Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/63

Rh table, and now yearn, above all things, for the quiet companionship of nature, I spend the greater part of my day in solitary rambles and little expeditions of discovery amongst the mountains.

Will you accompany me on one of these?—for one will serve as a sample of the whole. Our guide shall be the first good foot-path, because we cannot have a better; and if you would thoroughly enjoy the ramble, you must follow the path silently, and observe every thing with which it presents you. True it may be a little steep sometimes, but you will have secure footing and almost a flight of steps up the mountain. Here the path leads you over a noisy brook, there through a thick wood, mostly of pine trees. The tree-roots supply steps by which you climb ever higher and higher—for our path still ascends. Soon you see the valley behind you down below your feet, and you stand on equal height with the snow-veins which furrow the mountains on the other side of the Sarine; you see the clouds sailing below the mountain pinnacles. Now you are upon the height, and now the path winds round the shoulder of a cliff, and you find yourself upon a green meadow full of grassy hillocks, in which feeds a herd of variegated, well-conditioned cows, whose bells welcome you with a melodious chorus. You still proceed, and the path winds round another mountain height, and a fresh view opens before you; another extent of valley with wood-crowned heights, the feet of which are scattered with