The sun was reflected
with dazzling brilliancy from their icy summits, and wonderful lights
sparkled in rainbow tints on their slopes. Delicate pink deepened to
rose crimson; pale greens softened into the beryl blue of stupendous
glaciers, vast frozen cataracts which flowed down deep and broad clefts
almost to the water's edge.
Above these color-bands, the dead-white mantle of everlasting snow
spread its folds, with here and there a black ridge of granite
thrusting wind-cleared fangs high above the far-flung shroud. But, if
the crests of peak upon peak were thus clothed in white, their bases
wore a garment of different texture. Save on the seaward terraces of
stark rock, with their tide-marked base of weed-covered boulders, the
densest vegetation known to mankind imposed everywhere a first barrier
to human progress far more unconquerable than the awesome regions
beyond. Pine forests of extraordinary density crammed each available
yard of space, until the tree-growth yielded perforce to hardier Alpine
moss and lichens. This lower belt of deepest green ranged from five
hundred to one thousand feet in height, as conditions were adverse or
favorable; waterfalls abounded; each tiny glen held its foaming
rivulet, rushing madly down the steep, or leaping in fine cascades from
one rocky escarpment to another.
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