There were snow-covered slabs on whose lateral edges the smooth green ice became visible; there were hillocks that looked like heaped-up foam, but whose inward-looking crevices had a dull sheen and lustre as if bars and beams of gems had been flung pellmell. There rose rounded hummocks that were entirely enveloped in snow, slabs and other forms that stood inclined or in a perpendicular position, towering as high as houses or the church of Gschaid. In some, cavities were hollowed out through which one could insert an arm, a head, a body, a whole big wagon full of hay. All these were jumbled together and tilted so that they frequently formed roofs or eaves whose edges the snow overlaid and over which it reached down like long white paws. Nay, even a monstrous black boulder as large as a house lay stranded among the blocks of ice and stood on end so that no snow could stick to its sides. And even larger ones which one saw only later were fast in the ice and skirted the glacier like a wall of debris. "There must have been very much water here, because there is so much ice," remarked Sanna. "No, that did not come from any water," replied her brother, "that is the ice of the mountain which is always on it, because that is the way things are." "Yes, Conrad," said Sanna. "We have come to the ice now," said the boy; "we are on the mountain, you know, Sanna, that one sees so white in the sunshine from our garden. Now keep in mind what I shall tell you. Do you remember how often we used to sit in the garden, in the afternoon, how beautiful it was, how the bees hummed about us, how the linden-trees smelled sweet, and how the sun shone down on us?" "Yes, Conrad, I remember." "And then we also used to see the mountain. We saw how blue it was, as blue as the sky, we saw the snow that is up there even when we had summer-weather, when it was hot and the grain ripened." "Yes, Conrad." "And below it where the snow stopped one sees all sorts of colors if one looks close--green, blue, and whitish--that is the ice; but it only looks so small from below, because it is so very far away. Father said the ice will not go away before the end of the world. And then I also often saw that there was blue color below the ice and thought it was stones, or soil and pasture-land, and then come the woods, and they go down farther and farther, and there are some boulders in them too, and then come meadows that are already green, and then the green leafy-woods, and then our meadow-lands and fields in the valley of Gschaid. Do you see now, Sanna, as we are at the ice we shall go down over the blue color, and through the forests in which are the boulders, and then over the pasture-land, and through the green leafy-forests, and then we shall be in the valley of Gschaid and easily find our way to the village." "Yes, Conrad," said the girl. The children now entered upon the glacier where it was accessible. They were like wee little pricks wandering among the huge masses.