r wall was lowest. Upon this
inclined ledge, however, we fixt the foot of our ladder. The difficulty
of doing so conveniently was increased by a transverse crevasse which
here intersected the other system. The foot, however, was fixt and
rendered tolerably safe by driving in firmly several of our alpenstocks
and axes under the lowest step. Almer, then, amidst great excitement,
went forward to mount it. Should we still find an impassable system of
crevasses above us, or were we close to the top? A gentle breeze which
had been playing along the last ledge gave me hope that we were really
not far off. As Almer reached the top about twelve o'clock, a loud
yodel gave notice to all the party that our prospects were good. I soon
followed, and saw, to my great delight, a stretch of smooth, white snow,
without a single crevasse, rising in a gentle curve from our feet to the
top of the col.

The people who had been watching us from the Wengern Alp had been
firing salutes all day, whenever the idea struck them, and whenever we
surmounted a difficulty, such as the first great crevasse. We heard the
faint sound of two or three guns as we reached the final plateau. We
should, properly speaking, have been uproariously triumphant over our
victory. To say the truth, our party of that summer was only too apt to
break out into undignified explosions of animal spirits, bordering at
times upon horseplay....

The top of the Jungfrau-Joch comes rather like a bathos in poetry. It
rises so gently above the steep ice wall, and it is so difficult to
determine the precise culminating point, that our enthusiasm oozed out
gradually instead of producing a sudden explosion; and that instead of
giving three cheers, singing "God Save the Queen," or observing any of
the traditional ceremonial of a simpler generation of travelers, we
calmly walked forward as tho' we had been crossing Westminster Bridge,
and on catching sight of a small patch of rocks near the foot of
the Moench, rushed precipitately down to it and partook of our third
breakfast. Which things, like most others, might easily be made into an
allegory.

The great dramatic moments of life are very apt to fall singularly flat.
We manage to discount all their interest beforehand; and are amazed to
find that the day to which we have looked forward so long--the day,
it may be, of our marriage, or ordination, or election to be Lord
Mayor--finds us curiously unconscious of any sudden transformati