The
event proved that in saying this he drew entirely upon his imagination.
It is, perhaps, only fair to suppose that they don't mean anything by
it, and it may be mere ignorance on their part; but the simple fact is,
that some of those Swiss rustics tell the most barefaced lies
conceivable,--_unblushing_ is an epithet that cannot be safely applied
without previous soap and water,--and tell them in a plodding systematic
manner which takes in all but the experienced and wary traveller. I have
myself learned to suspend my judgment regarding the most simple thing in
nature, until I have other grounds for forming an opinion than the
solemn asseverations of the most stolid and respectable Swiss, if it so
be that money depends upon his report.[51]
As in the case of two of the glacieres already described, the entrance
is by a deep pit, which has the appearance of having been at one time
two pits, one less deep than the other; and the barrier between the two
having been removed by some natural process, a passage is found down the
steep side of the shallower pit, which lands the adventurer on a small
sloping shelf, 21 feet sheer above the surface of the snow in the deeper
pit, the sides of the latter rising up perpendicularly all round.
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