The guide had already started off, and for the next half-hour he led
them on and upward, gradually ascending a rocky eminence which stood
like a vast tower in the middle of the amphitheatre.
Every now and then he stopped to hold out his ice-axe handle to help
Saxe; but the latter disdained all aid, and contented himself with
planting his feet in the same spots as the guide, till all at once the
man stopped.
It was the top of the eminence; and as Saxe reached Melchior's side he
paused there, breathless with exertion and wonder, gazing now along the
curved part of the comma, which had been hidden for the last hour.
Right and left were the silvery veil-like cascades: down below them some
five hundred feet the little river roared and boomed, and the junction
of the silvery water of the falls with the grey milky, churned-up foam
of the torrent was plainly seen in two cases. But the sight which
enchained Saxe's attention was the head of the valley up which they had
toiled, filled by what at the first glance seemed to be a huge cascade
descending and flowing along the ravine before him, but which soon
resolved itself into the first glacier--a wonderfully beautiful frozen
river, rugged, wild and vast, but singularly free from the fallen stones
and earth which usually rob these wonders of their beauty, and looking
now in the bright sunshine dazzling in its purity of white, shaded by
rift, crack and hollow, where the compressed snow was of the most
delicate sapphire tint.
"Is that a glacier?" said Saxe, after gazing at it for a few minutes.
"Yes, lad, that's a glacier, and a better example than one generally
sees, because it is so particularly clean. Glaciers are generally
pretty old and dirty-looking in the lower parts."
The guide rested upon his ice-axe, with his eyes half-closed, apparently
watching the effect the glacier had upon the visitors; Dale gazed at it
contemplatively, as if it were the wrinkled face of an old friend; and
Saxe stared wonderingly, for it was so different to anything he had
pictured in his own mind.
"Well, what do you think of it?" said Dale, at last.
"Don't quite know, sir," said Saxe, sitting down, drawing up his knees
to rest his chin, and throwing his arms about his legs. "It wants
looking at. But I'm beginning to understand now. That's the upper part
of the river which runs down the valley, only up here it is always
frozen. Seems rum, though, for the sun's regularly blistering my neck."
"You have something of the idea, but you are not quite right, Saxe,"
replied Dale. "That is the upper part of the river, and yet it is not,
because it is a distinct river. You speak of it as if the river up here
had become frozen. Now, it is frozen because it has never been
otherwise."
"Must have been water once, or else it couldn't have run down that
narrow valley."
"It has never been anything but ice, Saxe," said Dale, smiling; "and yet
it has run down the valley like that."
"Ice can't flow, because it is solid," said Saxe dogmatically.
"Ice can flow, because it is elastic as well as solid."
"Mr Dale!"
"Proof, boy. Haven't you seen it bend when thin, and people have been
on it skating?"
"Oh! ah! I'd forgotten that."
"Well, this ice is sufficiently elastic to flow very slowly, forced down
by its own weight and that of the hundreds of thousands of tons behind."
"Oh, I say, Mr Dale--gently!" cried Saxe.
"Well, then, millions of tons, boy. I am not exaggerating. You do not
understand the vastness of these places. That glacier you are looking
at is only one of the outlets of a huge reservoir of ice and snow,
extending up there in the mountains for miles. It is forced down, as
you see, bending into the irregularities of the valley where they are
not too great; but when the depths are extensive the ice cracks right
across."
"With a noise like a gun, sometimes," interpolated the guide, who was
listening intently.
"And I know, like that," cried Saxe, pointing to a deep-looking jagged
rift, extending right across the ice-torrent: "that makes a crevasse."
"Quite correct," said Dale.
"But stop a moment," cried Saxe: "this is all solid-looking blue ice.
It's snow that falls on the tops of the mountains."
"Yes; snow at a certain height, while lower that snow becomes rain."
"Well, then, this valley we are looking at ought to be snow, not ice."
"Snow is ice in the form of light flocculent crystals, is it not? Why,
at home, if you take up moist snow and press it hard in your hands, you
can almost turn it into ice. If you placed it in a press, and applied
much force, it would become perfectly clear ice. Well, there's pressure
enough here to turn it into ice; and besides, the snow is always melting
in the hot sun, and then freezing again at night."
"Yes, I see!" cried Saxe; "but it does seem queer. Why, we've got
summer here, with flowers and bees and butterflies, and if we go down to
that glacier, I suppose we can step on to winter."
"Yes, my lad; and if we like to climb a little higher up the ice, we can
place ourselves in such severe winter that we should be frozen to
death."
"Then we will not go," said Saxe, laughing. "You told me one day--No,
you didn't, it was in a story I read, `man is best as he is.' But I
say, Mr Dale, how about the river? doesn't it come from the glacier?"
"Yes, of course. These vast glaciers are the sources of the great Swiss
and Italian rivers. The Rhine and the Rhone both begin up in the
mountains here, and the Aar and the Reuss start pretty close to them.
When we get down here you will see how this stream runs from a little
ice-cave."
"But what makes it so dirty?"
"My good fellow, we have come to climb, and my name is not Barlow. You
must read and search out these things. You know how that stone or mass
fell with a roar lower down?"
"Not likely to forget it, sir," replied Saxe, with a laugh.
"Well, the stones are always falling from the bare sides of the gorge;
they drop on to the glacier, and in course of time are washed by the
melting ice into the crevasses and down to the bare rock beneath the
glacier. There they glide down, with its weight upon them, right over
the rock, and the surface is worn off from the fallen stone and the bed
rock in a thin paste, which is washed away by the glacier. Then, as it
descends, it of course discolours the water."
"Shall we go down to the toe of the glacier!" said the guide.
"Yes; come along."
"Can we trust the young herr to descend?"
Dale leaned forward to gaze down the rugged slope, which was excessively
steep, but broken up into rift and gully, offering plenty of foot and
hand-hold.
"What do you think, Saxe?" he said. "Can you manage to get down there?"
"Get down there?" said the lad contemptuously; "why, I'd race you to the
bottom."
"No doubt, and be down first," said Dale quietly; "but I should be ready
to go on, and you would want carrying to the nearest chalet to wait for
a surgeon."
"What, after getting down that bit of a place?"
"You stupid fellow," said Dale testily; "that bit of a place is a
precipice of five hundred feet. How am I to impress upon you that
everything here is far bigger than you think? Look here," he continued,
pointing: "do you see that cow yonder, on that bit of green slope beside
those overhanging rocks?"
"No; I can see a little dog by a heap of stones."
"That will do for an example," said Dale. "Here, Melchior, is not that
a cow just across the stream there?"
"Wait a moment," cried Saxe eagerly. "I say it's a little dog. Who's
right?"
"You are both wrong," said the guide, smiling. "There is a man here has
a chalet behind the pines. He comes up the valley with his cattle for
the summer, when the snow is gone."
"Is there snow here in winter, then?" said Saxe.
"The valley is nearly full in winter. No one can come up here."
"But that isn't a cow," cried Saxe, pointing.
"No," said the guide, smiling; "it is Simon Andregg's big bull."
"Well!" cried Saxe, shading his eyes and staring down at the animal,
which looked small enough to be a dog.
"You don't believe him?" said Dale, laughing.
"Oh, I don't know," said Saxe; "I suppose I do. But I was thinking that
he might have made a mistake. Shall I go first?"
"No, herr; I am the guide," said Melchior quietly; and he began the
descent pretty rapidly, but stopped at the foot of each more difficult
part to look up and wait for the others. Sometimes he drove the sharp
end of his ice-axe into the earth or some crevice, and held it there to
act as a step for the others to descend; and at other times he pressed
himself against the rock and offered his shoulders as resting-places for
their feet, constantly on the watch to lessen the difficulties and guard
against dangers in a place where a slip of a few feet might have
resulted in the unfortunate person who fell rolling lower with
increasing impetus, and the slip developing into a terrible accident.
"It is farther than I thought," said Saxe, as they reached the bottom of
the steep bluff from which they had viewed the glacier; and he stepped
back a few yards to look up. "The places really are so much bigger than
they look. Why, I say, Mr Dale, the glacier seems quite high up from
here, and ever so much farther off."
"And it will look bigger still when we reach the cave where the river
comes out."
"So!" said Melchior quietly; and he went on, now down the stony slope of
the valley, to reach the river bed near its source, with the sides of
the thal seeming to grow steeper and higher, and one of the waterfalls
they were near infinitely more beautiful, for they had now reached the
point necessary for seeing the lovely iris which spanned the cascade,
turning its seething spray into a segment of an arch of the most vivid
colours, at which the lad seemed disposed to gaze for an indefinite
time.
"Vorwarts," said the guide quietly; and they obeyed, following his lead
till they reached the spot where the clear waters of the fall glided
into the dingy stream, and then followed the latter up and up for quite
half an hour before Saxe stopped short, and took off his straw hat to
wipe his steaming forehead, as he gazed up at the end of the glacier; he
was now so low down that the surface was invisible, and facing him there
was a curve rising up and up, looking like a blunted set of natural
steps.
"Well?" said Dale, inquiringly.
"I can't make it out," said Saxe, rather breathlessly. "It seems as if
that thing were playing games with us, and growing bigger and shrinking
away farther at every step one takes."
"Yes," said Dale, "it is giving you a lesson that you will not easily
forget."
"But it looked quite small when we were up there," cried Saxe, nodding
toward the tower-like bluff they had climbed, again at the top of the
glacier.
"Yes, and now it looks quite big, Saxe; and when you have been on it and
have walked a few miles upon its surface here and there--"
"Miles?"
"Yes, my boy, miles. Then you will begin to grasp how big all this is,
and what vast deserts of ice and snow there are about us in the
mountains. But come along; we have not much farther to go to reach the
foot."
But it took them quite a quarter of an hour over rounded, scratched and
polished masses of rock which were in places cut into grooves, and to
all this Dale drew attention.
"Do you see what it means?" he said.
"No," said Saxe, "only that it's very bad walking, now it's so steep."
"But don't you see that--?"
"Yes, I do," cried Saxe, interrupting him; "you mean that this has been
all rubbed smooth by the ice and stones grinding over it; but how could
it?--the ice couldn't go up hill."
"No, it comes down."
"Then--was it once as far as here?"
"Ever so much farther when I was a boy," said the guide. "It has been
shrinking for years. Mind, herr; it is very slippery here. Let me help
you."
He hooked his ice-axe into a crevice, and held out his hand, by whose
help Saxe mounted beside him, and here descending close to the water
they stepped from stone to stone, with the ice towering more and more
above their heads, till they were close up, and even below it, for they
had entered a low, flat arch, which just admitted them standing upright,
and after a few steps into what Saxe called a blue gloom, they stood
gazing into the azure depths of the cavern, which grew darker till they
were purple and then utterly black. Then they listened to the gurgle
and babble of the tiny river, as it came rushing and dashing over the
rock in many an eddy and swirl, while from far away up in the darkness
there were mysterious whisperings and musical echoes that were strange
to hear.
"Like to go in any farther, Saxe?" said Dale.
"Yes, much--very much," said the lad, in a low voice, "just because I
don't want to."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I can't exactly explain it, because the place makes me feel
nervous and a little shrinking, but I want to try and get over it."
"Better not stay any longer, herr," said the guide; "you are hot with
walking, and the place is damp and cold."
"Yes, it would be wiser to go out in the sunshine again. I should like
to explore this, though, with a lantern and candles."
"Whenever the herr likes," said the guide quietly. And they passed out
again, the icy arch above them looking exquisitely beautiful with its
blue tints, some of which were of the delicious brilliancy to be seen in
some of our precious stones.
It was a wonderful change from the cool gloom of the cavern to the
glaring sunshine outside, where the heat was reflected from the ice and
glistening rocks; and now, striking up to the right, Melchior made for
where the ice ended and the steep slope-up of the valley side began.
Here with a little difficulty they mounted--sometimes the rock growing
too steep and the ice appearing the easier path, then the reverse, till
at last they stood well up on the surface of the frozen river and began
its toilsome ascent.
"Now you'll find the advantage of your big-nailed boots, Saxe," said his
leader merrily. "Go cautiously, my lad; we mustn't spoil our
explorations by getting sprained ankles."
The warning was necessary, for the ice surface was broken up into ruts,
hollows, folds, and crags that required great caution, and proved to be
laborious in the extreme to surmount.
"Is there much more of this rough stuff?" said Saxe, after half an
hour's climbing.
The guide smiled.
"The ice gets bigger and wilder higher up," he replied. "There are
smooth patches, but it is broken up into crags and seracs."
This was another surprise to Saxe, to whom the surface of the glacier,
when seen from above on the bluff, had looked fairly smooth--just, in
fact, one great winding mass of ice flowing down in a curve to the foot.
He was not prepared for the chaos of worn, tumbled and crushed-up
masses, among which the guide led the way. Some parts that were
smoother were worn and channelled by the running water, which rushed in
all directions, mostly off the roughly curved centre to the sides, where
it made its way to the river beneath.
It was quite a wonderland to the boy fresh from town, entering the icy
strongholds of nature; for, after ascending a little farther, their way
was barred by jagged and pinnacled masses heaped together in the wildest
confusion, many of the fragments being thirty, even forty feet high.
"Have we got to climb those?" said Saxe, in dismay.
The guide shook his head.
"No, herr: it would be madness to try. Some of them would give way at
the least touch. Stand back a little, and I'll show you why it is
dangerous to climb among the seracs."
He stepped aside, and, using his axe, deftly chipped off a piece of ice
from a block--a fragment about as large as an ordinary paving-stone.
"Hold my axe, sir," he said; and on Saxe taking it, the man picked up
the block he had chipped off, walked a little way from them, and, after
looking about a little, signed to them to watch, as he hurled the lump
from him, after raising it above his head. As he threw it, he ran back
toward them, and the piece fell with a crash between two spires which
projected from the icy barrier.
There was a crash, and then the effect was startling. Both the spires,
whose bases must have been worn nearly through by the action of sun and
water, came down with a roar, bringing other fragments with them, and
leaving more looking as if they were tottering to their fall.
Then up rose what seemed to be a cloud of diamond dust, glittering in
the bright sunshine, a faint echo or two came from high up the rocky
face of the valley, and then all was silent once more.
"You see?" said Melchior. "Why, often a touch of a hand, or even a
shout, will bring them tumbling down. Always keep away from the
seracs."
He led them now at a safe distance across the glacier to the left, till
a wide opening presented itself, through which they passed on to
comparatively smooth ice; but even this was all piled together, wedged
in blocks, which made the party seem, as Saxe said, like so many ants
walking about in a barrel of loaf sugar.
Then there was a smoother stretch, all longitudinal furrows, up which
they passed fairly well--that is to say, with only a few falls--till
they went round a curve; and there they paused, breathless and
wondering.
"Why, that was only a peep down below," cried Saxe. "Look, Mr Dale!
look!"
He had cause to exclaim, for from where they stood they had an opening
before them right up a side valley running off from the glacier at a
sharp angle. This, too, was filled by a glacier, a tributary of the one
they were upon, and with the sides of the minor valley covered with snow
wherever the slope was sufficient to hold it. Beyond rose peak after
peak, flashing pure and white--higher and higher; and even the hollows
between them filled with soft-looking pillows and cushions of dazzling
snow.
"Those are the mountains you told me about, then?" cried Saxe.
"Some of the outposts, lad. There are others far greater, miles behind
those; and you are now having your first genuine look into wonderland."
"I never thought it was like this."
"No one can imagine how wonderful the mountains are," said the guide
solemnly. "I looked up at them as a little child, and I have been up
amongst them from a boy, while I am now thirty-five; and yet they are
always changing and ever new. Sometimes they are all light and
sunshine, though full of hidden dangers. Sometimes they are wild and
black and angry, when the wind shrieks and the lightning flashes about
their shattered heads, and the thunders roar. Yes, young herr, you
never thought it was half so wonderful as this. Shall we go on?"
"I was thinking," said Dale. "I only meant to come a little way to-day,
and let my companion have a glimpse of what is before him; so we will
not go much farther, as it is so far back to the chalet."
"If the herr does not mind simple fare and a bed of clean hay, we could
sleep at Andregg's to-night, and be ready for a start in the morning
early."
"The very thing," said Dale. "How long will it take us to get from here
to Andregg's?"
"An hour," said the guide; "so we have several good hours before us to
go on up the glacier, or to cross over the valley ridge, and come back
down the next."
"Can we go up the glacier for another mile," said Dale, "and then
cross?"
"Easily."
"Then we will do that."
The ascent of the glacier-filled valley was continued, and they toiled
on. A mile on level ground would have meant a sharp quarter of an
hour's walk; here it meant a slow climb, slipping and floundering over
ice, splashing through tiny rivulets that veined the more level parts,
and the avoidance of transverse cracks extending for a few yards.
Sometimes they had to make for the left, sometimes the right bank of the
frozen river; and at last, as they were standing waiting while the guide
made his observations as to the best way of avoiding some obstacle in
their front, there was a sharp, clear crack.
"What's that?" said Saxe quickly.
"Stand back!" cried the guide. "No! quick--to me!"
They stepped forward to his side; and as, in obedience to a sign, they
turned, there was a peculiarly harsh, rending noise, a singing as of
escaping air, and to their astonishment, just where they had been
standing the ice began to open in a curious, wavy, zigzag line,
gradually extending to right and left. At first it was a faint crack,
not much more than large enough to admit a knife-blade; but as they
watched it slowly opened, till it was an inch--a foot--across, and then
all sound ceased, and they could look down for a short distance before
the sides came together, the whole forming a long wedge-shaped hollow.
"The opening of a crevasse," said the guide gravely. "It will go on
growing bigger, till it will be dangerous."
"You are lucky, Saxe," said Dale. "You have had a fall of rock, seen an
ice-cave and the birth of a big river, heard seracs fall, and now
watched the opening of a crevasse. We must have that avalanche before
we go back."
"When we get up on the ridge we shall see the Bluthenhorn," said
Melchior; "the afternoon sun will be full on the high slopes, and we
shall hear some of the ice-fall. Hark!"
He held up his hand, and they stood listening to a faintly booming
sound, evidently at a great distance before them.
"Was that one?"
"Yes; but right over among the mountains, herr. It was a great fall,
though, or we should not have heard it here."
He plodded steadily on, and Saxe noted that he kept his eyes down and
seemed to make a business of every step, measuring exactly where he
should plant it, and keeping hold, as it were, with his other foot till
he was sure that his new step was safe. Not that this took long, but it
appeared to be all carefully studied, and the boy learned that such
caution must be the result of experience and mean safety in his arduous
climbing.
The glacier wound in serpentine fashion along the valley, growing wilder
and grander as they ascended. There were masses of piled-up ice, and
crevasses into whose blue depths they peered as they listened to the
hollow echoing sounds of running water. Some of these were stepped over
in an ordinary stride, some had to be jumped; and, though the distance
was short, Saxe felt a curious shrinking sensation as he leaped across a
four or five feet rift, whose sides were clear blue ice, going right
down to what would in all probability mean death to one who fell. Then
on again, till it seemed to the lad that they must have journeyed that
one mile upward several times over; and, at last, before them there was
snow filling up all the irregularities, and offering them a soft smooth
path.
It was not snow, though, such as he had seen in England, for it looked
more like a thick layer of softened hailstones, which he could scoop up
and let fall separately, or scatter at large to glisten in the sun,
while upon trying it the particles crackled and crushed under their
feet, but felt pretty firm.
"What are you stopping for?" said Dale.
"I don't quite like the look of the snow on beyond this first old part,"
said the guide. "You have no alpenstock or ice-axe either."
"Shall we give up going any farther to-day?" said Dale.
"No, herr: because I want to get round that piece of rock which runs out
from the side. Beyond that there is a couloir running right up to the
ridge, and it will be the easiest place for us to mount."
As he spoke he took the coil of rope from across his chest, and began to
unfasten the end.
"Is that necessary?" asked Dale; while Saxe looked wonderingly on.
"Who knows, herr? It is the duty of a guide to take care his people run
no risks. I want to be a good guide to mine."
"What are we going to do?" asked Saxe.
"Rope ourselves together in case the snow covers a crevasse."
"But if one goes through, he'll pull down the others," cried Saxe. "Is
that wise?"
"He will not pull down the others," said Dale, "for they will pull him
out."
Melchior said nothing, but slowly unfastened his rope as they stood
there with their feet in the depth of a rigid winter and their heads in
the height of summer. When he had it ready, hanging in loops on his
left arm, he held out one end to his companions with a smile.
"Alpen rope. Good. Best," he said. "English make," and he pulled open
one end, to show them a red strand running through it. "Now!"
He fastened one end by a peculiar knot round Saxe's waist, arranging it
so that it should not slip and tighten, whatever stress was given.
Then, bidding the lad walk away till told to stop, he deliberately
counted over a certain number of rings.
"Stop! Keep the rope out of the snow."
Then, with Dale and Saxe holding the rope taut, the middle was attached
by similar knots to Dale's waist, and Melchior walked on, and on
reaching his end secured the rope to himself.
"Keep it nearly tight," he said, "holding the rope in your right hand.
If any one goes wrong in the snow, the others are to stand firm and hang
back, so as to hold him firmly. Keep to the steps of the man before you
as much as you can. Now, then. Vorwarts!"
He started off now through the snow, with Dale and Saxe following.
"Been better if you had placed him in the middle, wouldn't it,
Melchior?" said Dale.
"Yes, herr, I was thinking so. Shall I alter it?"
"No: let's go on as we are this time. Forward again!" And they went on
over the dazzling untrodden surface.