From The Spectator. THE ICEBEBG LAKE OF THE ALETSCH GLACIER. its little flock of shining icebergs lying in the hollow some thousand feet or so below him; while the great summits of the JungIt is often very difficult to understand frau and the Monk,-great, though comwhy scenes apparently of no very differ- paratively insignificant if you have seen ent physical character should produce such the far grander front they present to the very different effects on the mind of almost north, close the broad northward sweeps all who visit them. There is nothing of of snow and curves of glacier to the west, which the traveller in Switzerland sees so and the grand peak of the Oberaarhorn much, except snow mountains, as he does towers up from the northern sources of the of ice, the gigantic ice-needles of the Viescher glacier to the east. The prosinnumerable glaciers and the brilliant blue pect is a very grand framework for a very of the crevasses forming probably the most lovely picture. For the effect of these striking details in every grand scene he minute floating icebergs of all shapes, visits, and certainly contributing a great some grotesquely mimicking the shape of proportion of the colouring to landscapes a swan, with graceful bended neck, some which, except under the magical effects of of a guinea-pig furnished with a sort of sunrise or sunset, are apt to be a little button by way of a rudimentary tail, cold. Yet, though ice on the greatest others of them, again, resembling those. scale, acres of ice, and often innumerable beautifully balanced rocks, touching only rivers of that exquisitely transparent at a point, in which you may see a conPrussian-blue which the fissures in the ice stant vibration, without any single danger present, are visible in almost all the grand- of a broken equilibrium, - as they drift er Alpine scenes, there is, as far as we steadily eastwards from the blue ice-cliffs know, but one place in all Switzerland of glacier from which they have been dewhere the predoininant effect it produces tached, is one of exquisite purity and loveis one of "sweetness and light," not liness. Each of them is a block of shining awful, not threatening, not desolate, not crystal, an island of light, defined at its gruesome, not even intoxicating with the base by a circle of the deepest liquid blue, sense of power, but tranquillizing, serene, where the under-surface emerges from the soothing, and yet full of the stimulus of water of the lake. The general effect is new suggestion. That place is the unique of a miniature Arctic sea set in the most little lake, quite alone, as far as we splendid of Alpine frameworks, - an Arcknow, in its kind,—into which the ice- tic sea so tiny that it is robbed of all its cliffs of the greater Aletsch glacier break terror, while all the striking associations down, immediately to the north of the with which it is associated and all the Eggischhorn and south of the mountain- elements of pictorial beauty remain. The eers' pass between the Trugberg on the glacier cliffs which bound the little lake East and the Mönch and the Jungfrau on on the west are some fifty or sixty feet in the west. The Märjelen lake, as it is height, and are hollowed out in many called, is usually covered by a little fleet places by its dashing waters into ice-caves of miniature icebergs, -icebergs of from which run deep into the great glacier and two to five feet high, on the largest of reflect back a halo of that transparent which a man might by possibility contrive dark blue which ice in dark shadow gives, to take a little sail, but from which he so investing the mouth of each of these would be much more likely to be toppled winding sub-glacial passages with a soft over into the ice-cold water beneath. cloud of beauty. The lake itself is borThe lake is usually visited from the pleas- dered, except at the glacier end, by a ant Eggischhorn hotel, situated on the broad margin of rugged beach, the rudenorthern heights of the valley of the ness and barrenness of which at first. Rhone, from which it is an easy walk of offends the eye, but seems to fit better about an hour and a half distant. The into the scene as one notices how thickly visitor at that hotel has but to climb the all those slopes of mountain which are not height behind him, that is, the slight re- precipice are strewn with huge boulders mainder of the ridge which separates the of similar rock, to which nature has valley of the Rhone from the view of the already given the softest clothing of moss southern side of the Oberland range, and and flower, and that only the frequentlyas he passes the neck of the chain, he shifting level of the lake's cold water precomes suddenly in sight of the vast sweep vents her from giving the same beautiful of the Aletsch glacier on his left, and of surface to this desolate little shore itself. the Viescher glacier on his right, and sees Indeed the moment you pass the neck of the blue waters of the Märjelen lake and the ridge between the Rhone valley and the Märjelen lake, the mountain side, which even on the south is in August sparsely strewn with the brilliant little autumn gentian that ontdoes both sky and ice in the depth of its marvellous blue, becomes on the north side so richly starred with clusters of this most brilliant of Alpine flowers and with patches of the Alpine ranunculus in all shades, from the faintest pink to bright rose-colour, that one hardly knows which is the more beautiful, the spots of moss and flower at one's feet, or the grand mountain hollow itself, in which the little lake and its fleet of drifting icebergs is the central gem. 18 except the rushing torrents, which fatigue both eye and ear by the very uniformity and violence of their motion, is absolutely still and frozen. There is no motion except that of the clouds, unless a herd of cows or goats happens to be feeding near. The characteristic part of the landscape is its motionlessness, excepting only such motions as are incessant and violent. There is no softness, no drifting, nothing indolent or languid in the whole landscape. Everything that is not terrible from its stillness is terrible from its intensity of force. But the lapping of the water of this little lake against the lonely and lazily There is, too, a singular sense of sweet- drifting icebergs, and the soft bubblings ness and tranquillity in the deep silence of which follow the dropping of a little minathe place, which the great Alpine solitudes, ret or dome into the lake, just, supply this refreshing as they are, fail to give. Partly element of indolent and variable motion, this is due, though it may seem paradoxi- break the sublime uniformity of every high cal to say that a sense of tranquillity can Alpine scene, and gratify the eye with be due, to the car; yet it is certainly true changing shapes as well as changing tints. that a deaf person cannot know the de- Then, again, there is the peculiar coolness light of deep silence. Usually the natural of the scene, which adds to the impression sounds which haunt a scene of mountain of a sweet tranquillity. All glacier scenery and glacier such as this, are the bells of is cold, but by no means cool. There is the mountain cattle, the falling of avalan- nothing so exciting, bracing, so full of ches, and the rush of the torrents. And stimulus as the air which blows over a here, too, you may hear occasionally the great glacier. But it gives anything but tinkle of the bell on a goat in search of that sense of soft refreshment which we ead the scanty pasturage, and the rush of one attach to the idea of coolness on a hot of the little avalanches which even in late August day. For coolness we need, not autumn continue to fall from the range to the bright gelid atmosphere which braces the west of the Aletsch glacier. There is, to exercise, not the vast slopes and plains however, no noisy torrent in the neigh- of ice which chill and overwhelm us, but bourhood of the Marjelen lake, and the the softer sights and sounds which suggest characteristic sound which most often the melting of cold into warmth, the tembreaks the silence of a long day spent in pering of warmth by cold, and shelterings this weird little valley, is that of the plash from sun and wind alike. Such sights and of the wee pinnacles of ice as, melting be- sounds you have beside this little lake as neath the sun, they topple from the tiny the transparent blocks of ice crumble unbergs into the water, and the hollow thun- der the sun's rays, and the current ripples der caused by the detachment of larger gently against them as they drift ashore. masses in the caverns at the western end. Nothing more refreshing, more soothing, These liquid thunders, connected as they more fascinating, not only in spite, but in are with the lazy and dreamy interest of consequence of, the grandeur of the frame watching the new shapes into which the in which it is set, is to be found in Switzerparting blocks of ice break up, and the land. The man wearied by toil at home, diverging directions in which the divided and, perhaps, a little too high strung by ice islands take their course after the sepa- the sublimity usually before him in Switration, heighten, by rendering you aware zerland, finds just the relaxation he needs of, the deep silence of the place, the more by the side of these glittering little toy that these toy convulsions of nature cou- icebergs on the lonely tarn. If he has stantly suggest the more terrific phenom-carried hither the hot thoughts and tangled ena of similar disruptions of the true ice questionings which the hurry of the world mountains on the great Arctic sea. In at once raises, and prevents from settling part, too, the peculiar sweetness, and tranquillity of the scene arise from the fresh variety, the chequered character which the little moving fleet of crystal islands gives to the depths of ordinary Alpine solitude. Usually, in the recesses of the Alps, all, into any order and clearness, in his mind, he will almost feel disposed in this strange spot to say, with the traitor Judas of Mr. Arnold's poem, as he reveals to St. Brandan his respite from torment for a single hour on every Christmas Eve, assas and savage herdsmen is ruled by perhaps WE greatly doubt whether the people of this country, even those who have noticed the statements upon the subject, have any idea of the present state of affairs in Persia. Sir Henry Rawlinson has told them something, but he was obviously afraid of overcharging his picture, and alienating sympathy by apparent exaggeration. Knowing Persia, too, he was, we imagine from his speech at the Mansion House, entirely unaware of a curious diffi- The Eelyat or Bedouin tribes who make culty in his way, an intellectual severance up so large a portion of the population of between his knowledge and that of his Persia, a population smaller than that of audience. He thinks of Persia as an im- Belgium, and more scattered and isolated mense country of mountain, and desert, in many districts than that of Northern and prairie, unirrigated by man and insuf- Sweden, have been fighting for three years ficiently watered by nature; with compar- against continuous drought, until at last atively few trees and no deltas defended forage is unprocurable, and their stock has from drought as it were by Heaven, full perished. It is difficult to imagine under of vast arid plains which with water would such circumstances how they could be yield like Lincolnshire, but without it are saved, even if the Persian Government about as culturable as the Place de la were as strong as that of India. The clans Concorde; the whole occupied by about cannot help each other, for all are stricken two millions of a brave and intellectual, alike. They cannot march to more fertile but idle and vicious, race of artisans and pastures, for the drought has desolated the cultivators, far below the Neapolitans whole pastoral country, and if they wander whom of all Europeans they most resemble, beyond it they will be treated as enemies, - Mohammedans penetrated at once with even if there exist means to feed them befatalism and with that dreadful Sufee infi-yond the frontier. Besides, their means delity, the infidelity which, recognizing of locomotion that is, of travelling hunalike God and good, holds that neither has dreds of miles through dried-up plains any moral obligation; and with about two must have failed them, and the only course millions of pastoral nomads, socially on a visible to themselves will be to practise level with the Bedouins, morally, we be- the resignation which in extreme moments. lieve, below them. To most of Sir Henry's never fails a Mohammedan, to live on less audience at the Mansion House, on the than will keep them alive, and await calmly contrary, the word "Persia" calls up the either relief or death. They are doing idea of a grand Oriental Empire, full of this in known places, and what their fate semi-civilized people and of wealth, with a must be in the encampments whence news Government despotic and oppressive per- never reaches Europe or even India, in the Laps, but energetic, efficient, and full of more arid plains and the dry valleys in the resources, a Government in all but probity hills, it is ghastly even to conjecture. not unlike that of India. In reality, the Help, if it comes at all, must come from feeble, scattered, and decaying population without, and as Sir Henry Rawlinson of weary voluptuaries, cowed peasants, hinted, that help is humanly speaking the suggestions as to this famine leave upon our minds. A Government bad and effete, but too strong to be shaken off, cities ruined by tyranny and taxation, a people declining in number, and a soil devastated by droughts, Persia seems to us to be a great and a tempting prey to any power with the inclination to terminate her independence. nearly impossible. The Indian Govern- | have done much when they have remitted ment, with its wealth and organization, if the State taxes. The famine, moreover, stirred to a desperate effort, an effort like is not at an end. Not a hint is given in that required for the invasion of 1856-57, any of the speeches of Wednesday, not might save the tribes near the coast; but even in the optimist one uttered by the the Indian Government is not responsible Minister, of any proximate diminution of for Persia, is overburdened, and would be distress, nor do we perceive any immediutterly distrusted by the statesmen of ate or indeed approaching reason for hope. Teheran. These statesmen can do almost The forage may revive next year, but it nothing. Money is worthless even if they will be three before the flocks and herds had it, and they have no supplies to send. can be renewed, and one before much They have no granaries stored for years grain can be ready for consumption. For such as the Indian Princes used to keep months everything must be imported, and before communication improved, no means as there is nothing to export in return, no of transport such as nature and the hoarded wealth and no means of transBritish conquerors have provided for In- port on any adequate scale, the future dia. They have no storehouse like Bengal, looks black indeed. Whether Sir Henry where the only danger is flood, where Rawlinson used the phrase "a doomed when the rest of the continent is frying country" advisedly we do not know, but for the want of water the rice accumulates that phrase conveys exactly the apprehentill the granaries burst. The conveyance sion which the recent history of Persia and of forage to the dying Bedouins is simply impossible, for the pack animals, marching through blighted provinces, would eat more than they could carry, and except beasts of burden there are no means of conveyance. There are no roads, no rivers, no railways, no canals, no means of transporting caravans of food. An Eelyaut encampment with its horses dead must be like an encampment in a ruined planet, isolated from the help of all sentient beings. The "cities" might ray out supplies to certain limited distances; but, with one exception, a city in Persia is a collection of houses tenanted by people with less power to help than one of our large northern villages would in extremity exhibit, with one year's store of grain at most, and no accumulated wealth whatever. Besides, the famine must have extended to the cities. The inhabitants of the plains within any possible marching distance will of course have poured into them, and the worst stories of suffering come from them, from Teheran, and Tabreez, and Bushire, the last the richest and most accessible place in Persia. If the people in Bushire are dying daily; if in Ispahan, under the shadow of the Court, 12,000 are known to have perished; if in Kazeroon out of 10,000 people only 2,000 remain, and all these statements can be surpassed from the official records of Orissa, there is visibly no help to be hoped for from within Persia itself. The Persian Minister, as in duty bound, says the Shah gives all he can; but though, we dare say, he orders food and is plundered to pay for it, sympathy is an undeveloped virtue in the East, and the officials will accept the famine as they would a flood, and think they The Londoners can help the population of Bushire if they like, and even of Ispahan, and we certainly shall not dissuade them. But the calamity appears to our eyes too great to be relieved or even ameliorated by any subscription the Lord Mayor is likely to collect. If it is our duty to save the Persian Bedouins, it is on the Duke of Argyle and the Council of India, and not on the Londoners, that the moral responsibility must rest. They can do the work if they choose, and nobody else can. If the Duke pleases to order the effort and the Council to sanction the expenditure, they can throw limitless stores of food and sufficient commissariat officers and carts into Bushire to save the lives of all the Bedouins in the South who can move at all; can rescue fifty or five hundred times the number of persons who can be saved by any other organization. That, as we say, they can do it is certain; but the attempt involves a serious effort, and after much thinking we cannot be certain as to the moral obligation. The Indian Government cannot take upon itself the woes of all Asia; and it has no relation to the people of Persia except one of jealous and unwearying watchfulness over the proceedings of a very ambitious Court, which has once or twice been dangerously hostile. If the people could be From The Saturday Review. consulted all would be easy, but to tax] and trusted each other, and that credit must natives equally liable to famine to relieve have flourished from a sound core, in spite famine in a country with which they have of all the disrepute cast upon it. Now, little or no connection, and about which just after the conclusion of the Alabama they have little knowledge or interest, is Treaty, the burning of Chicago comes not not, as far as we can see, an obligation of inopportunely to remind us what the clear duty. Americans really are. The rapid growth of the place from a stockaded frontier hamlet we have long been familiar with. Most men who have travelled much have met everywhere with its thriving citizens, boastful of their dwarfing St. Louis and "chawing up" Cincinnati. Little credit to them, It would be melancholy indeed if hu- you might have answered, had you felt manity did not find something to set inclined to be captious; for everything they against the horrors of appalling calamities. could desire made in their favour, and naWe need not dwell upon the obvious con- ture and circumstances conspired to shower sideration that it is the heaviest misfor- blessings upon them. Even in Western tunes of our kind that call into play the America enterprise only flourishes in connoblest virtues of our nature. But each genial soil. Eden would never have shot particular instance may be made to bear up "spontaneous" into a Chicago, from its own especial fruits, and it seems to us the deserted swamp in which its land-jobthat the Chicago fire should go a long way bing projectors had essayed to plant it.. to increase our esteem for the Americans. But, as a rule, the more men are carried After all, mutual regard and respect go forward in the swing of an immeasurable perhaps as far as common interests in pro- prosperity, the more terrible the reaction moting good understanding between kin- when the impulse is arrested. The luxudred nations-much further, certainly, riant gourds of Chicago were blighted in than flattering speeches or even charitable a night; men who went to bed millionaires gifts. The necessities of international in- rose up to struggle, if not to beg; half tercourse habitually bring us and the the city was made houseless of a sudden; Americans into intercourse so close that the flame of a kerosene lamp upset by an our asperities grate roughly on each other, old woman in the straw of a cow-shed and we are far more ready to cherish had fired the whole fabric of its prosperprejudices and antipathies than to correct ity. We hear vaguely of a loss of forty or stifle them. If we persist in misunderstanding the Americans, perhaps they are themselves in great measure to blame. They pride themselves on a form of literature in which they especially shine, and the quaint humour with which they comment on themselves and their "institutions" responds to the keynote struck by Dickens in his much execrated Martin Chuzzlewit. Whether the greater share of the blame be theirs or ours, we have habituated ourselves to look on the comic side of their character, and to regard the wildest dreams of the Communists. "smartness" and "cuteness as the rep- The comparatively poor quarters were resentative American virtues. Latterly, spared; it was those mainly inhabited by both we and they have begun to find that the wealthy that suffered the most. So these virtues may have developed to an that, with the best will in the world, few extravagant excess; from the wooden nut- men were left in a position greatly to help megs of earlier New England trading days their neighbours; if any one had the luck we have got to Fisk and Tweed, the Tam- to save himself and his personal property, many Ring and the Erie Railway Board. he had ample cause for anxiety in the idea Occupying ourselves by their own invita- that his fortune must be sucked down in tion with their foibles and their flagrant the common wreck of breaking debtors scandals, we forget that the nation could and crashing banks. Yet almost before never have become what it is except by the flames were put out, assuredly long the steady cultivation of many sterling before the ashes had ceased to smoulder, qualities; that good men must have known local benevolence was busy, and the mar millions sterling; of a hundred thousand citizens burned out; of two thousand acres of charred ruins. We have no great faith in the exactness of statistics put forward at such a moment of excitement; but figures make only a vague impression on the imagination at best, and we may rely on it that these give a very fair notion of the devastation wrought at Chicago. The exceptional feature of the calamity was that, by a general destruction of capital, it suddenly levelled all ranks and classes after |