250 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



from its steepness or from the looseness of the rocks, which break in 

 the hand or slip from under the feet. They arrived at Courmayeur 

 at half-past nine by clear moonlight. Their day's journey was of 

 seventeen and a half leagues (hours). M. Bourrit praises his guides, 

 but gives the greatest credit to Cachat le Geant, whom he has named 

 Sans Peur. He returned to Geneva bringing back from his memorable 

 expedition the most extraordinary pictures and the honour of having 

 crossed in one day to Piedmont through a thousand dangers dangers 

 which added to his satisfaction by the proof they afford of what men 

 can do when animated by the love of glory ! ' 



Not a word, it will be noted, as to Exchaquet's previous passage 

 of the Col. Called to account at the time for this omission, 

 Bourrit protested that, having mentioned that two guides had 

 made the first passage, he was not called on to notice any other 

 predecessor. The motive that had led him astray in the case of 

 Paccard and Mont Blanc, his intense jealousy of any climber 

 other than a professional guide, again drew him from the path of 

 truth. In this case he has succeeded in obscuring the facts 

 and misleading the most accurate Alpine chroniclers up to the 

 present day. In Bourrit 's account of the perils he went through, 

 we must always make a large allowance for his temperament. We 

 may also admit in his favour that the Ge"ant seracs vary greatly 

 in difficulty, and that his passage was made two months later in 

 the year than that of Exchaquet. Nor will any mountaineer 

 rate lightly the terrors of a storm on the high snowfields. But I 

 fear no similar excuses are available for Bourrit's account of the 

 descent to Courmayeur, which urged even de Saussure to critical 

 comment. 1 



We may now turn to de Saussure 's admirable narrative of 

 what I am disposed to think was by far his most daring adventure. 

 It was not till nearly forty years afterwards that any camp was 

 pitched in the Alpine snows at so lofty an elevation and then only 

 for a single night. De Saussure points out in his opening sentences 

 the aim he had in view in his long stay on the top of the Col du 

 Geant at a height of nearly 11,000 feet. 



' Physical observers who propose to visit the top of some high 

 mountain arrange, as a rule, to reach it about noon, and, having 



1 Besides Bourrit's narrative, we have a letter written by his son to a friend 

 describing the great adventure. The lad may be excused if he outdoes his father. 

 His crevasses are a league long, his seracs four hundred feet high. 



