgies. Courage, my friend! We ascend—we ascend—we reach the top—now panting—breathless—exhausted, we throw ourselves upon the extreme summit.