A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

GLACIER BELOW.

“Great caution, therefore, was absolutely necessary,

and in this exposed situation we were attacked by all

the fury of that grand enemy of aspirants to Monte

Rosa–a severe and bitterly cold wind from the north.

The fine powdery snow was driven past us in the clouds,

penetrating the interstices of our clothes, and the pieces

of ice which flew from the blows of Peter’s ax were

whisked into the air, and then dashed over the precipice.

We had quite enough to do to prevent ourselves from being

served in the same ruthless fashion, and now and then,

in the more violent gusts of wind, were glad to stick our

alpenstocks into the ice and hold on hard.”

Having surmounted this perilous steep, they sat down and

took a brief rest with their backs against a sheltering

rock and their heels dangling over a bottomless abyss;

then they climbed to the base of another ridge–a more

difficult and dangerous one still:

“The whole of the ridge was exceedingly narrow, and the

fall on each side desperately steep, but the ice in some

of these intervals between the masses of rock assumed

the form of a mere sharp edge, almost like a knife;

these places, though not more than three or four short

paces in length, looked uncommonly awkward; but, like the

sword leading true believers to the gates of Paradise,

they must needs be passed before we could attain to

the summit of our ambition. These were in one or two

places so narrow, that in stepping over them with toes

well turned out for greater security, ONE END OF THE

FOOT PROJECTED OVER THE AWFUL PRECIPICE ON THE RIGHT,

WHILE THE OTHER WAS ON THE BEGINNING OF THE ICE SLOPE ON

THE LEFT, WHICH WAS SCARCELY LESS STEEP THAN THE ROCKS.

On these occasions Peter would take my hand, and each

of us stretching as far as we could, he was thus enabled

to get a firm footing two paces or rather more from me,

whence a spring would probably bring him to the rock

on the other side; then, turning around, he called

to me to come, and, taking a couple of steps carefully,

I was met at the third by his outstretched hand ready

to clasp mine, and in a moment stood by his side.

The others followed in much the same fashion. Once my

right foot slipped on the side toward the precipice,

but I threw out my left arm in a moment so that it caught

the icy edge under my armpit as I fell, and supported

me considerably; at the same instant I cast my eyes

down the side on which I had slipped, and contrived

to plant my right foot on a piece of rock as large as a

cricket-ball, which chanced to protrude through the ice,

on the very edge of the precipice. Being thus anchored

fore and aft, as it were, I believe I could easily have

recovered myself, even if I had been alone, though it must

be confessed the situation would have been an awful one;

as it was, however, a jerk from Peter settled the matter

very soon, and I was on my legs all right in an instant.

The rope is an immense help in places of this kind.”

Now they arrived at the base of a great knob or dome

veneered with ice and powdered with snow–the utmost,

summit, the last bit of solidity between them and the hollow

vault of heaven. They set to work with their hatchets,

and were soon creeping, insectlike, up its surface, with their

heels projecting over the thinnest kind of nothingness,

thickened up a little with a few wandering shreds and

films of cloud moving in a lazy procession far below.

Presently, one man’s toe-hold broke and he fell! There he

dangled in mid-air at the end of the rope, like a spider,

till his friends above hauled him into place again.

A little bit later, the party stood upon the wee pedestal

of the very summit, in a driving wind, and looked out

upon the vast green expanses of Italy and a shoreless

ocean of billowy Alps.

When I had read thus far, Harris broke into the room