r, the clouds rose
from the opposite valley, curling up perpendicular precipices like the
foam of the ocean of hell, during a spring tide--it was white, and
sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appearance.[113] The side we ascended
was (of course) not of so precipitous a nature; but on arriving at the
summit, we looked down upon the other side upon a boiling sea of cloud,
dashing against the crags on which we stood (these crags on one side
quite perpendicular). Stayed a quarter of an hour; begun to descend;
quite clear from cloud on that side of the mountain. In passing the
masses of snow, I made a snowball and pelted Hobhouse with it.

"Got down to our horses again; ate something; remounted; heard the
avalanches still; came to a morass; Hobhouse dismounted to get over
well; I tried to pass my horse over; the horse sunk up to the chin, and
of course he and I were in the mud together; bemired, but not hurt;
laughed, and rode on. Arrived at the Grindelwald; dined; mounted again,
and rode to the higher glacier--like _a frozen hurricane_.[114]
Starlight, beautiful, but a devil of a path! Never mind, got safe in; a
little lightning; but the whole of the day as fine in point of weather
as the day on which Paradise was made. Passed _whole woods of withered
pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless;
done by a single winter[115],--their appearance reminded me of me and my
family.

[Footnote 113:

"Ye _avalanches_, whom a breath draws down
In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me!
_I hear ye momently above, beneath,
Crash with a frequent conflict._ * * *
The mists boil up around the glaciers; _clouds
Rise curling_ fast beneath me, white and sulphury,
_Like foam from the roused ocean of deep hell!_"
MANFRED.
]

[Footnote 114:

"O'er the savage sea,
The glassy ocean of the mountain ice,
We skim its rugged breakers, which put on
The aspect of a tumbling _tempest_'s foam,
_Frozen in a moment._"
MANFRED.
]

[Footnote 115:

"Like these _blasted pines,
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless._"
IBID.
]

"September 24.

"Set off at seven; up at five. Passed the black glacier, the mountain
Wetterhorn on the right; crossed the Scheideck mountain; came to the
_Rose_ glacier, said to be the largest and finest in Switzerland, _I_
think the Bossons glacier at Chamouni as fine; Hobhouse does