Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/112

128 gray sky of the day preceding. But the ice-walls were clearer, and more transparent.

As we stood thus gazing, a grandly-attired lady arrived in a chair, carried by four men. She alighted; approached the glacier, laid her hand upon the ice, peeped in below the knee, and said, “Is that all?”

“Yes,” replied her bearers.

“Oh!” said she, turned her back on the magnificent giant form, reseated herself in her chair and was carried away.

M. P. and I lingered by the glacier until we had clearly impressed its image upon mind and memory, then we returned to Meyringen, looking back as long as we could, to Rosenlaui, which, as it were, accompanied us on our way with its glittering icy glance.

, August 23d.—Mist, rain, and snow surround us here, which is a bad prospect for our journey to the sources of the Aar, and the Rhone. But our courage does not fail us, and it was not without pleasure that I beheld in the morning, the new-fallen snow around us, because it reminded me of the Swedish winter, and of the fresh, invigorating sensations which I have experienced while walking or driving through murmuring pine-woods, or over glittering snow-fields. But here, in the stony desert of Grimsel, all is cold, hard, desolate, terrible. Not a tree within sight, nor even a bush; only rocks, stones, and amongst the snow, a few meagre patches of grass, where a withered dock seems to be a king. Herds of goats, which clamber amongst the stones and crags, are the only living objects in the scene.

Yesterday morning was splendid after a night of