This it was next our object to cross; our way lying in part through deep snow-slush, the scene changing perpetually from blue heaven to gray haze which massed itself at intervals in dense clouds about the mountains. After crossing the basin our way lay partly over slopes of snow, partly over loose shingle, and at one place along the edge of a formidable precipice of rock. We sat down sometimes to rest, and during these pauses, though they were very brief, the scene had time to go through several of its Protean mutations. At one moment all would be perfectly serene, no cloud in the transparent air to tell us that any portion of it was in motion, while the blue heaven threw its flattened arch over the magnificent amphitheatre. Then in an instant, from some local cauldron, the vapour would boil up suddenly, eddying wildly in the air, which a moment before seemed so still, and enveloping the entire scene. Thus the space enclosed by the Finsteraarhorn, the Viescherhoerner, and the Schreckhorn, would at one moment be filled with fog to the mountain heads, every trace of which a few minutes sufficed to sweep away, leaving the unstained blue of heaven behind it, and the mountains showing sharp and jagged outlines in the glassy air. One might be almost led to imagine that the vapour molecules endured a strain similar to that of water cooled below its freezing point, or heated beyond its boiling point; and that, on the strain being relieved by the sudden yielding of the opposing force, the particles rushed together, and thus filled in an instant the clear atmosphere with aqueous precipitation. I had no idea that the Strahleck was so fine a pass. Whether it is the quality of my mind to take in the glory of the present so intensely as to make me forgetful of the glory of the past, I know not, but it appeared to me that I had never seen anything finer than the scene from the summit. The amphitheatre formed by the mountains seemed to me of exceeding magnificence; nor do I think that my feeling was subjective merely; for the simple magnitude of the masses which built up the spectacle would be sufficient to declare its grandeur. Looking down towards the Glacier of the Aar, a scene of wild beauty and desolation presented itself. Not a trace of vegetation could be seen along the whole range of the bounding mountains; glaciers streamed from their shoulders into the valley beneath, where they welded themselves to form the Finsteraar affluent of the Unteraar glacier. [Sidenote: DESCENT OF THE CRAGS. 1858.]