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The next thing was, how to get down the glacier comfortably for the mule-road to it was long, and winding, and wearisome. I set my mind at work, and soon thought out a plan. One looks straight down upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner Glacier, from the Gorner Grat, a sheer precipice twelve hundred feet high.
Says I to myself, 'That's a red-skin's compliments! and making believe that I was a gorner, I pitched forward and lay still as a door nail, in the tall grass. I hadn't lain there more 'n a minute, when, sure enough, a red-skin popped out from behind a tree close by, and made for me, to take my scalp.
I thought of several other expedients, but upon consideration discarded them, for cause. But at last I hit it. I was aware that the movement of glaciers is an established fact, for I had read it in Baedeker; so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on the great Gorner Glacier. Very good.
A document, signed and sealed by the authorities, was given to me which established and endorsed the fact that I had made the ascent of the Riffelberg. This I wear around my neck, and it will be buried with me when I am no more. I am not so ignorant about glacial movement, now, as I was when I took passage on the Gorner Glacier. I have "read up" since.
I said to myself, "This confounded old thing's aground again, sure," and opened Baedeker to see if I could run across any remedy for these annoying interruptions. I soon found a sentence which threw a dazzling light upon the matter. It said, "The Gorner Glacier travels at an average rate of a little less than an inch a day." I have seldom felt so outraged.
To him, in 1720, succeeded Brother Antony, or rather two brothers, Antony and Jacob, who dwelt in cheerful community one with another, praying before the same altar, and conversing during the hours of relaxation, but, in strict propriety, occupying separate cells in the rock. In 1735, however, Jacob died, when one Samuel Görner, a modelist, and perspective maker, took his place.
I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade enough to justify it. "He'd MAKE trade," said Harris. "That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do. Tom Scott would take all the trade; in two years Gorner stock would go to two hundred, and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciers under the hammer for taxes."
So we had climbed the zigzags to the right of the Riffelberg and followed the footpath overlooking the glacier, in the silence enjoined by single file, but at last we were seated on the hillside, a trifle beyond that emerald patch which some humourist has christened the Cricket-ground. Beneath us were the serracs of the Gorner Glacier, teased and tousled like a fringe of frozen breakers.
A document, signed and sealed by the authorities, was given to me which established and endorsed the fact that I had made the ascent of the Riffelberg. This I wear around my neck, and it will be buried with me when I am no more. I am not so ignorant about glacial movement, now, as I was when I took passage on the Gorner Glacier. I have "read up" since.
He did not take to the idea at all. He said: "Tie myself to an umbrella and jump over the Gorner Grat! Excuse me, there are a great many pleasanter roads to the devil than that." Upon a discussion of the subject with him, it appeared that he considered the project distinctly and decidedly dangerous.
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