150 
ment?’ the answer would either be in the 
affirmative, or there would be an immediate 
resolution formed—to go and do what ought to 
have been done long ago. AllI the world, of 
course, will go and see Mont Blanc, and 
—Albert Smith ; the “two inseparables.”’ 
But as there may, perchance, be some 
few among our readers who are prevented 
the pleasure we speak of, let such hear the 
account of what they cannot see. We will 
be as concise as possible. And first for the 
grand start. Albert Smith log.— 
About half-past seven we started; and as we 
left the inn, and traversed the narrow ill-paved 
streets of Chamouni towards the bridge, I believe 
we formed the largest caravan that had ever 
gone off together. Each of us had four guides, 
making twenty in all; and the porters and 
volunteers I may reckon at another score; 
besides which, there was a rabble rout of friends, 
and relations, and sweethearts, and boys, some of 
whom came a considerable distance with us. 
Thad a mule waiting for me at the bridle-road 
that runs through the fields towards the dirty 
little village of Les Pélerins—for I wished to keep 
myself as fresh as I could for the real work. I 
do not think I gained anything by this, for the 
brute was exceedingly troublesome to manage up 
the rude steep path and amongst the trees. I 
expect my active young companions had the best 
of it on their own goodlegs. Dressed, at present, 
in light boating attire, they were types of fellows 
in first-rate fibrous muscular condition; and their 
sunry good temper, never once clouded during 
the journey, made everything bright and cheering. 
Let us follow our leader in his description 
of the bivouac on the Grand Mulets :— 
As soon as we had arranged our packs and 
bundles we began to change our clothes, which 
were tolerably well wet through with trudging 
and tumbling about among the show ; and cutting 
a number of pegs, we strewed our garments about 
the crannies of the rocks to dry. I put on two 
shirts, two pairs of lamb’s-wool socks, a thick 
pair of Scotch plaid trousers, a ‘Templar ”’ 
worsted headpiece, and a common blouse; and 
my companions were attired in a similar manner. 
There was now great activity in the camp. 
Some of the guides ranged the wine bottles side 
by side in the snow; others unpacked the re- 
freshment knapsacks ; others, again, made a rude 
fireplace, and filled a stew-pan with snow to melt. 
All this time it was so hot, and the sun was so 
bright, that [ began to think the guide who told 
De Saussure he should take a parasol up with 
him, did not deserve to have been laughed at. 
As soon as our wild bivouac assumed a little 
appearance of order, two of the guides were sent 
up the glacier to go a great way ahead, and then 
return aud report upon the state of the snow on the 
plateaux. When they had started, we perched 
ourselves about on the comparatively level spaces 
of the rock, and with knife and fingers began our 
dinner. We kept high festival that afternoon on 
the Grand Mulets. 
One stage of our journey—and that one by no 
means the easiest—had been achieved without the 


KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
slightest hurt or harm. The consciousness of 
success thus far, the pure transparent air, the 
excitement attached to the very position in which 
we found ourselves, and the strange bewildering 
novelty of the surrounding scenery, produced a 
flowing exhilaration of spirits that I had 
never before experienced. The feeling was 
shared by all; and we laughed and sang, and 
made the guides contribute whatever they could 
to the general amusement, and told them such 
stories as would translate well in return; until, 
I believe, that dinner will never be forgotten by 
them. : 
A fine diversion was afforded by racing the 
empty bottles down the glacier. We flung them 
off from the rock as far as we were able, and then 
watched their course. Whenever they chanced 
to point neck first down the slope, they started 
off with inconceivable velocity, leaping the 
crevices by their own impetus, until they were 
lost in the distance. The excitement of the 
guides during this amusement was very Te- 
markable: a stand of betting men could not have 
betrayed more at the Derby. Their anxiety 
when one of the bottles approached a crevice 
was intense; and if the gulf was cleared they 
perfectly screamed with delight, ‘‘ Vorca wn bon 
coureur!” or, “‘ Tiens! comme il saute bien!” 
burst from them; and “Le grand s’arréte!” 
“Tl est perdu—quel dommage!”  “ Non—il 
marche encore!” could not have been uttered 
with more earnestness had they been watching a 
herd of chamois. 
The sun at length went down behind the 
Aiguille du Gotite; and then, for two hours, a 
scene of such wild and wondrous beauty—of 
such inconceivable and unearthly splendor—burst 
upon me, that, spell-bound, and almost trembling 
with the emotion its magnificence called forth— 
with every sense, and feeling, and thought 
absorbed by its brilliancy, I saw far more than 
the realisation of the most gorgeous visions that 
opium or hasheesh could evoke, accomplished. 
At first, everything about us, above, around, 
below—the sky, the mountain, and the lower 
peaks—appeared one uniform creation of burnished 
gold, so brightly dazzling that, now our veils were 
removed, the eye could scarcely bear the splendor. 
As the twilight gradually crept over the lower 
world, the glow became still more vivid ; and pre- 
sently, as the blue mists rose in the valleys, the 
tops of the higher mountains looked like islands 
rising from a filmy ocean—an archipelago of 
gold. By degrees this metallic lustre was softened 
into tints,—first orange, and then bright, trans- 
parent crimson, along the horizon, rising through 
the different hues with prismatic regularity, until, 
immediately above us, the sky was a deep pure 
blue, merging towards the east into glowing 
violet. The snow took its color from these 
changes; and every portion on which the light 
fell was soon tinged with pale carmine, of a 
shade similar to that which snow at times 
assumes, from some imperfectly-explained cause, 
at high elevations—such, indeed, as I had seen, 
in early summer, upon the Furka and Faulhorn. 
These beautiful hues grew brighter as the twi- 
light below increased in depth ; and it now came 
marching up the valley of the glaciers, until it 
reached our resting-place. Higher and higher 

