Interlaken, as its name implies, is between the lakes Thun and Brienz. Thun is a beautiful gem of a sea; Brienz is a little smaller, but fortified by formidable mountains and scarcely less lovely than her sister Thun. Our carriage-road, after leading us out from Interlaken,—that great English boarding establishment with a road running through it, and interesting only as a flat valley in sight of the Jungfrau, and so full of people all summer long that you can find no sense of quiet or retirement, though the hotels are good, and the rides pleasant, and the mountain scenery sublime,—our road led us along on the western shore of Lake Brienz, and is cut into the hill-side so far up that all the way along we were able to survey the whole lake. I looked back to the _Abendberg_, a mountain which I once climbed to visit the Institution for the Relief of Cretins, the idiots of Switzerland, which Dr. Guggenbulre established there. That remarkable philanthropist and physician, in whom and his labors I became intensely interested when here before, has since that time been removed by death, and no one being found to carry on his benevolent and self-denying work, it was suspended, and the building is now a hotel. On the east side of the lake some of the finest mountains in the country are to be seen, and the flat summit of the Faulhorn is even more inviting than the Rigi, which now is visited by scarcely more tourists. Cascades are leaping frequently from lofty heights into the abyss below, and we have scarcely exclaimed at the beauty of one before another rushes into sight. By and by we come to one more imposing than all the rest; at first we catch but a single fall; as we advance it takes another plunge, and then another, and soon the whole reach and all the leaps of the GIESBACK are roaring and tumbling down the lofty precipices before us. I had been under it and around it, at its base, but had not before stood, as now, where its successive falls are all blended into one, and the white crystal flood pours more than a thousand feet, through the green fir-tree borders, into the lake. If you have a night to spare, when you come here, you may cross from Brienz and spend it at the Falls, which are illuminated with Bengal lights, producing a spectacle of enchanting and bewildering magnificence and beauty. But if you have not time, get some one who has just been there, and who knows that you have not been, to tell you about it, and you will get an idea _from his description_ that will quite surpass the original!