some daring hand, seemed to decline its head towards the town, as if wishing to exhort the inhabitants beneath, to prepare themselves by devotion against the approaching hour. At length, unable to look up at the frightful, rocky height, which too surely must precipitate itself sooner or later upon the unfortunate inhabitants beneath, I sought to banish from my mind the appalling thoughts on the possibility of such a dreadful event, and recommending my soul to God, I rambled out into the open air, in order to enjoy the beauties of the evening.
The curfew of the Convent of the Dominican Nuns announced by its monotonous sounds that the pious sisters were offering up their prayers to Him who can restrain the waters within their limits, uphold the rocks upon their bases, and prescribe the bounds of worlds of stars, on their airy flight in the heavens. With a feeling of silent admiration, and with that submission with which weak man depicts to himself the throne of his Almighty Creator, I contemplated the horizon adorned by the setting sun. In the foreground arose to my view, gloomy and silent, Mount Rigi; on its summit, that seemed to touch the heavens, I beheld the great cross by which it is surmounted, still faintly gilded by the rays of the setting sun concealed behind the mighty Alps, while, at the foot of the mountain, all was night and darkness. My heart felt oppressed by painful emotion, and abandoned thus to my own reflections, and excited by some secret feeling, I turned my steps towards Siti, where, to the eastward, the rock of Fallenflue, and westward Mount Shoenbucherberg, together with the Frohnalp, veiled by the grey clouds, served me as guides; these were not, however, the objects which could satisfy the feelings by which I was so agitated. Their high and ancient summits seemed to indicate their close affinity with the higher celestial world above; and thus, feeling how I was enchained to the earth beneath, I shuddered at their frightfully awful elevation.
At the end of the grand avenue of trees near Siti, there
