Between the Grands Mulets and the summit, Mont Blanc makes three tremendous steps, from eight hundred to one thousand feet in height, and between these are several frightful chasms, so perilous that on beholding them we catch our breath. There is something peculiarly horrible in these crevasses, yawning gloomily, day and night, as if with a never-satisfied hunger. A thousand—nay ten thousand—men in their cavernous jaws would not constitute a mouthful. They are even more to be dreaded than the avalanche; for the path of the avalanche is usually known; but these crevasses frequently hide their black abysses under deceitful coverlets of snow, luring unwary travelers to destruction. Nevertheless the avalanche is in certain places an ever-present danger. Mountains of snow stand toppling on the edge of some stupendous cliff, apparently waiting merely for the provocation of a human voice, intruding on their solitude, to start upon their awful plunge. The world well knows the fate of those who have been caught in such a torrent of destruction.
A BRIDGE OF ICE.
"No breath for words! no time for thought! no play
For eager muscle! guides, companions, all
O'ermastered in the unconquerable drift,
In Nature's grasp held powerless, atoms
Of her insensate frame, they fared as leaves
In the dark rapid of November gales,