34 TRAVEL, AD VENTURE, AND SPORT. 



silvery on the summit, stealing slowly down the very 

 track by which the sunset glories had passed upward 

 and away. But it came so tardily that I knew it 

 would be hours before we derived any actual benefit 

 from the light. One after another the guides fell 

 asleep, until only three or four remained round the 

 embers of the fire, thoughtfully smoking their pipes. 

 And then silence, impressive beyond expression, 

 reigned over our isolated world. Often and often, 

 from Chamouni, I had looked up at evening towards 

 the darkening position of the Grands Mulets, and 

 thought, almost with shuddering, how awful it must 

 be for men to pass the night in such a remote, eter- 

 nal, and frozen wilderness. And now ' I was lying 

 there in the very heart of its ice-bound and appal- 

 ling solitude. In such close communion with nature 

 in her grandest aspect, with no trace of the actual 

 living world beyond the mere speck that our little 

 party formed, the mind was carried far away from its 

 ordinary trains of thought a solemn emotion of 

 mingled awe and delight, and yet self-perception of 

 abject nothingness, alone rose above every other feel- 

 ing. A vast untrodden region of cold, and silence, 

 and death, stretched out, far and away from us, on 

 every side; but above, heaven, with its countless 

 watchful eyes, was over all ! 



It was twenty minutes to twelve when the note of 

 preparation for our second start was sounded. Tairraz 

 shook up the more drowsy of the guides, and they 



