Throughout the broad valleys not a town nor a village, no, not even a solitary house or a tree or shrub, varies the prospect.

The eye wanders over the vast desert, and finds not one familiar object on which it can rest.
To-night, as at past eleven o'clock we reached the elevated plain, I saw a sunset which I shall never forget.

The sun disappeared behind the mountains, and in its stead a gorgeous ruddy gleam lighted up hill and valley and glacier.

It was long ere I could turn away my eyes from the glittering heights, and yet the valley also offered much that was striking and beautiful.
Throughout almost its entire length this valley formed a meadow, from the extremities of which columns of smoke and boiling springs burst forth.
The mists had almost evaporated, and the atmosphere was bright and clear, more transparent even than I had seen it in any other country.

I now for the first time noticed, that in the valley itself the radiance was almost as clear as the light of day, so that the most minute objects could be plainly distinguished.