Page:Whymper - Scrambles amongst the Alps.djvu/127

Rh explosion, followed, by a second of dead quiet. A great mass of rock had split off, and was descending towards us. My guide started up, wrung his hands, and exclaimed, "O my God, we are lost!" We heard it coming, mass after mass pouring over the precipices, bounding and rebounding from cliff to cliff, and the great rocks in advance smiting one another. They seemed to be close, although they were probably distant, but some small fragments, which dropped upon us at the same time from the ledges just above, added to the alarm, and my demoralised companion passed the remainder of the night in a state of shudder, ejaculating "terrible," and other adjectives.

We put ourselves in motion at daybreak, and commenced the ascent of the south-west ridge. There was no more sauntering with hands in the pockets; each step had to be earned by downright climbing. But it was the most pleasant kind of climbing. The rocks were fast and unencumbered with débris; the cracks were good, although not numerous, and there was nothing to fear except from one's-self. So we thought, at least, and shouted to awake echoes from the cliffs. Ah! there is no response. Not yet; wait a while, everything here is .upon a superlative scale; count a dozen, and then the echoes will return from the walls of the Dent d'Herens, miles away, in waves of pure and undefiled sound; soft, musical, and sweet. Halt a moment to regard the view! We overlook the Tête du Lion, and nothing except the Dent d'Herens, whose summit is still a thousand feet above us, stands in the way; the ranges of the Graian Alps—an ocean of mountains—are seen at a glance, governed by their three great peaks, the Grivola, Grand Paradis, and Tour de St. Pierre. How soft, and yet how sharp, they look in the early morning! The mid-day mists have not begun to rise; nothing is obscured; even the pointed Viso, all but a hundred miles away, is perfectly defined.

Turn to the east, and watch the sun's slanting rays coming across the Monte Rosa snow-fields. Look at the shadowed parts, and see how even they—radiant with reflected light—are more