Nature Seemed To Have Turned Scene-Shifter,
So Artfully Were The Phases Of This Glorious Spectacle
Successively Developed.
Although - by reason of our having hit upon its side
instead of its narrow end - the outline of Mount
Beerenberg
appeared to us more like a sugar-loaf than a spire - broader
at the base and rounder at the top than I had imagined, -
in size, colour, and effect, it far surpassed anything
I had anticipated. The glaciers were quite an unexpected
element of beauty. Imagine a mighty river of as great a
volume as the Thames - started down the side of a mountain, -
bursting over every impediment, - whirled into a thousand
eddies, - tumbling and raging on from ledge to ledge in
quivering cataracts of foam, - then suddenly struck rigid
by a power so instantaneous in its action, that even the
froth and fleeting wreaths of spray have stiffened into
the immutability of sculpture. Unless you had seen it,
it would be almost impossible to conceive the strangeness
of the contrast between the actual tranquillity of these
silent crystal rivers and the violent descending energy
impressed upon their exterior. You must remember, too,
all this is upon a scale of such prodigious magnitude,
that when we succeeded subsequently in approaching the
spot - where with a leap like that of Niagara one of these
glaciers plunges down into the sea - the eye, no longer
able to take in its fluvial character, was content to
rest in simple astonishment at what then appeared a lucent
precipice of grey-green ice, rising to the height of
several hundred feet above the masts of the vessel.
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