ASCENT OF MONT BLANC. 31 



the Mulets on arriving, and their progress thus far 

 was considered a proof that the snow was in good 

 order. Still farther up, above the level which 

 marked the Grand Plateau, was the actual summit of 

 Mont Blanc. As I looked at it, I thought that in 

 two hours' good walking, along a route apparently as 

 smooth as a racecourse after a moderate fall of snow, 

 it might be easily reached ; but immediately my eye 

 returned to the two specks who had already taken up 

 that time in painfully toiling to their present posi- 

 tion. The next instant the attempt seemed hopeless, 

 even in a day. As it was now, with the last five 

 hours' unceasing labour and continuous ascent, the 

 lower parts of the glacier that we had traversed ap- 

 peared close at hand ; but when I looked down to 

 my right, across the valley, and saw the Brevent 

 to get to the summit of which, from Chamouni, 

 requires hours of toil, when I saw this lofty wall of 

 the valley gradually assuming the appearance of a 

 mere ploughed ridge, I was again struck with the 

 bewildering impossibility of bringing down anything 

 in this " world of wonders " x to the ordinary rules or 

 experiences of proportion and distance. 



The sun at length went down behind the Aiguille 

 du Goute, and then, for two hours, a scene of such 

 wild and wondrous beauty of such inconceivable 



1 " A world of wonders, where creation seems 



No more the works of Nature, but her Dreams." 



MOISTGOMEBY. 



