ice shoot; planting his heels firmly in the snow and placing his pole
under his right arm and leaning the entire weight of his body upon it
he came down with the swiftness of an arrow, his body almost in a
sitting posture, his heels and the spiked end of his pole alone
touching the ice and deeply indenting it.

"It happened," said Franz, "that my father was showing a small company
of travellers to the summit, when a sudden fancy seized one of them to
make the descent in that way. My father expostulated, and told him
that it required practice and skill, that but few of the guides would
undertake it. He would not be deterred, feeling, as he said, sure that
he could do anything performed by another. Seeing that he was
determined, my father helped him to adjust his pole, and then shut his
eyes."

"And what then?" I asked, as Franz stopped and looked in the direction
of the Mer de Glace.

"There was no help for him," said Franz; "he was buried at the foot
of the mountain."

Having reached the summit, the scene that burst upon us was sublime in
the highest degree; immediately beneath was the Mer de Glace, a broad
river of ice running nearly forty miles up into the Alps; to the north
the green valley of Chamouni, to the south the gigantic barriers that
separate Savoy from Piedmont, and around us inaccessible peaks and
mountains of eternal snow, finely contrasting with the deep blue of
the heavens; while the roar of cataracts and the thunder of avalanches
were the only sounds that broke upon the profound stillness of the
terrible solitude.