"No," said Mr. George, "I suppose not all the way. There must have been some up-and-down work, and some perhaps tolerably level, for the first ten miles; but the last five must have been a perpetual scramble among rocks and ice and over vast drifts of snow, with immense avalanches thundering down the mountain sides all around them."
"I wish I could go and see them," said Rollo.
"You can go," replied Mr. George. "There is a most excellent chance to see the face of the Jungfrau very near; for there is another mountain this side of it, with a narrow valley between. This other mountain is called the Wengern Alp. It is about two thirds the height of the Jungfrau, and is so near it that from the top of it, or near the top, you can see the whole side of the Jungfrau rising right before you and filling half the sky, and you can see and hear the avalanches thundering down the sides of it all day long."
Rollo was quite excited at this account, and was very eager to set off as soon as possible to go up the Wengern Alp.
"You see this great gap in the near mountains," said Mr. George, pointing.
"That gap," continued Mr. George, "is the mouth of a valley. I have been studying it out this morning in my guide book. There is a good carriage road leading up this valley. It is called the valley of the Lütschine, because that is the name of the river which comes down through it. In going up this valley for the first two or three miles we are going directly towards the Jungfrau."
"Yes," said Rollo. "That I can see very plainly."
This was indeed very obvious; for the Jungfrau, from the windows of the hotel, was seen through the great gap in the near mountains which Mr. George had pointed out as the mouth of the valley of the Lütschine. In fact, had it not been for that gap in the near mountains, the great snow-covered summit could not have been seen from the hotels at all.
"We go up that valley," continued Mr. George, "about three miles, and then we come to a fork in it; that is, to a place where the valley divides into two branches, one turning off to the right and the other to the left. Directly ahead there is an enormous precipice, I don't know how many thousand feet high, of bare rock.
"One of these branch valleys," continued Mr. George, "leads up to one side of the Wengern Alp and the Jungfrau, and the other to the other side. We may take the right-hand valley and go up five or six miles to Lauterbrunnen, or we may take the left-hand branch and go up to Grindelwald. Which way do you think we had better go?"