Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/32

48 with that in which Queen Bertha spun: “ove la reina Bertha filava!”

How excellent the women of a country should be when they have a Queen Bertha for their example!

The next morning, I took a ramble into the valley, and talked with the people who were making hay. The costume of the women is now more poetical than it was thirty years ago. The stiff black horse-hair gauze round the face, has now become soft lace, which falls gracefully. The more wealthy wear silver chains over the dark jackets. I also crossed the Lake of Brienz, the same morning, to Giessbach, met with two pretty little talkative girls, with wood-strawberries to sell, who told me about their goats. Each one had a goat which gave milk and butter—goats are the cows of the poor—and they joddled and sang so sweetly,—

that they made me forget the flight of time, and the hour when the steamboat leaves. When, therefore, I reach the shore, it is gone. But no matter! I take, therefore, a little one-horse carriage, with a good tempered lad to drive, and go to the valley of Lauterbrunnen, which lies in the bosom of “die Schönen Alpen.” It is a beautiful day, and the first portion of the valley is like a lovely orchard, along which the two-armed river, Zwie-Lutschine, rushes down towards the plain of Interlachen. The road lies up the side of the river, with wonderful castellated masses of rock on the left hand, and on the right the white massive form of the Jungfrau.