4 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



see Mont Blanc with my own practical eyes. When 

 I got out of my bed the next morning I cannot say 

 " awoke," for I dp not think I slept more than I 

 should have done in the third class of a long night 

 train I went to the window, and the first view I 

 had of the Mont Blanc range burst on me suddenly, 

 through the mist, that wondrous breath -checking 

 coup d'ceil, which we all must rave about when we 

 have seen it for the first time which we so sneer at 

 others for doing when it has become familiar to us. 

 Every step I took that day on the road was as on 

 a journey to fairyland. Places which I afterwards 

 looked upon as mere common halts for travellers 

 Servoz, with its little inn, and Cabinet cVHistoire 

 Naturelle, where I bought my baton; the montets above 

 Pont Pelissier ; the huts at Les Ouches, where I got 

 some milk were all enchanted localities. And when, 

 passing the last steep, as the valley of Chamouni opens 

 far away to the left, the glittering rocky advanced 

 post of the Glacier des Bossons came sparkling from 

 the curve, I scarcely dared to look at it. Conscious 

 that it was before me, some strange impulse turned 

 my eyes towards any other objects unimportant 

 rocks and trees or cattle on the high pasturages as 

 though I feared to look at it. I never could under- 

 stand this coquetting with excitement until years 

 afterwards, when a young author told me a variety of 

 the same feeling had seized him as he first saw a 

 notice of his first book in a newspaper. He read the 



