only standing-room is the top of the barrier that divides two crevices; and as this is broad or narrow, terminating in another frightful gulf, or continuous with another treacherous ice-wall, so can you be slow or rapid. The breadth of the crevice varies with each one you arrive at, and these individually vary constantly, so that the most experienced guide can have no fixed plan of route. The fissure you can leap across today, becomes by to-morrow a yawning gulf.

Young Devouassoud now took the lead, with a light axe to cut out footsteps and hand-holds with when necessary, and we all followed, very cautiously placing our feet in the prints already made. "Choisez vos pas!

!" was a phrase we heard every minute. Our progress was necessarily very slow; and sometimes we were brought up altogether for a quarter of an hour, whilst a council was held as to the best way of surmounting a difficulty. Once only the neck of ice along which we had to pass was so narrow that I preferred crossing it saddle-fashion, and SO working myself on with my hands. It was at points similar to this that I was most astonished at the daring and sure-footedness of the guides. They took the most extraordinary jumps, alighting upon banks of ice that shelved at once clean down to the edges of frightful crevices, to which their feet appeared to cling like those of flies. And yet we were all shod alike - in good stout "shooting shoes," with a double row of hobnails; but, where I was sliding and tumbling about, they stood like rocks. In all this there was, however, little physical exertion for us-it was simply a matter of nerve and steady head. Where the crevice was small, we contrived to jump over it with tolerable coolness; and where it was over three or four feet in breadth, we made a bridge of the ladder, and walked over on the rounds. There is no great difficulty, to be sure, in doing this, when a ladder lies upon the ground; but with a chasm of unknown depth below it, it is satisfactory to get to the other side as quickly as possible.

At a great many points the snow

made bridges, which we crossed easily enough. Only one was permitted to go over at a time; so that, if it gave way he might remain suspended by the rope attached to the main body. Sometimes we had to make long detours to get to the end of a crevice, too wide to cross any way; at others, we would find ourselves all wedged together, not daring to move, on a neck of ice that at first I could scarcely have thought adequate to have afforded footing to a goat. When we were thus fixed, somebody cut notches in the ice, and climbed up or down as the case required; then the knapsacks were pulled up or lowered; then we followed, and, finally, the rest got up as they could. One scramble we had to make was rather frightful. The reader must imagine a valley of ice, very narrow, but of unknown depth. Along the middle of this there ran a cliff, also of ice, very narrow at the top, and ending suddenly, the surface of which might have been fifteen feet lower than the top of this valley on either side, and on it we could not stand two abreast. A rough notion of a section of this position may be gained from the letter W, depressing the centre angle, and imagining that the cliff on which we were standing. The feet of our ladders were set firm on the neck of the cliff, and then it was allowed to lean over the crevice until its other end touched the wall, so to speak, of the valley. Its top round was, even then, seven or eight feet below where we wanted to get. One of the young guides went first with his axe, and contrived, by some extraordinary succession of gymnastic feats, to get safely to the top, although we all trembled for him-and, indeed, for ourselves; for, tied as we all were, and on such a treacherous standing, had he tumbled he would have pulled the next after him, and so on, one following the other, until we should all have gone hopelessly to perdition. Once safe, he soon helped his fellows, and, one after the other, we were drawn up, holding to the cord for our lives. The only accident that befell me on the journey here happened. Being pulled quickly up, my ungloved hand encountered a sharp bit of granite frozen in the ice,

and this cut through the veins on my wrist. The wound bled furiously for a few minutes; but the excitement of the scramble had been so great that I actually did not know I was hurt until I saw the blood on the snow. I tied my handkerchief round the cut, and it troubled me no more; but, from such hurried surgery, it has left a pretty palpable scar.

Our porters would go no fartherpromises and bribes were now in vain-and they gave up their luggage, and set off on their way back to Chamouni. We now felt, indeed, a forlorn hope; but fortunately we did not encounter anything worse than we had already surmounted; and about four o'clock in the afternoon we got to the station at which we were to remain until midnight.

The Grands Mulets are two or three conical rocks which rise like island peaks from the snow and ice at the head of the Glacier des Bossons, and, were they loftier, would probably be termed aiguilles. They are visible with the naked eye from Chamouni, appearing like little cones on the mountain side. Looking up to them, their left hand face, or outer side, as I shall call it, goes down straight at once, some hundred feet, to the glacier. On the right hand, and in front, you can scramble up to them pretty well, and gain your resting-place, which is about thirty feet from the summit, either by climbing the rock from the base, which is very steep and fatiguing, or by proceeding farther up along the snow, and then returning a little way, when you find yourself nearly on a level with your shelf-for such it is. A familiar example of what I mean is given in a house built on a steep hill, where the back-door may be on the third story.

The ascent of this rock was the hardest work we had yet experienced; it was like climbing up an immense number of flag-stones, of different heights, set on their edges. Before we got half-way, we heard them firing guns at Chamouni, which showed us that we were being watched from the village; and this gave us fresh energy. At last we reached something like a platform, ten or twelve feet long, and three or four broad; and below this was another tolerably

level space, with a low parapet of loose stones built round it, whilst here and there were several nooks and corners which might shelter people on emergency. We acknowledged the salute at Chamouni, by sticking one of our batons into a crevice, and tying a handkerchief to the top of it; and then set to work to clear away the snow from our resting-place. Contrary to all my expectation, the heat we here experienced was most sultry, and even distressing. Those who have noted how long the granite posts and walls of the Italian cities retain the heat after the sun has gone down, will understand that this rock upon which we were was quite warm wherever the rays fell upon it, although in every nook of shade the snow still remained unthawed.

As soon as we had arranged our packs and bundles, we began to change our clothes, which were tolerably well wet through with trudging and tumbling about among the snow; and cutting a number of pegs, we strewed our garments about the crannies of the rocks to dry. I put on two shirts, two pairs of lamb's-wool socks, a thick pair of Scotch plaid trousers, a "Templar" worsted headpiece, and a common blouse; and my companions were attired in a similar manner. There was now great activity in the camp. Some of the guides ranged the wine bottles side by side in the snow; others unpacked the refreshment knapsacks; others, again, made a rude fireplace, and filled a stew-pan with snow to melt. All this time it was so hot, and the sun was so bright, that I began to think the guide who told de Saussure he should take a parasol up with him did not deserve to have been laughed at.

As soon as our wild bivouac assumed a little appearance of order, two of the guides were sent up the glacier to go a great way ahead, and then return and report upon the state of the snow on the plateaux. When they had started, we perched ourselves about, on the comparatively level spaces of the rock, and with knife and fingers began our dinner.

We had scarcely commenced when our party was joined by a young Irishman and a guide, who had taken advantage of the beaten track

left behind us, and marched up on our traces with tolerable ease, leaving to us the honour (and the expense) of cutting out the path. My younger friends, with a little ebullition of university feeling, proposed, under such circumstances, that we should give him a reception in keeping with the glacier; but I thought it would be so hyper-punctilious to show temper here, on the Grands Mulets rocks, up and away in the regions of eternal snow, some thousand feet from the level world, that I ventured on a very mild hint to this effect, which was received with all the acquiescence and good temper imaginable. So we asked him to contribute his stores to our table, and, I dare say, should have got on very well together; but the guides began to squabble about what they considered a breach of etiquette, and presently, with his attendant, he moved away to the next rock. Afterwards another "follower" arrived, with two guides, and he subsequently reached the summit.

We kept high festival that afternoon on the Grands Mulets. One stage of our journey-and that one by no means the easiest-had been achieved without the slightest hurt or harm. The consciousness of success thus far, the pure transparent air, the excitement attached to the very position in which we found ourselves, and the strange bewildering novelty of the surrounding scenery, produced a flowing exhilaration of spirits that I had never before experienced. The feeling was shared by all; and we laughed and sang, and made the guides contribute whatever they could to the general amusement, and told them such stories as would translate well in return; until, I believe, that dinner will never be forgotten by them. A fine diversion was afforded by racing the empty bottles down the glacier. We flung them off from the rock as far as we were able, and then watched their course. Whenever they chanced to point neck first down the slope, they started off with inconceivable velocity, leaping the crevices by their own impetus, until they were lost in the distance. The excitement of the guides during this amusement was very remarkable: a stand of betting men

could not have betrayed more at the Derby. Their anxiety when one of the bottles approached a crevice was intense; and if the gulf was cleared, they perfectly screamed with delight, "Voici un bon coureur!" or "Tiens! comme il saut bien!" burst from them; and "Le grand s'arrête!" "Il est perdu-quel dommage!" "Non-il marche encore!" could not have been uttered with more earnestness had they been watching a herd of chamois.

It got somewhat chilly as the sun left the Mulets, but never so cold as to be uncomfortable. With my back against the rock, and a common railway rug over my feet and legs, I needed nothing else. My knapsack was handy at my elbow to lean upon

the same old companion that had often served for my pillow on the Mediterranean and the Nile: and so I had altogether the finest couch upon which a weary traveller ever rested.

I have, as yet, purposely abstained from describing the glorious view above, around, and beneath us, for the details of our bivouac would have interrupted me as much as the arrangements actually did, until we got completely settled for the night-at least so much of it as we were to pass there. The Grands Mulets rocks are evidently the highest spines, so to speak, of a ridge of the mountain dividing the origin of the two glaciers of Bossons and Tacconay. They are chosen for a halting-place, not less from their convenient station on the route than from their situation_out of the way of the avalanches. From the western face of the peak on which we were situated we could not see Chamouni, except by climbing up to the top of the rock-rather a hazardous thing to do-and peeping over it, when the whole extent of the valley could be very well made out; the villages looking like atoms of white grit upon the chequered ground. Below us, and rising against our position, was the mighty field of the glacier-a huge prairie, if I may term it so, of snow and ice, with vast irregular undulations, which gradually merged into an apparently smooth unbroken tract, as their distance increased. Towering in front of us, several thousand feet higher, and two or three miles away, yet still having

the strange appearance of proximity that I have before alluded to, was the huge Dôme du Gouté-the mighty cupola usually mistaken by the valley travellers for the summit of Mont Blanc. Up the glacier, on my left, was an enormous and ascending valley of ice, which might have been a couple of miles across; and in its course were two or three steep banks of snow, hundreds of feet in height, giant steps by which the level landing-place of the Grand Plateau was to be reached. On the first and lowest of these, we could make out two dots slowly toiling up the slope. They were the pioneers we had started from the Mulets on arriving, and their progress thus far was considered a proof that the snow was in good order. Still farther up, above the level which marked the Grand Plateau, was the actual summit of Mont Blanc. As I looked at it, I thought that in two hours' good walking, along a route apparently as smooth as a race-course after a moderate fall of snow, it might be easily reached; but immediately my eye returned to the two specks who had already taken up that time in painfully toiling to their present position. The next instant the attempt seemed hopeless, even in a day. As it was now, with the last five hours' unceasing labour and continuous ascent, the lower parts of the glacier that we had traversed appeared close at hand; but when I looked down to my right, across the valley, and saw the Brevent-to get to the summit of which, from Chamouni, requires hours of toil: when I saw this lofty wall of the valley gradually assuming the appearance of a mere ploughed ridge, I was again struck with the bewildering impossibility of bringing down anything in this "world of wonders"* to the ordinary rules or experiences of proportion and distance.

The sun at length went down behind the Aiguille du Gouté, and then, for two hours, a scene of such wild and wondrous beauty-of such inconceivable and unearthly splendour burst upon me, that, spell-bound and

almost trembling with the emotion its magnificence called forth-with every sense, and feeling, and thought absorbed by its brilliancy, I saw far more than the realization of the most gorgeous visions that opium or hasheesh could evoke, accomplished. At first, everything about us—above, around, below-the sky, the mountain, and the lower peaks-appeared one uniform creation of burnished gold, so brightly dazzling, that, now our veils were removed, the eye could scarcely bear the splendour. As the twilight gradually crept over the lower world, the glow became still more vivid, and presently, as the blue mists rose in the valleys, the tops of the higher mountains looked like islands rising from a filmy ocean

an archipelago of gold. By degrees this metallic lustre was softened into tints,-first orange, and then bright transparent crimson, along the horizon, rising through the different hues with prismatic regularity, until, immediately above us, the sky was a deep pure blue, merging towards the east into glowing violet. The snow took its color from these changes; and every portion on which the light fell was soon tinged with pale carmine, of a shade similar to that which snow at times assumes, from some imperfectly explained cause, at high elevations-such, indeed, as I had seen, in early summer, upon the Furka and Faulhorn. These beautiful hues grew brighter as the twilight below increased in depth; and it now came marching up the valley of the glaciers until it reached our restingplace. Higher and higher still, it drove the lovely glory of the sunlight before it, until at last the vast Dôme du Gouté and the summit itself stood out, icelike and grim, in the cold evening air, although the horizon still gleamed with a belt of rosy light.

Although this superb spectacle had faded away, the scene was still even more than striking. The fire which the guides had made, and which was now burning and crackling on a ledge of rock a little below us, threw its flickering light, with admirable effect,