"Have the gates of death been open to thee, or hast thou seen the
doors of the shadow of death?" One should read that sublime poem in
such scenes as these. I remained on the ice as long as I could
persuade the guides and party to remain.
Then we went back to the house, where, of course, we looked at some
wood work, agates, and all the et cetera.
Then we turned our steps downward. We went along the side of the
glacier, and I desired to climb over as near as possible, in order to
see the source of the Arveiron, which is formed by the melting of this
glacier. Its cradle is a ribbed and rocky cavern of blue ice, and like
a creature born full of vigor and immortality, it begins life with an
impetuous leap. The cold arms of the glaciers cannot retain it; it
must go to the warm, flowery, velvet meadows below.
The guide was quite anxious about me; he seemed to consider a lady as
something that must necessarily break in two, or come apart, like a
German doll, if not managed with extremest care; and therefore to see
one bounding through bushes, leaping, and springing, and climbing over
rocks at such a rate, appeared to him the height of desperation.
The good, faithful soul wanted to keep me within orthodox limits, and
felt conscientiously bound to follow me wherever I went, and to offer
me his hand at every turn. I considered, on the whole, that I ought
not to blame him, since guides hold themselves responsible for life
and limb; and any accident to those under their charge is fatal to
their professional honor.
Going down, I held some conversation with him on matters and things in
general, and life in Chamouni in particular. He inquired with great
interest about America; which, throughout Europe, I find the working
classes regard as a kind of star in the west, portending something of
good to themselves. He had a son, he said, settled in America, near
St. Louis.
"And don't you want to go to America?" said I, after hearing him
praise the good land.
"Ah, no," he said, with a smile.
"Why not?" said I; "it is a much easier country to live in."
He gave a look at the circle of mountains around, and said, "I love
Chamouni." The good soul! I was much of his opinion. If I had been
born within sight of glorious Mont Blanc, with its apocalyptic clouds,
and store of visions, not all the fat pork and flat prairies of
Indiana and Ohio could tempt me. No wonder the Swiss die for their
native valleys! I would if I were they. I asked him about education.
He said his children went to a school kept by Catholic sisters, who
taught reading, writing, and Latin. The dialect of Chamouni is a
patois, composed of French and Latin. He said that provision was very
scarce in the winter. I asked how they made their living when there
were no travellers to be guided up Mont Blanc. He had a trade at which
he wrought in winter months, and his wife did tailoring.
I must not forget to say that the day before there had been some
confidential passages between us, which began by his expressing,
interrogatively, the opinion that "mademoiselle was a young lady, he
supposed." When mademoiselle had assured him, on the contrary, that
she was a venerable matron, mother of a thriving family, then followed
a little comparison of notes as to numbers. Madame he ascertained to
have six, and he had four, if my memory serves me, as it generally
does not in matters of figures. So you see it is not merely among us
New Englanders that the unsophisticated spirit of curiosity exists as
to one's neighbors. Indeed, I take it to be a wholesome development of
human nature in general. For my part, I could not think highly of any
body who could be brought long into connection with another human
being and feel no interest to inquire into his history and
surroundings.
As we stopped, going down the descent, to rest the mules, I looked up
above my head into the crags, and saw a flock of goats browsing. One
goat, in particular, I remember, had gained the top of a kind of table
rock, which stood apart from the rest, and which was carpeted with
lichens and green moss. There he stood, looking as unconscious and
contemplative as possible, the wicked fellow, with his long beard! He
knew he looked picturesque, and that is what he stood there for. But,
as they say in New England, he did it "_as nat'ral as a pictur!_"
By the by, the girls with strawberries, milk, and knitting work were
on hand on the way down, and met us just where a cool spring gushed
out at the roots of a pine tree; and of course I bought some more milk
and strawberries.
How dreadfully hot it was when we got down to the bottom! for there we
had the long, shadeless ride home, with the burning lenses of the
glaciers concentrated upon our defenceless heads. I was past admiring
any thing, and glad enough for the shelter of a roof, and a place to
lie down.
After dinner, although the Glacier de Boisson had been spoken of as
the appointed work for the afternoon, yet we discovered, as the psalm
book says, that
"The force of nature could no farther go"
[Illustration: _of an ice climbing party scaling a large serac._]
What is Glacier de Boisson, or glacier any thing else, to a person
used up entirely, with no sense or capability left for any thing but a
general aching? No; the Glacier de Boisson was given up, and I am
sorry for it now, because it is the commencement of the road up Mont
Blanc; and, though I could not go to the top thereof, I should like to
have gone as far as I could. In fact, I should have been glad to sleep
one night at the Grands Mulets: however, that was impossible.
To look at the apparently smooth surface of the mountain side, one
would never think that the ascent could be a work of such difficulty
and danger. Yet, look at the picture of crossing a _crevasse_,
and compare the size of the figures with the dimensions of the blocks
of ice. Madame d'Angeville told me that she was drawn across a
_crevasse_ like this, by ropes tied under her arms, by the
guides. The depth of some of the _crevasses_ may be conjectured
from the fact stated by Agassiz, that the thickest parts of the
glaciers are over one thousand feet in depth.