Instead of crossing the pass of St. Gothard, which was Mr. Ravensworth's first intention, in order to see the north of Italy, Jean advised them to take advantage of the cloudless fine weather and see the Alps better by making the tour of the Oberland. Accordingly, next day having procured ponies, as the carriage road went no further, they set off at an early hour, and reaching Realp, crossed a small rivulet, and proceeded on a mere bridle path along the steep sides of the Sidli Alp, leaving St. Gothard and its glaciers behind them; and with Finstaarhorn conspicuous among his lofty brethren in front, and the beautiful, but ragged rocky peaks of the Galenstock on the right, ere long halted at the Furca, where they rested an hour. Descending on the other side, with the Finstaarhorn showing magnificently, every peak cut out against the clear sky, they soon reached the Rhone glacier, taking its rise from the shoulder of Galenstock, and, as in descending it filled the vale, becoming more wonderful; from its white birthplace of eternal snows, to the dirty moraine in which it ended, brindled, cracked, and split into crevasses, emitting glorious blue rays of light, by its downward way over the rocks whose hardened mass the huge glacier ground and polished. Beneath from a cave of ice flowed the cold beginnings of the blue exulting river of Geneva. It seemed a fit birthplace for the mighty river, and as Ellen gazed on the Rhone's cold and icy cradle, still frozen amid the green valley, still unthawing under the genial sunshine, it seemed to emblematize her present position. Her heart was cold and loveless as that icy glacier, yet from that chilling mass burst the living waters that spread plenty over sunny plains; and she thought, and it was a comforting thought, that perhaps from her misery might spring a stream of events as glorious. Already her woe had softened her heart: was it the beginning of the stream which should "make glad the city of our God?"