WALKS AND AMUSEMENTS.

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fascinate the spectator. Here and there the rhododendron flings its gracefuland glowing festoons along the face of the bleak rock—emblem of life andbeauty bursting through the marble of death, and suspended, seemingly,between heaven and earth. This beautiful rose of the Alps is in full flowerin the month of August, and flourishes where all its tribe would be frozen. Along-side, the frantic Tamina rolls deep, dark, and rapidly, crested with foam, andaccompanied by that wild concert of echoes from cavern and precipice, which awokewith the first burst of the torrent, and shall never sleep again till the last drop ofthat torrent is dried up. All other sounds rise, fluctuate, and fail. The hurricanecomes forth, vents its desolating influence, and again subsides ;—the clouds arerent—the thunder bursts over head—the winds rush forth in their fury, andfor a period, tumult, and terror, and darkness, prevail; but these also subside—tranquillity returns—the evening sun again appears, and the stars sparklefrom a serene sky; but the torrent is eternal—a momentary pause in its roarwould be the signal of dissolution; and silence in the gorge of Pfeifers wouldstrike more dismay than the thunder of the loudest storm.

Opposite this point, the rocks, draped with the bright green of interminglingbeech and maple trees, contrast pleasingly with the dark bleak structures fromwhich they spring. On the left is the deep Cimmerian gorge, from which theriver, bursting its dreary barrier, boils along its rocky bed—stunning the earwith its roar, and causing a sort of vertigo as the eye follows its course—

“ Dismal and dark as fabled Acheron,

But clothed in horrors fable hath not feigned ;

While clouds, as from some mighty Phlegethon,

Surge upward from the boiling cavern drained—

Regions of five—where, *neath the snowy zone,

The lake steams fierce, and, overflowing, flingsThrough yawning clefts its hot, unebbing, springs.”— MS.

These fine weather resources are much frequented by all who thus,with the power of locomotion, possess the means of health. Happily for thevisitors, the pernicious vice of gambling has not yet penetrated this Alpinegorge; and the corrupting games of roulette, rouge-et-noir, and ecarte, soprevalent at other baths, have found neither votaries nor victims at Pfeffers.As a substitute in had weather, an excellent sheltered promenade extends infront of the inns; and there, or in the capacious salles-a-manger, invalids mayindulge the same salutary exercise, while the lightnings flash, and the thunderroars unheeded, and almost unheard. The atmosphere here is not sub-ject to those sudden transitions which so powerfully affect invalids in ocher