_A celebrated waterfall--Cascade of the Pisse Vache._
There are several of the same name in Switzerland; but this, I believe, is reckoned the most remarkable. In the neighbourhood of these mountains, one sees with pleasure the industry of man repaid by considerable fertility. The cottages are comfortable, and surrounded with orchards of various fruit-trees. The natural and ungrafted cherry, called _mérise_, is much cultivated in these parts. It is from this fruit that the famed _kirschenwasser_, or cherry-water, is made, and which is not only an agreeable cordial, but a valuable medicine among the peasantry, subsisting, as they do, so much upon a crude and milky diet, not easy of digestion. It was offered to Mr. B. during his illness, by a rustic host, with strong commendations.
The height of these glaciers, at their utmost point, is 9268 feet above the level of the sea. Voltaire might well say,
"Ces monts sourcilleux, Qui pressent les enfers, et qui fendent les cieux."
But there is another point of view in which the natural philosopher will contemplate these stupendous mountains with admiration and gratitude: I mean as being the immense and inexhaustible reservoirs of those springs and rivers which make so essential a part in the beautiful and beneficial economy of nature. In these particular regions will be found the sources of the Rhone, the Rhine, and the Tessin, with a multitude of other rivers; and some idea of the enormous quantity of water that they produce may be formed from the known fact, that the magnificent lake of Geneva (measuring above twenty-six square leagues) is raised ten feet and a half, by the mere melting of the snows during the summer. Strawberries of the finest flavour may be gathered almost at the very edge of the ice, and the adjoining woods are full of wild flowers.
It has been thought by some, that it is not so much from the poverty of the state as from a moral policy that the exploration of these dangerous productions has been purposely discouraged. This is the nobler reason of the two. Haller (the favourite poet of the Swiss) in his poem on the Alps, exclaims, "The shepherd of the Alps sees these treasures flow beneath his feet--what an example to mankind! he lets them flow on." And he feels a security in the rude simplicity of his country, that holds out nothing to tempt the invasion of avarice or ambition--