GLACIERS. 203 



in all creation, is richly repaid for all his expense of sweat, shoe-leath- 

 er, and money. There are_^some men who will look, unmoved, on the 

 falls of Niagara, and call it a respectable mill dam, or will see nothing 

 in the ruins of the Colosseum, but old, lime-worn walls. Such men 

 should stay at home for want of thought. 



But I was going to speak of Glaciers. I had read much about them 

 and studied the theory. 1 had looked on pictures of them, but could 

 not conceive the reality. We were going along blithely, picking our 

 way, as well as we could, over rocks, fissures, mountain-torrents, mud, 

 snow and ice, the remains of avalanches, and had just passed an Alpine 

 shepherd, who saluted us with the ordinary " Gelohef sey Jesus Chris- 

 tus,'^'' to which we returned the accustomed reply "//i eivigkeit, Amen. " 

 How much more poetical this mountain salutation, than our cold and 

 unmeaning, " How (Pye do, Sir ? " " Pretty -well, I thank you! how are 

 youf'' Well, just as we passed the shepherd and turned a sharp angle 

 of our path, on one side of which was an elevation of 3000 feet and 

 on the other a precipice of unmeasured depth, there it stood, the sea of 

 ice ! about half a mile off to the right. I roared with delight. I was 

 in ecstacy. I danced and sang, and shouted loud enough to awaken a 

 hundred slumbering echoes. I did every thing but swear. One of the 

 most ardent wishes of ray life had been realized. 1 saw a glacier. I 

 had seen Niagara and the Natural Bridge, and had explored Mammoth 

 Caves, but none of these had so completely unstrung me as the first view 

 of that sea of ice. But a man easily loses his dignity on the Alps ; 

 that ethereal atmosphere had an influence on me very similar to that of 

 nitrous oxide gas, — and you can laugh and leap and sing and shout 

 without any effort or expense of dignity. 



Can you conceive of a cataract of water, a mile wide, fifteen miles 

 long, and 500 feet deep, rushing down between the sides of a mountain 

 gorge, in a state of tremendous agitation and at an angle of 45 ? Can you 

 conceive this ? remember, a mile wide and fifteen long ! You have the 

 idea— have you ? Well, now conceive all this lUshing, boiling, bellow- 

 ing "hell of waters" all of a sudden frozen into solid ice and standing 

 still, and you will have some faint idea of a glacier ! the end of it is in 

 the valley and the top of it away fifteen miles up in the regions far 

 enough beyond the clouds, — it winds and turns and serpcntizes among 

 the eternal mountains far out of sight. Oh ! that Glacier is an over- 

 whelming spectacle. I almost think a man will live the longer for hav- 

 ing seen it ! 



But let me be more didactic ; it is hard for mc to be so, for I would 



