We stumble along, for the roads here are no
turnpikes, and we come to a place called the _Black Forest;_ not
_the_ Black Forest, but truly a black one. I always love pines,
to all generations. I welcome this solemn old brotherhood, which stand
gray-bearded, like monks, old, dark, solemn, sighing a certain
mournful sound - like a _benedicite_ through the leaves.
About noon we came to Rosenlaui. As we drew near the hotel the guide
struck off upon a path leading up the mountain, saying, by way of
explanation, _"The glacier!"_
Now, I confess that it was rather too near dinner time, and I was too
tired at once to appreciate this movement.
I regret to say, that two glaciers, however beautiful, on an empty
stomach, appear rather of doubtful utility. So I remonstrated; but
the guide, as all guides do, went dead ahead, as if I had not said a
word. C., however, rode composedly towards the hotel, saying that
dinner was a finer sight than a glacier; and I, though only of the
same mind, thought I would follow my guide, just to see.
W. went with me. After a little we had to leave our horses, and
scramble about a mile up the mountain. "C. was right, and we are
wrong," said my companion, sententiously. I was just dubious enough to
be silent. Pretty soon we came to a tremendous ravine, as if an
earthquake had rent a mountain asunder. A hundred feet down in this
black gorge, a stream was roaring in a succession of mad leaps, and a
bridge crossed it, where we stood to gaze down into its dark, awful
depths. Then on we went till we came to the glacier. What a mass of
clear, blue ice! so very blue, so clear! This awful chasm runs
directly under it, and the mountain torrent, formed by the melting of
the glacier, falls in a roaring cascade into it. You can go down into
a cavern in this rift. Above your head a roof of clear, blue ice;
below your feet this black chasm, with the white, flashing foam of the
cascade, as it leaps away into the darkness. On one side of the
glacier was a little sort of cell, or arched nook, up which an old man
had cut steps, and he helped me up into it. I stood in a little Gothic
shrine of blue, glittering ice, and looked out of an arched window at
the cascade and mountains. I thought of Coleridge's line -
"A pleasure bower with domes of ice."
[Illustration: _of a glacier's terminus, with animals and small
buildings in the foreground._]
On the whole, the glacier of Rosenlaui paid for looking - even at
dinner time - which is saying a good deal.
JOURNAL - (CONTINUED.)
FRIDAY, July 22, Grindelwald to Meyringen.
