Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/59

Rh is seen a little stretch of sky, now dark with rain-clouds.

The journey thither, however, was beautiful and very queer. Imagine a labyrinthine road winding between lofty mountains, along which you are dragged, upwards, ever upwards, for several hours. So narrow were the mountain passes, sometimes, that you cannot conceive how you are to get through them; in other places so completely blocked up, that it seems as if you must drive right into the mountain, and if your carriage should get, as it were, a little shove on one side,—perhaps from the King of the mountain,—so that it is upset on the very brink of a precipice, you cannot see what should hinder you, and the horses, and the carriage, from tumbling down into the wild stream which thunders and foams below. It looks dangerous, and is not, indeed, wholly without danger, but both driver and horses are used to struggling up the steep roads of the mountain strongholds.

At the entrance of the narrow mountain pass, one comes upon the ruins of the castle of La Gruyères. In ancient times, it was the abode of the powerful Counts of that name; and they it was who first cultivated, and established inhabitants, in the high valleys which extend along the river Sarine—Rossinières, Chateau-d'Œx, Rougemont. One feels, whilst making this ascending journey, through these mountain passes, as if one were reading a romance of the middle age.

The sun was sending his last rays through the openings in the cliffs when I emerged to Rossinières. My abode is an immense chalet, or Swiss cottage—the largest amongst the Alps, it is asserted, in which a vast