It Is No Wonder, Then, That
Gentlemen Look Up To The Mountain, Lay Their Hands On Their Pockets,
And Say, No.
Our guide, by the way, is the son, or grandson, of the very first man
that ascended Mont Blanc, and of course feels a sort of hereditary
property and pride in it.
C. spoke about throwing our poles down the pools of water in the ice.
There is something rather curious about these pools. Our guide saw us
measuring the depth of one of them, which was full of greenish-blue
water, colored only by the refraction of the light. He took our long
alpenstock, and poising it, sent it down into the water, as a man
might throw a javelin. It disappeared, but in a few seconds leaped up
at us out of the water, as if thrown back again by an invisible hand.
A poet would say that a water spirit hurled it back; perhaps some old
under-ground gnome, just going to dinner, had his windows smashed by
it, and sent it back with a becoming spirit, as a gnome should.
It was a sultry day, and the sun was exercising his power over the
whole ice field. I sat down by a great ice block, about fifty feet
long, to interrogate it, and see what I could make of it, by a cool,
confidential proximity and examination. The ice was porous and spongy,
as I have seen it on the shores of the Connecticut, when beginning to
thaw out under the influence of a spring sun.
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