208 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



herdsman's boy, risking his Hfe on the rocks and 

 ice for two hundred dollars a year. His face shows 

 the effects of mountaineering, for his nose has 

 sometime been broken by a falling stone. 



Our next guide, Victor Maquignaz, is older than 

 John, and larger, — a big burly mountaineer, brave 

 and trusty, who speaks French with variations, a 

 surprising dialect born of the mountains, in a high, 

 uncertain falsetto, like the voice of a wheelbarrow 

 that needs oiling. Next came Francois Bic, — a tall, 

 intelligent, positive fellow, a good mountaineer, but 

 who would be better liked if his eye were less 

 closely fixed on the Trinkgeld. Next came his 

 brother, Daniel Bic, — a muscular man in full beard 

 and spectacles, looking like a German DoktoVy who 

 had never been up the Matterhorn before, and 

 evidently wished never to go again. Finally, there 

 was Elie Pession, whom we surnamed ''the Invalid," 

 — a strong-looking fellow with a heavy black beard, 

 whose heart sank into his boots when he stood in 

 the presence of danger. 



All these guides were French, and all belonged 

 to the valley of Tournanche, — the deep valley 

 which extends to the southward from the Matter- 

 horn on the Italian side, corresponding to the val- 

 ley of Zermatt, which extends on the Swiss side 

 toward the northward. 



As we started out that night, it seemed that we 

 had never seen the world look so beautiful. The 

 moon was full, and hung gracefully over the left 

 shoulder of the Matterhorn, and the sky was without 

 a cloud. Through dark fir-forests we went, by the 

 side of a foaming torrent, then over flower-carpeted 



