Balmarusa, a huge detached fragment, to have it marked with her own name, which it still bears, accompanied by a very sentimental inscription in doggrel English.

A perilous excursion is sometimes made to a rock called the Couvercle, which lies at the extreme end of the Mer de Glace. The journey is begun on its border, along the base of the Montanvert, by the side of which this glacier runs until it joins the great longitudinal Glacier du Tacul. The traveller on the ice has two glaciers before him: the one on his right is that of Du Tacul, which runs parallel to the Valley of Chamouni up to the very foot of the summit of Mont Blanc; the other on his left, or rather straight before him, is a continuation of the Mer de Glace, by the side of which he has hitherto been journeying.

Striking at once across the ice, he soon reaches the Glacier de Lêchaud, which is the name given to the continuation of the Mer de Glace, on the further side of the junction with the Tacul, and here he approaches one of the most wonderful sights the glaciers can afford. The Glacier du Talèfre, a circular glacier, lying to the left of that of Léchaud, and on a higher level, empties itself, so to speak, into the latter. The view at the point of junction is striking. The slope by which the Glacier du Talèfre descends is very steep, and its blocks of ice assume the shape of towers, and of pyramids variously inclined, which seem ready to crush the rash traveller who should dare to approach them.

To reach the upper part of the Glacier de Talèfre, beyond this steep slope, it is necessary to climb a rock on its left, called the Couvercle, the sides of which are extremely steep and difficult to ascend. But the prospect from its summit is magnificent. It affords the view of the three stupendous valleys of ice: the Glacier of Talèfre to the left, in front that of Léchaud, and the Tacul to the right, all uniting in one great valley of ice, called the Glacier des Bois, which stretches under the feet, and is surrounded and ornamented by the rugged needles. In this place profound silence reigns, only interrupted by the bounding of distant chamois, and the cries of alarm which the marmots give to their tribes on the approach of travellers.

Another remarkable spot sometimes, but easily visited from Montanvert, is called the Jardin, lying far up in the very bosom of the eternal snow regions of the mountain. The first step, as the guides term it, is along the face of the rock on the left bank of the Mer de Glace. Some difficulty is occasioned by the enormous rents in the ice which cross the path, and often render it necessary to go several hundred yards on one side, before a point can be reached where the crevasse becomes narrow enough to step or leap over. This last exploit the guides perform with wonderful agility, by means of their batons, but they do not wish their example to be followed, or fail to recite various instances to prove that imminent peril, and death itself, have been the consequences of such temerity.

Captain Busil Hall, who made the ascent, thus describes a part of it attended even in the view of so adventurous a spirit, with "real danger." "At a certain part of our course, the path along which we were struggling came close to the base of the cliff overhanging the Mer de Glace. On its summit there lay a thick coating of ice and halfmelted snow, mixed with numerous blocks of granite, cast down by the avalanches. The frequent sound of these cataracts of snow we could hear in different directions among the mountains, and some of the avalanches we actually saw not far from us. The weather being excessively hot, the melting snow caused innumerable cascades on both sides of the valley, which were all very pretty and picturesque, so long as we kept at a respectable distance from the cliff; but unfortunately, just over the very point where our road happened to touch the foot of the precipice, we were startled by beholding a mass of granite about as big as a mail-coach, barely held up by the ice in which it had probably at one time been completely imbedded, but out of which more than three-quarters of its bulk now protruded.'

An anxious conversation now took place on the part of the guides; and the account is thus continued: "At the end of this parley, during which we began to fear that our expedition must here stop short, two of the guides, without consulting us, or saying more than Be silent and steady, or you are lost!' suddenly seized the foremost of our party, and with the swiftness of chamois goats dashed along directly under the stone, which they afterwards explained might have been shaken down at any moment, by the mere tremor in the air caused by our speaking.

"As soon as the first of us had been whisked across the point of danger, another was spirited off in the same manner. The guides then returned one by one, stepping underneath the great rock as cautiously as if they had been treading on eggs, and transported the remaining two gentlemen to the safe side. We now begged permission of the guides to set up a shout, in order to bring the stone down, that we might enjoy the crash in safety, and appreciate the full value of our escape, by witnessing the havoc which the avalanche would cause. Yes,' said the guides, but who knows the extent of these things? How many more such fellows may not be lying further up, ready to topple down upon us, or how shall we be sure that the path, now open for us, may not be so blocked by the falling stones and ice, that our retreat will be rendered impossible? No, no let the rock alone; and very thankful may we be if we shall find it sticking where it is now when we return here some hours hence.'"

Striking more into the centre of the frozen sea, the surface became not only more and more rugged, but its general inclination steeper, as the adventurers advanced, and so much so, indeed, that it required some dexterity to preserve their balance. Near the centre of the Mer, and in various other directions, but especially along the middle, enormous ridges appeared. After about seven miles wandering along the ice, they gained the shore on the right or eastern bank; and though they were at first very glad to find themselves on the smooth granite, which had been well polished by the descent of a long succession of avalanches, they discovered that they were now incurring vastly greater risks than any they had hitherto encountered. This new danger was owing to the steepness of the surface, combined with the smoothness of the rocks along which they had to wind their way, frequently on the very edge of precipices more than 1,000 feet in perpendicular height! It is not surprising that fear should now seize on some of the party; but, on taking off their shoes and stockings, they felt such entire confidence in their footing, that they could advance without apprehension to the very edge of the rock, and venture along places which even the guides declined approaching.

The last portion of the journey lay amongst snow so soft that, as it reached half-way from the ankle to the knee at every step, proved not a little fatiguing. But when they came at length to the Jardin, they found merely a flat space of bare rock, about a quarter of an acre in size, with here and there a few half-starved grey lichens clinging to it. “The peculiarity of the scene consists in the entire absence of every single thing—except the sky overhead," says Captain Basil Hall, "to which our eyes have been accustomed to look elsewhere. There is not only not a single tree in sight, but not the smallest appearance of a shrub, nor a single blade of grass, far or near, nor even the least speck of green. Of course there are no traces of man's habitation, nor that of fowls of the air, nor of beasts of the field; not even a fly buzzes about. In short, no living things appeared in this wide world of snow. In some directions the snow sends back so dazzling a glare that, without reducing the pupil of the eye to a point like that of a cat looking at the sun, we can scarcely bear to face it. In other directions, not only the clefts or ravines in the ice, but even broad valleys, are cast into a depth, as well as breadth of shade which would enchant Martin, the painter, and might have given him a hint for a polar palace, should it occur to his magnificent fancy to represent the court of the ice king' of the German poets."

CHAPTER VI.

MONT BLANC-THE FIRST ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN—SUBSEQUENT ASCENTS-THE COURSE TAKEN, AND THE PERIL ENCOUNTERED IN THE ASCENT AND DESCENT.

MR. JUSTICE TALFOURD describes, with the emotions and language of a poet, the circumstances under which Mont Blanc first met his view. He was passing St. Martin on a visit to Chamouni, when "descending rapidly," he says, "I soon found myself directly beneath the lowest skirts of Mont Blanc, and at a sudden turn of the road, in immediate neighbourhood with the purest snow, against which the scarlet berries of the mountainash, which often enriched the wild-wood, formed a delicious contrast. At the top of one of the eminences I stopped enchanted; a deep rose-coloured light suffused the floating curtain of snow, some of whose vast fields descended to the glacier near me-not a glimpse for a moment-it rested-slowly retreated from the skirts of the mountain upward, and marked out the round, small globe of white which forms its highest top, by lingering then for some minutes after the domes and pinnacles, which from this point seemed to equal or excel it in height, were left in cold grey twilight."

From Chamouni, Mont Blanc rises gradually above the surrounding mountains, till it first terminates in the summit called the Dome de Goûté; beyond this is a valley of snow, from which rises the Middle Dome; another sweep still higher leads to the extreme rounded summit, which is named La Bosse du Dromedaire, from its supposed resemblance to a dromedary's hunch. "The monarch of mountains" is particularly distinguished from other mountains, by having its summits and sides clothed to a considerable depth with a mantle of snow, almost without the intervention of the least rock to break the glare of the white appearance from which it derives its name. The eye, unaccustomed to such objects, is therefore frequently deceived as to its altitude, and in many situations its appearance is less lofty than it is in reality. Even when the traveller has stood on the Col de Balme, when Mont Blanc is seen towering 7,000 feet above, it has failed to awaken the astonishment which might be expected from its superior height and magnitude above the circumjacent mountains. Thus Coxe says: "I was, indeed, more struck with the first view of the Schreckhorn from the top of the Sheydeck than of Mont Blanc from the Col de Balme. The summit of Mont Blanc being of a roundish form, and covered with snow, unites beauty with grandeur; whereas the Schreckhorn, being piked, naked, and its shaggy sides only streaked with snow, its grand characteristics are ruggedness and horror; and hence, indeed, it derives its name of Schreckhorn, or the Peak of Terror. But Mont Blanc soon reassumed its real importance, seemed to increase in size and height, and solely attracted our attention, until we entered the Vale of Chamouni."

That intelligent and agreeable writer, Captain Basil Hall, states that, on first viewing these wonderful mountains, though under great advantages of position and weather, he felt grievously disappointed; and, with his usual amiableness, he aims to guard others

against such a result, by describing at length his own experience as to the highest elevations of the earth.* We shall comprise as much of this as is desirable for our present

purpose in a small space. He did not go quite so far, indeed, as the cockney who persevered in thinking Primrose-hill superior to Mount Etna, but he did think that the Alps had been much overpraised, and that other hills-Scottish, Welsh, and Irish-had been unduly depreciated in the scale of grandeur and elevation. It is true that when he came to wander far and near among the Swiss mountains, and learned something more of their real height from the labour and time required to surmount their lowest and most accessible shoulders, and when he viewed them close at hand on every side, he was gradually taught to respect their magnitude and to admire their innumerable and infinitely varied beauties. So that, after visiting them twice, first on going to Italy, and again on coming back, he bade them adieu with a very different feeling from that he had experienced on being first presented to them; just as one parts from a highly-informed and agreeable new acquaintance, whom, at the time we were first introduced, we had thought a commonplace personage, whose merits had been exaggerated.

On being called to South America, not long after taking leave of the Alps, he saw the Andes along a line of coast, extending, with only occasional short interruptions, between three and four thousand miles. Nor did he merely survey these proud elevations from a distance; he had opportunities, from time to time, of landing and examining them close at hand. He was severely disappointed, however, in not seeing the great Chimborazo ; after lingering in the neighbourhood as long as the professional duty he was employed to execute would possibly admit of, he was reluctantly compelled to sail away, without having seen the summit of the grandest peak in all the Cordilleras for one single moment unveiled!

On returning to Switzerland, fifteen years after the first visit, he made sure that this long experience of the stupendous and still more elevated Andes, along the coasts of Chili, Peru, Quito, and Mexico, must prove fatal to the grandeur of the Alps. But the result was so much the reverse, that it was difficult to believe some geological upheaving of the ground had not taken place in the interval; so enormously did the elevation and general sublimity of the Swiss mountains appear to have been magnified. Instead, therefore, of being degraded by the comparison, they were exalted; while the beauty of their exquisite scenery seemed vastly to surpass that of anything he had seen even among the tropical districts of the Andes.

It was then clear, after reviewing all that had passed in his mind, that on first seeing the Alps, he had judged them by some purely ideal and false standard, which, from resting upon a very slender experience of mountain scenery, furnished no satisfactory nor adequate scale. There was wanting, in short, that comparative standard or estimate of heights and distances, which the actual examination of analogous scenes could alone furnish; and, therefore, it was not until he had become quite familiar with the vast chains, or Cordilleras of the Andes, in all their variety of magnificence, that he became qualified to form any right judgment of the kindred glories of the Alps, and especially of that most interesting of them all, the beautiful Mont Blanc.

It will aid a mind totally unacquainted with Alpine scenery to conceive of the altitude of this gigantic mountain, if the fact be considered that the mantle of snow which appears to cover its top and sides, exceeds a height of 4,000 feet perpendicular; that it is 9,000 feet in a horizontal direction, from the Dome du Gôuté to the summit; and that the height of the snow and ice, estimated from the source of the Arveiron, at the bottom of the Glacier of Montanvert, to the summit of Mont Blanc, cannot be less than 12,000 perpendicular

• Patchwork.