ASCENT OF MONT BLANC. 27 



my companions were attired in a similar manner. 

 There was now great activity in the camp. Some of 

 the guides ranged the wine-bottles side by side in the 

 snow ; others unpacked the refreshment knapsacks ; 

 others, again, made a rude fireplace, and filled a stew- 

 pan with snow to melt. All this time it was so hot, 

 and the sun was so bright, that I began to think the 

 guide who told De Saussure he should take a parasol 

 up with him did not deserve to have been laughed at. 



As soon as our wild bivouac assumed a little ap- 

 pearance of order, two of the guides were sent up the 

 glacier to go a great way ahead, and then return and 

 report upon the state of the snow on the plateaux. 

 When they had started, we perched ourselves about, 

 on the comparatively level spaces of the rock, and 

 with knife and fingers began our dinner. 



We had scarcely commenced when our party was 

 joined by a young Irishman and a guide, who had 

 taken advantage of the beaten track left behind us, 

 and marched up on our traces with tolerable ease, 

 leaving to us the honour (and the expense) of cutting 

 out the path. My younger, friends, with a little 

 ebullition of university feeling, proposed, under such 

 circumstances, that we should give him a reception 

 in keeping with the glacier ; but I thought it would 

 be so hyper-punctilious to show temper here, on the 

 Grands Mulets rocks, up and away in the regions of 

 eternal snow, some thousand feet from the level world, 

 that I ventured on a very mild hint to this effect, 



