46 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



raine, its ascent -would require great nerve and caution; 

 but here, placed fourteen thousand feet above the 

 level of the sea, terminating in an icy abyss so deep 

 that the bottom is lost in obscurity ; exposed, in a 

 highly rarefied atmosphere, to a wind cold and violent 

 beyond all conception; assailed, with muscular powers 

 already taxed far beyond their strength, and nerves 

 shaken by constantly increasing excitement and want 

 of rest with bloodshot eyes, and raging thirst, and a 

 pulse leaping rather than beating, with all this, it 

 may be imagined that the frightful Mur de la Cote 

 calls for no ordinary determination to mount it. 



Of course, every footstep had to be cut with the 

 adzes ; and my blood ran colder still, as I saw the 

 first guides creeping like flies upon its smooth glisten- 

 ing surface. The two Tairraz were in front of me, 

 with the fore-part of the rope, and Francois Cachat, 

 I think, behind. I scarcely know what our relative 

 positions were, for we had not spoken much to one 

 another for the last hour ; every word was an exer- 

 tion, and our attention was solely confined to our own 

 progress. In spite of all my exertions, my confusion 

 of ideas and extraordinary drowsiness increased to 

 such a painful degree, that, clinging to the hand-holes 

 made in the ice, and surrounded by all this horror, I 

 do believe, if we had halted on our climb for half a 

 minute, I should have gone off asleep. But there was 

 no pause. We kept progressing, very slowly indeed, 

 but still going on and up so steep a path, that I had 



