This text is part of:
[330]
this wall of vapor were congealed into ice-crystals, which glittered like gold in the sunlight and gave back all the colors of the rainbow.
When all the party were once more assembled at the base of the peak, Jacob, whose resources never failed, served to each one a little wine, and they rested on the snow before beginning their perilous descent.
Of living things they saw only a hawk, poised in the air above their heads; of plants, a few lichens, where the surface of the rock was exposed.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon before they started on their downward path, turning their faces to the icy slope, and feeling for the steps behind them, some seven hundred in all, which had been cut in ascending.
In about an hour they reached the Col of the Roththal, where the greatest difficulties of the ascent had begun and the greatest dangers of the descent were over.
So elated were they by the success of the day, and so regardless of lesser perils after those they had passed through, that they were now inclined to hurry forward incautiously.
Jacob, prudent when others were rash, as he was bold when others were intimidated, constantly called them to order with his: ‘Hubschle!
’
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.