R. M. Ballantyne

“ The great ice-fountain of those regions, commencing at the summit of Mont Blanc, flings its ample waves over mountain and vale in all directions, forming a throne on which perpetual winter reigns, and this glacier des Bossons, which filled the breasts of our travellers with such feelings of awe, was but one of the numerous rivers which flow from the fountain down the gorges and higher valleys of the Alps, until they reach those regions where summer heat asserts itself, and checks their further progress in the form of ice by melting them. ”

“ Gamblers are gold-hunters; and I was a gambler once! Aha! Mr Lewis, the cap once fitted you! Fitted, did I say? It fits still. Have I not been playing billiards every night nearly since I came here, despite Captain Wopper’s warnings and the lesson I got from poor Leven? Poor Leven indeed! it’s little gold that he has, and I robbed him. However, I paid him back, that’s one comfort, and my stakes now are mere trifles—just enough to give interest to the game. Yet, shame on you, Lewie; can’t you take interest in a game for its own sake? The smallest coin staked involves the spirit of gambling. ”

“ The mercurial temperament of Mr Slingsby was severely tried at this point. His desire to look up and revel in the beauties of nature around him proved too strong a temptation. While gazing with feelings of awe at the terrible edge or cornice below he became, for the first time, fully alive to his situation,—the smallness of the step of ice on which he stood, the exceeding steepness of the glassy slope below, the dread abyss beyond! ”

“ Those who have not seen it can form but a faint conception of the stupendous mass of débris which is cut, torn, wrenched, carried, swept, hurled, rolled, crushed, and ground down by a glacier from the mountain-heights into the plain below. The terminal moraine of the Mer de Glace is a whole valley whose floor and sides are not only quite, but deeply, covered with rocks of every shape and size, from a pebble the size of a pea, to a boulder as large as a cottage, all strewn, piled, and heaped together in a wild confusion that is eminently suggestive of the mighty force which cast them there. ”

“ Being an airy sprite, though fat, and not at any time particularly visible, a careless observer might have missed seeing him; but to any one with moderate powers of observation, he was there, straddling across a dish of salad as plain as the salt-cellar before Captain Wopper’s nose. His deadly shafts, too, were visibly quivering in the breasts of Lewis Stoutley, George Lawrence, and the mad artist. ”

“ Antoine at once stepped forward with his Alpine axe, and, swinging it vigorously over his head, cut a deep notch on the sloping side of the neck of ice. Beyond it he cut a second notch. No man—not even a monkey—could have stood on the glassy slope which descended into the abyss at their side; but Antoine, putting one foot in the first notch, and the other in the second, stood as secure as if he had been on a flat rock. Again he swung his axe, and planted his foot in a third notch, swinging his axe the instant it was fixed for the purpose of cutting the fourth. ”

“ Up in the mountains now,—above some of the clouds undoubtedly, almost ’mong the stars, as Gillie put it,—Lewis wanders in company with Baptist Le Croix, half-forgetful of his promise to Lawrence. Below them lies a world of hills and valleys; above towers a fairy-land of ice, cliff, and cloud. No human habitation is near. The only indications of man’s existence are so faint, and so far off in the plains below, that houses are barely visible, and villages look like toys. ”

“ Le Croix himself descended without this moral support, but, being as sure-footed as a chamois, it mattered little.
Pretty well exhausted by their exertions, they now found themselves at the summit of a precipice so perpendicular and unbroken, that a single glance sufficed to convince them of the utter impossibility of further descent in that quarter. The ledge on which they stood was not more than three feet broad. Below them the glacier appeared in the fading light to be as far off as ever. Above, the cliffs frowned like inaccessible battlements. ”

“ There would have been no difficulty in crossing such a slope if its base had terminated in snow, but as it went straight down to the brow of an ice-precipice, and then abruptly terminated in a cornice, from which the giant icicles, before mentioned, hung down into an unfathomable abyss, each man knew that a false step, a slip, or the loss of balance, might result in the instant destruction of the whole party. ”

“ The good God knows how hard I have fought against self for years, and how often—oh, how often—I have been beaten down and overcome. God help me. It is a weary struggle.”
Lecroix’s countenance and tones changed as rapidly as the cloud-forms on his own mountain peaks. His last words were uttered with the deepest pathos, and his now pale face was turned upward, as if he sought for hope from a source higher than the “everlasting hills.” Lewis was amazed at the sudden burst of feeling in one who was unusually quiet and sedate, and stood looking at him in silence. ”

“ This gigantic glacier, or stream of ice, springing, as it does, from the giant-mountain of Europe, is appropriately hemmed in, and its mighty force restrained, by a group of Titans, whose sharp aiguilles, or needle-like peaks, shoot upward to a height little short of their rounded and white-headed superior, and from whose wild gorges and riven sides tributary ice-rivers flow, and avalanches thunder incessantly. ”

“ The fierce sun of summer sends millions of tiny streamlets down into its interior, which collect, augment, cut channels for themselves through the ice, and finally gush into the plain from its lower end in the form of a muddy river. Even in winter this process goes on, yet the ice-river never melts entirely away, but holds on its cold, stately, solemn course from year to year—has done so for unknown ages, and will probably do so to the end of time. ”

“ The sun shines brightly over all, piercing and rendering semi-transparent some of the clouds, gilding the edges and deepening the shadows of others.
“Do you see anything, Le Croix?” asked Lewis, as he reclined on a narrow ledge of rock recovering breath after a fatiguing climb, while his comrade peered intently through a telescope into the recesses of a dark mountain gorge that lay a little below them.
For some moments the hunter made no reply. Presently he closed the glass, and, with an air of satisfaction, said, “Chamois!” ”

“ As poor Lewis remarked, with a sad smile, they had quitted the gay and glittering heights, and gone, like a magnificent avalanche, down into the moraine. Social, not less than physical, avalanches multiply their parts and widen their course during descent. The Stoutleys did not fall alone. A green-grocer, a shoemaker, and a baker, who had long been trembling, like human boulders, on the precipice of bankruptcy, went tumbling down along with them, and found rest in a lower part of the moraine than they had previously occupied. ”

“ The alarm of the old woman was somewhat increased by the sound of her visitor’s heavy tread on the boards overhead as he stumbled about. Presently his head appeared looking down through the trap. In any aspect, Captain Wopper’s shaggy head was an impressive one; but viewed in an upside-down position, with the blood running into it, it was peculiarly striking.
“I say, old lady,” he shouted, as if his position recalled the action and induced the tones of a boatswain, “it’ll do. A capital berth, with two portholes and a bunk.” ”

“ With a comrade or a guide attached to you by a rope there is no danger worth speaking of, but it must be as clear to you as it is to me that it when out on the mountains alone, you step on a snow-covered crevasse and break through, your instant death is inevitable. ”

“ It is not a half solid mass like mud, which might roll slowly down an incline; it is solid, clear, transparent, brittle ice, which refuses to bend, and cracks sharply under a strain; nevertheless, it has its waves and rapids, cross-currents, eddies, and cascades, which, seen from a moderate distance, display all the grace and beauty of flowing water—as if a grand river in all its varied parts, calm and turbulent, had been actually and suddenly arrested in its course and frozen to the bottom. ”

“ If Emma’s rich, of course it’s no use to give her what she don’t need, and I’ll give the most of what I’ve had the good fortune to dig up here to old Mr Lawrence, or his family, for my brother’s widow, bein’ rich, don’t need it. If both Emma and Lawrence are rich, why then, just let me know, and I’ll try to hit on some other plan to make away with it, for you know well enough I couldn’t use it all upon myself without going into wicked extravagance, and my dear old Mrs Roby wouldn’t know what to do with so much cash if I sent it to her. ”

“ If the toe is drawn back, the man is nobody. If it is thrust further out, and followed up by the unwilling body, the man is a hero! The agony, however, like that of tooth-drawing, is soon over, and the delightful commendations of an approving conscience are superadded to the pleasures of an early morning walk.
Such pleasures were enjoyed one morning by Emma Gray and Nita Horetzki and Lewis Stoutley, when, at an early hour, they issued from their hotel, and walked away briskly up the Vale of Chamouni. ”

“ Here the exact line was marked, but while the hole was being bored, an ominous crack was heard ascending as if from the heart of the glacier.
“What was that?” said Lawrence, turning to the guide with a quick surprised look.
“Only a split in the ice somewhere. It’s a common sound enough, as you might expect in a mass that is constantly moving,” replied Antoine, looking gravely round him, “but I can’t help thinking that this lump of ice, with crevasses on each side, is not the best of all spots for fixing a stake. It isn’t solid enough.” ”

“ He knows, also, from long experience, that he who would climb a mountain well, and use his strength to advantage, must begin with a slow, leisurely pace, as if he were merely out for a saunter, yet must progress with steady, persevering regularity. He knows, too, that young blood is prone to breast a mountain with head erect and spanking action, and to descend with woeful countenance and limp limbs. It must be restrained, and Antoine does his duty. ”

“ In the brightening light they emerged upon a plain named the Petit Plateau, which forms a reservoir for the avalanches of the Dôme du Gouté. Above them rose the mountain-crest in three grand masses, divided from each other by rents, which exposed that peculiar stratified form of the glacier caused by the annual bedding of the snow. From the heights, innumerable avalanches had descended, strewing the spot where they stood with huge blocks of ice and masses of rock. ”

“ On the other side of the vale rise the steeps of the Aiguilles Rouges and the Brévent. To the north towers the Croix de Fer, and to the north-east is seen the entire chain of the Bernese Alps, rising like a mighty white leviathan, with a bristling back of pinnacles.
Splendid though the view was, however, Lewis did not for a moment forget his mission. Allowing himself only a few minutes to drink it in, he hastened back to the Tête-Noire path, and soon found himself traversing a widely different scene. On the Col he had, as it were, stood aloof, and looked abroad on a vast and glorious region ”

“ There was another laugh, from crowd and firemen, at the nautical brevity and promptitude of Gillie.
At every large fire in London there may be seen a few firemen standing about in what an ignorant spectator might imagine to be easy indifference and idleness, but these men are not idlers. They are resting. The men who first arrive at a fire go into action with the utmost vigour, and toil until their powers are nearly—sometimes quite—exhausted. As time passes fresh men are continually arriving from the more distant stations. ”

“ There is something powerfully exciting to most minds in the sight of men rushing into violent action, especially when the action may possibly involve life and death. The natural excitement aroused in the Captain’s breast was increased by the deep bass nautical roar that met his ear. Every man in the London fire-brigade is, or used to be, a picked man-of-war’s-man, and the shouting necessary in such a thoroughfare to make people get out of the way was not only tremendous but unceasing. ”

“ Lives are lost in the Alps every year, I am told, owing to indifference to these two points. The guides say—and their opinions are corroborated by men of science and Alpine experience—that it is dangerous to meddle with any slope exceeding 30 degrees for several days after a heavy fall, and yet it is certain that slopes exceeding this angle are traversed annually by travellers who are ignorant, or reckless, or both. Did you not say that the slope which you crossed the other day was a steeper angle than this, and the snow on it not more than twenty-four hours’ old? ”

“ But the man of science persevered in doing what he conceived to be his duty with as much coolness as if he were the leader of a forlorn hope. Following the example of experienced ice-men on steep places, he took good care to make the notches or steps slope a little inwards, never lifted his foot from one step until the next was ready, and never swung his axe until his balance was perfectly secured. Having gained a height of about thirty feet, he pierced a hole with his auger, fastened a stake in it, and descended amid a heavy cannonade of boulders and a smart fire of smaller débris. ”

“ Everything—from the old woman’s cap to the uncarpeted floor, and the little grate in which a little fire was making feeble efforts to warm a little tea-kettle with a defiant spout—was scrupulously neat, and fresh, and clean, very much the reverse of what one might have expected to find in connection with a poverty-stricken population, a dirty lane, a filthy court, a rickety stair, and a dark passage. ”

“ Captain Wopper assured her with much solemnity that it might or might not be a compliment, but it was a fact. “Why, look here,” said he, “you go and starve yourself, and deny yourself all sorts of little comforts—what then? Why, you’ll die long before your time, which is very like taking the law into your own hands, ma’am, and then you won’t leave to Netta nearly as much as you might if you had taken care of yourself and lived longer, and saved up after a reasonable fashion. It’s sheer madness. Why, ma’am, you’re starving now, but I’ll put a stop to that. ”