However, it is the legend of the place, and so I have to give it. The only lesson I can draw from it is not a good one. The virtuous Balthazar lost his property just the same as the wicked Caspar, and as he probably starved to death immediately, while Caspar had a good time for twenty years, his virtue counted him nothing, so far as this world goes. I have found that out, however, in my own experience. In every country in the world that has rocks, there is some frightfully high one from which a great many years ago a maiden leaped. Indian maidens were addicted to this in America, and so were maidens in Switzerland. You are compelled to climb to the very top of the mountain on one side of the gorge to see the place where a maiden threw herself over. The guide said she was crossed in love by her parents, while our landlord had it that she was deserted by her lover. Thus you had two stories at the price of one, and could believe which you chose. Tibbitts looked calmly down the frightful chasm. "The maiden leaped from this spot?" "Yes, sare." "How under Heaven did she _ever_ get back!" "She did not get back." "Did she hurt herself?" "Hurt hairselluf! It ees five huntret veet to ze bottom. How could she fall five huntret veet and not hurt hairselluf?" "Five hundred feet! Well, I should say it was rather risky. What did the old folks do about it?" He wanted to know all the circumstances, but the information of guides on such subjects always ends with the blood-curdling tragedy. They know nothing of what happened after the girl took the fatal plunge. [Sidenote: MARTIGNY.] The road from Vernayaz leads through a number of pretty Swiss villages, whose peculiarly built stone houses contrast strangely with the pretentious edifices of the towns and cities we had just left. The one narrow street through which the carriages passed is filled with queerly dressed people, to whom the passing of a tourist party is about the only event that relieves the dull routine of their monotonous lives. [Illustration: WHERE THE MAIDEN LEAPED FROM.] Near Martigny we pass an old dilapidated castle, that, seven hundred years ago, was the stronghold of Peter of Savoy, who ruled with an iron hand the people in the neighboring Cantons. Now we leave the valley of the Rhone and begin in earnest the ascent of the mountains. It is hard to realize that horses and carriage can make their way over these great towering mountains. Apparently they are inaccessible as the clouds that float lazily above them. But we bowl along the hard white road at a rattling pace, and are soon at an elevation from which the villages in the valley below look like toy towns. The road is a continuous letter Z, winding up the side of the mountain, each tack bringing us higher and higher.