BOOK V. 



GLACIERS AND ETERNAL SNOWS. 



THE glaciers, which extend their motionless waves over 

 the summits of the globe, and the gleaming splendor of the 

 snowy winding-sheet which envelops them, strike the trav- 

 eller still more than the aspect of the sea and the desert. 



All is frightful amid the frozen solitudes of the moun- 

 tains, and a horrible death seems at each step to threaten 

 the rash mortal who enters them. On one side the ava- 

 lanche threatens to bury him ; beneath his feet open fright- 

 ful chasms, in which he would be shattered, while cold and 

 hunger may destroy him. Every day the names of new 

 victims are inscribed in the records of deaths, and yet each 

 day some intrepid traveller tries a new enterprise. 



A chamois-hunter said to De Saussure that his grand- 

 father and father had both been buried in the glaciers 

 whilst pursuing game ; and he added, with a feeling of sad- 

 ness, that he was certain he should experience the same 

 fate as they had done, and that his knapsack would be his 

 shroud ! Yet, in spite of this, he would never renounce his 

 fatal passion. Some years after this conversation the Gen- 

 evese savant, returning to this part, learned that the hunt- 

 er's sad foreboding had been realized. 



