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.
