On emerging into the damp, gelid, and gloomy atmosphere of the cavern, every thing appeared of a dazzling brightness after our short immersion in the Cimmerian darkness of the grotto. The transition of temperature was equally as abrupt as that of light. The vicissitude could have been little less than 50 or 60 degrees of Fahrenheit in one instant, with all the disadvantage of dripping garments! It was like shifting the scene, with more than theatrical celerity, from the Black Hole of Calcutta to Fury Beach, or the snows of Nova Zembla. Some of the party, less experienced in the effects of travelling than myself, considered themselves destined to illustrate the well-known allegory of the discontented—and that they would inevitably carry away with them a large cargo of that which thousands come here annually to get rid of—RHEUMATISM. I confess that I was not without some misgivings myself on this point, seeing that we had neither the means of changing our clothes nor of drying them—except by the heat of our bodies in the mountain breeze. The Goddess of Health, however, who is nearly related to the Genius of Travelling, preserved us from all the bad consequences, thermometrical and hygrometrical, of these abrupt vicissitudes.[41] We retrograded along the narrow plank that suspended us over the profound abyss with caution, fear, and astonishment. The TAMINA seemed to roar more loud and savage beneath us, as if incensed at our safe retreat. The sun had passed the meridian, and the gorge had assumed a far more lugubrious aspect than it wore on our entrance. The shivered rocks and splintered pinnacles that rose on each side of the torrent, in gothic arches of altitude sublime, seemed to frown on our retreating footsteps—while the human figures that moved at a distance along the crazy plank, before and behind us, frequently lost their just proportions, and assumed the most grotesque and extraordinary shapes and dimensions, according to the degree of light admitted by the narrow fissure above, and the scarcely discernible aperture at the extremity of this wonderful gorge. The TAMINA, meanwhile, did not fail to play its part in the gorgeous scene—astonishing the eye by the rapidity of its movements, and astounding the ear by the vibrations of its echoes. It seemed to growl more furiously as we receded from the depths of the crevasse. At length we gained the portal, and, as the sun was still darting his bright rays into the deepest recesses of the ravine, glancing from the marble rocks, and glittering on the boiling torrent, the sudden transition from Cimmerian gloom to dazzling day-light, appeared like enchantment. While crossing the trembling bridge, I looked back on a scene which can never be eradicated from my memory. It is the most singular and impressive I have ever beheld on this globe, and compared with which, the BRUNNENS are “bubbles” indeed![42]