From this lake we might turn our course easterly, and soon find ourselves amid the glacial regions of the Oberland Alps--scenes full of deep and thrilling interest. But let us rather turn southerly, and, following down the great valley of Switzerland, find our way among the Alps of Savoy, where the same phenomena attain their maximum of interest and sublimity, and the great monarch of the Alps is seen, wearing his hoary crown. As we pass along towards Lake Lehman, if the air be clear, the Bernese Alps loom up in unrivalled majesty; and as we sail over Lake Lehman, Mont Blanc, with some of its nearly equal associates, shows its distant yet impressive form. Passing without notice the almost unrivalled beauties of Lehman, and following up the Arve through its stupendous gorges, we catch views of Mont Blanc, as we approach it, that possess overpowering sublimity. At length, Chamouny is reached--a lovely vale in the midst of Alpine wonders. From thence we first ascend the Flegère, thirty-five hundred feet above the valley, and sixty-five hundred above the ocean; and there we get a fine view of Mont Blanc and the Aiguilles, or Needles. Here distances are vastly diminished to the eye, and you seem in near proximity even with Mont Blanc; and, in fact, should any adventurous visitors have reached the top of that mountain, a good spy-glass will show them from this spot.[15]
On the opposite side of the valley from the Flegère, and at about the same height, is Montanvert, the most convenient spot for traversing the glacier called the Mer de Glace. If, however, one would see the lower extremity of that glacier, and the Arveron issuing from it, he must pass along the right hand side of the stream, and then he can follow up the glacier to Montanvert; and strange would it be if, in doing this, he should not hear and see the frequent avalanche.
We have now reached the field where everlasting war is carried on between heat and cold, summer and winter. Below us, verdure clothes the valleys, and climbs up the slopes of the hills; and there the shepherd watches his flocks. Above us there are fields of ice stretching many a league, save where some needle-shaped summit of naked rock, too steep for snow to rest upon, shoots up in lonely grandeur thousands of feet, and defies the raging elements. From these oceans of ice shoot forth down the valleys enormous glaciers, appearing like vast rivers of ice, winding among the hills, and pushing, at the rate of a few inches each day, far into regions of vegetation; one year encroaching upon the shepherd's pasture ground, and anon, by the access of heat, driven back towards the summit; hurling down, from time to time, as they push forward, the thundering avalanche.