Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/118

134 the whole of nature. Under these circumstances, I must entirely give up the chance of beholding the source of the Aar, although my bearers offered to take me there. But an excursion to this icy region I dare not venture upon, on account of my friend; besides, what could one now see?

With such deplorable prospects and thoughts we clambered up the naked mountain, in somewhat more than an hour's time. I was sitting very out of sorts, with my little gray shawl over my head to defend me against the wind and the rain, when my bearers, all at once, exclaimed: “Voila le Glacier!” I looked up and saw in the air before me something white and shapeless shining out through the mist. Upon this white apparition I riveted my glance immovably; for every moment it became clearer, and by degrees it stood forth out of the thick, misty vail; the sun-illumed, snow-covered peaks of Gelmerhorn and Gallenstock, between which the upper portion of the Rhone Gletscher, or Triften Gletscher, spread out like a frozen waterfall covered with driven snow. I have no words to describe the spectacle which was presented to my gaze, whilst cloud and mist disappeared before the lightning beams of the sun, which seemed to overcome them. The clear blue heaven arched itself all the more freely over the shining Alpine peaks and ice-fields; and these stood forth all the clearer in dazzling grandeur and splendor, as we accomplished the last steep mountain ascent, called “Majenwand,” from the beautiful verdure and the multitude of flowers fostered by the warmth of the sun and the moisture of earth produced by the