and then descending to a broad plain, passed the solitary lake of Titi -"navelled" in woods, like Nemi, and entered the district which, in contrast probably to that which succeeds, is called the Himmelreich or "Kingdom of Heaven." Its fertility and beauty are not of themselves so great as to enable it to lay claim to that exclusive denomination, but it was a pleasant country to traverse after the broad and darkly wooded hills over which we had just passed.

Presently we came to a scene of a different character. Unconscious that the table-land over which we had travelled was so high above the level of the sea, we were quite unprepared for the rapidity of the descent which suddenly yawned beneath our feet.

Slowly emerging from what seemed the verge of the horizon, though too near us to be the natural limit of vision, a long dark line arose, which, as we drew near, proved to be a heavy waggon drawn by a monster team, there being not fewer than eighteen sturdy horses yoked to the vehicle. A smaller number could not have accomplished the task.

This place of labour, where Sisyphus, "damnatusque longi laboris," might well have toiled, was the gorge that led to the VALLEY OF HELL. It was no time for sitting idly looking on, so, leaving the care of the carriage to worthy Master Kinkel, we got out and proceeded on foot, burying ourselves deeper and deeper in the gloom of the gorge at every step we took. From time to time we cast our eye upwards, though without any thought that the mountain side was covered with labourers, at work, as we were afterwards told, in the construction of a less precipitous road than that which we now followed. After tracking a very steep and winding course, we had nearly reached the level of the valley, through which the Treisam foams and rushes, when a loud shout rent the air, and "Rückwarts, rückwarts," echoed from hill to hill. It was not easy at the first outcry to understand that this warning was intended for us, or that it came from invisible workmen above, but we naturally paused, and then seeing that other wayfarers retreated up the slope, we followed their example. In good time we did so, for immediately after the cry, a dull, heavy, stifled sound shook the hill side, which I at once recognised as an explosion of gunpowder, and close upon it came an avalanche of masses of rock, thundering in their descent, and crushing a forest tree at every giant leap, till, spent with the distance, they found a resting-place in the torrent, or were caught in some accidental hollow. It was lucky for us that we had not advanced further, as escape would then have been difficult, several fragments of enormous size having crossed that part of the road on which we were walking when the first alarm was raised. For fear we should be caught in another shower of stones, we beckoned to Herr Kinkel to make haste on, and before another blast took place had got beyond the reach of danger in the solitary village of Steig.

While the horses were being baited, we wandered along the valley, and made a meal al fresco, seated on the trunks of some enormous fir 3 heaped together beside the Treisam, whose rapid waters were turning, close to us, the wheel of one of the numerous saw-mills which stud the Höllenthal. It was only by the bright hues of the many-coloured foliage that the season could be determined from the aspect of the scene. sky was as clear, and the rays of the sun as warm as in the height of summer, and the quick-eyed lizards, basking on the pine logs, till our apFeb.-VOL. LXXXV. NO. CCCXXXVIII.

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proach disturbed them, seemed to enjoy October as if it had been July. The freshest spring could not have carpeted the banks of the stream with a more brilliant green, and there were gay flowers in plenty to keep up the illusion of the early year. But in the thousand tints spread over the steep sides of the valley was far greater beauty than belongs to either spring or summer; it was such as autumn alone can show, and brought to my recollection the brilliant effects I had witnessed in the woods of our North American provinces, though even there, I think, I have scarcely seen any thing to compare with the gorgeous hue of the scarlet leaves of the wild cherry of the Black Forest. On this enchanting spot there was, indeed, "a blending of all beauties," and what Byron was tempted to exclaim, at the first view of the Valley of the Acheron, might well be inscribed on the rocks that guard the entrance to the Höllenthal :

Pluto! if this be hell I gaze upon,

Close fam'd Elysium's gates ;-my shade shall seek for none!

Part of the way on foot, and the remainder at a foot's pace, we slowly pursued our way through the valley, which, in many places, contracted its limits so closely as to leave room only for the road and the stream that murmured beside it. Every here and there the outlet seemed to be completely blocked up, till a sharp turn round some projecting rock lured us on a few hundred yards further to repeat the deception again and again. The unattainable heights of the Alps and the Pyrenees were not over our heads, but the solitude and grandeur of the pass was exceeded by nothing that I remember of the kind, even in those stupendous mountains, where the glaciers and eternal snow are so frequently excluded from the view. The most striking features of this remarkable valley are reserved for the last, when the direction of the journey is towards Freyburg; and at the lofty rock, called the Hirschsprung, the evidence of the fierce convulsion which wrenched open the passage through the mountains, is strikingly apparent. At a short distance from this spot, it appears, as if it were easy to believe the tradition, that it owes its name to the leap of a hunted stag, so closely do the rocky walls of the valley seem to approach each other; but on a nearer view, the sinuosities of the road explain the apparent contiguity, and one then sees that the real width cannot be less than 200 feet. If such a leap were ever accomplished by a stag, it must have been when the infernal pack of the Wild Huntsman was at its heels. Impossibilities may almost be reconciled in a region so wild as this, as any one may imagine who notices how a gigantic larch has found the means of rooting itself in the fissures of a bare and nearly perpendicular rock, opposite the Hirschsprung, midway between its base and its summit. There, however, it grows as if it had been thrown there in the strife that rent the rocks asunder when the Höllenthal was formed.

From this point the valley gradually widens, the lofty slopes recede, and finally subside, till, at the picturesque inn at Zarten, dedicated, if Í remember rightly, to a fierce wild bull, the level country spreads itself out, and after an hour's easy travelling, the beautiful spire of the minster of Freyburg rises over the plain, a welcome landmark to the traveller journeying homewards.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PAIR OF TOP-BOOTS.

I.

SHOULD any one within our great metropolis be so curious as to seek its unknown regions in the east, he may find in his peregrinations a public way entitled "Nightingale Street," and in one of the houses in the aforesaid street, so aptly termed the "dens of misery,” we—a pair of top-boots-first saw light. The windows of the house were mostly broken and repaired with an old newspaper, the oakpainted door was warped and blistered, and plainly told the test of many a year's struggling sun. The window-sills were decorated (if we may use such an expression) with boxes of withering wall-flowers and parched mignonette; a dead thrush, actually starved to death, lay in its wicker prison outside the house; while aground a herd of half-clad children revelled in the fetid, smoking gutters. Up stairs, upon the lefthand side, was our worthy modeller toiling at ourselves. The room was furnished with three pallets, for beds they were not, on one of which was stretched a young girl of sixteen-a corpse, the victim of decline ;-on another lay a poor woman, pale and sick, whom it did not require the scientific eye of a physician to pronounce in a rapid consumption; a herd of squalid children thronged around our modeller; a pair of cats, the one gambolling with an old shoe, the other dozing quietly by the fire-fender; a hen cackling on the rickety press, and a few faded roses in a jug complete the picture.

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. Father, I am hungry," said a sturdy lad of ten years.

"So am I," chorused a group of six children.

،، We used to have bread and breakfast and treacle; aye, treacle, and why not now?" said the urchin.

Sally never washed me this morning, and I have tried to awake her, but the sleepy girl she won't get up, father; beat her, father," said another.

« Your sister will awake no more, my lad, she is dead; she is out of misery and temptation. Thank God for that!" replied the poor cordwainer, as a tear coursed its way down his wrinkled cheeks.

،، Father's crying," said a girl ; "don't cry, father ; poor father !" "Snowball, the chimney-sweeper, can buy tuffy out of his wages; I wish I was a chimney-sweeper, father, or a Merry Andrew, to dance on a tight-rope," said another urchin.

"Hi! hi! Mr. James," said a stout aged woman, who came wheezing and puffing like a steam-engine into the room. "The rent was promised to-day; have you got it, eh? If not, you and your baggage tramp to the door. I am not going to pay taxes and rates to keep workhouses agoing and keep their birds too. No! I am up to a dodge worth two of that, so if you don't cash up, why seek the workhouse."

"The workhouse!" said James, with a shudder. "Take HER to a workhouse?" pointing to his wife.

"And why not? I suppose she wouldn't like picking oakum; no, she would rather lay in my house doing nothing, eating, as I may say, the bread out of my mouth; yes, out of my mouth, me a poor, toiling,

hard-working woman, who has never indulged herself in nothing, not even a play or a circus these four years; besides, I don't over much like a copse (corpse) in one's house."

"Well, my good woman, look at these boots, they are nearly finished; for pity's sake spare me the dregs of the cup of bitterness. I have drank deep of it, God knows. Give me but an hour or two, and you shall have all I get, save the price of a loaf of bread. These little ones have not broken their fast since morn." And the children gathered around their father with frightened gaze at the terrible aspect of the landlady, too frightened even to cry.

"Luck o' me, I was a hale woman at thirty, could turn a mangle or wash against any woman in London, but I took beer-dog's-nose's the stuff. Now look at your wife, a sickly thing, more fit for some lord's table than washing and sewing. Well,-two hours at most,-and then tramp if you don't stump up.'

II.

HURRAH! three cheers! the last stitch is given! and behold us a spink span new pair of top-boots.

Allow, us, however, to take a cursory and retrospect glance at our modeller's former state.

James Whyte was born in a quiet hamlet, in that portion of Her Majesty's realms so aptly termed the Garden of England-Kent. His mother was a sailor's widow, who, dying soon after his birth, left him to the care of the parish authorities, and he was, as it is provincially termed, "christened at the pump." But the fatherly eye of the reverend pastor of the village watched over him, and directed the youth's bursting energies and passions in the right channel. At twelve years of age he was taken without a premium by the village Crispin as an apprentice, and such was his proficiency and zeal, that at twenty he was released from his indentures, and soon after became the happy husband of Fanny Newell, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and the belle of the village.

It may still be in the recollection of many of our readers, that a great union-strike took place about this time among the tailors and shoemakers of our metropolis. Germany, our own counties, France, our provinces, were recruited for fresh hands; and among the number bitten with the offers of better pay was James Whyte, and he resolved to seek, or rather try, his fortunes in London.

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"James!" said his worthy master, when consulted on the subject; our capital is as a tinsel ornament, specious to view, but nothing but emptiness and worthlessness within; and its pleasures are short-lived, glaring for a moment, and then lost in utter oblivion and darkness; how many a poor country lad has sought Her, expecting, as in story-books of yore, to find her streets paved with gold, and has found nothing but slights and curses. Vice there stalks abroad, if not courted, at least allowed, and too often

Wealth accumulates, and men decay.

You are virtuous, industrious, and honest, but were I to speak in the fulness of my mind, I should advise you against your plans, but as your

mind seems bent upon going-go, and take a poor man's blessing; though you may not have such riches or wages in the country, as in our peopled towns, yet you have true contentment, charity, and fraternity. Simple we are in tastes, correct and decorous in our manners, and truly patriotic in our feelings, but in our thickly-populated towns virtue is too often, alas! sacrificed for the precociousness of labour; and that Christian feeling,-that amor patriæ, as we old classics say,-which knit our communities together is there all dispelled, and the reverence of noble blood is there exchanged for the treasonable dogmas of disappointed men. A universal thirst for riches, and excitement pervades all classes in our metropolis and large towns. Men actually become mere pieces of machinery for the amassment of wealth. Besides, instead of the free, clear air you now enjoy, you will breathe the sulphurous atmosphere of a factory chimney. Instead of flowery meads and pastures, to spend your leisure hours in, you will only have the parched and blistering flag-stones, or the sun-burnt park. Instead of the sweet chorus of woodland warblers, you will only hear the loud execrations of the cabmen, or the bronchial cry of the itinerant vendor. However, as I said, go;-nay, my man! I would not prevent you from going; and remember, whether in prosperity or adversity, you have a sure friend in me. Take this Book, and my blessing. I have turned down one leaf, it is there written: "I have been young, and now am old, yet never saw I the righteous man forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.' These lines may cheer you with true faith in sorrow or sickness, but may the Almighty Dispenser of all things avert such sorrows from you, and in His infinite mercy bless you through His son, Jesus Christ." And a scalding tear fell from the good old pastor's eye upon the Book of Holy Writ.

James arrived in London, his recommendations and qualifications soon enabled him to obtain an excellent appointment, and step by step up the ladder of fortune he went, until he reached its topmost rundle; when, by one of those inscrutable dispensations of Providence, he was hurled to the lowest depths. A cold, caught at a pleasure-trip to Greenwich, turned to pleurisy, and for months he lay on the bed of sickness at an expensive lodging, and attended by expensive doctors; his little savings were soon spent, and on reaching convalescence, he found another man appointed to his office, and himself in debt. He had but one course to pursue, to sell his furniture, and retire to the humble lodgings where we first introduced him to our readers, and gain a livelihood by journeyman work.

III.

JAMES put on his patched coat and hat, and, after leaving his wife and children to the care of a kind neighbour, he emerged with ourselves into the street. Here we passed squalid children, half-drunken mechanics smoking short pipes, a blue policeman, a red letter-carrier, then those vultures of poverty-pawnbrokers, in their shops with the three avunculean balls—and miserable dirty half-clad women crowding around those glittering thrones of "the foul fiend"-gin palaces. Onwards we went, and reached broader streets; onwards, and the scene changed to the centre of our modern Babylon, where rank, beauty, and fashion,