As foot after foot, and yard after yard, ran out, and our heads craned farther and farther over the edge of the pit to follow the descending light, (we lay flat on the ice, for more safety,) the cries of the schoolmaster became mere howls, and the maire lapsed into oaths heavy enough to break in the ice.

It is always sufficiently disagreeable to hear men swear; but in situations which have anything impressive, either of danger or of grandeur, it becomes more than ever unbearable.

I remember on one occasion over-taking a large party in the descent from the Plateau to the Grands Mulets, in a place where the snow was extremely soft, and any moment might land one of us in a crevasse; and I shall never forget the oaths which caught my ear, from a floundering fellow-countryman enveloped from the waist downwards.
When 60 feet had run out, the candle stopped, and on stretching over I saw that it had reached a slope of ice which inclined very steeply northwards, and passed away under the rock, apparently into a fresh cavern.

By raising the candle slightly and then letting it drop, we made it glide down this slope for 8 feet; and then it finally rested on a shelf of ice, showing us the shadowy beginnings of what should be a most glorious ice-cave.

The little light which the candle gave was made the most of by the reflecting material which surrounded it; and we were able to see that the archway in the rock was rounded off with grey ice, and rested, as it were, on icy pillars.