it being for the sake of Westmoreland alone that I like to dwell on this short passage of our journey, which brought us in view of one of the most interesting of the valleys of the Alps. We descended with our little stream, and saw its brief life in a moment cut off, when it reached the _Berard_, the river of Black Water, which is seen falling, not in _black_ but _grey_ cataracts within the cove of a mountain that well deserves the former epithet, though a bed of _snow_ and glacier ice is seen among its piky and jagged ridges. Below those bare summits, pine forests and crags are piled together, with lawns and cottages between. "We enter at the side of the valley, crossing a wooden bridge; then, turning our backs on the scene just described, we bend our course downward with the River, that is hurrying away, fresh from its glacier fountains; how different a fellow-traveller from that little rivulet we had just parted from, which we had seen, still bright as silver, drop into the grey stream! The descending Vale before us beautiful, the high enclosing hills interspersed with woods, green pasturage, and cottages. The delight we had in journeying through the Valorsine is not to be imagined, sunshine and shade were alike cheering; while the very numerousness of the brown wood cottages (descried among trees, or outspread on the steep lawns), and the people enjoying their Sabbath leisure out of doors, seemed to make a quiet spot more quiet." (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. ii.) * * * * * The following account of the festival of the Virgin, which occurred during the Wordsworths' visit to Engelberg, may further illustrate this poem:--"Knots of peasants going to and returning from church, all in holiday trim. We had learned the day to be a grand Festival--the Feast of the Virgin. After breakfast, the procession streamed out of church, a beautiful spectacle, as they begirt that and the monastery. Men, women, and children, Abbot, Monks, Priests, and Choristers, a thousand persons or upwards; the women as gay as glitter and colours could make them. Flat white hats, with ribbons and flowers, embroidered stomachers, red girdles, and their short black petticoats, embroidered with red ribbon, large shining pins in their hair, and lockets suspended from their necks. The men too, mostly, had some ornament upon their hats: the young generally a coloured ribbon, the elders black ones, tied with a bow: all well and _curiously_ dressed; it was a festive scene, and the most important fête in the year. Seventeen monks belong to the convent of Engelberg, and the whole valley contains about 1700 inhabitants," etc. (Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal.)--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 549: 1837. They uttered loud hosannas,--let the trumpets blow! 1822. These shout hosannas,--these the startling trumpets blow! 1827. ... those ... 1832. ] [Footnote 551: 1837.