as a river, of
wildly heaped up masses of ice, compressed among the steep cliffs. For
an instant Rudy thought on what they had told him, about his having
laid with his mother, in one of these cold-breathing chasms. Such
thoughts soon vanished; it seemed to him as though it were some other
story--one of the many which had been related to him. Now and then,
when the men thought that the ascent was too difficult for the little
lad, they would reach him their hand, but he was never weary and
stood on the slippery ice as firm as a chamois. Now they reached the
bottom of the rocks, they were soon among the bare stones, which were
void of moss; soon under the low fir-trees and again out on the green
common--ever changing, ever new. Around them arose the snow mountains,
whose names were as familiar to Rudy as they were to every child in
the neighbourhood: "the Jungfrau," "the Moench," and "the Eiger."

Rudy had never been so high before, had never before trodden on the
vast sea of snow, which lay there with its immoveable waves. The wind
blew single flakes about, as it blows the foam upon the waters of the
sea.

Glacier stood by glacier, if one may say so, hand in hand; each one
was an ice-palace for the Ice-Maiden, whose power and will is: "to
catch and to bury." The sun burned warmly, the snow was dazzling, as
if sown with bluish-white, glittering diamond sparks. Countless
insects (butterflies and bees mostly) lay in masses dead on the snow;
they had ventured too high, or the wind had borne them thither, but to
breathe their last in these cold regions. A threatening cloud hung
over the Wetterhorn, like a fine, black tuft of wool. It lowered
itself slowly, heavily, with that which lay concealed within it, and
this was the "Foehn,"[A] powerful in its strength when it broke loose.
The impression of the entire journey, the night quarters above and
then the road beyond, the deep rocky chasms, where the water forced
its way through the blocks of stone with terrible rapidity, engraved
itself indelibly on Rudy's mind.

On the other side of the sea of snow, a forsaken stone hut gave them
protection and shelter for the night; a fire was quickly lighted, for
they found within it charcoal and fir branches; they arranged their
couch as well as possible. The men seated themselves around the fire,
smoked their tobacco and drank the warm spicy drink, which they had
prepared for themselves. Rudy had his share too and they told him of
the