Furnishing ourselves with provisions at the adjacent inn, we devoted some hours to the examination of the lower portion of the glacier. The dirt upon its surface was arranged in grooves as fine as if produced by the passage of a rake, while the laminated structure of the deeper ice always corresponded to the superficial grooving. We found several shafts, some empty, some filled with water. At one place our attention was attracted by a singular noise, evidently produced by the forcing of air and water through passages in the body of the glacier; the sound rose and fell for several minutes, like a kind of intermittent snore, reminding one of Hugi's hypothesis that the glacier was alive.
RINGS AROUND THE SUN. 1856.
We afterwards climbed to a point from which the whole glacier was visible to us from its origin to its end. Adjacent to us rose the mighty mass of the Finsteraarhorn, the monarch of the Oberland. The Galenstock was also at hand, while round about the névé of the glacier a mountain wall projected its jagged outline against the sky. At a distance was the grand cone of the Weisshorn, then, and I believe still, unscaled;[A] further to the left the magnificent peaks of the Mischabel; while between them, in savage isolation, stood the obelisk of the Matterhorn. Near us was the chain of the Furca, all covered with shining snow, while overhead the dark blue of the firmament so influenced the general scene as to inspire a sentiment of wonder approaching to awe. We descended to the glacier, and proceeded towards its source. As we advanced an unusual light fell upon the mountains, and looking upwards we saw a series of coloured rings, drawn like a vivid circular rainbow quite round the sun. Between the orb and us spread a thin veil of cloud on which the circles were painted; the western side of the veil soon melted away, and with it the colours, but the eastern half remained a quarter of an hour longer, and then in its turn disappeared. The crevasses became more frequent and dangerous as we ascended. They were usually furnished with overhanging eaves of snow, from which long icicles depended, and to tread on which might be fatal. We were near the source of the glacier, but the time necessary to reach it was nevertheless indefinite, so great was the entanglement of fissures. We followed one huge chasm for some hundreds of yards, hoping to cross it; but after half an hour's fruitless effort we found ourselves baffled and forced to retrace our steps.
SPIRIT OF THE BROCKEN. 1856.
The sun was sloping to the west, and we thought it wise to return; so down the glacier we went, mingling our footsteps with the tracks of chamois, while the frightened marmots piped incessantly from the rocks. We reached the land once more, and halted for a time to look upon the scene within view. The marvellous blueness of the sky in the earlier part of the day indicated that the air was charged, almost to saturation, with transparent aqueous vapour. As the sun sank the shadow of the Finsteraarhorn was cast through the adjacent atmosphere, which, thus deprived of the direct rays, curdled up into visible fog. The condensed vapour moved slowly along the flanks of the mountain, and poured itself cataract-like into the valley of the Rhone. Here it met the sun again, which reduced it once more to the invisible state. Thus, though there was an incessant supply from the generator behind, the fog made no progress; as in the case of the moving glacier, the end of the cloud-river remained stationary where consumption was equal to supply. Proceeding along the mountain to the Furca, we found the valley at the further side of the pass also filled with fog, which rose, like a wall, high above the region of actual shadow. Once on turning a corner an exclamation of surprise burst simultaneously from my companion and myself. Before each of us and against the wall of fog, stood a spectral image of a man, of colossal dimensions; dark as a whole, but bounded by a coloured outline. We stretched forth our arms; the spectres did the same. We raised our alpenstocks; the spectres also flourished their bâtons. All our actions were imitated by these fringed and gigantic shades. We had, in fact, the Spirit of the Brocken before us in perfection.
At the time here referred to I had had but little experience of alpine phenomena. I had been through the Oberland in 1850, but was then too ignorant to learn much from my excursion. Hence the novelty of this day's experience may have rendered it impressive: still even now I think there was an intrinsic grandeur in its phenomena which entitles the day to rank with the most remarkable that I have spent among the Alps. At the Furca, to my great regret, the joint ramblings of my friend and myself ended; I parted from him on the mountain side, and watched him descending, till the gray of evening finally hid him from my view.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The Weisshorn was first scaled, by Tyndall, in 1861.—L. C. T.