Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/40

34 valley and the village below. We now prepared for entering the cave,—lighted our candles, and loaded a pistol, which we proposed to let off. The cave is a long gallery, mostly level, and on one strand; in parts broad enough for two men to walk abreast, in others only passable by one; now high enough to walk upright, then obliging you to stoop, and sometimes even to crawl on hands and feet. Nearly about the middle a cleft runs upwards, and forms a sort of a dome. In one corner, another goes downwards. We threw several stones down it, and counted slowly from seventeen to nineteen before they reached the bottom, after touching the sides many times, but always with a different echo. On the walls a stalactite forms its various devices: however, it is only damp in a very few places, and forms, for the most part, long drops, and not those rich and rare shapes which are so remarkable in Baumann's Cave. We penetrated as far as we could for the water, and, as we came out, let off our pistol, which shook the cave with a strong but dull echo, so that it boomed round us like a bell. It took us a good quarter of an hour to get out again; and, on descending the rocks, we found our carriage, and drove onwards. We saw a beautiful waterfall in the manner of the Staubbach. Neither its height was very great, nor its volume very large, and yet it was extremely interesting, for the rocks formed around it, as it were, a circular niche, in which its waters fell; and the pieces of the limestone, as they were tumbled one over another, formed the most rare and unusual groups.

We arrived here at midday, not quite hungry enough to relish our dinner, which consisted of warm fish, cow-beef, and very stale bread. From this place there is no road leading to the mountains that is passable for so stately an equipage as we have with us: it therefore returns to Geneva, and I now must take my leave of you in order to pursue my route a little