HALF A CENTURY AGO AND TO-DAY. 



19 



seldom seen by travellers, as the coach has given place to the 

 railway, from which only slight glimpses of the High Alps are 

 to be obtained. 



First visit to the Mer de Glace. — Arriving at the beautiful city 

 of Geneva, I did not remain there more than two or three days. 

 My goal was the Mer de Glace and Chamounix, and to that I 

 pushed on by diligence. At that time there was no railway ; 

 it is otherwise now, and after a long day's journey I found 

 myself in the little village at the foot of Mont Blanc. Next 

 day I ascended the pine-clad slopes to the chalet of Montanvert, 

 and at length stood on the edge of the great glacier. A 

 wonderful and beauteous sea of ice, fissured by crevasses, and 

 bounded by lofty cliffs terminating often in sharp peaks, and 

 lying at their feet were huge moraines of broken rock and debris 

 fallen from the cliffs above. It was a weird and awful sight, as no 

 living creature was visible from where I stood. But I was not 

 alone. I sat down on a boulder to eat the little store of biscuits 

 and fruit I had brought with me, and presently I was joined by 

 a noble hound — possibly a St. Bernard — who made up to my 

 side in a friendly way, and I returned his civility by sharing 

 with him my lunch. How he came to be there or whence he 

 came I never discovered, but he remained with me for the rest 

 of the day, and having accompanied me down to Chamounix in 

 the evening he then disappeared, doubtless satisfied with having 

 fulfilled his friendly office of guide, companion, and protector. 



Second visit to Chamounix and the Mer de Glace, 1908. — 

 Having now finished the narrative of my first visit, I proceed 

 to make some observations on the Mer de Glace of to-day, in 

 order to illustrate the changes which have occurred within the 

 past half century. Chamounix itself has greatly changed. 

 Instead of a hamlet in the upper Ehone valley with, perhaps, 

 two or three hotels, it is now a good sized town with numerous 

 hotels, and shops exhibiting photographs of the scenery around, 

 some of the coloured ones being remarkable examples of high 

 art. A handsome English church raises its spire in the centre 

 of the town, and was well filled by a congregation on the 

 Sunday I was there. Instead of the toilsome climb of about 

 3,000 feet to j\Iontanvert,* a newly-opened narrow^ gauge 

 railway, worked by steam locomotives, ascends by a winding 



* The " Hotel d'Angleterre " at Chamounix, at which I stayed, has an 

 elevation of 1,000 metres (3,280 feet) above the level of the sea, and lies at 

 the base of Mont Blanc, the summit of which is conspicuous from the 

 front of the building. 



