AVALA?vCHES. 
663 
tlian once crossed niy mind, finding perhaps that my present One 
was much more laborious. To ^his apparently trivial circumstance I 
was indebted for my life. 
“A few minutes after the above conversation, my veil being still up, 
and my eyes turned at intervals towards the summit of the mountain, 
which was on the right, as we were crossing obliquely the long slope 
which was to conduct us to Mont Maudit, the snow suddenly gave 
way beneath our feet, beginning at the head of the line, and carried 
us dowm the slope to my left. 1 was thrown instantly off my feet, 
but was still on my knees, and endeavouring to regain my footing, 
when, in a few seconds, the snow on our right, which was of course 
above us, rushed into the gap thus suddenly made, and completed 
the catastrophe, by burying us all at once in its mass, and hurrying 
us downwards tow'ards two crevasses, about a fnrlong below us, and 
nearly parallel to the line of our march. The accumulation of snow 
instantly threw me backwards, and I was carried down in spite of all 
my struggles. In less than a minute I emerged, partly from my own 
exertions, and partly because the velocity of the sloping mass had 
subsided, from its own friction. I w'as obliged to resign my pole in the 
struggle, feeling it forced out of my hand ; a short time afterwards I 
found it on the very brink of the crevasse. At the moment of my 
emerging, I was so far from being alive to the danger of our situation, 
that on seeing my two companions at some distance beloW me, up to 
the waist in snow, and sitting motionless and silent, a jest W'as rising 
to my lips, till a second glance shewed me, that, with the exception 
of Matthew Balmat, they were the only remnants of the party visible. 
Two more, how^ever, being those in the interval between myself and 
the rear of the party, having quickly re*appeared, I was still inclined 
to treat the affair rather as a perplexing, though ludicrous delay, (in 
having sent us down so many hundred feet lower,) than in the light 
of a serious accident, when Matthew Balmat cried out that some of 
the party w'ere lost, and pointed to the crevasse, which had hitherto 
escaped our notice, into which he said they had fallen. A nearer 
view convinced us all of the sad truth. The three front guides, being 
where the slope was somewhat steeper, had been carried down with 
great rapidity, and to a greater distance, and had thus been hurried 
into the crevasse, with an immense mass of snow upon them, v/hich 
rose nearly to the brink. Balmat, who w^as fourth in the line, being 
a man of great muscular strength, as w^ell as presence of mind, had 
suddenly thrust his pole into the firm snow beneath, when he felt 
himself going, which certainly checked, in some measure, the force 
of his fall. Our two hindermost guides were also missing, but we 
were soon gladdened by seeing them make their appearance, and 
cheered them with loud and repeated huzzas. One of these had been 
carried into the crevasse where it was very narrow, and had been 
thrown with some violence against the opposite brink. He contrived 
to scramble out without assistance, at the expense of a trifling cut on 
the chin. The other had been dragged out by his companions quite 
senseless, and nearly black from the weight of snow which had been 
upon him. In a short time, however, he recovered. It was long 
before we could convince ourselves that the others were past hope. 
