The Story of Mont BlancD. Bogue, 1853 - 219 páginas |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Términos y frases comunes
Aiguille Alps appeared Arve ascent attempt avalanche Balmat baton bottles Bourrit breakfast Cachat caravan châlet chamois Chamouni climb cloth Col du Géant cold companion Côte Couttet crevice crossed danger DAVID BOGUE descended Devouassoud diligence dinner edge English excursion fatigue Fcap feet FLEET STREET foot François francs gave Geneva Glace Glacier des Bossons Grand Plateau Grands Mulets granite guides half-past halt Hôtel de Londres Jacques Balmat Jardin Jean Tairraz journey knapsacks Les Rousses looked Martigny Mer de Glace minutes Mont Blanc Montanvert morning morocco mouni mountain mules night o'clock once ourselves party passed Pierre reached the summit road rock round route Salanches Saussure scarcely Servoz ſhould side slope snow soon steep summit of Mont table d'hôte theſe thoſe told took traveller uſe valley of Chamouni village walk weather Windham wine
Pasajes populares
Página 113 - Tairray, being where the slope was somewhat steeper, had been carried down with greater rapidity and to a greater distance, and had thus been hurried into the crevasse, with an immense mass of snow upon them, which rose nearly to the brink. Mathieu Balmat, who was fourth in the line, being a man of great muscular strength, as well as presence of mind, had suddenly thrust his pole into the firm snow beneath, when he felt himself going, which certainly checked, in some measure, the force of his fall....
Página 114 - ... upon the new-fallen snow. Happily it did not give way beneath our weight. Here we continued, above a quarter of an hour, to make every exertion in our power for the recovery of our poor comrades. After thrusting the poles in to their full length, we knelt down, and applied our mouth to the end, shouting along them, and then listening for an answer, in the fond hope that they might still be alive, sheltered by some projection of the icy walls of the crevasse; but, alas!
Página 199 - ... obliquely, there is nothing below but a chasm in the ice more frightful than anything yet passed. Should the foot slip, or the baton give way, there is no chance for life — you would glide like lightning from one frozen crag to another, and finally be dashed to pieces, hundreds and hundreds of feet below in the horrible depths of the glacier. Were it in the valley, simply rising up from a glacier moraine, its ascent would require great nerve and caution; but here, placed fourteen thousand feet...
Página 195 - ... snow on it. jean Carrier went first with his axe, and very cautiously cut every step in which we were to place our feet in the ice. It is difficult at times to walk along ice on a level : but when that ice is tilted up more than half-way towards the perpendicular, with a fathomless termination below, and no more foot and hand hold afforded than can be chipped out, it becomes a nervous affair enough. The cords came into requisition again ; and we went along, leaning very much over to our right,...
Página 111 - ... left. I was thrown instantly off my feet, but was still on my knees and endeavouring to regain my footing, when, in a few seconds, the snow on our right, which was of course above us, rushed into the gap thus suddenly made, and completed the catastrophe by burying us all at once in its mass, and hurrying us downwards towards two crevasses about a furlong below us, and nearly parallel to the line of our march. The accumulation of snow instantly threw me backwards, and I was carried down, in spite...
Página 171 - ... at others, we would find ourselves all wedged together, not daring to move, on a neck of ice that at first I could scarcely have thought adequate to have afforded footing to a goat. When we were thus fixed, somebody cut notches in the ice, and climbed up or down, as the case required ; then the knapsacks were pulled up or lowered ; then we followed, and, finally, the rest got up as they could. One scramble we had to make was rather frightful. The reader must imagine a valley of ice, very narrow,...
Página 194 - ... mountains into relief. The union of these two effects of light was very strange. At first, simply cold and bewildering, it had nothing of the sunset glories of the Grands Mulets ; but after a time, when peak after peak rose out from the gloomy world below, the spectacle was magnificent. In the dark boundless space a small speck of light would suddenly appear, growing larger and larger, until it took the palpable form of a mountain-top. Whilst this was going on, other points would brighten, here...
Página 182 - ... burst upon me, that, spell-bound, and almost trembling with the emotion its magnificence called forth — with every sense, and feeling, and thought absorbed by its brilliancy, I saw far more than the realization of the most gorgeous visions that opium or hasheesh could evoke, accomplished.