Carrel and I wandered out again in the afternoon, and went, first of all, to a favourite spot with tourists near the end of the Gorner glacier (or, properly speaking, the Boden glacier), to a little verdant flat—studded with Euphrasia officinalis—the delight of swarms of bees, who gather there the honey which afterwards appears at the table d'hôte.
On our right the glacier-torrent thundered down the valley through a gorge with precipitous sides, not easily approached; for the turf at the top was slippery, and the rocks had everywhere been rounded by the glacier,—which formerly extended far away. This gorge seems to have been made chiefly by the torrent, and to have been excavated subsequently to the retreat of the glacier. It seems so because not merely upon its walls are there the marks of running water, but even upon the rounded rocks at the top of its walls, at a height of seventy or eighty feet above the present level of the torrent, there are some of those queer concavities which rapid streams alone are known to produce on rocks.
A little bridge, apparently frail, spans the torrent just above the entrance to this gorge, and from it one perceives, being fashioned in the rocks below, concavities similar to those to which reference has just been made. The torrent is seen hurrying forwards. Not everywhere. In some places the water strikes projecting angles, and, thrown back by them, remains almost stationary, eddying round and round: in others, obstructions fling it up in fountains, which play perpetually on the tender surfaces of overhanging masses; and sometimes do so in such a way that the water not only works upon the under surfaces, but round the corner; that is to say, upon
level of the sea, and a good many of them cannot be recommended either for ease, or as offering the shortest way from Zermatt to the valleys and villages to which they lead.
Zermatt itself is still only a village with 500 inhabitants (about thirty of whom are guides), with picturesque chalet dwellings, black with age. The hotels, including the inn on the Riffelberg, all belong to one proprietor (M. Alexandre Seller), to whom the village and valley are very much indebted for their prosperity, and who is the best person to consult for information, or in all cases of difficulty.
