While thus employed on the summit, we heard the bell tolling below for afternoon service. The tolling of a church bell is one of the few sounds that disturb the silence, without lessening the solemnity of solitary scenes. In our descent, we stopped occasionally to listen to its deep roar, re-echoed from the opposite woods, and re-bellowing from steep to steep. It occurred to me as I worked my way down the dry bed of a torrent […] that these forests and dells that now resound with the toll of the church going bell, once perhaps repeated the screams and shouts of the Bacchanalian throng.