Christian, of course,
thought something was wrong, and very properly put a prompt strain upon
the rope, which reduced his Herr to a spread-eagle sort of condition, in
which it was difficult to explain matters, so as to procure a release.
When that was accomplished, I saw it would be easy to reach the point
where the ice met the wall, so I called to Christian to come down, which
he did in an unpremeditated, avalanche fashion; and then, by cutting
steps here and there, and making use of odd points of rock, we skirted
down the edge of the great fall, and reached at last the lower regions.
When I came to read Dufour's account of his visit in 1822, I found that
the ice must have increased very much since his time. He uses
sufficiently large words, speaking of the _vaste, horrible et pourtant
magnifique_--of the _horreur du sejour_, and the _grandeur des demeures
souterraines_; but he only calls the glorious ice-fall a _plan incline_,
and says that the whole was less remarkable for the amount of ice, than
for the characteristics indicated by the words I have quoted.
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