The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-16 00:00:00

pered yet Alorious blaze of prismatic colours, which
would h e driven a Turner to frenzy.
In eanwhile not a few of our feilow-tourists
stood with their backs upon the long-coveted sight,
the like`Of which, they observed, they could have in
England six days out of the seven ; they stood Nig-
gling and chaffering for the horn paper-cutters, nut-
crackers, and other mountain ware there exhibited
for sale, or descanted with great glee on the skill
with which:they had " done" their guides by waiting
to bargain for horses till they were on board the
boat, by which clever manoeuvre they had had their
nags two francs cheaper than if they had hired them
from them. By this 7 o'clock struck, the bell sum-
moned the weary and hungry to their evening meal
—a dinner to the English, a supper for the Germans
—the flag was furled, and the Righi put on his
nightcap.
There was, certainly, no better chance of a sun-
rise than we had had of a sunset, and it was only
with misgiving that we waited in our beds for the
Alpine horn that was to summon us to do obeisance
to the sullen orb of day. Still we all waited for
that horn with fitful slumbers, and I confess to
having been twice and three times aroused with a
sudden start, thinking that I was awakened by the
sonorous notes of that most lugubrious of wind in-
struments, when the disturbance was only caused
by the deep snore of my neighbours in the adjoining
apartment. At last it was light, a pale, grey,
troubled light, and the horn gave the signal. The
summons was intended for us, and for the sun like-
wise, but one of the parties alone was faithful to
the tryst. The sun had a hard fight of it with the
mists of the Sentis and Allmann of Appenzell ; and
although he actually broke through the clouds and
showed his face, yet his victory was only temporary
and incomplete, and before the latest sluggards had
come to muster the powers of darkness had it all
their own way.
Here the grumbling of the half-awake, discon-

,ented crew began to rise high, and the Righi was
voted little better than an old cheat and humbug.
There were those, indeed, who sought consolation in
the fact that they had predicted it would be as it
turned out ; others who boldly asserted that it was
always so—the sky always a mass of cloud, the
earth always a mass of gloom, as we saw them to-
day; but the latter were evidently people not apt to
look upon the bright side of things. A more sanguine
philosopher, one more inclined to take the world as
it comes, I heard holding forth in the midst of a
group of young English, some who had been loudest
in their vituperation of all mountain delights.
The orator was a German, to judge by his accent,
but he spoke English with singular fluency, and was
listened to with a curiosity which soon ripened into
deference. " Sunshine," he mid, "Is not the only in-
teresting feature of mountain scenery, nor is vastness
of panorama the most pleasing of objects. Is there
not an unspeakable charm in those dark phantom
clouds so slowly, so ominously flitting on the moun-
tain range around ? Can anything be more beauti-
ful than that thin, slowly-waning haze that hangs
so lovingly over the lakes ? See, although hardly a
breath of wind blows, although all is apparently so
still and lifeless, the landscape around us is per-
petually changing. The white veil that is gradually
being lifted from the waters of Zug deepens
rapidly on the waters of Lowertz. The curtain of
clouds that wraps the sun as it rises in the east .is
breaking asunder over the Oberland chain in the
west. See, now, even while lam speaking, and as
if I had cast a spell on the elements—see the
Gletacherhorn, the Eiger, the Monch, and presently
the Jungfrau, the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn, the
Finsteraarhorn—those peaks of darkness, of terror,
and storm—lift up their hoary heads above the
gloom ; those heads made higher before our eyes by
the eclipse of the minor hills, which are as a flight
of steps up to them ; those heads, the ruddy tints
on whose glaciers look all the more bewitching as
the sun which smiles upon them is invisible to us.
Mountain panoramas, indeed I tell you, you have
only to imagine all those cloudy masses that take
such fanciful ships on the horizon about us to be
actual mountains, and here you have before you as
grand a Righi as any of the travellers most favoured
by the weather ever beheld; and I tell you the sea
of white fleecy mist under which the gleaming lakes
play at bide and seek is fully as fascinating to the
eye as the lakes themselves would be if all the glare
of the noontide sun showed every inch of the land-
scape that mirrors itself on their surface."
I do not know to what extent the listeners to this
sermon found balm in it to soothe their disappoint-
ment. All I know is that the clouds and mists to
which the orator had so forcibly referred gained
ground upon us till the surrounding world seemed
all of the same dull grey colour. Fear of rain and
weariness of the scene advised a speedy retreat. I
took my, ay down the steep, followed by my faith-
ful mountain lad. We scampered down from the
Kuhn to the landing-place at Weggis in something
short of an hour, and even ventured upon a race
with the eight o'clock steamer, by which .1 hoped to
reach Lucerne a full hour before any of my fellow-
travellers. We lost the race by about five minutes,
however, and I had to wait on the Weggis pier for
the half-past nine boat. I profited by the delay to
bathe in the waters of the Vierwaldstatter See—
those waters as cool as April rain, as soft as Genoa
velvet. By the time I was out of the waters the
flock of tourists had come down in small parties.
The steamer hove in sight ; we came across in half
an hour, and here I am.