"Saturday, 12th August. Meyringen.--Crossed the stream, and _re_-crossed it, and from a stony hollow, uninhabited, came into the gloom of a pine forest, which led us, by a steep ascent, to the rocks surrounding the Fall of the Aar. Long before our approach, we heard the roaring, while that sound was deadened by the intermediate rocks and trees; but when standing on a bank, in front of the cataract, I could have believed at the first moment, that it was louder even than that of the Rhine at Schaffhausen. This impression, no doubt, was owing chiefly to its being confined within a narrow space. The pine-clad precipices, especially on the opposite side, are very lofty, rising from the rocks of the Pass, kept bare by continual wetting. The gloom of the forest-mountains, in harmony with the sombrous hue of the water, would, of itself, make this first view of this cataract much more impressive than that of the Reichenbach; but again we looked in vain--not for delicate passages in the stream;--those could not be thought of;--but for some of those minute graces, and those overgrowings that detain us in admiration beside our own pellucid waterfalls.[HN] There is a grey furnace-like smoke of water, and a desperate motion and ferment, that make the head dizzy and stun the ears." ... "We clambered upon other rocks; and, at leisure, noticed the variety of shrubby plants and flowers, which here (being higher than the stream) grew securely, nursed by perpetual dews. Luxuriant tufts of a very large sedum were lodged on the ledges, or hung from dark crevices; those tufts, in form and motion, as they waved and fluttered in the breeze of the cataract, resembling the plumes of a hearse, were an ornament well suited to the pine-clad steeps, and the heavenly beauty of the rainbow." (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.)--ED. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote HM: Compare Coleridge's _Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni_.--ED.] XIII MEMORIAL, NEAR THE OUTLET OF THE LAKE OF THUN _"DEM ANDENKEN MEINES FREUNDES ALOYS REDING MDCCCXVIII"_ Aloys Reding, it will be remembered, was Captain-General of the Swiss forces, which, with a courage and perseverance worthy of the cause, opposed the flagitious and too successful attempt of Buonaparte to subjugate their country.--W. W. 1822. Around a wild and woody hill A gravelled pathway treading, We reached a votive Stone that bears The name of Aloys Reding. Well judged the Friend who placed it there 5 For silence and protection; And haply with a finer care Of dutiful affection. The Sun regards it from the West; And, while in summer glory 10 He sets, his sinking yields a type[498] Of that pathetic story: And oft he tempts the patriot Swiss Amid the grove to linger; Till all is dim, save this bright Stone 15 Touched by his golden finger.