“Yes, and now it looks quite big, Saxe; and when you have been on it and have walked a few miles upon its surface here and there—”
“Miles?”
“Yes, my boy, miles. Then you will begin to grasp how big all this is, and what vast deserts of ice and snow there are about us in the mountains. But come along; we have not much farther to go to reach the foot.”
But it took them quite a quarter of an hour over rounded, scratched and polished masses of rock which were in places cut into grooves, and to all this Dale drew attention.
“Do you see what it means?” he said.
“No,” said Saxe, “only that it’s very bad walking, now it’s so steep.”
“But don’t you see that—?”
“Yes, I do,” cried Saxe, interrupting him; “you mean that this has been all rubbed smooth by the ice and stones grinding over it; but how could it?—the ice couldn’t go up hill.”
“No, it comes down.”
“Then—was it once as far as here?”