The gather’d winter of a thousand years.
Having walked a considerable time on the valley, and being sufficiently regaled with ice, we at length thought of returning to our cottage at Prieuré. Our guides led us down by a shorter and deeper way than that by which we had ascended; and in about two hours after we had begun our descent, we found ourselves at the bottom of the mountain. This rapid manner of descending, most people find more severe upon the muscles of the legs and thighs, than even the ascent. For my own part, I was very near exhausted; and as we were still a couple of miles distant from our lodgings, it was with the greatest satisfaction that I saw our obsequious mules in waiting to carry us to our cottage; where having at last arrived, and being assembled in a small room, excluded from the view of icy valleys, crystal hills, and snowy mountains, with nothing before us but humble objects, as cold meat, coarse bread, and poor wine, we contrived to pass an hour before going to bed, in talking over the exploits of the day, and the wonders we had seen.—Whether there is greater pleasure in this, or in viewing the scenes themselves, is a question not yet decided by the casuists.
Ac veluti montis Saxum de vertice præceps
Cum ruit avulsum vento, seu turbidus imber
Proluit, aut annis solvit sublapsa vetustas:
Fertur in abruptum magno mons improbus actu,
Exultatque solo, silvas, armenta, virosque
Involvens secum.
Virg.