Nowhere else, in one quarter of the globe, has nature laid her hand on the face of the earth with the same majesty; no other division of it presents the same contrasts in a panorama so astonishing; no other exhibits so surprising a diversity of landscapes, caverns and waterfalls, fields of ice and cascades, green and broad mountain-sides, pastoral abodes and smiling vales, winding and rocky paths, aerial bridges and infernal glens, eternal snows and luxuriant pastures, forests of dark larches and congress of hoary mountains, austere loveliness and lofty nobleness: “Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view? The mountain’s fall, the river’s flow, The wooded valleys, warm and low; The windy summits wild and high, Roughly rushing on the sky; Town and village, tower and farm, Each give to each a double charm.” If the Neapolitan be moved to call the environments of his capital “_un pezzo del cielo caduto in terra_” (“a bit of heaven fallen upon the earth”), the Swiss may more modestly claim that they have that piece of the Garden of Eden only which the angels of the legend lost on their way. It is impossible to convey a vivid, and at the same time an accurate, impression of grand scenery by the use of words. Written accounts, when they come near their climax, fall as much below the intention as words are less substantial than things. The _mountains_ come first in the glory and charm of Switzerland’s natural beauties and attractions. They encompass us on every hand; fill our eyes when we are walking and haunt our dreams during sleep,--so beautiful, so majestic, and yet so lovely. Grandeur of bulk and mass is conjoined with splendor and fulness of detail; form and shape are crowned with soaring peak and matchless line; and the summits mingle with that sky which seems to be the only fitting background for the eternal hills. On the face of a topographical map Switzerland appears to consist chiefly of mountains lying near together, or piled one upon another, as if the story of the Titans was realized, and with narrow valleys between them. Of the western, central, and eastern Alps, constituting the whole Alpine system, a part of the first, the whole of the second, and none of the third division belong to Switzerland. The entire giant fabric, rising concentrically and almost abruptly from the surrounding plains, offers its grandest development in Switzerland and Savoy. There are points of view in Switzerland whence the array of Alpine peaks, semicircular in form, presented at once to the eye, extends for more than one hundred and twenty miles, and comprises from two hundred to three hundred distinct summits, capped with snow or bristling with bare rocks. The Swiss Alps are divided into several sections,--the Pennine Alps, the Helvetian Alps, the Rhetian Alps, and the Bernese Alps; all radiate from a central group, the St. Gothard being the key of the entire system, and all converge upon it. The