374 LETTERS FROM A CONTINENTAL TOURIST. 



August 



AFTER breakfast we started with Matthew Balmat for the Mer de 

 Glace. We ascended by a winding path the Montanvert, and hav- 

 ing rested at the cabin on the brow we moved downwards to the 

 Mer de Glace, and were greeted with a sight which far surpassed 

 our expectations, high as they were in the first instance billows of 

 ice, as though the sea had suddenly frozen in the midst of a storm, 

 preserving the form of the waves and even the green tint of the 

 water, narrow chinks of unfathomable depth and emerald hue, in- 

 accessible mountains with peaked summits, and streams of water 

 sparkling in the sun as they fall from the rocks around you. At the 

 foot of the Mer de Glace is the source of the Aveyron, which bursts 

 from a narrow cavern with the usual noise and turbulence of these 

 streams. Our guide assured us that the cavern was much smaller 

 than ordinary, and certainly it by no means equalled the descriptions 

 I have read and heard of it. 



Matthew Balmat had six times ascended to the summit of Mont 

 Blanc. He was a stout, hardy-looking man, of about forty years 

 old, and five feet eight inches high, with a dried mummy-like com- 

 plexion, and the usual swelled throat of the natives of this district. 

 One would expect, a priori, that these mountaineers would step ra- 

 pidly and lightly. Nothing can be further from the truth. Their 

 tread is heavy but firm, and in beginning to ascend they caution you 

 against proceeding too fast, the excellence of which advice I soon 

 found by experience. If you waste your strength at first by mounting 

 too rapidly, the rarefaction of the air at any considerable elevation so 

 much increases the difficulty of breathing as to cause great distress, 

 which comes upon you at the very moment when your strength be- 

 gins to be exhausted. 



In the afternoon I walked to the Glaciers of Bosson, which is the 

 same thing as the Mer de Glace on a much smaller scale. A lad 

 who offered to show me the way, and whose offer I accepted, spoke 

 of the destruction of the three unfortunate guides by the avalanche 

 in an expedition in the year 1820, as a judgment of God ; for it hap- 

 pened on a Sunday, and they had not been to mass : at least so said 

 the priest, and our informant enquired no further. 



August 28^. 



STARTED at six to cross the Col de Balme on foot, and without a 

 guide. After stretching along the valley for about six miles, I began 

 to ascend, and a toilsome ascent it was; burdened too as I was with 

 a heavy knapsack. I particularly recommend all pedestrian travellers 

 to avoid such an unpleasant companion. A coat built after the fashion 

 of a shooting jacket with large pockets to contain a change of linen 

 and of shoes, an extra pair of trowsers and your razors, and a light 

 Macintosh cape slung behind, are what I should recommend as 

 equipments. More is useless and annoying : less is inconvenient. 

 Send your heavy luggage, and of that too as little as possible, from 

 point to point on your route, where you may meet it. 



To return to the ascent. It occupied more than two hours, and 

 then I found myself breathless and weary, on an elevation of a mile 

 and a half above the level of the sea, in a clear fresh air, under a 

 scorching sun. Notwithstanding at a few paces distance was a bed 



