_Road to Schaffhausen._--A part of the way through the uncleared forest was pleasingly wild; juniper bushes, broom, and other woodland plants, among the moss and flowery turf. Before we had finished our last ascent, the postilion told us what a glorious sight we _might_ have seen, in a few moments, had we been here early in the morning or on a fine evening; but, as it was mid-day, nothing was to be expected. That glorious sight which _should_ have been was no less than the glittering prospect of the mountains of Switzerland. We did burst upon an extensive view; but the mountains were hidden; and of the Lake of Constance we saw no more than a vapoury substance where it lay among apparently low hills. This first sight of that country, so dear to the imagination, though then of no peculiar grandeur, affected me with various emotions. I remembered the shapeless wishes of my youth--wishes without hope--my brother's wanderings thirty years ago,[44] and the tales brought to me the following Christmas holidays at Forncett, and often repeated while we paced together on the gravel walk in the parsonage garden, by moon or star light.[45] ... The towers of Schaffhausen appear under the shelter of woody and vine-clad hills, but no greetings from the river Rhine, which is not visible from this approach, yet flowing close to the town.... But at the entrance of the old city gates you cannot but be roused, and say to yourself, "Here is something which I have not seen before, yet I hardly know what." The houses are grey, irregular, dull, overhanging, and clumsy; streets narrow and crooked--the walls of houses often half-covered with rudely-painted representations of the famous deeds of the defenders of this land of liberty.... In place of the splendour of faded aristocracy, so often traceable in the German towns, there is a character of ruggedness over all that we see.... Never shall I forget the first view of the stream of the Rhine from the bank, and between the side openings of the bridge--rapid in motion, bright, and green as liquid emeralds! and wherever the water dashed against tree, stone, or pillar of the bridge, the sparkling and the whiteness of the foam, melting into and blended with the green, can hardly be imagined by any one who has not seen the Rhine, or some other of the great rivers of the Continent, before they are sullied in their course.... The first visible indication of our approach to the cataracts was the sublime tossing of vapour above them, at the termination of a curved reach of the river. Upon the woody hill, above that tossing vapour and foam, we saw the old chateau, familiar to us in prints, though there represented in connection with the falls themselves; and now seen by us at the end of the rapid, yet majestic, sweep of the river; where the ever-springing tossing clouds are all that the eye beholds of the wonderful commotion. But an awful sound ascends from the concealed abyss; and it would almost