454: OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 



valley being thickly covered with the debris which the 

 ice had left behind. An old moraine, so large that in 

 England it might take rank as a mountain, forms a 

 barrier across the upper valley. Once probably it was 

 the dam of a lake, but 'it is now cut through by the river 

 which rushes from the Eosegg glacier. These works of 

 the ancient ice are to the mind what a distant horizon is 

 to the eye. They give to the imagination both pleasure 

 and repose. 



The morning, as I have said, looked threatening, 

 but the wind was good; by degrees the cloud scowl re- 

 laxed, and broader patches of blue became visible. 

 We called at the Eosegg chalets, and had some milk, 

 afterwards winding round a shoulder of the hill, at times 

 upon the moraine of the glacier, at times upon the adja- 

 cent grass slope; then over shingly inclines, covered 

 with the shot rubbish of the heights. Two ways were 

 now open to us, the one easy but circuitous, the other 

 stiff but short. Walter was for the former, and 

 Jenni for the latter, their respective choices being 

 characteristic of the two men. To my satisfac- 

 tion Jenni prevailed, and we scaled the steep and 

 slippery rocks. At the top of them we found ourselves 

 upon the rim of an extended snow-field. Our rope was 

 here exhibited, and we were bound by it to a common 

 destiny. In those higher regions the snow-fields 

 show a beauty and a purity of which those who linger 

 below have no notion. We crossed crevasses and 

 bergschrunds, mounted vast snow-bosses, and doubled 

 round walls of ice with long stalactities pendent from 

 their cornices. One by one the eminences were sur- 

 mounted, the crowning rock being attained at half- 

 past twelve. On it we uncorked a bottle of cham- 

 pagne. Mixed with the pure snow of the mountain, 

 it formed a beverage, and was enjoyed with a gusto, 



