The touch
of these snow-flowers in calm weather is infinitely gentle - glinting,
swaying, settling silently in the dry mountain air, or massed in
flakes soft and downy. To lie out alone in the mountains of a still
night and be touched by the first of these small silent messengers
from the sky is a memorable experience, and the fineness of that touch
none will forget. But the storm-blast laden with crisp, sharp snow
seems to crush and bruise and stupefy with its multitude of stings,
and compels the bravest to turn and flee.
The snow fell without abatement until an hour or two after what seemed
to be the natural darkness of the night. Up to the time the storm
first broke on the summit its development was remarkably gentle.
There was a deliberate growth of clouds, a weaving of translucent
tissue above, then the roar of the wind and the thunder, and the
darkening flight of snow. Its subsidence was not less sudden. The
clouds broke and vanished, not a crystal was left in the sky, and the
stars shone out with pure and tranquil radiance.
During the storm we lay on our backs so as to present as little
surface as possible to the wind, and to let the drift pass over us.
The mealy snow sifted into the folds of our clothing and in many
places reached the skin. We were glad at first to see the snow
packing about us, hoping it would deaden the force of the wind, but it
soon froze into a stiff, crusty heap as the temperature fell, rather
augmenting our novel misery.
When the heat became unendurable, on some spot where steam was
escaping through the sludge, we tried to stop it with snow and mud, or
shifted a little at a time by shoving with our heels; for to stand in
blank exposure to the fearful wind in our frozen-and-broiled condition
seemed certain death. The acrid incrustations sublimed from the
escaping gases frequently gave way, opening new vents to scald us;
and, fearing that if at any time the wind should fall, carbonic acid,
which often formed a considerable portion of the gaseous exhalations
of volcanoes, might collect in sufficient quantities to cause sleep
and death, I warned Jerome against forgetting himself for a single
moment, even should his sufferings admit of such a thing.
Accordingly, when during the long, dreary watches of the night we
roused from a state of half-consciousness, we called each other by
name in a frightened, startled way, each fearing the other might be
benumbed or dead. The ordinary sensations of cold give but a faint
conception of that which comes on after hard climbing with want of
food and sleep in such exposure as this.
