desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge
"Desert" here means "of the wilderness" (cf. 3.3.1 and note). This account, then, exactly
fulfills the prescription innocently thought by Victor as he approached
the alpine range, that these mountains might be "the habitations of
another race of beings" (2.1.5). Since
Mont Blanc was first scaled only in
1786, the fact that the
Creature has taken up his abode there indicates just how superior to
conventional human endurance Victor has made him.
