A GLACIER BY THE ROADSIDE 25 



7500 feet above the sea, and far up more than a thousand 

 feet above us and the glacier's snout. In another minute 

 the great arc lamps of the Gletsch Hotel, close to us, 

 blazed forth, and we were welcomed into its snug hall 

 and warmed by the great log-fire burning on its hospitable 

 hearth. 



The next day we were early afoot in the most brilliant 



sunshine, under a cloudless sky really perfect Alpine 



weather. In the shade the persisting night-frost told of 



the great height of the marvellous amphitheatre which 



lay before us. The valley by which we had mounted the 



previous night abruptly abandons its steep gradient and 



gorge-like character, and widens into a flat, boulder-strewn 



plain, a little over a mile in diameter, surrounded, except 



for the narrow gap by which we had entered, by the 



steep, rocky sides of huge mountains. At the far end of 



the plain, a mile off, the great Rhone glacier comes 



toppling over the precipice, a snowy white, frozen cascade 



of a thousand feet in height. It looks even nearer than 



it is, and the gigantic teeth of white ice at the top of the 



fall seem no bigger than sentry-boxes, though we know 



they are more nearly the size of church steeples. The 



celebrated Furca road zig-zags up the mountain side for 



a thousand feet close to the glacier, and when you drive 



up it and reach the height of the Belvedere, you can 



step on to the ice close to the road. Then you can 



mount on to the flat, unbroken surface of the broad 



glacier stream above the fall, and trace the glacier to the 



snow-covered mountain-tops in which it originates. There 



is no such close and intimate view of a glacier to be had 



elsewhere in Europe by the traveller in diligence or 



carriage. We walked by the side of the infant Rhone, 



among the pebbles and boulders, to the overhanging 



snout of the great glacier from beneath which the river 



emerges. A very beautiful wine-red species of dwarf 



