A series of rugged zigzags enabled me to make my way down
into the weird under-world of the crevasse. Its chambered hollows were
hung with a multitude of clustered icicles, amid which pale, subdued
light pulsed and shimmered with indescribable loveliness. Water dripped
and tinkled overhead, and from far below came strange, solemn murmurings
from currents that were feeling their way through veins and fissures in
the dark. The chambers of a glacier are perfectly enchanting,
notwithstanding one feels out of place in their frosty beauty. I was
soon cold in my shirt-sleeves, and the leaning wall threatened to engulf
me; yet it was hard to leave the delicious music of the water and the
lovely light. Coming again to the surface, I noticed boulders of every
size on their journeys to the terminal moraine--journeys of more than a
hundred years, without a single stop, night or day, winter or summer.
The sun gave birth to a network of sweet-voiced rills that ran
gracefully down the glacier, curling and swirling in their shining
channels, and cutting clear sections through the porous surface-ice into
the solid blue, where the structure of the glacier was beautifully
illustrated.
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