Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/78

68 began to treat: if he thought the pass was practicable for us, let him say so, and then take one or more comrades and come with us. After a short pause he agreed, and went away to get ready and to fetch the others. In the meantime we paid our muleteer the hire of his beast, since we could no longer make any use of his mule; and having eaten some bread and cheese, and drank a glass of red wine, felt full of strength and spirits, as our guide came back, followed by another man, who looked still bigger and stronger, and, seeming to have all the strength and courage of a horse, he quickly shouldered our portmanteau. And now we set out, a party of five, through the village, and soon reached the foot of the mountain, which lay on our left, and began gradually to ascend it. At first we had to follow a beaten track which came down from a neighbouring Alp: soon, however, this came to an end, and we had to go up the mountainside through the snow. Our guides, with great skill, tracked their way among the rocks around which the usual path winds, although the deep and smooth snow had covered all alike. Still our road lay through a forest of pines, while the Rhone flowed beneath us in a narrow, unfruitful valley. Into it we also, after a little while, had to descend, and, by crossing a little foot-bridge, we came in sight of the glacier of the Rhone. It is the hugest we have as yet had so full a view of. Being of very great breadth, it occupies the whole saddle of the mountain, and descends uninterruptedly down to the point, where, in the valley, the Rhone flows out of it. At this source the people tell us it has for several years been decreasing. But that is as nothing compared with all the rest of the huge mass. Although everything was full of snow, still the rough crags of ice, on which the wind did not allow the snow to lie, were visible with their dark blue fissures, and you could see clearly where the glacier ended and the snow-covered