A change of cap was the only dressing necessary for the volunteer, and
we faced the fog and rain, which elicited from him such a disgraceful
amount of swearing, that it was on all accounts well when the rain
ceased for a few minutes, the mists rolled off, and the clouds lifted
sufficiently to betray the surface of the Lake of Geneva, luxuriating in
the clear warmth of an early summer's day, and making us shiver by the
painful contrast which our own altitude presented. The deep blue of the
lake brought to mind the story of the shepherd of Gessenay (Saanen), of
whom it is told that when he was passing the hills with some friends for
a first visit to Vevey, and came in sight of the lake, which he had
never seen before, he turned and hurried home incontinent, declaring
that he would not enter a country where the good God had made the blue
sky to fall and fill the valleys.

In this bright interval we came upon a magnificent fox, and the
peasant's impulse was, 'Oh, for a good gun!' an exclamation which would
have sounded horrible to English ears, if I had not been previously
broken in to it by an invitation from a Scotch gamekeeper to a fox-hunt,
when he promised an excellent gun, and a _stance_ which the foxes were
sure to pass.

The rain now came on again, and the guide thought he had had plenty of
it, and must return for the afternoon milking; and just then, as good
luck would have it, we stumbled upon an immense clump of nettles which
had been one of our landmarks two days before, so that he was no longer
necessary, and we said affectionate adieux.

The glaciere was in a state of ruin. Only the right-hand column, not
speaking heraldically, was standing, the others lying in blocks frozen
hard together on the ground. The column which still stood was much
shrunken, and seemed too small for its fissure, the sides of which it
scarcely touched. The wind blew down the entrance slope so
determinedly, that a candle found it difficult to live at the bottom
of the first cave; and a portion of the current blew into the
glaciere, and in its sweep exactly struck the fallen columns, the
edges of which were already rounded by thaw. Much of this must be
attributed to the recent opening of the second shaft (p. 5), which
admits a thorough draught through the first cave, and so exposes the
glaciere to currents of warmer air; and I should expect to find that
in future the ice will disappear from that part of the cave every
summer, [7] wher