Hamilton climbed with an ease and lightness which surprised his companions; but he so often stopped to admire a handsome beech-tree, or to “seek for fresh evening air in the opening glades,” that they by degrees went on, and he found himself at last alone in a spot where some convulsion of Nature had split the mountain partly asunder. He saw far, far beneath him, the road into Tyrol; the heavy-laden wagons, which a few days before he had thought packed dangerously high, now wound, pigmy-like, along, the motion of the endless team of horses scarcely perceptible. Hill rose beyond hill, until the prospect was bounded by the grotesque masses of rocks which, rising from the wooded mountains, increase their gigantic appearance by their partial concealment behind those light wreaths of clouds which seldom entirely desert their summits. For the inhabitants of the valley, the sun had long disappeared; but around Hamilton everything was in the glow of sunset: he seated himself on the mossy turf and deliberately resigned himself to contemplation. No place could have been better chosen, and he was therefore surprised and disappointed to find that the sublime thoughts which he had expected did not present themselves to his mind. He admired the surpassing luxuriance of the vegetation in the valleys, the different-coloured foliage of the trees; the wild irregular course of the foaming river;—he tried to think of the greatness of the Creator in His works, the insignificance of man and his endeavours—in vain. An agreeable feeling of general satisfaction stole over him, while fancy conveyed him home to his family, to his youthful friends. A handsome English residence rose before him, with well-kept lawns, gravelled walks, and shrubberies; groups of well-dressed people were visible among the trees, and on the steps leading to the hall-door a large party was assembled. Carriages and riding-horses were there; laughing girls, in their long habits, young men carelessly loitering near them. They were to visit a well-_preserved_ ruin in the neighbourhood—so often seen, it is true, that everything was thought of more than the nominal object. Camp-stools, servants in livery, champagne and pine-apples began to chase each other in pleasing confusion before Hamilton’s mind’s eye—when the distant report of a gun destroyed the “baseless fabric” of his “waking vision,” and he started up, remembering with some amazement that he was engaged in a chamois-hunt! “It is of little consequence,” he thought; “for had I fired ten times, I should never have hit one.”