18 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AXD SPORT. 



parison his actual presence is so insignificant 

 a mere unheeded, all but invisible speck on this 

 mountain world that every idea of proportionate 

 size or distance is lost. And this impossibility of 

 calculation is still further aided by the bright clear 

 air, seen through which the granite outlines, miles 

 away, are as sharply defined as those of the rocks you 

 have quitted but half an hour ago. 



Far below us, long after the torrents had lost them- 

 selves in little grey threads amongst the pine-woods, 

 we saw the valley of Chamouni, with its fields and 

 pastures parcelled out into parti-coloured districts, like 

 the map of an estate sale ; and we found the peaks of 

 other mountains beginning to show above and beyond 

 the lofty Brevent. Above us, mighty plains of snow 

 stretched far and away in all directions ; and through 

 them the ice-crags and pinnacles of the two glaciers, 

 Bossons and Tacconay, were everywhere visible. On 

 either side of us, at the distance perhaps of a couple 

 of miles from each other, were the two huge but- 

 tresses of Mont Blanc which form the channel of the 

 glacier before alluded to. Along one of these we had 

 come up from the valley : De Saussure chose the other 

 when he made his ascent in 1787. High up the 

 sides of these mountains were wondrous cornices of 

 ice of incalculable weight, threatening to fall every 

 instant. Pieces now and then tumbled down with a 

 noise like distant thunder ; but they were not large 

 enough to be dangerous. Had a block of several 



