Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/117

Rh Perhaps it may chase away the mist, which is still so thick that one cannot see ten paces around one.

Grimsel is indeed the dreariest place in the world. Not far from the house lies, with the most melancholy aspect, a dark little lake in its stony bed. A little further off lies another, somewhat larger, called the Lake of the Dead, because the bodies of the French and Austrians who were slain in a skirmish in the mountain pass, during the summer of 1799, were thrown in there by way of burial. And it is still believed that the Lake of the Dead serves as a grave for the wanderers who are killed during the winter in this terrible region.

, August 25th.—Shortly after I had written the above, my good friend Penchaud came to me, tired and out of patience with stopping at this place, which affected him physically very painfully, and besought me to continue our journey, let the weather be what it might. We could not be worse than here, and if we were now to set off we might reach “La Furca” before night. I consented, but, I confess, with a heavy heart. To continue our journey in this weather, was for me to give up the purpose for which I had come. It was merely to see the “Glacier du Rhone” that I had undertaken this difficult and expensive journey; but in this fog one could see nothing. In the mean time it began to look as if it would clear up. But scarcely were we on our way up the steep Grimsel mountain, when a storm of sleet and wind came on again with renewed violence. I could only dimly discern the dreary shores of the Lake of the Dead through the thick fog. A vail of fog enveloped