These however once past, we felt that the chief danger was over. We reached the termination of the edge, and although the snow continued to fall heavily, and obscure everything, we knew that our progress afterwards was secure. There was pleasure in this feeling; it was an agreeable variation of that grim mental tension to which I had been previously wound up, but which in itself was by no means disagreeable. [Sidenote: SPLENDID BLUE OF THE SNOW. 1858.] [Sidenote: STIFLING HEAT. 1858.] I have already noticed the colour of the fresh snow upon the summit of the Stelvio pass. Since I observed it there it has been my custom to pay some attention to this point at all great elevations. This morning, as I ascended Monte Rosa, I often examined the holes made in the snow by our batons, but the light which issued from them was scarcely perceptibly blue. Now, however, a deep layer of fresh snow overspread the mountain, and the effect was magnificent. Along the kamm I was continually surprised and delighted by the blue gleams which issued from the broken or perforated stratum of new snow; each hole made by the staff was filled with a light as pure, and nearly as deep, as that of the unclouded firmament. When we reached the bottom of the kamm, Lauener came to the front, and tramped before me. As his feet rose out of the snow, and shook the latter off in fragments, sudden and wonderful gleams of blue light flashed from them. Doubtless the blue of the sky has much to do with mountain colouring, but in the present instance not only was there no blue sky, but the air was so thick with fog and descending snow-flakes, that we could not see twenty yards in advance of us. A thick fog, which wrapped the mountain quite closely, now added its gloom to the obscurity caused by the falling snow. Before we reached the base of the mountain the fog became thin, and the sun shone through it. There was not a breath of air stirring, and, though we stood ankle-deep in snow, the heat surpassed anything of the kind I had ever felt: it was the dead suffocating warmth of the interior of an oven, which encompassed us on all sides, and from which there seemed no escape. Our own motion through the air, however, cooled us considerably. We found the snow-bridges softer than in the morning, and consequently needing more caution; but we encountered no real difficulty among them. Indeed it is amusing to observe the indifference with which a snow-roof is often broken through, and a traveller immersed to the waist in the jaws of a fissure. The effort at recovery is instantaneous; half instinctively hands and knees are driven into the snow, and rescue is immediate. Fair glacier work was now before us; after which we reached the opposite mountain-slope, which we ascended, and then went down the flank of the Riffelberg to our hotel. The excursion occupied us eleven and a half hours. FOOTNOTES: