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Page 19
"And what then?" I asked, as Franz stopped and looked in the direction
of the Mer de Glace.
"There was no help for him," said Franz; "he was buried at the foot
of the mountain."
Having reached the summit, the scene that burst upon us was sublime in
the highest degree; immediately beneath was the Mer de Glace, a broad
river of ice running nearly forty miles up into the Alps; to the north
the green valley of Chamouni, to the south the gigantic barriers that
separate Savoy from Piedmont, and around us inaccessible peaks and
mountains of eternal snow, finely contrasting with the deep blue of
the heavens; while the roar of cataracts and the thunder of avalanches
were the only sounds that broke upon the profound stillness of the
terrible solitude.
On the summit of the mountain we found an inn or hospice. We entered
and warmed ourselves, neither did we refuse the black bread and glass
of sour wine that were presently brought to us. As we sat by the fire
a small table was brought near us, and on it lay the album in which we
were expected to enter our names. Many notable autographs we found
here, and despite the gladness we felt in adding ours to the number,
there was still a sad, desolate thought: those most distinguished had
all passed away. The mountains remained, their glory undiminished; but
the human beings climbing their heights, and exulting in the grandeur
of heaven and earth, had vanished like the mist wreath. Years would
pass and other feet would cross the slippery fields, other eyes look
out upon the work of God's hands, other names be traced, and we, like
the throng before us, be gone--no longer to look upon the created, but
the Creator.
As soon as we were sufficiently rested, Franz summoned us to the Sea
of Ice, and we began to descend the steep and rugged face of the
mountain. As we approached the surface of the glacier, these
inequalities rose into considerable elevations, intermingled with
half-formed pyramids, bending walls and shapeless masses of ice; with
blocks of granite and frightful chasms at once savage and fantastic.
It puzzled me to know why it should have been called a sea, a rough
and stony one at that; but to me it looked like a river, walled in by
two enormous mountains, rising to the height of ten thousand feet, and
forming a ravine a mile and a half wide, that pursues a straight
course for several miles and divides at the upper end into two glens,
like deep gashes, that run up to the highest elevation of the Alps,
terminating at the lower extremity in an icy precipice of two thousand
feet, whose base is in a still deeper valley. It was as if there had
been innumerable torrents dashing down the precipice into the
valley--arrested by a mighty hurricane as they hurried along, and
wrought into the wildest forms by the fury of the tempest, and then
suddenly congealed, leaving a sea or river of ice, framed in with
lofty peaks and snowy summits, cataracts and avalanches, clouds and
storms, a wonderful combination of the grand, the terrible, and the
sublime.
Franz understood his business of guide too well to let me loiter as I
wished. "These fissures are the chief danger," he said; and, holding
out his small hand, he grasped mine with the tenacity of one not
accustomed to let anything slip through his fingers. A girdle of
imperfectly frozen snow borders this sea; and Franz never planted his
feet till he had first ascertained the nature of the surface with his
pole. Some of these fissures are of an amazing depth, and, taking out
my watch, I tried to fathom one of them by dropping large fragments of
granite; and calculating by the time that elapsed before reaching the
bottom, we judged it to be over five hundred feet.
Franz had hurried us; now, he stopped, and bade us look above us. We
did so, and were amply repaid for all our toil. To try to describe it
would be in vain; and still the distinct outline is indelibly
impressed upon my mind, and I am confident will never be effaced. We
were standing in the midst of the rough waves and yawning abysses of
this frozen sea; while almost perpendicularly from its brink the
mountains rose, clothed with scanty herbage, and adorned with the tiny
crimson blossoms of the rhododendron that bloomed upon their sides.
As the eye looked up the valley, every trace of vegetation died away;
and the snowy mountains appeared to meet and mingle with each other.
We left the glacier, and ascending again to the hospice of Montanvert,
I sat down by the side of Franz upon a block of granite, and looked
again upon a scene the equal of which I never expect to see again.
There was a far away look in Franz's eyes. Was he thinking of the
little cottage far up the mountain, and of Annette watching by the
bedside of his sick father? Perhaps so; in any case I was glad that we
had taken him. His could not be an everyday story, there must be some
particular motive why he should want so earnestly to come. I would not
question him then; but I determined to stop at the little cottage and
learn for myself.
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