No pit was to be seen, and not a drop
of water. Snow could have drifted in easily, but they saw no signs of
any remaining. If this account be true, especially with respect to the
position of the entrance and the horizontal direction of the floor, I
have seen no glaciere like it.
We descended for a time through fir-woods, and then again down steep and
barren rocks, till we reached the sharp slope of grass which so
frequently connects the base of a mountain with the more civilised
forests and the pasturages below. The maire led us for some distance
along the top of this grass slope, towards the west, skirting the rocks
till they became precipitous and lofty, when he said we must be near
our point. Still we went on and on without seeing any signs of it, and
our guide seemed in despair; and I, for one, entirely gave up the third
cave to the same fate as the second, and became very sulky and
remonstrative. The entrance to the glaciere, the maire told us, was a
hole in the face of the highest rocks, 3 or 4 yards only above the
grass; and as we had now reached a part of the mountain where the rock
springs up smooth and high, and we could command the whole face, and yet
saw nothing, the schoolmaster came over to my side, and told the maire
he was a humbug.
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