That the picturesque grandeur of the glaciers should sometimes disappoint the traveller, will not seem surprising to any one who has been much in a mountainous country, and recollects that the beauty of Nature in such countries is not only variable, but capriciously dependent on the weather and sunshine. There are about four hundred different glaciers,[106] according to the computation of M. Bourrit, between Mont Blanc and the frontiers of the Tyrol. The full effect of the most lofty and picturesque of them can, of course, only be produced by the richest and warmest light of the atmosphere; and the very heat which illuminates them must have a changing influence on many of their appearances. I imagine it is owing to this circumstance, namely, the casualty and changeableness of the appearance of some of the glaciers, that the impressions made by them on the minds of other and more transient travellers have been less enchanting than those described by M. Bourrit. On one occasion M. Bourrit seems even to speak of a past phenomenon, and certainly one which no other spectator attests in the same terms, when he says that there once existed between the Kandel Steig and Lauterbrun, “a passage amidst singular glaciers, sometimes resembling magical towns of ice, with pilasters, pyramids, columns, and obelisks, reflecting to the sun the most brilliant hues of the finest gems.” M. Bourrit’s description of the Glacier of the Rhone is quite enchanting:—“To form an idea,” he says, “of this superb spectacle, figure in your mind a scaffolding of transparent ice, filling a space of two miles, rising to the clouds, and darting flashes of light like the sun. Nor were the several parts less magnificent and surprising. One might see, as it were, the streets and buildings of a city, erected in the form of an amphitheatre, and embellished with pieces of water, cascades, and torrents. The effects were as prodigious as the immensity and the height;—the most beautiful azure—the most splendid white—the regular appearance of a thousand pyramids of ice, are more easy to be imagined than described.”—Bourrit, iii. 163. [106] Occupying, if taken together, a surface of 130 square leagues. NOTE TO PAGE 85. _From heights browsed by the bounding bouquetin._ Laborde, in his “Tableau de la Suisse,” gives a curious account of this animal, the wild sharp cry and elastic movements of which must heighten the picturesque appearance of its haunts:—“Nature,” says Laborde, “has destined it to mountains covered with snow: if it is not exposed to keen cold, it becomes blind. Its agility in leaping much surpasses that of the chamois, and would appear incredible to those who have not seen it. There is not a mountain so high or steep to which it will not trust itself, provided it has room to place its feet; it can scramble along the highest wall, if its surface be rugged.” NOTE TO PAGE 85. _Enamelled Moss._