"That great icy mountain?" said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George.
"Can we get up to the top of it?" asked Rollo.
"No," said Mr. George. "People tried for more than a thousand years to get to the top of the Jungfrau before they could succeed."
"And did they succeed at last?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," replied Mr. George. "You see there is a sort of goatlike animal, called the chamois,[7] which the peasants and mountaineers are very fond of hunting. These animals are great climbers, and they get up among the highest peaks and into the most dangerous places; and the hunters, in going into such places after them, become at last very expert in climbing, and sometimes they become ambitious of surpassing each other, and each one wishes to see how high he can get. So one time, about twenty-five years ago, a party of six of these hunters undertook to get to the top of the Jungfrau, and at last they succeeded. But it was a dreadfully difficult and dangerous operation. It was fifteen miles' steep climbing."
"Not steep climbing all the way," said Rollo.
"No," said Mr. George, "I suppose not all the way. There must have been some up-and-down work, and some perhaps tolerably level, for the first ten miles; but the last five must have been a perpetual scramble among rocks and ice and over vast drifts of snow, with immense avalanches thundering down the mountain sides all around them."
"I wish I could go and see them," said Rollo.
"You can go," replied Mr. George. "There is a most excellent chance to see the face of the Jungfrau very near; for there is another mountain this side of it, with a narrow valley between. This other mountain is called the Wengern Alp. It is about two thirds the height of the Jungfrau, and is so near it that from the top of it, or near the top, you can see the whole side of the Jungfrau rising right before you and filling half the sky, and you can see and hear the avalanches thundering down the sides of it all day long."