On this object, and on this alone, Hans's eyes and thoughts were
fixed; forgetting the distance he had to traverse, he set off at an
imprudent rate of walking, which greatly exhausted him before he had
scaled the first range of the green and low hills. He was, moreover,
surprised, on surmounting them, to find that a large glacier, of whose
existence, notwithstanding his previous knowledge of the mountains, he
had been absolutely ignorant, lay between him and the source of the
Golden River. He entered on it with the boldness of a practised
mountaineer; yet he thought he had never traversed so strange or so
dangerous a glacier in his life. The ice was excessively slippery, and
out of all its chasms came wild sounds of gushing water; not
monotonous or low; but changeful and loud, rising occasionally into
drifting passages of wild melody, then breaking off into short
melancholy tones, or sudden shrieks, resembling those of human voices
in distress or pain. The ice was broken into thousands of confused
shapes, but none, Hans thought like the ordinary forms of splintered
ice. There seemed a curious _expression_ about all their outlines--a
perpetual resemblance to living features, distorted and scornful.
Myriads of deceitful shadows, and lurid lights, played and floated
about and through the pale-blue pinnacles, dazzling and confusing the
sight of the traveller; while his ears grew dull and his head giddy
with the constant gush and roar of the concealed waters. These painful
circumstances increased upon him as he advanced; the ice crashed and
yawned into fresh chasms at his feet, tottering spires nodded around
him, and fell thundering across his path; and, though he had
repeatedly faced these dangers on the most terrific glaciers, and in
the wildest weather, it was with a new and oppressive feeling of panic
terror that he leaped the last chasm, and flung himself, exhausted and
shuddering, on the firm turf of the mountain.