ASCENT OF MONT BLANC. 45 



snow prairie, and arrived at the foot of an almost per- 

 pendicular wall of ice, four or five hundred feet high 

 the terrible Mur de la Cote up which we had to 

 climb, I sat down again on the snow, and told Tairraz 

 that I would not go any farther, but that they might 

 leave me there if they pleased. 



The Mont Blanc guides are used to these little 

 varieties of temper above the Grand Plateau. In 

 spite of my mad determination to go to sleep, Balmat 

 and another set me up on my legs again, and told me 

 that if I did not exercise every caution, we should all 

 be lost together, for the most really dangerous part of 

 the whole ascent had arrived. I had the greatest diffi- 

 culty in getting my wandering wits into order ; but 

 the risk called for the strongest mental effort, and, 

 with just sense enough to see that our success in scal- 

 ing this awful precipice was entirely dependent upon 

 " pluck," I got ready for the climb. I have said the 

 Mur de la Cote is some hundred feet high, and is an 

 all but perpendicular iceberg. At one point you can 

 reach it from the snow, but immediately after you 

 begin to ascend it obliquely, there is nothing below 

 but a chasm in the ice more frightful than anything 

 yet passed. Should the foot slip or the baton give 

 way, there is no chance for life you would glide like 

 lightning from one frozen crag to another, and finally 

 be dashed to pieces, hundreds and hundreds of feet 

 below, in the horrible depths of the glacier. Were 

 it in the valley, simply rising up from a glacier mo- 



