226 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



the ladder was there, but the pole had been stolen. De Saussure 

 consoled himself with the jest it could not be called a highway 

 robbery (vol de grande route). The whole climb to the top of 

 the Montagne de la Cote took nearly six hours and a half. His 

 tent was pitched against one of the big boulders brought down by 

 the glacier, Whymper thinks from the Rochers Rouges. Three 

 of the guides went off to reconnoitre the entrance on the ice 

 and to cut steps. They came back three hours later to report 

 that the glacier was not too difficult. Marie Couttet, however, 

 had broken though the crust over a hidden crevasse, but as they 

 were luckily roped, Marie was held up between the other two. 

 They told the story very cheerfully, but the news spread gloom 

 over the faces of the other guides, despite some jests which they 

 launched at one another, and which the victims sometimes failed 

 to appreciate. 



Next morning (the 2nd August) the start was delayed till 

 6.30 by disputes among the guides as to the distribution of their 

 loads, a cause of delay only too familiar to the explorers of the 

 Caucasus and the Himalaya of the present day. 



' The entry on the glacier proved easy, but soon one plunges into a 

 labyrinth of siracs divided by great crevasses, some entirely open, some 

 choked with snow, others crossed by frail arches which are the only 

 safe means of traversing them. In places a narrow ice -ridge serves as 

 a bridge ; when the crevasses are absolutely open one is obliged to 

 descend into the bottom and climb the opposite wall by means of steps 

 cut in the hard ice. There are moments when it seems that it must be 

 impossible to find a way out. Yet as long as the ice is bare, however 

 narrow the ridges, however steep the slopes, these brave Chamoniards, 

 whose heads and feet are equally firm, show no sign of fear, or even 

 anxiety they talk, laugh, joke between themselves ; but when the 

 track lies across these vaults hung over hidden abysses one sees them 

 marching without a word, the three in front tied together by ropes at 

 a distance of five or six feet apart, their eyes fixed on their feet, and 

 each placing his foot exactly in the steps of his predecessor. It was 

 above all at the spot where Marie Couttet had broken through that 

 this sort of alarm culminated. The snow had suddenly failed under 

 his feet, leaving a hole six or seven feet in diameter and laying open a 

 chasm of which neither the sides nor the bottom were visible, and that 

 in a place where there was no visible sign to give the slightest warning 

 of danger.' [ Voyages, 1973.] 



