440 OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 



to a normal temperature. I felt quite fresh on enter- 

 ing the Grimsel inn, but a curious physiological effect 

 manifested itself when I had occasion to speak. The 

 power of the brain over the lips was, so lowered that I 

 could hardly make myself understood. 



My guide Bennen reached the Grimsel the following 

 morning. Uncertain of my own movements, I had per- 

 mitted him this year to make a new engagement, which 

 he was now on his way to fulfil. There was a hint of 

 reproach in his tone as he asked me whether his Herr 

 Professor had forsaken him. There was little fear of 

 this. A guide of proved competence, whose ways you 

 know, and who knows you and trusts you, is invaluable 

 in the Alps. Bennen was all this, and more, to me. 

 As a mountaineer, he had no superior, and he added to 

 his strength, courage, and skill, the qualities of a 

 natural gentleman. He was now ready to bear us com- 

 pany over the Oberaarjoch to the iEggischhorn. On 

 the morning of the 22nd we bade the cheerless Grimsel 

 inn good-bye, reached the Unteraar glacier, crossed its 

 load of uncomfortable debris^ and clambered up the 

 slopes at the other side. Nestled aloft in a higher 

 valley was the Oberaar glacier, along the unruffled sur- 

 face of which our route lay. 



The morning threatened. Fitful gleams of sunlight 

 wandered with the moving clouds over the adjacent ice. 

 The Joch was swathed in mist, which now and then gave 

 way, and permitted a wild radiance to shoot over the 

 col. On the windy summit we took a mouthful of food 

 and roped ourselves together. Here, as in a hundred 

 other places, I sought in the fog for the vesicles of De 

 Saussure, but failed to find them. Bennen, as long as 

 we were on the Berne side of the col, permitted Jaun 

 to take the lead; but now we looked into Wallis, or 



