again from this gallery, I mounted the slope towards my
companions, and tried to tempt them down. The maire felt himself to be
too valuable to his country to be lightly risked, and declined to come;
but Rosset took a bold heart, and dropped, after requiring from me a
solemn promise that I would give him a back for his return up the rock.
We visited the gallery I had already explored, and, as we stood admiring
the cascade of ice, a skilful drop of water came from somewhere, and
extinguished our only candle. My matches were with the maire; and I was
equally sure that he would not bring them down to us, and that we could
not go up to fetch them without a light. Rosset, however, very
fortunately, had a box in his pocket for smoking purposes; and we cut
off the wet wick, and cut down the composition to form another, and so
contrived to light the candle again. While we were thus engaged, I
chanced to look up for a moment, and saw far above our heads a small
opening in the roof, through which a few rays of light entered from the
outer world. It was so very far above us, that the uncertain rays were
lost long before they got down to our level, being absorbed in the
universal darkness, and being in fact rather suggested than visible even
at their strongest. Those who have been at Lauterbrunnen in a very dry
season, will understand how these rays presented the appearance of a
ghostly Staubbach of unreal light. We must have been at an immense depth
below the surface in which the opening lay; and if there had been a long
day before us, it would have been curious to search for the fissure
above. Sir Thomas Browne says, in the _Religio Medici,_ 'Conceive light
invisible, and that is a spirit.' We very nearly saw a spirit here.

The descent from the mouth of this chamber to the deeper recesses of the
main fissure was very rough, but was speedily accomplished, and we
reached a point where solid rock stopped us in face; while, to the
right, a chamber with a threshold of ice was visible, and, to the left,
a dark opening, down which the descent appeared to continue. From this
opening all the strong cold current came. We took the ice-chamber first.

The entrance had evidently been closed till very lately by a large
column of ice, and we passed over the debris, between rock portals and
on a floor of solid grey ice, into a triangular cave of any height the
imagination might choose to fix. The entire floor of the cave was of
ice, giving the