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 Rosegg 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 Rosegg 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 adjacent grass slope ; then over shingly incline*, 

 covered with the shot rubbish of the heights. Two 

 ways were now open to us, the one easy but cir- 

 cuitous, 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 

 destiuy. 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 stalactites 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, 



