capitals and bastions, is flushed with the warm light of the lowering sun; when the _Alpenglühen_[114] (_Abendglühen_) bathes the stern faces of the ramparts with a flood of light and shade such as only nature can produce from the rarest tints of infinite beauty. As the sun sinks lower the ruddiness of his light seems to augment until the filaments resemble streamers of flame; when the sun sinks deeper the light is gradually withdrawn, all is cold and gray again; the stars come out all at once and leave the mountain like a desolate old man whose “Hoary hair Stream’d like a meteor in the troubled air.” The vapor at times causes a great deal of refraction, and above the clouds rises the whole of the Oberland to an altitude which seems greater than usual; every peak and all the majestic formation are clearly visible, though the whole range appears to be severed from the earth and to float in the air; the line of communication is varied, and while all below is enfeebled by the mist, the snow and ice above throw back the fierce light of the sun with powerful splendor. The people of Bern, of all conditions and ages, may be seen, day after day, waiting and watching for the _Alpenglühen_. As the hour of sunset approaches, the numerous little parks which furnish a view begin to fill up with the old and young; with the first announcing ray of the _Alpenglühen_ the children cease to be boisterous, the fingers that ply the knitting-needle are still, the laborer at work pursues his vocation sedately, and all gaze in silent admiration. Bern abounds in these humanizing, tranquillizing, and health-giving parks or promenades, ornamented with beds of bright flowers and provided with comfortable seats. Although the Alps are not necessary to render the views from these parks pleasant, yet there they are, to add a background of sublimity to a foreground of surpassing loveliness. The Aar flows towards Bern in a northwest direction, through a valley of some width and several miles in length: to this fact the Bernese are indebted for their fine view of the Oberland Alps, which stretch themselves exactly across the mouth of the gorge at a distance of forty miles in an air-line. There is a story of a king, who said he dearly wished he had never had any picture or statue in his palace so that he could once again have, even for a moment, the crude, sincere delight of a boy staring at a wax-work group. The Bernese will never have need to frame such a wish. To them their Oberland will always be new, a picture that can never fade, a strain of music which can never sound tuneless or harsh. But in this sin-cursed world “The sea of fortune doth not ever flow; She draws her favors to the lowest ebb; Her tides have equal times to come and go; Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web.”