Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/121

Rh cupola, as a whole, is rather of a dirty gray than white, and in this respect forms a contrast with the dazzling beauty of the Triften Gletscher. In the highest parts of this Gletscher, where travelers rarely venture, a bloody shirt and a plundered pocket-book have been lately found. But of the murdered man, or the murderer, nothing as yet is known. There are few of these solitary regions which have not their appropriate story of misfortune or crime. The bloody traces of man meet one every where—stain even the eternal snow!

The sun continued to shine brightly daring the whole time of our stay at the glacier, and its beams seemed to recall the masses of cloud which gathered together on the ridge of the Grimsel mountain, and which continued restlessly to vault themselves there, as if they were ready to hurl themselves down over the valley. I cannot tell how thankful I felt for this kindness of the sun.

“I have now, however, perfectly seen this grand work of Nature!” I was able to say to myself, when I was again seated in my chair, to continue my journey. And I was able to enjoy yet for at long time the splendid sight as we advanced upwards toward Furca, the sun continuing to bless us with his beams as long as we had the Rhone cradle in view. But scarcely had we lost it, when down came the cloud-avalanches from the Grimsel mountain, and we were soon enveloped in a cold mist.

Yet we were able to give the Matten Gletscher our silent admiration, and to salute the birth of the rapid Reuss from the glacier which is its cradle, but which