some crying, some upbraiding me with tempting those who formed their only support to sacrifice themselves to my curiosity and pleasure; many a bitter tear flowed, and more than one heart waxed heavy, on the morning of the 8th. Two or three of my countrymen were kind enough to accompany me through the weeping crowd assembled on the bridge; and one carried his attention so far as to continue with me to Coutet's cottage, in the village of Les Pélérins, the appointed rendezvous. Coutet left us, but in a few moments returned, arrayed in an old hussar jacket with scarlet embroidered vest, the uniform he wore while serving as a chasseur à cheval in the French army. This costume, now highly honoured, is never exhibited to the admiring eyes of the fair Chamoniards, except in an expedition up Mont Blanc. He brought out with him a number of straw hats with broad brims, all celebrated for having been more than once on the summit, and presented them to me, in order that I might select one in exchange for that I wore.

Having made my choice, I mounted the mule provided for me, and at seven I left this village, and immediately began to ascend through the thick pine wood which surrounds the cottages. Among the trees we occasionally observed groupes

of females parting from their friends. After an ascent of an hour and a half up the mountain, which is bounded on one side by the glacier de Buissons, and on the other by the ravine through which the torrent flows, that afterwards forms the cascade of Les Pélérins, we arrived at the Chalet de la Para, a summer chalet belonging to the old guide Favrèt, and the last inhabited spot on the mountain. From this we ascended a steep path for about an hour, and arrived at the Pierre Pointue, where I was obliged to leave the mule.

Thence we proceeded by a narrow footway or ledge, in the face of a cliff, in some places perpendicular, and in others overhanging the abysses below. This track is partly natural, but in some places improved by the people of the valley; and a tolerably accurate idea of it may be formed, by imagining that against a precipice of above a thousand feet in height, a wall of two feet thick was built about half way up, and the path consisted merely of the space on the top of the wall, which was frequently so narrow, that we were under the necessity of advancing sideways, with our faces towards the rock, because the ordinary breadth of a man's shoulders would have thrown the balance of his person over the edge of the precipice. The track was also slippery, and covered with loose

stones, the crumbling materials of the decaying rock, around points of which we sometimes wound, now climbing, and then with greater difficulty descending, or rather letting ourselves down from one pinnacle to another; so that this part of our journey, though less perilous than our subsequent ascents and descents in the icy precipices of the glaciers, was yet sufficient to try the nerves of a novice, and to require the utmost caution in the movements of even the most experienced of the guides*.

*The admirable author of Waverley, with that happy talent, in the power of which he stands unrivalled, has, in one of his latest delightful productions, and in those glowing colours with which he alone can equally embellish the picture, whether its subject be the wild beauty of the Highland glen, or the sublimity of the stupendous Alpine precipice, pourtrayed with such wonderful truth and feeling, the scene which I have attempted to describe, and which is indelibly imprinted on my memory, although my description of it may be tame and common-place, that I cannot resist the impulse to quote from "Anne of Geierstein,” (vol. i. chap. 2.) the scene where the hero of the tale, Arthur de Vere, leaving his father on the broken pathway, proceeds alone to explore the cliff, and so nearly meets the fate to be apprehended by him, who, from such giddy heights, ventures to "cast his eyes below."

"Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight

"Topple down headlong."

"But without listening to the prohibition, Arthur had commenced his perilous adventure. Descending from the

Having passed the cliff, we next commenced ascending the "Moraines," an accumulation of

platform on which he stood, by the boughs of an old ashtree, which thrust itself out of the cleft of a rock, the youth was enabled to gain, though at great risk, a narrow ledge, the very brink of the precipice, by creeping along which he hoped to pass on till he made himself heard or seen from the habitation, of whose existence the guide had informed him. His situation, as he pursued this bold purpose, appeared so precarious, that even the hired attendant hardly dared to draw breath as he gazed on him. The ledge which supported him seemed to grow so narrow as he passed along it, as to become altogether invisible, while sometimes with his face to the precipice, sometimes looking forward, sometimes glancing his eyes upward, but never venturing to cast a look below, lest his brain should grow giddy at a sight so appalling, he wound his way onward. To his father and the attendant, who beheld his progress, it was less that of a man advancing in the ordinary manner, and resting by aught connected with the firm earth, than that of an insect crawling along the face of a perpendicular wall, of whose progressive movement we are indeed sensible, but cannot perceive the means of its support. And bitterly, most bitterly, did the miserable parent now lament, that he had not persisted in his purpose to encounter the baffling and even perilous measure of retracing his steps to the habitation of the preceding night. He should then, at least, have partaken the fate of the son of his love.

"Meanwhile, the young man's spirits were strongly braced for the performance of his perilous task. He laid a powerful restraint on his imagination, which in general was sufficiently active, and refused to listen, even for an instant, to any of the horrible insinuations by which fancy augments actual danger. He endeavoured manfully to reduce all around him

the rocky fragments, gravel, and earth, which, falling from the precipices overhanging the

to the scale of right reason, as the best support of true courage. This ledge of rock,' he urged to himself, is but narrow, yet it has breadth enough to support me; these clifts and crevices in the surface are small and distant, but the one affords as secure a resting-place to my feet, the other as available a grasp to my hands, as if I stood on a platform of a cubit broad, and rested my arm on a balustrade of marble. My safety, therefore, depends on myself. If I move with decision, step firmly, and hold fast, what signifies how near I am to the mouth of an abyss?'

"Thus estimating the extent of his danger by the measure of sound sense and reality, and supported by some degree of practice in such exercise, the brave youth went forward on his awful journey, step by step, winning his way with a caution, and fortitude, and presence of mind, which alone could have saved him from instant destruction. At length he gained a point where a projecting rock formed the angle of the precipice, so far as it had been visible to him from the platform. This, therefore, was the critical point of his undertaking; but it was also the most perilous part of it. The rock projected more than six feet forward over the torrent, which he heard raging at the depth of a hundred yards beneath, with a noise like subterranean thunder. examined the spot with the utmost care, and was led by the existence of shrubs, grass, and even stunted trees, to believe that this rock marked the farthest extent of the slip or slide of earth, and that, could he but round the angle of which it was the termination, he might hope to attain the continuation of the path which had been so strangely interrupted by this convulsion of nature. But the crag jutted out so much as to afford no possibility of passing either under or around it; and as it rose several feet above the position which Arthur

He