Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/111

Rh ladies walked forward, took off their gloves, and laid their warm, hands cautiously upon the icy walls, and peeped into the icy closets. The gentlemen did the same, and even ventured higher, whither the glacier's self-constituted watch and ward invited them, for he had cut steps in the ice, and by means of these, any one could climb up into the more profound regions of the icy mantle. Cascades fall from the depths of the glacier, the largest of these is hurled down from below the huge knee, as if out of an arch, and falls at a little distance, with a thundering din, into a chasm between the rocks, which the eye cannot measure, and which makes one dizzy to look down.

Most people pay their visit in a very off-hand kind of a way. They come, look, and—turn round. I felt myself, however, so little satisfied by this visit in the rain, that I proposed to my companion, to stay over the night at the little inn in the neighborhood of the glacier, in hope that the morrow would afford us sunshine, and with it, the opportunity of seeing the beauty of Rosenlaui in full daylight.

We were the only guests who remained over the night, and we were rewarded for so doing, by the brightest sunshine the following morning. Under these favorable circumstances, we again visited the glacier, which shone in dazzling splendor. It was fatiguing to the eye to look at the white snow-mantle, as it glittered in the sun, at the bright, thousand-year, crystal walls of the vaulted closets, at the beautiful, manifold icy formations. It was singular that the azure color of the deeper folds, now, in the clear blue heaven, seemed less rich and beautiful, than in the