644 'J^HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To Switzerland accordingly we went, and I joined him at the 

 Montanvert, where he had taken up his quarters with Dr. Hirst, 

 who was, I think, the closest of all his friends. I have never vis- 

 ited the place since, but I am told that it now possesses a grand 

 hotel. In our time there was nothing but a rough mountain au- 

 berge, opposite to which, on the glacier side of the road, was a 

 hut for guides. Into this Tyndall moved his bed, as he could not 

 bear the noise of the wooden house. Accommodation and fare 

 were of the roughest ; our chef was a singularly dirty old woman, 

 who met all our suggestions about dinner with a monotonous 

 " C'est ga " * as if the stores of a Parisian restaurant were at her 

 disposal while, practically, our repasts were as uniform as her 

 speech. But as we used to start for the Jardin, or other of the 

 higher regions early, and rarely returned much before sunset, there 

 was no lack of hunger sauce ; while the condiment, which gives 

 herbs a better flavor than stalled oxen, abounded. Tyndall's skill 

 and audacity as a climber were often displayed in these excur- 

 sions. On one occasion, I remember, we came upon a perpen- 

 dicular cliff of ice of considerable height, formed on the flank of 

 the glacier, which seemed to present a good opportunity for the 

 examination of the structure of the interior. A hot sun loosen- 

 ing them, the stones on the surface of the glacier every now and 

 then rattled down the face of the cliff. As no persuasion of ours 

 could prevent Tyndall from ascending the cliff, by cutting steps 

 with his axe, in order to get a close view of the ice, we had to 

 content ourselves with the post assigned to us, of looking out for 

 stones. Whenever any of these seemed likely to shoot too close 

 we shouted, and Tyndall flattened himself against the cliff. Hap- 

 pily, no harm ensued ; but I confess I was greatly relieved when 

 my friend descended at his own j^leasure, and not at that of a 

 chance fragment of rock. 



It was on this trip that we attempted the ascent of Mont Blanc 

 direct from the Montanvert, with a couple of porters to carry the 

 needful stores as far as the Grands Mulcts ; and a guide, who, as 

 it turned out, was of the blind sort. I found I was by no means 

 in training ; and as, under the circumstances, any failure on my 

 part would have obliged the others to give up the attempt, I de- 

 termined to remain at the Grands Mulcts. My friends and the 

 guide set out before dawn, and should have been back in eight or 

 ten hours at furthest. The weather was magnificent, and I should 

 be puzzled to recall a morning spent in more entire enjoyment 

 than that yielded by the wide and varied prospect from my tem- 

 porary hermitage, in a solitude broken only now and then by a 

 vagabond butterfly or a strayed bee, drifting upward. But when 



* Which might be translated " All right." 



