88 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



obviously requires is to be kept awake by sheer starvation, 

 in the thinnest, rubbliest scruff of stone and grit, instead 

 of being allowed to sink into sybaritic sleep in rich 

 garden soil. 



Crossing the moraine at last, one sets oneself to climb 

 towards the sun-steeped granite cliff on which one hopes 

 to find the Androsace. As a matter of fact, there is no 

 such delirium of excitement about this present quest as 

 there was about that of EritricMumi nanum. For there 

 all was uncertainty — the place, the moment, everything. 

 Now, on the contrary, I know for absolute fact, that in 

 those baking cliffs overhead I shall soon be seeing Andro- 

 sace imbricata. And sure enough as I clamber up the last 

 steepest slope to the foot of the precipice, I see the treasure 

 before me immediately — three or four powder-white balls 

 of down, wadded immovably into a crevice. Immovably 

 indeed. Nothing can I do to stir them. Gently as you 

 urge them, they resist indomitably. Pull them, and they 

 break at the neck. It is true that in a covered frame of 

 moist sand, shaded, with plenty of air, you can strike cut- 

 tings of many difficult things, such as EritricMum and 

 Androsace, as easily as Violas ; but the pious collector's 

 instant ambition is always to get perfect roots. So I 

 quest along the face of that amphitheatre, beneath a 

 daunting heat beyond words to express, and nowhere do I 

 discover a single amenable plant of the silver Androsace. 

 From every chink its little cushions leer out at me in 

 derision ; but in the face of abundance, it seems I must 

 ironically starve. Finally, having perlustrated the whole 

 semicircle, I retreat baffled, and drop down to the moraine 

 again, to eat my four Marie biscuits to the accompani- 

 ment of glacier water. Fortified by this repast, however, 

 I decide after lunch to make another effort to secure 

 my lovely prey. I mark a certain little jagged tooth 

 of granite far overhead, standing aloof from the main 



