in July the streaks of snow may often be discerned in the rifts near the summits. All down the sides of the crags heaps of ruin mark the headlong paths of the torrents. Mile after mile the traveller looks in vain for the smoke of one hut, or for one human form wrapped in a plaid, and listens in vain for the bark of a shepherd's dog, or the bleat of a lamb. Mile after mile the only sound that indicates life is the faint cry of a bird of prey from some storm-beaten pinnacle of rock. The progress of civilisation, which has turned so many wastes into fields yellow with harvests or gay with apple blossoms, has only made Glencoe more desolate. LORD MACAULAY. THE FIRST ASCENT OF THE WETTERHORN, PART I.-THE LOWER SLOPES. It was half-past one when we left the door of the hotel; the sun was hot, and we walked slowly across the beautiful meadows which clothe the northern slopes of the valley of Grindelwald, and give to it that character of mingled loveliness and grandeur for which it is so eminently distinguished. Passing the end of the glacier, we made, first of all, for the great wall of rock which forms the side of the Scheideck pass, and after scrambling some distance up its face, by inequalities of the surface scarcely perceptible from below, gained a narrow goat-walk, which hugs the brink of terrible precipices, often but an inch or two from the path, and is itself surmounted by others equally formidable, the base of which we could sometimes almost touch with one hand, while a pebble dropped from the other would fall hundreds of feet before it touched the earth. The path, however, when you are on it, does not look so bad as this description might seem to imply; little tufts of grass and brushwood grow freely on the edge of the precipice, and conceal from the eye its depth and sheerness. This wild track leads for about half an hour, back, in a direction towards Grindelwald, till it arrives at the corner of the mountain, which is almost as square as if it were the work of the mason; it then takes a turn, and continues along the other face of the mountain, at right angles to its former course. At the angle, there was a little platform of sloping turf, just large enough for us all to lay ourselves down and rest in the sunshine. The view down the valley and towards the snowy heights beyond, with the cataract of ice beneath our feet, was abundantly striking; but my eye could not help wandering to the glittering spire of Grindelwald, as my imagination strove in vain to paint the scenes I should have gazed upon, before I was welcomed back again by those I had left behind me. While we lay on the grass, a magnificent avalanche came crashing down the precipice of the Shreckhorn, just across the glacier, and added to the great bank of dead white dust beneath, which told us that we looked upon a track which the avalanches were much wont to take. The path now directly overhangs the Upper Grindelwald glacier; for some distance you descend, in order to avoid a torrent which leaps down the precipices above, and which there is no room to pass, except near the edge of the glacier. After crossing this stream you ascend by a bed of moraine, and afterwards, in a slanting direction, along the face of the cliff. The rock is marked in the map as gneiss, but the footing is so bad that I took it for limestone, the very worst of all rocks to walk over. In many spots, steps had been hewn in the smooth slopes or slabs of gneiss, without which it Iwould have been very difficult and dangerous to traverse them. As it was, we slipped uncomfortably often, and were very glad to reach a small shoulder of the mountain, round which the glacier comes pouring from the left, and which is covered with a rich carpet of luxuriant herbage, affording excellent pasturage to the numerous flocks that are driven hither, and into the valley behind, to fatten during the summer months. From this shoulder we had a few minutes of very steep descent, and then passed beneath a ridge of rocks, supporting like a terrace the valley we sought. Several clear streams pour in beautiful showers over the ledge thus formed. Above the head of one, a delicate rainbow played fitfully--a glory placed there by the Eternal hand. Farther on, the ridge gives way to a bank of earth and boulder-stones, up which we climbed, and entered upon a turf slope, dotted with rocks rolled down from above, and occupying the bed of a broad valley. This valley was closed at the head by a glacier streaming from the base of the peak we aspired to climb, and by a wall of crags as hopeless, to all appearance, as the precipices of the Gemmi. On our right was a range of lofty rocks, capped by the great plateau of ice, and on our left the ridge up whose opposite side we had fought our way, and behind which the glow of sunset had already flushed the western sky. Half an hour's ascent over the herbage and among the boulders brought us to a stone under which we were to pass the night. It was a splendid wild scene-no distant prospect, but we were in the very heart of the crags and ice-surrounded by some of the grandest glaciers and precipices in the Alps. I climbed along a neighbouring height: the glacier by whose side we had ascended lay white and cold at its base; but the tints of the evening sky over the mountains bordering the valley of Lauterbrunnen were wonderfully rich, while every peak and glacier around was bathed in a flood of purple. I cast one look towards that majestic summit upon which I hoped, before to-morrow's sunset, to have stood, and returned to more practical cares and occupations, stimulated by a pleasing excitement, and filled with all that mingled wonder, delight, and awe which takes possession of the soul when evening falls amidst the solemn silence of these Alpine fastnesses, and which no man can or would repress. I found our sleeping den to consist of a low, arched cave, formed by two or three rocks, one of which, somewhat hollow on the under side, had fallen curiously over the others, so as to make a kind of vaulted roof. Two sides were supplied by the boulders on which it rested, and in the course of time the earth had so accumulated about them that the ground outside was two or three feet higher than the floor of the cavern. Mould had also gathered about their points of contact, so that the holes and crevices were filled up, and the shelter was complete. Only one narrow entrance was left, and the care of the hunters had blocked this up with stones, which we removed. There was barely room for one person to enter at a time, and we were obliged to creep backwards through the aperture. Within, the hunters, whose calling had led them to sleep in this natural chamber, had strewn the floor of earth with a thick covering of short mountain hay, which gave an unexpected look of warmth and comfort to the place. The men had brought up with them a stock of wood; and abundance of fresh water was supplied by a brawling glacier stream, which leaped and bounded over a rocky bed, by the side of our queer little hut. A fire was lighted outside, and some good black coffee made. A mug of coffee without milk, a hunch of cold veal, and a log of sour bread, carved with our pocket-knife, formed the evening repast. But it was a cheerful meal, and a hearty one; and the great bright stars looked down upon us with a merry twinkle in their roguish eyes, as if they too enjoyed the fun. There was no moon, and the vast white glaciers gleamed faintly through the night, like the battlements of phantom castles. At length the supper was over; the coffee-pot and cups were rinsed clean in the noisy stream; the fire was carefully trodden out, that none of our scanty stock of fuel might be wasted; a light was struck; and one by one we entered the cavern, and laid ourselves down in our places. When we were all arranged, the candle was put out, and we were left in the thick darkness. Suddenly, the three Swiss struck up a hymn in German. They sang well; there was a good tenor and a rich, manly bass. The effect, in that strange place, in ‘darkness visible,' couched as we were beneath the shadows of the eternal mountains, was inexpressibly solemn; when the song of praise was sung, no one spoke, and presently the deep breathing all around announced that most of the men were sunk in sleep. I must say I was desperately uncomfortable. The guides had built up again the aperture by which we entered, and what with the smell of the hay, and the presence of so many persons, the air soon became insufferably hot and close. One of the guides had laid his head on my feet, and when I moved farther back to get rid of him, he followed, even in his sleep, and insisted upon using me for a pillow. I waxed restless and feverish, and all chance of sleep deserted me. I could not, however, fail to be struck with the solemnity of the place and time; all night long, I lay in palpable darkness, beneath a hollow rock, and on a bed of stones, with a foaming glacier torrent brawling past my head, not six feet from me, save for the noise of which, all nature was still and silent as the grave. The profound tranquillity was broken, however, by frequent and startling interruptions: 'All in a moment, crash on crash, From precipice to precipice, An avalanche's ruins dash Down to the nethermost abyss, Pursues the uproar, till it dies ; 'Silence again the darkness seals, |