Switzerland -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
A short distance beyond the stream Rollo saw the lower part of a
perpendicular precipice of gray rock. All except the lower part of this
precipice was concealed by the fogs and clouds, which seemed to settle
down so low upon the landscape in all directions as to conceal almost
every thing but the surface of the ground.
"I wonder how high that precipice is," said Rollo to himself.
"I wonder whether I could climb up to the top of it," he continued,
still talking to himself, "if I could only find some way to get across
the river? There must be some way, I suppose. Perhaps there is a
bridge."
Rollo then turned his eye upward to look at the clouds. In one place
there seemed to be a break among them, and the fleecy masses around the
break were slowly moving along. The place where Rollo was looking was
about the middle of the sky; that is, about midway between the horizon
and the zenith.[5] While Rollo was looking at this break, which seemed,
while he looked at it, to brighten up and open more and more, he saw
suddenly, to his utter amazement, a large green tree burst into view in
the midst of it, and then disappear again a moment afterwards as a fresh
mass of cloudy vapor drifted over. Rollo was perfectly bewildered with
astonishment. To see a green tree, clear and distinct in form and bright
with the beams of the sun which just at that instant caught upon it,
breaking out to view suddenly high up among the clouds of the sky,
seemed truly an astonishing spectacle. Rollo had scarcely recovered from
the first emotion of his surprise before the clouds parted again, wider
than before, and brought into view, first a large mass of foliage, which
formed the termination of a grove of trees; then a portion of a smooth,
green field, with a flock of sheep feeding upon it, clinging apparently
to the steep slope like flies to a wall; and finally a house, with a
little blue smoke curling from the chimney. Rollo was perfectly beside
himself with astonishment and delight at this spectacle; and he
determined immediately to go and ask his uncle to come and see.
He accordingly left the window and made all haste to his uncle's door.
He knocked. His uncle said, "Come in." Rollo opened the door. His uncle
was standing by the window of his room, looking out. This was on the
front side of the hotel.
"Uncle George!" said Rollo, "Uncle George! Come and look out with me at
the back window. There is a flock of sheep feeding in a green field away
up in the sky!"
"Come and look here!" said Mr. George.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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