248 



Chapter XVII 



pummice is reduced to sand, as in the Montana Blanca or the 

 extreme summit of the Peak ; otherwise all is black, shading into 

 brown or perhaps red, all is crumbling and broken. How different is 

 the ascent of the peak from the Canadas to the ascent of Monte Rosa 

 from the Col d'Olen Laboratory. There is no element of exhilaration 

 about the former ; you start in the afternoon, you sit on a mule, you 

 wonder at its skill in putting its fore feet on the appropriate blocks 

 of broken lava, you think perhaps it sees wiiere it puts them ; but 

 when it comes to finding an explanation of how your mule places its 

 hind feet with equal certainty you "give it up." 



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f*ftt^ c- k- -\--fWWfi 



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FIG. 119. The Alta Vista Hut (11,000 feet). Standing near door dressed in black 

 is Geheimrat. Professor Zuntz. (Douglas.) 



How different from the Alps, from the bustle of guides and 

 porters and ropes before sunrise, from the hope and the beauty 

 of new things that comes with the rising of the sun as you stop for 

 the party to be roped before it ventures among the crevasses, from 

 the sense of 2000 more feet behind you as you rest and have some 

 refreshment at the Capanna Gnifetti. Then, as you tramp across the 

 Lysjock Glacier, you make up your mind for the last 500 metres which 

 is to bring you to the Margherita hut on the summit. How white 

 and exhilarating it all is and how far from the mind is any thought 



