From the distant
gorge of the everlasting Alpine ranges issued forth an ocean tide, in
wild and dashing commotion, just as we have seen the waves upon the
broad Atlantic, but all motionless as chaos when smitten by the mace
of Death; and yet, not motionless! This denser medium, this motionless
mass, is never at rest. This flood moves as it seems to move; these
waves are actually uplifting out of the abyss as they seem to lift;
the only difference is in the time of motion, the rate of change.
These prodigious blocks of granite, thirty or forty feet long and
twenty feet thick, which float on this grim sea of ice, _do
float_, and are _drifting_, drifting down to the valley below,
where, in a few days, they must arrive.
We walked these valleys, ascended these hills, leaped across chasms,
threw stones down the _crevasses_, plunged our alpenstocks into
the deep baths of green water, and philosophized and poetized till we
were tired. Then we returned to the _auberge_, and rode down the
zigzag to our hotel.
LETTER XXXIV.
MY DEAR: -
The Mer de Glace is exactly opposite to La Flegere, where we were
yesterday, and is reached by the ascent of what is called Montanvert,
or Green Mountain. The path is much worse than the other, and in some
places makes one's nerves twinge, especially that from which C.
projected his avalanche. Just think of his wanting to stop me on the
edge of a little shelf over that frightful chasm, and take away the
guide from the head of my mule to help him get up avalanches!
I warn you, if ever you visit the Alps, that a travelling companion
who has not the slightest idea what fear is will give you many a
commotion. For instance, this Mer de Glace is traversed every where by
_crevasses_ in the ice, which go to - nobody knows where, down
into the under world - great, gaping, blue-green mouths of Hades; and
C. must needs jump across them, and climb down into them, to the
mingled delight and apprehension of the guide, who, after
conscientiously shouting out a reproof, would say to me, in a lower
tone, "Ah, he's the man to climb Mont Blanc; he would do well for
that!"
The fact is, nothing would suit our guides better, this clear, bright
weather, than to make up a party for the top of Mont Blanc. They look
longingly and lovingly up to its clear, white fields; they show us the
stages and resting-places, and seem really to think that it is a waste
of this beautiful weather not to be putting it to that most sublime
purpose.
Why, then, do not we go up? you say. As to us ladies, it is a thing
that has been done by only two women since the world stood, and those
very different in their _physique_ from any we are likely to
raise in America, unless we mend our manners very much.
