Walked up the valley of the Aar

Walked up the valley of the Aar, sallow-coloured and torrent, to the Grimsel.

The heights bounding the valley soon became a mingle of lilac and green,

the first the colour of the rock, the other the grass crestings, and seemed

to group above in crops and rounded buttresses, yet to be cut sharp in

horizontal or leaning planes below. At a turn in the road the foam-cuffs in

the river, looked down upon, were of the crispiest endive spraying... At times

the valley opened in cirques, amphitheatres, enclosing levels of plain, and

the river then ran between flaky flat-fish isles made of cindery lily-white

stones. In one place over a smooth table of rock came slipping down a blade

of water looking like and as evenly crisped as fruitnets let drop and falling

slack.

We saw Handeck waterfall. It is in fact the meeting of the two waters, the

right the Aar sallow and jade-coloured, the left a smaller stream of clean

lilac-foam. It is the greatest fall we have seen. The lower half is hidden in

spray; I watched the great bushes of foam-water, the texture of branchings

and water-spandrels which makes them up. At their outsides nearest the

rock they gave off showers of drops strung together into little quills which

sprang out in fans.

On crossing the Aar again there was as good a fall as some we have paid

to see, all in jostling foam-bags.

Across the valley too we saw the fall of the Gelmer -- like milk chasing

round blocks of coal; or a girdle or long purse of white weighted with

irregular black rubies, carelessly thrown aside and lying in jutty bends,

with a black clasp of the same stone at the top.