As for describing what we saw from our elevated dining-table, it is clean out of the question; we saw nothing but mountains--or rather the tops of mountains, for we were far above the general level of their crests; one wide sea of rock and snow surged around us; shoreless, no bounding range, no sweet glimpses of broad green valleys and glistening rivers in the distance; no pretty villages nestling cosily under the pine forest--nothing but peak on peak, ridge on ridge; bright pinnacles and clusters of pinnacles shooting up here and there far above the rest into the calm blue sky--deep grooves marking the course of distant valleys, like tide-marks on the sea. But no trace of man or beast, herb or tree; the very wind that whistled past us brought no sound or scent from the valleys it had passed, but sounded harsh, and dry, and dead. Vain, indeed would be the effort to convey the slightest idea of the solemn grandeur of that scene! Manfred? Manfred gives the finest and truest picture ever perhaps painted of _Swiss_ Alpine scenery, as seen looking towards the mountains, or from the cliffs bordering some rich pastoral valley; but we had passed all that long ago--we were in the very heart of the range. Alp was still piled on Alp, but we had reached the summit of the pile. The only valleys _we_ saw were fearful scars in the mountain flank, half filled with eternal snow, and the crumbling skeletons of dead Alps. No sound--no herdsman's jödle--no cowbell's tinkle ever reached to half way up our rocky perch: we were far above the vulture and the chamois. We were alone with the rock, and snow, and sky! It seemed profanity to whisper--and yet there was Joseph, after a glance round, and a short "schöne panorama!" whistling and fishing up the eatables and drinkables from the bottom of his wallet, as coolly as if he was seated in his own smoky, half-lighted cabin. He had been born in it, and was used to it. I doubt whether I myself felt the grandeur of the scene as much then as I have often done since, on recalling it bit by bit to my recollection. The really grand gives one at first a sort of painful feeling that is indescribable. One cannot _think_--one only _feels_ with that strange undescribed sense, that strives, almost to heart-breaking, to bring itself forth, and yet stays voiceless.