GLIMPSES OF WESTEPN EUEOPE. 
119 
saw I was in earnest, and so placing before me a flask of wine proposed to 
find me a guide and mules. “ I want neither a guide, nor yet mules, sir; I’m 
obliged to you.” This he would not believe, but before the mules were at 
the door or alpin-stocks were forced upon me, I had myself found the up¬ 
ward winding path and was climbing the rocky ribs of the mountain, empty 
handed, on foot, and alone. Up, up I went as it had been on eagle’s wings; 
now following the narrow, stony path, now dashing across the angles made 
by the zigzag course of the beaten way, and several times startling returning 
trains of travelers on slow-footed mules, with as many guides. 
At last, Montanvert and the wonderful Mer de Glace, with its fearful yawn¬ 
ing chasms and huge masses of rock and ice. The Mer de Glace so often men¬ 
tioned, is, as the name indicates, a literal sea of ice, appearing upon the sur¬ 
face as though it had been recently frozen while lashed into fury by a storm. 
It is one-fourth to a hall mile in breadth and some miles in length, sloping 
gradually toward the plain, until it reaches Montanvert, where it drops off 
like Niagara and becomes a frozen cataract, known as Glacier des Bois. It 
was formerly supposed to be stationary forever, but investigations have shown 
that the particles of ice have a slow imperceptible motion among themselves, 
so that the whole body of the sea, as if semi-fluid, is gradually moving to¬ 
ward the valley. Altogether it presents one of the most interesting phenom¬ 
ena in the natural world, and, while the Alps endure, will be an object for 
the wonder and study of man. * -x- * * * * •je- 
It was my desire to spend the night at Le Jardin^ a mile or more above 
Montanvert, on the Mer de Glace, where dwells a family in cozy icy quarters, 
from year to year, but my self-prescribed limit of time would not allow, and 
so about five o’clock I shook hands with my guides and made a rapid descent 
to Chamouni, for I was to sleep at Argentieers, yet six miles further up the 
Arve. Only four miles had been made, however, when night found me on 
the side of a mountain, steep, and dark with cedar, pine and larch, and up¬ 
on the brink of the Arve, whose foam-white waters dashed with loud roar over 
a cataract far below. On the other side the mountains were black with ever¬ 
greens and perpendicular for more than a thousand feet, thus deepening the 
grandeur of the scene and almost compelling me to stop and meditate upon 
the almightiness of the God of the mountains. Fatigue lent another induce¬ 
ment and I did pause for almost an hour, resting upon the generous face of a 
great flat rock, with the soft side of a boulder for ray pillow, and gazing, 
possibly for the last time, upon the star-illumined face of Mont Blanc. At 
first, the soft, fleecy clouds, like etherial drapery, enveloped his shoulders 
only, his jeweled coronet of centuries unnumbered glittering as with the radi¬ 
ance of heaven. But soon this drapery of cloud was drawn as a curtain be¬ 
fore the face of his majesty, and he graciously bade the world and me “good¬ 
night.” 
Another mile brought me to this humble dwelling, where I find a cordial 
welcome from a hospitable Switzer, his wife and some fifteen children, plenty 
of good bread and milk and a clean, comfortable bed. 
At the village of Argentieres, which lies at the head of the lovely vale of 
Chamouni, and bravely confronts a grand old glacier, large enough to wash it 
from its place and submerge the entire valley, should it suddenly become 
liquid, the way I had designed to take leads me upward toward the snow- 
mantled peak of L’Aigouillet, on whose top rest portentous c.ouds of the 
morning. Already a sprinkle of rain begins to fall, and I must avail myself, 
for the first time since leaving Versailles, of my umbrella, which has so faith¬ 
fully served me as a staff. But a clever goatherd tells me it is not to be a 
rainy day, and so, at this sublime elevation, I may halt a moment and look 
backward Farewell, fairy vale ! Farewell, milky Arve, along whose wild 
and beautiful banks I have these three days wandered in dreamy ectasy! 
Farewell, 0, king of the Alps, whose presence still sublimely overshadows me, 
and whose majestic form of all the works of God shall ever stand fast and 
first in the soul of memory! 
The rain has stopped ; the clouds break and the genial face of the sun looks 
kindly over the tops of the mountains. The rough and winding path descends 
again, and my feet now walk upon the brink of a little stream, source of the 
