A Sledge Being Then Made Ready,
And Four Horses Harnessed To It, We Went, Ploughing, Through The
Snow.
Still upward, but now in the cold light of morning, and with
the great white desert on which we travelled, plain and clear.
We were well upon the summit of the mountain: and had before us
the rude cross of wood, denoting its greatest altitude above the
sea: when the light of the rising sun, struck, all at once, upon
the waste of snow, and turned it a deep red. The lonely grandeur
of the scene was then at its height.
As we went sledging on, there came out of the Hospice founded by
Napoleon, a group of Peasant travellers, with staves and knapsacks,
who had rested there last night: attended by a Monk or two, their
hospitable entertainers, trudging slowly forward with them, for
company's sake. It was pleasant to give them good morning, and
pretty, looking back a long way after them, to see them looking
back at us, and hesitating presently, when one of our horses
stumbled and fell, whether or no they should return and help us.
But he was soon up again, with the assistance of a rough waggoner
whose team had stuck fast there too; and when we had helped him out
of his difficulty, in return, we left him slowly ploughing towards
them, and went slowly and swiftly forward, on the brink of a steep
precipice, among the mountain pines.
Taking to our wheels again, soon afterwards, we began rapidly to
descend; passing under everlasting glaciers, by means of arched
galleries, hung with clusters of dripping icicles; under and over
foaming waterfalls; near places of refuge, and galleries of shelter
against sudden danger; through caverns over whose arched roofs the
avalanches slide, in spring, and bury themselves in the unknown
gulf beneath.
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