472 OLD ALFINE JOTTINGS. 



of the rising sun. The bloom crept gradually down- 

 wards over the snows, until the whole mountain world 

 partook of the colour. It is not in the night nor in 

 the day it is not in any statical condition of the 

 atmosphere that the mountains look most sublime. 

 It is during the few minutes of transition from twi- 

 light to full day through the splendours of the dawn. 



Seven hours' climbing brought us to the higher 

 slopes, which were for the most part ice, and required 

 deep step-cutting. The whole duty of the climber on 

 such slopes is to cut his steps deeply, and to stand in 

 them securely. At one period of my mountain life I 

 looked lightly on the possibility of a slip, having full 

 faith in the resources of him who accompanied me, and 

 very little doubt of my own. Experience has qualified 

 this faith in the power even of the best of climbers 

 upon a steep ice-slope. A slip under such circumstances 

 must not occur. The Jungt'rau began her cannonade 

 of avalanches very early : five of them thundered down 

 her precipices before eight o'clock in the morning. 

 Bauman, being the youngest man, undertook the labour 

 of step-cutting, which the hardness of the ice rendered 

 severe. He was glad from time to time to escape to 

 the snow-cornice which, unsupported save by its own 

 tenacity, overhung the Grindelvvald side of the moun- 

 tain, checking himself at intervals by looking over the 

 edge of the cornice, to assure himself of its sufficient 

 thickness to bear our weight. A wilder precipice is 

 hardly to be seen than this wall of the Eiger. Viewed 

 from the cornice at its top it seems to drop sheer for 

 eight thousand feet down to Grrindelwald. When the 

 cornice became unsafe, Bauman retreated, and step- 

 cutting recommenced. We reached the summit before 

 nine o'clock, and had from it an outlook over as glorious 

 a scene as this world perhaps affords. 



