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Updated: June 25, 2025
Others were going, or had gone, to the source of the Arveiron, and to the Brevent, while the British peer, having previously been conducted by a new and needlessly difficult path to the top of Monte Rosa, was led off by his persecutor to attempt, by an impossible route, to scale the Matterhorn to reach the main-truck, as Captain Wopper put it, by going down the stern-post along the keel, over the bobstay, up the flyin' jib, across the foretopmast-stay, and up the maintop-gallant halyards.
The Campagne at Champel, where we were passing the summer, is washed for half a mile by the Arve. In hot August days I walked slowly by the river-bank, with cloak on, till a moderate perspiration was induced, then jumped in, and out as quick! for the river, though it had run sixty miles from its source, seemed as cold as when it left the glacier of the Arveiron at Chamouni.
"The blue blocks which span the sources of the Arveiron were once powdery snow upon the slopes of the Col du Géant." The varied and wonderful shapes assumed by snow and ice have been best portrayed, perhaps, by Dr. Kane in his two works; but their resources of color have been so explored by no one as by this same favored Professor Tyndall, among his Alps.
"Voila, L'Arveiron!" says the guide. "O, is that the Arveiron?" say I; "happy to make the acquaintance." But now we cross the Arve into a grove of pines, and direct our way to the ascent. We begin to thread a zigzag path on the sides of the mountain. As mules are most determined followers of precedent, every one keeps his nose close by the heels of his predecessor.
We went along the side of the glacier, and I desired to climb over as near as possible, in order to see the source of the Arveiron, which is formed by the melting of this glacier. Its cradle is a ribbed and rocky cavern of blue ice, and like a creature born full of vigor and immortality, it begins life with an impetuous leap.
While they stood and sat rapt in silent contemplation of the tongue of the Mer de Glace, at whose tip was the blue ice-cave whence issued the Arveiron, a lordly eagle rose from a neighbouring cliff and soared grandly over their heads, while a bright gleam of the sinking sun shot over the white shoulders of Mont Blanc and lit up the higher end of the valley, throwing the lower part into deeper shade by contrast.
This solemn harmony of event and situation regulated our feelings, and gave as it were fitting costume to our last act. Majestic gloom and tragic pomp attended the decease of wretched humanity. The funeral procession of monarchs of old, was transcended by our splendid shews. Near the sources of the Arveiron we performed the rites for, four only excepted, the last of the species.
Two or three little black peaks' in it are the sleeping-place for travellers ascending the zigzag line shows their path. On the left of the mountain lies Mer de Glace, with the Arveiron falling from it. The Arve crosses the valley below us; the fall is not indicated in this view. The undulations, which, on near view, are fifty feet high, seem mere ripples.
Our worthy guide suggests that it would afford more pleasure to the ladies and of course, therefore, to the gentlemen if you were to make your first expedition only to the Montanvert which is but a two hours' climb from Chamouni, picnic there, cross the Mer de Glace, which is narrow at that point, and descend again to Chamouni by the side of the Glacier des Bois, where you can behold the great moraines, and also the source of the river Arveiron.
But now I stood there, no longer seeing by glimpses, no longer catching rapturous intimations as I turned angles of rock, or glanced through windows of pine here it was, all spread out before me like a map, not a cloud, not a shadow to soften the outline there was Mont Blanc, a great alabaster pyramid, with a glacier running down each side of it; there was the Arve, and there was the Arveiron, names most magical in song, but now literal geographic realities.
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