struggling through Fluela whirlwinds, and wine-casks tugged across
Bernina, and haystacks guided down precipitous gullies at thundering
speed 'twixt pine and pine, and larches felled in distant glens beside
the frozen watercourses. Here we were, all met together for one hour
from our several homes and occupations, to welcome in the year with
clinked glasses and cries of _Prosit Neujahr!_

The tolling bells above us stopped. Our turn had come. Out into the
snowy air we tumbled, beneath the row of wolves' heads that adorn the
pent-house roof. A few steps brought us to the still God's acre,
where the snow lay deep and cold upon high-mounded graves of many
generations. We crossed it silently, bent our heads to the low Gothic
arch, and stood within the tower. It was thick darkness there. But
far above, the bells began again to clash and jangle confusedly, with
volleys of demonic joy. Successive flights of ladders, each ending in
a giddy platform hung across the gloom, climb to the height of some
hundred and fifty feet; and all their rungs were crusted with frozen
snow, deposited by trampling boots. For up and down these stairs,
ascending and descending, moved other than angels--the friezejacketed
Bürschen, Grisons bears, rejoicing in their exercise, exhilarated with
the tingling noise of beaten metal. We reached the first room safely,
guided by firm-footed Christian, whose one candle just defined the
rough walls and the slippery steps. There we found a band of boys,
pulling ropes that set the bells in motion. But our destination
was not reached. One more aërial ladder, perpendicular in darkness,
brought us swiftly to the home of sound. It is a small square chamber,
where the bells are hung, filled with the interlacement of enormous
beams, and pierced to north and south by open windows, from whose
parapets I saw the village and the valley spread beneath. The fierce
wind hurried through it, charged with snow, and its narrow space was