The greater part of those who have made a journey to the Glaciers have seen one or more of these avalanches in the very act of falling, and have themselves always escaped by miracle.—Just as most people who have made a single voyage by sea, if it were only between Dover and Calais, have met with a storm, and very narrowly escaped shipwreck.
All that any of our party can boast is, that during the nights we lay at Chamouni, we frequently heard a noise like distant thunder, which we were told was occasioned by the falling of some of these same avalanches at a few miles distance. And during our excursions, we saw trees destroyed, and tracts of soil torn from the sides of the mountains, over which the avalanches were said to have rolled, two or three years before we passed. These were the narrowest escapes we made.—I heartily wish the same good luck to all travellers, whatever account they themselves may choose to give to their friends, when they return.
The Valley of Ice is several leagues in length, and not above a quarter of a league in breadth. It divides into branches, which run behind the chain of mountains formerly taken notice of. It appears like a frozen amphitheatre, and is bounded by mountains, in whose clefts columns of crystal, as we were informed, are to be found.—The hoary majesty of Mont Blanc … I was in danger of rising into poetry, when recollecting the story of Icarus, I thought it best not to trust to my own waxen wings.—I beg leave rather to borrow the following lines, which will please you better than any flight of mine, and prevent me from a fall:
So Zembla’s rocks (the beauteous work of frost)
Rise white in air, and glitter o’er the coast,
Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away,
And on th’ impassive ice the lightnings play;
Eternal snows the growing mass supply,
Fill the bright mountains, prop th’ incumbent sky;
As Atlas fix’d, each hoary pile appears,