438 OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 



day had rendered me weary, but among these rocks the 

 weariness vanished, and I became clear in mind and 

 fresh in body through the necessity of escape before 

 nightfall from this wilderness. 



I reached the watershed of the region. Here a 

 tiny stream offered me its company, which I accepted. 

 It received in its course various liberal tributaries, and 

 at one place expanded into a blue lake bounded by 

 banks of snow. The stream quitted, this lake aug- 

 mented in volume, and I kept along its side until, 

 arching over a brow of granite, it discharged itself down 

 the glaciated rocks, which rise above the Grimsel. In 

 fact, this stream was the feeder of the Grimsel lake. 

 I halted on the brow for some time. The hospice was 

 fairly in sight, but the precipices between me and 

 it seemed desperately ugly. Nothing is more trying 

 to the climber than cliffs which have been polished 

 by the ancient glaciers. Even at moderate inclinations, 

 as may be learned from an experiment on the Hollen- 

 platte, or some other of the polished rocks in Haslithal, 

 they are not easy. I need hardly say that the inclina- 

 tion of the rocks flanking the Grimsel is the reverse of 

 moderate. It is dangerously steep. 



How to get down these smooth and precipitous tab- 

 lets was now a problem of the utmost interest to me; 

 for the day was too far gone, and I was too ignorant of 

 the locality, to permit of time being spent in the search 

 of an easier place of descent. Eight or left of me I saw 

 none. The continuity of the cliffs below me was occa- 

 sionally broken by cracks and narrow ledges, with scanty 

 grass-tufts sprouting from them here and there. The 

 problem was how to get down from crack to crack and 

 from ledge to ledge. A salutary anger warms the mind 

 when thus challenged, and, aided by this warmth, close 

 scrutiny will dissolve difficulties which might otherwise 



