On entering one of these oases the travellers noticed a cascade falling from an adjacent cliff. With insatiable delight the Swiss looked up at the dark-blue diorite of the rock whose edges were sharply defined against the soft azure of the skies. They watched the falling torrent—a fluttering robe which the water-nymph sent floating in the expanse. The soengei Oendoep, as this stream was called, arrested in its course by huge masses of rock, threw its water from a height of about four hundred feet. Beautifully shaded in greenish-blue, its principal branch would have reached the bottom of the valley over the perpendicular wall of the mountain like a crystalline stream, but half-way down its course was arrested by a projecting mass of stone upon which it descended with the noise of thunder; then beaten into foam it rushed downwards on its way to the valley—a milk-white ribbon, silvery bright. The other branches of the Oendoep wildly separated themselves from the edge of the cliff; the torrents were speedily met by stony crags and rocky pinnacles to which they seemed to cling for a moment; then they broke into millions of bubbles which shone like fire under the rays of the tropical sun and disappeared forever. The four friends with Hamadoe approached as near to the fall as was possible, and as if by instinct chose for their point of observation the spot where they could observe the magnificent rainbows formed everywhere around by the reflection of the sun’s rays. They drew yet nearer and each became surrounded by a double rainbow, which while they remained in its immediate neighborhood seemed to move with them backwards and forwards and to follow every change in their position. Their hair, skin and garments became covered with minute particles of water, each of which, like a diamond, shone with the incomparable brilliancy of prismatic coloring. “Beautiful! Magnificent!” the young wife exclaimed, “are such scenes also met with in your country?” “This is undoubtedly very grand,” replied her husband; “but Switzerland can also boast of her cascades. We have the Rhinefel at Laufen, the Staubbach in the valley of Lauterbrunnen and the Giesbach near Lake Brienz.” “Where the whitefaces amuse themselves by painting the waterfall. Is it not so?” remarked Johannes jokingly. “What do you mean by painting?” Schlickeisen asked. “Have I not read somewhere that nature in your country is found too poor and requires Bengal fire to make your waterfalls attractive?” “Well, they do certainly illuminate the Giesbach; and whenever you come to Europe, if you find yourself in Switzerland, just go to that same fall and pay your six francs to see it at night.” “I should be very sorry indeed,” said Johannes, somewhat disdainfully. “And pray, why?” “Because nature is in my opinion too exalted to be desecrated by such mockery. But to change the subject, let us, while impressed with the grandeur of this cataract, shake hands and bid each other God-speed.”