388 SHORT STALKS 



summer, aiid lost. This ridge and the cadjacent ice-hxdeii 

 valley, an area scarcely larger than Hyde Park, might be 

 described as the Gehenna of the Alps, so fatal has it been 

 to travellers. 



We were puzzled by one of those semi-transparent 

 mists which admit a good deal of diffused light, but are 

 a decided relief from the full blistering glare of the 

 sun. It is altogether rather a cheerful atmospheric con- 

 dition than otherwise, but it effectually obscures your 

 vision of distant objects. Once we were brought to a 

 standstill ])y finding ourselves on a round hill, which 

 might or might not be the top of the Dome. The slope 

 fell away in front of us, and we could not see enough to 

 pronounce whether the next rise was the Dome or the 

 Bosse. We rightly decided that our hill was a spurious 

 imitation, and started again up the next slope. In another 

 half-hour a break in the cloud showed us our position. 

 We were a few hundred yards from the top of the Dome, 

 and had worked round to the west side of it, so that we 

 were opposite to, and on a level with the Aiguille de 

 Bionnassay. 



We were also now able to survey the connecting ridge 

 for which we had felt such a repugnance, when on the 

 Aiguille at its other extremity. It certainly seemed to us 

 that we had been well advised not to cultivate a closer 

 acquaintance on that occasion. By the map it must be 

 nearly three thousand yards in length. It was important to 

 us to fi]]d its junction point with the buttress which comes 

 down from the Dome to meet it, because we knew that 

 this spot had been reached from the south, by a branch 

 of the southern Miage Glacier, which offers a perfectly 



