Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/23

Rh before him, and expresses himself thereon with facility? Whereas the former (just as we all do with a foreign language) is forced on every occasion to have recourse to some ready-found and conversational phrase or other. To-day I will calmly put up with the sorry entertainment, in expectation of the rare scene of Nature which awaits me.

My adventure is over. It has fully equalled my expectation, nay, surpassed it; and yet I know not whether to congratulate or to blame myself on account of it.  PART THE SECOND.

, Oct. 3, 1797. Basle you will receive a packet containing an account of my travels up to that point; for we are now continuing in good earnest our tours through Switzerland. On our route to Biel we rode up the beautiful valley of the Birsch, and at last reached the pass which leads to this place.

Among the ridges of the broad and lofty range of mountains, the little stream of the Birsch found, of old, a channel for itself. Necessity soon after may have driven men to clamber wearily and painfully through its gorges. The Romans, in their time, enlarged the track; and now you may travel through it with perfect ease. The stream, dashing over crags and rocks, and the road, run side by side; and, except at a few points, these make up the whole breadth of the pass, which is hemmed in by rocks, the top of which is easily reached by the eye. Behind them the mountain chain rose with a slight inclination: the summits, however, were veiled by a mist.

Here walls of rock rise precipitously one above another, there immense strata run obliquely down to 