ng spellbound, I began instinctively to
scrutinize every notch and gorge and weathered buttress of the mountain,
with reference to making the ascent. The entire front above the glacier
appeared as one tremendous precipice, slightly receding at the top, and
bristling with spires and pinnacles set above one another in formidable
array. Massive lichen-stained battlements stood forward here and there,
hacked at the top with angular notches, and separated by frosty gullies
and recesses that have been veiled in shadow ever since their creation;
while to right and left, as far as I could see, were huge, crumbling
buttresses, offering no hope to the climber. The head of the glacier
sends up a few finger-like branches through narrow _couloirs_; but
these seemed too steep and short to be available, especially as I had no
ax with which to cut steps, and the numerous narrow-throated gullies
down which stones and snow are avalanched seemed hopelessly steep,
besides being interrupted by vertical cliffs; while the whole front was
rendered still more terribly forbidding by the chill shadow and the
gloomy blackness of the rocks.

Descending the divide in a hesitating mood, I picked my way across the
yawning chasm at the foot, and climbed out upon the glacier. There were
no meadows now to cheer with their brave colors, nor could I hear the
dun-headed sparrows, whose cheery notes so often relieve the silence of
our highest mountains. The only sounds were the gurgling of small rills
down in the veins and crevasses of the glacier, and now and then the
rattling report of falling stones, with the echoes they shot out into
the crisp air.

I could not distinctly hope to reach the summit from this side, yet I
moved on across the glacier as if driven by fate. Contending with
myself, the season is too far spent, I said, and even should I be
successful, I might be storm-bound on the mountain; and in the
cloud-darkness, with the cliffs and crevasses covered with snow, how
could I escape? No; I must wait till next summer. I would only approach
the mountain now, and inspect it, creep about its flanks, learn what I
could of its history, holding myself ready to flee on the approach of
the first storm-cloud. But we little know until tried how much of the
uncontrollable there is in us, urging across glaciers and torrents, and
up dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may.

I succeeded in gaining the foot of the cliff on the eastern extremity o