The road was interrupted here and there by gates which were opened by the village children, who received coppers for it. Before a wooden bridge in the form of a Swiss Chalet, we were met by a party of barefooted, yellow-haired brats, provided with long branches to chase off the flies, and square stones to put under the wheels on steep ascents. They followed us during a whole hour, waving their branches and singing Tyrolese songs. We plodded on steadily for three hours. Having reached the Hôtel Eiger we ordered saddle-horses, and went to the glaciers by a narrow way, with the rock-wall at one elbow and perpendicular precipices at the other. The rough path was so narrow that we had to ride one below the other, treading a road where a man would have scarcely room enough to pass. The cleverness of our horses bewildered me, one false step would have thrown us headlong into the gap. We could ride no further and had to dismount at the foot of the glacier where we took a special glacier guide to take us up, and sent our horses to wait for us on the highway. Here the snow mountains rose close on us. Green pasturages had disappeared and all appearance of summer gradually faded into a perfect winter; the snow began to fall in masses, all presented a Lapland scene, nothing but snow and ice. The guide after having provided us with alpenstocks and blue spectacles, made us pass through a damp cavern the soil of which was mouldy with dew and drippings from the roof. Two shrivelled old women, wrapped up in shawls, with lilac cheeks and noses, were singing Tyrolese songs, with tremulous voices, in that grotto, accompanying themselves on the cithern, blowing their purple fingers in the intervals. When we came out of the cavern we saw a group of working-men occupied in sawing enormous blocks of ice which they dropped down the mountain on rails. Now we began to climb to the Glacier which was no childish play. The guide after pinning up my skirt led the way. We advanced very slowly, climbing higher and higher, pricking the sharp ends of our alpenstocks into the ice, running the risk of tumbling down into the deep ravines and leaving no trace behind. We had masses of snow to climb over and large abysses to leap over; soon greater difficulties awaited us. We had to climb a staircase simply propped up by a snow block; there was no path at all now, only crevices and precipices—it was chaos in short. The guide who had a sure foot, chopped steps with his ice-axe in the ice, and we were hoisted by him from a foothold to a foothold. He exclaimed at the courage I showed and said I was a capital hill-climber and called me “Sehr Brav.” In the distance we heard the crash of a downfall of snow. Half-way up we sat down and took a brief rest, our backs against a rock and our heels dangling over a bottomless abyss. The guide insisted upon my swallowing a drop of brandy from a tumbler slung by a strap over his shoulder.