AN ASCENT OF THE MATTERHORN. 251 
“did not know how to shiver,” would certainly 
have found the coveted experience there. We did 
little else all night long. Moreover, the floor was 
very uneven, and the tin wine-flask which did duty 
as a pillow was far from being “soft as downy 
pillows are.” There was not much encouragement 
for sleeping. All night long our patient kept on 
ascending mountains, and recalling his experiences 
of the day. At about the first watch of the night, 
he shouted out, ‘ Attention! Attention toujours! ” 
At another time he called us all up with this 
remark, “Here we will stop walking and take 
wheelbarrows.” When everything else was quiet, 
the snow thawed onthe roof and kept little streams 
of sooty water trickling over our faces. John and 
Victor lay on the bare ground; and at intervals, 
when they could stand it no longer, they would 
kindle a fire of shavings, and wake us up to take a 
drink around of chocolate. 
I have seen cold nights elsewhere, but nothing 
to compare with this. The storm ceased early in 
the night, the clouds blew over, and a sharp, crys- 
talline midwinter coldness penetrated everywhere. 
We could every few minutes hear the mountain 
snap, as the water froze in the fissures of its rocks. 
I sometimes spend the night now-a-days waiting 
for a belated train in the little hotel of some prairie 
“railroad junction” in Indiana or Illinois, at the 
time of the January blizzards. The single window 
in the little bedroom will fit loosely in its place. 
One pane of glass may be replaced by an old hat, 
the second by a newspaper, and a third be wanting 
altogether. The bed may have but one sheet, a 
