1861 ]

INSPECTION OF TIIE MATTERHORN.

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own axe and arm in subduing their more seriousdifficulties, it is an entirely new experience to liealone amid those sublime scenes. The peaks weara more solemn aspect, the sun shines with a moreeffectual fire, the blue of heaven is more deep andawful, and the hard heart of man is often made astender as a child’s. You contract a closer friend-ship for the universe in virtue bf your more inti-mate contact with its parts. The glacier to-day filledthe air with low murmurs, while the sound of thedistant moulins rose to a kind of roar. The cZeh-mrustled on the moraines, the smaller rivulets bab-bled in their channels, as they ran to join theirtrunk, and the surface of the glacier creaked au-dibly as it yielded to the sun. It seemed to breatheand whisper like a living thing. To my left wasMonte Eosa and her royal court, to my right themystic pinnacle of the Matterhorn , which from acertain point here upon the glacier attains its max-imum sharpness. It drew my eyes towards it withirresistible fascination as it shimmered in the blue,too preoccupied with heaven to think even withcontempt on the designs of a son of earth to reachits inviolate crest.

I crossed the Gomer glacier quite as speedily asif I had been professionally led. Then up theundulating slope of the Theodule glacier, with arocky ridge to the right, over which I was informed