218 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. Ix.
up to the heaps, I found that they were masses of solid ice, merely covered over on the surface with a thin layer of this rocky débris, which served to conceal the surface of the ice immediately beneath. And my dismay can be imagined when, on ascending one of the highest of the mounds, I found that they were but the end of a series which extended without interruption for many miles up the valley to the snows at the foot of the pass. We were, in fact, at the extremity of an immense glacier. This was the first time I had actually stood on a glacier, and I had never realised till now how huge and continuous a mass of ice it is. Here and there, breaking through the mounds of stone, I had seen cliffs of what I thought was black rock, but on coming close up to these found them to be nothing but solid dark green ice. I discovered caverns, too, with transparent walls of clear, clean ice, and long, tapering icicles hanging in delicate fringes from the roof. It was an astonishing and wonderful sight ; but I was destined to see yet more marvellous scenes than this in the icy region upon which I was now entering.
To take a caravan of ponies up a glacier like
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