The Bernese Oberland [pp. 193-207]

The Bernese Oberland.
an engraving in which the Delectable
Mountains are represented crowned with
a city shining like this frozen mass of
palaces; and with that rapid retrospect
which sometimes carries us back with
strange power to the freshness and vivid
perceptions of childhood, I seemed, in
looking on this Rhone Glacier, to be
again a child with straining eyes directed
to some unreal but magnificent realm of
the future, never to be attained. So the
voyager in Cole's beautiful painting
gazes upon the architecture of the clouds.
Alas! the glacier, like the phantoms of
earthly splendour, is a mockery; the terraces are cold ledges of ice raised above
awful pitfalls, and terror, twin sister of
beauty, dwells in its corridors of beryl
and amethyst. But if beauty so irradiates this bleak waste of unmelting ice,
and causes it so to resemble the ideal of
the Apocalyptic city, what ineffable glory
must not be reserved for them who shall
see the courts of New Jerusalem!
As we stand in hushed and motionless
enjoyment of the wondrous spectacle, our
companion has reached the lower portion
of the glacier, where it marches through
the valley, and we see him crossing it, a
small dark speck upon the gleaming expanse. Making a nearer approach we
find the surface comparatively smooth,
there being fewer crevices than on
other glaciers, and the ice itself uncommonly free from impurities. But
little morain sullies the crystalline appearance of the mass. Following the
path we presently mount upon the icy
hillocks, and by the help of the ironpointed alpenstocks, make our way to the
other side. There lingering for an
hour to survey the glacier in all its
aspects, we at last resume the saddle for
the purpose of accomplishing a steep and
toilsome ascent of 1200 feet, the whole
path being visible in sharp zigzags before
us, like the successive flights of steps in
the transverse section of a house some
hundred stories high. It is the dizziest
and most tedious climbing we have had;
and when about half way to the top, one
of our companions falls with his horse,
and is only saved from being precipitated
headlong to the bottom, by an interposing
The valley appears about three-quarters o f a min le in lengt h, though dista nces
are deceptive in the shadows of immense altitudes, and it may possibly be
much more. At the extremity just under us, lies the inky Lake of the Dead,
a small tarn, whose waters never congeal, and in which, it is said, no fish can
live, and beyond it is the Hospice, the
only object which speaks of the world of
civilization, from which we seem here to
be altogether excluded. The eye seeks
in vain for the slightest trace of animal
or vegetable life. No little flower peeps
out from the sterile hill-side; no bird
flaps his dusky pinion above, no chamois
bounds from crag to crag of this appalling solitude. Here winter reigns eternally, and though the sun looks down
into the cheerless hollow, its solstitial ray
-quickens no verdure in the unsympathizing and frozen soil. Across the valley,
rising out of the Aar Glacier, is seen
near at hand the Finster Aarhorn, whose
distant summit we have marked for many
days. Fearfully it presides, as winter's
viceroy, over this savage and desolate
scene, where light educes no warmth,
and the seasons bring no vicissitude.
Nor is its lofty'presence the less terrible
for a certain mystery of beauty which
hangs around its form, and which, like
the awful loveliness of the Medusa's
head, at once fascinates and freezes the
beholder.
201
1857.]
roc'k which bruises him painfully. In
an hour the summit is gained, and proceeding a few hundred yards to the
brink of the opposite declivity, we look
down upon the saddest and dreariest desolation I ever beheld. It is the contracted valley, surrounded by frowninand terrible mountains, of
THE GRIMSEL.
The path leading down to the level of
the valley is too precipitous to be safely
attempted on horseback, so we performed
the descent, about eight hundred feet,
by,a succession of leaps with the alpenstock. As we came to the Hospice, two
or three men appeared, who inhabit this
dreary prison, from which there now