With a diadem of snow."
At once a strong desire seizes us to explore those boundless fields of crystal clearness, and yet we shrink from all the toil and danger thus involved. But, suddenly, as our gaze returns to earth, we find a means of making the ascent without fatigue—the telescope!
A MOUNTAIN MAUSOLEUM.
The placard suspended from it tells us that some tourists are actually struggling toward the summit. The chances are that they will return in safety; for the ascent of Mont Blanc, which Balmat made with so much difficulty, has now been reduced to a system. Yet after all, this Alpine climbing is a dangerous business. It is pathetic, for example, to recall the fate of poor Balmat himself. Despite his long experience, even he lost his life at last by falling over a precipice. Only his statue is in Chamonix; his body lies in an immense abyss, four hundred feet in depth, where falling masses of rock and ice are constantly increasing his vast mausoleum, and the continual thunder of the avalanche seems like the mountain's exultation at its conqueror's destruction.
CLIMBERS IN SIGHT.
Availing ourselves of the telescope, we watch with ease and comfort the actual climbers on Mont Blanc. By this time they have bound themselves together with a rope, which in positions of peril is the first requisite of safety. For one must always think of safety on these mountains. With all their beauty and grandeur, they have sufficient capability for cruelty to make the blood run cold. They have no mercy in them; no sympathy for the warm hearts beating so near their surfaces. They submit passively to conquest, so long as man preserves a cool head and sure footing. But let him make one false step; let his brain swim, his heart fail, his hand falter, and they will hurl him from their icy slopes, or tear him to pieces on their jagged tusks, while in the roar of the avalanche is heard their demoniac laughter.