HOME LIFE 413 



English clergyman, his wife, and son. We greatly enjoyed 

 the beautiful subalpine flowers then in perfection, and one 

 day I went with the clergyman and his son, a boy of about 

 thirteen, to see how far we could get on the way to the great 

 mountain's summit. On the alp above the pine forest we 

 had our lunch at a cow-herd's hut, with a large jug of cream, 

 and then got the man to act as guide. He took us over a 

 ravine filled with snow, and then up a zigzag path among 

 the rocks along a mauvais pas, where an iron bar was fixed 

 on the face of a precipice, and then up to an ice-smoothed 

 plateau of limestone rock, still partly snow-clad, all the 

 crevices of which were full of alpine flowers. I was just 

 beginning to gather specimens of these and thought to enjoy 

 an hour's botanizing when our guide warned us that a snow- 

 storm was coming, and we must return directly, and the 

 black clouds and a few snowflakes made us only too willing 

 to follow him. We got back safely, but I have always 

 regretted that hasty peep of the alpine rock-flora at a time 

 of year when I never afterwards had an opportunity of see- 

 ing it. 



We then went by Martigny over the St. Bernard, reaching 

 the hospice after dark through deep snow, and next day 

 walked down to Aosta, a place which had been recommended 

 to me by Mr. William Mathews, a well-known Alpine 

 climber. It was a very hot place, and its chief interest to us 

 was an excursion on mules to the Becca de Nona, which took 

 us a long day, going up by the easiest and descending the 

 most precipitous road — the latter a mere staircase of rock. 

 The last thousand feet I walked up alone, and was highly 

 delighted with the summit and the wonderful scene of frac- 

 tured rocks, ridges, and peaks all around, but more especially 

 with the summit itself, hardly so large as that of Snowdon 

 and exhibiting far grander precipices and rock-masses, all in 

 a state of visible degradation, and showing how powerfully 

 the atmospheric forces of denudation are in constant action 

 at this altitude — 10,380 feet. Hardly less interesting were the 

 charming little alpine plants in the patches of turf and the 

 crevices in the rocks, among which were two species of the 



