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 



