the locomotive whistles, the lamps of the little watch-houses fly past
like so many jack-o'-lanterns, and all at once we are enveloped by a
thick fog rising from beneath, where it had rested above the sea, and
when the train has twice completed the circle around the valley, the
noxious, dangerous mist surrounds us entirely.

But once more the creation of human hands conquers the spectre, and,
puffing and whistling, the locomotive breaks through the dark haze. Once
again the iron serpent disappears into the bowels of the rock, and as it
emerges it crosses another valley and is greeted by a clear heaven and a
multitude of brightly-glistening stars.

We are on the Rossberg. A devastated tract of the globe it seems. Our
eyes rest on barren soil devoid of vegetation. Beneath a large field of
huge boulders, imbedded in snow and ice, the Alpine vegetation thrives.
The whole valley is one immense graveyard, and the great rocks are giant
tombstones, encircled by wreaths of white flowers meet for adorning
graves. At the beginning of the present century one of the ridges of the
Rossberg gave way, and in the landslide four villages were buried. This
happened at night, when the villagers were all asleep, and not a single
man, women, or child escaped. This valley is their resting-place. Was I
not right to call it a graveyard?

Above this valley of destruction the train glides on. Upon the side of
the mountain is a little watch-house, built into the rock; a narrow
flight of steps hewn in the stone leads up to it like a ladder. The
moon, which had lately seemed fixed to the crest of the mountain, now
plays hide-and-seek among the peaks. A high barricade on the side of the
Rossberg serves to protect the railroad track against another landslide.