Alps of the Valais. 7 



wet through, that the tinder in our pockets was become perfectly 

 useless, and after several vain attempts we were obliged to give up 

 all hope of lighting a cigar. Although much fatigued, there was of 

 course no prospect of sleep, and the night was passed half sitting, 

 half standing, in keeping each other awake, and in stamping with 

 our feet to prevent their becoming quite benumbed. The fog turn- 

 ed into snow during the night, and the cold was less intense than 

 it would otherwise have been. The novelty of the position, the 

 intense silence around us interrupted only by the rumbling of a dull 

 low thunder, and occasional reports of masses of snow or rock pre- 

 cipitated from the heights upon the ice beneath, together with occa- 

 sional distant glimpses of the rocks, and the bed of the glacier 

 below us, lit up by flashes of lightning, afforded ample and not en- 

 tirely disagreeable food for reflection. 



Our guides had recourse to sleep, to muttering prayers, to occa- 

 sional grumblings to pass the time, and one of them, who appeared 

 never to have been in such a situation before, wished himself re- 

 peatedly back with his four-footed grunting companions in his snug 

 chalet in the vale. At last they appeared rather more tranquillized, 

 and finished by vowing a mass to their patron saint for all our 

 souls, provided we got safe off the ice. 



As soon as we could see on the following morning, we sent our 

 guides out to report as to our prospects, and as to what was to be 

 done : but, having already undergone so much, I insisted upon still 

 attempting to descend into the valley of Saas. 



Full two feet of snow had fallen during the night, and by its 

 weight and softness had rendered the old snow quite unsafe, and 

 the fog, which had partially cleared off during the early part of the 

 morning, again thickened around us ; so that after several hours 

 spent in gaining the opposite or south side of the Glacier, we were 

 obliged to decide on retracing our steps, and returning to the valley 

 of St Nicholas by the same route we had taken the day before. A 

 sufficiently extensive view from the highest part of the southern 

 side of the glacier, showed us an immense extent of glacier, which 

 we should have had to pass over, covered with snow, but proving, 

 by its undulated surface, that it was equally split up with chasms 

 as that which we had already traversed. 



We retraced then our steps to the point where we had left the course 

 of the preceding day, and without deviating from our trail, which the 

 fresh snow had not entirely effaced, we commenced our toilsome re- 

 turn. The chasms, which had been easily distinguished the day before, 

 were now almost imperceptible to the unaccustomed eye, and before 

 each step, the nature of the snow had to be examined with our poles. 



